Hurrah, lie-ins may be good for us – if only I can convince my five-year-old daughter | Arwa Mahdawi

This evening I’m going to tuck my five-year-old into bed and read her a chapter from one of her princess books, followed by a summary of research recently presented at the annual congress of the European Society of Cardiology. Once upon a time, I’ll tell her, there was a scientist called Dr Nawon Lee who authored a study that found having a weekend lie-in may be very good for you and can protect against high blood pressure. Our accomplished protagonist Dr Lee said: “People should not feel lazy or guilty for sleeping a little longer on the weekend.” And the moral of this story, dear child, is that you should try not to wake your mothers up at 6am every day.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure that all the peer-reviewed science in the world will convince my early riser to have a weekend lie-in. Still, as a big fan of sleep and someone who has never once felt guilty for hitting the snooze button, I have to say I feel vindicated by this new study. CEOs can get up at 4am and run 10 miles before eating five foraged mushrooms if they want to, but I’m going to protect my heart health by sleeping in, any opportunity I can get, thank you very much.

The rich world is currently in thrall to tech-enabled self-optimisation. Or as some people (people you do not want to end up seated next to at a dinner party) call it: humanmaxxing. We’re told we should track our biomarkers and optimise every second of our days, often in complicated and joyless ways. If that works for you, great. But, personally, I’m a big fan of lazymaxxing and finding low-effort ways to improve my life. Weekend lie-ins are obviously one, drinking coffee is another. A 2025 study found that morning coffee drinkers were 16% less likely to die early of any cause. Swearing is also surprisingly good for you: uttering a profanity can decrease physical pain and increase focus. And while I can’t go so far as to say that bingeing Love is Blind has health-giving properties, I did unearth research concluding that enjoying trashy films is a sign you’re a well-educated cultural omnivore. I still haven’t found a study proving that lying on the couch, eating crisps, reading thrillers and ignoring your obligations is good for you, but I live in hope.