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What’s the difference between the time you spend in bed and your bank balance? No, this isn’t the start of a terrible joke — and the answer is less so than you might think.
We all have the odd occasion when we stay up too late and don’t get enough sleep. Think of this as the equivalent of splurging on an expensive dinner: you probably shouldn’t, but hopefully your bank balance won’t suffer too much.
This article is part of a special series examining basic questions related to sleep. Read more here.
but Go regularly without enough sleep – A problem that many people suffer from, as reported by the US Centers for Disease Control A third of adults there get less than 7 hours per night – This can lead to an accumulation of sleep debt, with real consequences for physical and mental health (see “Why your chronotype is the key to knowing how much sleep you need”). Like paying off a financial debt, catching up on sleep takes planning.
Part of the problem is that we may not know how much sleep debt we have accumulated and how much it is affecting us. in One studyFor example, participants were randomly assigned to get 4, 6, or 8 hours per night for 14 straight days. Ultimately, those who got 6 hours or less showed cognitive deficits equivalent to losing up to two full nights of sleep. However, although they felt worse after a few days, from then on, the restless sleepers did not necessarily notice a continued decline in their cognitive abilities. “A tired brain can’t detect how tired it is,” he says. Russell Fostera…
