The Right Way to Overcome Sleep Deprivation

Sleep Deprivation and Sleep Debt

When you don’t get enough sleep, you become sleep deprived. The difference between how much sleep you have been getting and how much sleep you personally need is often called a “sleep debt.” The implication here is that over time, a “debt” forms where you need to “catch up” on sleep in order to not suffer from sleep deprivation any more. Unfortunately, overcoming sleep deprivation is not as simple as that.

Sleep debts are extremely important to correctly understand. The common misconceptions about what a sleep debt is and how you “repay” it undermines the ability to actually overcome sleep deprivation. The primary misconception that we see is that one can “repay” a sleep debt in the same way you repay a monetary debt: by binge sleeping.

It simply doesn’t work this way.

Symptoms of Sleep Deprivation

Chronic daytime fatigue
Depression
Chronic anxiety
Chronic irritability and anger issues
Inability to manage and respond healthily to stress
Other mood troubles
Lower sense of happiness and well being
Poor performance at work
Poor performance in academics
Poor performance in athletics
Poor performance during work-outs
Trouble with weight maintenance
Impotence and/or reduced sex drive
Trouble staying awake at the wheel
Headaches
Clinical exhaustion where the body begins to break down (hair falling out, for example)
Chronic brain fog
Trouble concentrating or staying on topic
Trouble learning
Trouble with memory, such as forgetting simple things
Slower, less efficient, and worse at performing cognitive tasks, such as at work

Usually people with chronic sleep deprivation will exhibit a number of these symptoms, even with mild sleep deprivation.

How Much Sleep Do We Need?

Overcoming sleep deprivation starts with understanding how much sleep you need which mostly depends on your age [National Sleep Foundation]:

<1 year: 12-17 hours per day (more sleep for newborns than toddlers)
1-2 years: 11-14 hours
3-5 years: 10-13 hours
6-13 years: 9-11 hours
14-17 years: 8-10 hours
18-65 years: 7-9 hours
65+ years: 7-8 hours

recommended-sleep-duration-for-children-and-teens

Second, how much sleep you need depends on you, specifically based on:

Your natural, internal needs
Your external needs depending on lifestyle factors like activity level, diet, etc.

For example, if you are 30 years old, you can count on needing at least 7 hours of sleep. But whereas your friend can function optimally on 7 hours of sleep, you may need 8.5 hours of sleep to feel your best.

In summary: you need at least a certain amount based on your age, and may need additional sleep depending on what makes you function the best.

The WRONG Way to Overcome Sleep Deprivation (It Doesn’t Work)

Let’s look at a common way people try and overcome their sleep deprivation by repaying their sleep debt with binge sleeping. Here’s a common binge sleeping scenario:

During the week you stay up late 4 nights
You get up early for work, maybe only getting about six hours of sleep on those 4 nights whereas you really need 7.5 hours of sleep, an effective “sleep debt” of 6 hours
You’re not worried – you can “repay” this sleep on the weekend
Then on the weekend, you sleep in an extra couple of hours each day and take a couple of naps, roughly making up your six hour debt – you should be feeling good on Monday, right?

Unfortunately, all of the evidence from research points out that binge sleeping does not help you overcome sleep deprivation.

Sleep studies show that getting one or two long nights of sleep does not remove the effects of sleep deprivation. It may relieve temporary tiredness and make you feel good for a little while, but sleep deprivation symptoms will still remain afterward. Furthermore, oversleeping can actually make your sleep deprivation symptoms worse.