eli5 how the sleep deficit actually works?

Question

if you go multiple nights without enough sleep, it makes sense that you get more tired, but does this also mean you need to sleep more to “catch up” and feel rested?

and would this extra amount of sleep correspond to how “behind” on sleep you are? or is it more like a battery, where the maximum amount of sleep doesn’t change ?

In: Biology

Answer 1

There are two aspects.

1. If you miss out on sleep, there is some “damage” done that you can’t fix or undo with any amount of sleep.
2. There are some downsides which you can undo with more sleep.

So yes, the longer you go without enough sleep, can require you to sleep more to catch up, but there is some damage done that you can never catch up on.