Experts agree that keeping a regular sleep schedule is important for everyone, even night-owl teenagers and young adults.

But catching a few extra Z’s over the weekend might be good for young folks’ mental health, a new study says.

Young people who sleep in on weekends to catch up on sleep lost during the week had a lower risk of depression compared to those who didn’t, researchers report in the February issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders.

“Sleep researchers and clinicians have long recommended that adolescents get eight to 10 hours of sleep at a regular time every day of the week, but that’s just not practical for a lot of adolescents, or people generally,” said senior researcher Melynda Casement, director of the University of Oregon Sleep Lab in Eugene, Oregon.

“It’s normal for teens to be night owls, so let them catch up on sleep on weekends if they can’t get enough sleep during the week because that’s likely to be somewhat protective,” Casement said in a news release.

For the new study, researchers analyzed data on nearly 1,100 16- to 24-year olds who participated in the federally sponsored National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2021 and 2023.

The young people reported their bedtimes and wake-up times during the week and weekend, which researchers used to estimate how much catch-up sleep they got on Saturday and Sunday.

Participants also reported how they were feeling, which allowed researchers to track their symptoms of depression.

Results showed that those who got more weekend catch-up sleep had a 41% lower risk for daily depressive symptoms.

Healthy weekday sleep duration of eight to 10 hours remained the ideal, offering twice the benefit for reducing daily symptoms of depression, researchers said.

But given the realities of teen sleep cycles and U.S. high school policies, weekend catch-up sleep might be the best option available, researchers said.

Sleep cycles naturally shift in adolescence, making it harder for most teens to fall asleep as early as they did when they were younger, researchers said.

“Instead of being a morning lark, you’re going to become more of a night owl,” Casement explained. “And sleep onset keeps progressively delaying in adolescence until age 18 to 20. After that, you start becoming more morning larkish again.”

Unfortunately, the typical sleep cycle for teens — drop off around 11 p.m., wake up at 8 a.m. — conflicts with early start times at many U.S. high schools, causing them to suffer from sleep deprivation.

Researchers said later school start times could do much to address depression, which is one of the leading causes of disability among young people. In this context, disability is defined as impairment of daily functioning — for example, their likelihood of calling in sick or being late to school or work.

“It makes that age range of particular interest in trying to understand risk factors for depression and how those might relate to delivery of interventions,” Casement said.