I’m assuming that if I lose two hours of sleep for five non-consecutive days that I won’t have to sleep for ten hours straight in addition to the eight-ish I’d normally be asleep for. How well does the body keep track of this stuff? How much will it forgive?

Bear with me as I’m not thinking super clearly from the caffeine crash and messed-up sleep

  • ignirtoq@fedia.io
    60·
    16 hours ago

    Think of bad sleep or insufficient sleep like an injury. In ideal conditions your body heals it at a certain rate. You can make it take longer, or you can even make the injury worse, by not taking care of it, but you can’t make it heal faster. And at some point, if you’re consistently not taking care of it, you’ll make part of your injury permanent.

    Similarly with sleep, it’s not a bank balance, it’s damage to your body and brain that you need to repair. And you can only repair the damage with good sleep. You have to get good sleep until you feel better, and then you’ll know you have recovered.

    And if you consistently get bad sleep for too long (a week or more), your brain and body will be permanently changed. Like a permanent injury, you’ll never fully recover some of the damage. It’s hard to overemphasize how important good sleep is to your short- and long-term health.