ELi5: Experts say you can’t “pre-sleep” and also can’t catch up on lost sleep; what exactly does that mean? Since it’s not like I feel tired for the rest of my life after missing a night’s sleep, after a few days of good sleep I’m back to normal.

Question

Does “not being able to catch up on lost sleep” mean that every night of lost sleep accumulates to a shorter life span, more illness, or something of the sort?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Great question!!! There’s nights I’ll get 2hrs of sleep, the next day/night I’ll stay up, the next night ill get 3hrs, etc…. Somewhere along the line I’ll legit CRASH for 24hrs (periodically waking up to use the bathroom or grab a drink.)……… Also sometimes that mixture feeling of not being asleep, or awake, and just laying in the bed for a couple hrs..