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.

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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

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Anonymous 0 Comments

From my understanding, REM is like a purge and sleeplessness ruins memory and learning. If you go without sleep long enough, you can hallucinate. As far as I’m aware this is mostly reversible damage but you obviously won’t get memories back.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Experts do NOT say you can’t catch up on sleep. It may take several nights to make up a sleep deficit but you certainly can do it. Read about it in this book: [https://www.amazon.com/Promise-Sleep-Medicine-Connection-Happiness/dp/0440509017/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&qid=1628536891&refinements=p_27%3AWilliam+C.+Dement&s=books&sr=1-3](https://www.amazon.com/Promise-Sleep-Medicine-Connection-Happiness/dp/0440509017/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&qid=1628536891&refinements=p_27%3AWilliam+C.+Dement&s=books&sr=1-3)

Anonymous 0 Comments

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..
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