Turtle data
Women sleep about 25 minutes longer on Saturday nights
Key findings
Women tracking sleep with Turtle slept 7 h 21 min on Saturday nights, about 25 minutes more than their Monday to Thursday average (March to September 2026). UK women went to sleep about 22 minutes later on Saturday nights and woke about 43 minutes later on Sunday. Source: Turtle Method member data, turtlemethod.com/data/weekend-lie-in/.
more sleep on a Saturday night than on a weekday night
Women sleep longest on Saturday night. In sleep data synced from watches and phones to the Turtle app, the average woman slept 7 h 21 min on a Saturday night, about 25 minutes more than her Monday to Thursday average. Friday night added about 13 minutes. The shortest night of the week was Thursday, at 6 h 53 min.
Hours asleep, from watch and phone sleep tracking, Mar to Sep 2026
Source: Turtle Method member sleep data · CC BY 4.0
Later to bed, and a longer lie-in
For UK women we can also read the clock. On Saturday nights they went to sleep about 22 minutes later than on a typical Monday to Thursday night (around 22:37, against 22:15), and woke about 43 minutes later on Sunday morning. So the extra sleep comes from the lie-in, not an early night.
| Night | Average sleep | UK: asleep around | UK: awake around |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 6 h 58 min | 22:09 | 05:50 |
| Tuesday | 6 h 57 min | 22:14 | 05:52 |
| Wednesday | 6 h 55 min | 22:14 | 05:52 |
| Thursday | 6 h 53 min | 22:23 | 05:58 |
| Friday | 7 h 08 min | 22:32 | 06:21 |
| Saturday | 7 h 21 min | 22:37 | 06:36 |
| Sunday | 7 h 04 min | 22:12 | 05:55 |
Average sleep: more than 500 women each night. UK clock times: more than 140 women each night. "Asleep around" is the start of the main sleep that the watch or phone recorded.
What the research says
Described "social jetlag": the gap between when people sleep on work days and on free days, which is common in working adults.
Wittmann M, Dinich J, Merrow M, Roenneberg T (2006). Social jetlag: misalignment of biological and social time. Chronobiology International. doi.org/10.1080/07420520500545979
In a large European sample, more social jetlag was associated with a higher body mass index among people who were overweight.
Roenneberg T, Allebrandt KV, Merrow M, Vetter C (2012). Social jetlag and obesity. Current Biology. doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.03.038
Questions people ask
Do women sleep longer at the weekend?
Yes. In Turtle's tracked sleep data, Saturday night is the longest of the week at 7 h 21 min, about 25 minutes more than a Monday to Thursday night.
Which night do women sleep least?
Thursday night was the shortest, at 6 h 53 min.
Method
Sleep synced from Apple Health or Health Connect, 7 March to 30 September 2026: the longest sleep per morning, kept if 3 to 14 hours. Each woman needed 3 or more nights of a given weekday; clock times use UK time for women with a UK (GBP) account. Women only, staff accounts excluded; every group shown has 50 or more women and sizes are rounded. This shows a pattern, not a cause. Full methodology.
Cite this
Free to use with credit and a link to the source page. The figures and chart on this page are licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Journalists: for another cut of the data (aggregates only, same rules), contact scott@turtlemethod.com. More data on the Turtle data hub.
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