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 think it comes down to trying to chase lost sleep almost. For example if you stayed up all night one time, you may then have the urge to sleep for 12 hours instead of your usual 6. The saying typically means that having 12 hours of sleep won’t really give extra benefit because you cant have the missed night of sleep back