Most people only get two days off work a week and because of this they try to pack as much as they can into their Saturday and Sunday recreation.

For many people this means hitting the town straight after work on Friday, getting loaded up on booze and dancing the night away in the nightclubs and bars of Britain's towns and cities. It also means that a large proportion of Saturday is likely to be spent in bed recovering from the previous night's excesses, before doing it all over again on the Saturday night.

Before you know it, the alarm goes off, it's Monday morning and you're back to work, bleary eyed and probably feeling that you need another entire weekend just to recover from the last. The fun of Saturday and Sunday are now just a hazy memory, the only lasting impression of which is the void in your bank account, and all you can do is keep your head down at work all week and look forward to Friday again.

Then there's the weekend warriors; the active, adrenaline seekers who can be seen packing camping gear into the boot and strapping bikes, skis, surfboards are other outdoor equipment onto their car, before zooming off out of the city to enjoy some outdoor life on some remote surf break, campsite or national park.

The culture vulture shuns the outdoors. Instead this more refined species can normally be found perusing the latest gallery opening of some up-and-coming artist by day, and indulging in obscure theatre shows, indie movies, or seen sipping on a glass of red wine in some candle-lit backstreet wine bar at night.

But the problem is, spending your weekends actually doing things can be exhausting. Therefore everyone needs those weekends where you just stay at home, reach for the tv guide, grab a bottle of beer and do absolutely nothing for a couple of days. Far from being a wasted weekend, these are the times where you plug yourself in and flick the switch to full charge, and without these chill out weekends, it's very easy to get tired, stressed, and worn out, which can lead to illness.

So - by all means, use your weekends to the fullest, but every now and again, give yourself the downtime you deserve.