The following is a visitor-submitted question or story. For more, you can submit your own sleep story here, or browse the collection of experiences and questions other visitors have shared here.
How Do You Catch Up On Lost Sleep/Sleep Debt
by Anthony
(Sydney, NSW, Australia)
For example, the last 4 nights I have only had 3-4 hours of sleep. As a result I feel heavily fatigued and also got sick somehow, just a general cold which probably came from someone else.
Any advice would be great! I found a link to your page which explains sleep debt but nothing was there to explain how to fix it.
Kevin: Hey Anthony, thanks for your question. Paying back your sleep debt is incredibly simple--you just sleep more. For example, if you have a sleep need of around 8 hours per night, sleeping 4 hours for 4 nights will give you a sleep debt of around 16 hours. To lower this sleep debt, sleep more than 8 hours in a day. For instance, sleeping 10 hours one night will lower your sleep debt around 2 hours.
Presenting the numbers like this is a bit of a simplification, but the mental model it provides is very useful for achieving the amount of sleep on a consistent basis that will keep you feeling healthy and alert.
Kevin
(Please keep in mind that I am a student of sleep science and not a medical doctor. Please take any thoughts I give with my background in mind.)
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A Note On Visitor-Submitted Questions:
Publishing sleep stories and questions from our visitors is meant to create a forum for open and proactive dialogue about an extremely important portion of our lives (one that occupies 1/3 of it and affects the other 2/3). It is not meant to substitute a trip to the doctor or the advice of a specialist. It's good to talk; it is not good to avoid consulting someone who's profession it is to help you with this kind of stuff.
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