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

I read a science article a while back about this. If I can find it again I’ll post it here. The gist of it was that our brains sort of ‘wash themselves’ while we’re sleeping. If you don’t sleep long enough, your brain isn’t squeaky clean the next day. This not only impacts your immediate health the day after a bad sleep, but can also result in long-term damage if poor sleep is a chronic habit. Just like there’s no point in washing dishes that are already clean, you can’t pregame sleep and expect your brain to cooperate. Similarly, if you ran dishes for a half-cycle every time you put them in the dishwasher, those plates are gonna be gross.

Edit: Here it is: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/the-brains-connections-shrink-during-sleep/515472/