We all know we need to get enough sleep for our energy levels, health, and productivity. But all too often, life gets in the way. When you miss out on sleep, you’ll build up what’s known as sleep debt.
The good news is research suggests you can catch up on sleep and reverse at least some of the damage.
Below, we’ll dive into the question of whether you can catch up on sleep (spoiler: you can!). Plus, we’ll cover how the RISE app can help you catch up and avoid missing out on sleep in the future.
Before we dive into whether you can catch up on lost sleep, you need to know about one important term: sleep debt.
Sleep debt is how much sleep you need to catch up on. It’s measured against your sleep need, which is the amount of sleep you personally need.
You’ll have sleep debt if you’ve been pulling all-nighters or staying up late and waking up early. But you may also have sleep debt if you don’t know your sleep need, as you might need more sleep than you think.
For example, if you need seven hours of sleep, but you only get six hours, you’ll wake up with sleep debt. And if you continue to not get enough sleep, your sleep debt will keep building up.
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There are two types of sleep debt:
Acute sleep debt: This is short-term sleep debt. At RISE, we measure this over your last 14 nights.
Acute sleep debt can lead to:
Chronic sleep debt: This is long-term sleep debt that’s built up over months and years.
The effects of chronic sleep debt include:
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Sleep debt is real — it ’t a myth. It can lead to low energy, trouble concentrating, and irritability. And the long-term effects of sleep debt aren’t pretty either. You’ll be upping your odds of everything from diabetes to obesity, depression to heart disease.
Sleep banking, on the other hand, ’t real. It’s a myth that you can bank sleep ahead of time or “stock up on sleep.” Most sleep researchers believe you’re just catching up on sleep debt you already have.
You can catch up on sleep – catch up sleep ’t a myth either! It might not happen overnight, but research shows catching up can reverse some of the negative effects of sleep loss.
For example, in a canonical , participants got five hours of sleep a night for seven nights and then got two “recovery” nights of sleep.
Participants’ mood, sleepiness, and mental performance got significantly worse while they were getting five hours of sleep, but bounced back after two nights of recovery sleep.
Beyond recovering, the fact we as humans can sleep for longer than we usually need when sleep deprived suggests this extra sleep serves a biological purpose. You can’t “oversleep” or get too much sleep, either, so any extra sleep you get may be needed.
Most sleep experts agree. “More research needs to be done, but it does seem we can catch up on sleep when we’re sleep deprived,” says Dr. Chester Wu, a double board-certified doctor in psychiatry and sleep medicine.
Here’s what else we know:
