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

Well, I don’t know what experts you were reading about, but BuzzFeed isn’t from expert. It’s scientifically proven a known that within a 7-Day cycle, you can catch up on your sleep within that time frame.

Going months with severe insomnia and suffering sleep deprivation, can cause permanent damage, you can’t not sleep for a month and then catch up on it, but if you lose let’s say 12 hours of sleep in a week within those seven days of starting to miss time sleeping, you could sleep those extra hours, and catch up. It’s about your body requiring a certain amount of time to be in rest mode, for deep healing and Body Repair. As well as to comprehend, analyze, and store information gathered in the day.

But, within a 7-Day cycle of losing sleep, you can sleep the same amount of hours to catch up