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
I don’t remember the source, but I’ve read that, while getting a good night sleep for a couple days feels much better, it takes 9 days of good sleep in a row to recover as much as you can from sleep deprivation. If I recall sleep flushes out chemicals that build up in your brain, they can only build up so much before it’s saturated, and it takes the 9 days to fully catch up on flushing them out.
It sounds like the biggest thing that would help you is managing your caffeine consumption. I went through caffeine withdrawal a few times before deciding I didn’t like it and setting the following boundaries that have helped. First, no coffee/energy drinks after 12 hours before I want to sleep. So I go to bed at 10pm, I have all my coffee drank before 10am. This gives your body a chance to process most of the caffeine so it affects your sleep less. Second (and the hardest if you’re already used to daily caffeine) I try not to drink caffeine two days in a row. This keeps it from building up in your system, which keeps your tolerance low, which also means it feels like a super power when you do drink caffeine.
So if I wake up at 7am and want to be in bed 9 hours before 7am. That means the only time I can drink energy drinks is before 10am.
Brutal, esp since the important part wears off in less than 4. Let’s negotiate.
I can have one at 8am, 1pm and the last at 5pm?
This sounds about right to me. I was awake for 7 days without sleep, and it took about 7-9 nights of >9 hours of sleep to feel normal again.