With a little effort you can pay off even years of sleep debt, according to a report by Harvard Women’s Health Watch. This is good news to the more than 60% of U.S. women estimated to sleep less than seven to nine hours a night.
Harvard Women’s Health Watch said that in a study comparing the sleep deprived versus the sleep satisfied, reaction time, memory, and cognitive ability rose as the sleepy had more pillow time. But there is some lingering scientific debate as to whether sleep debt is real.
So how does one counter the effects of chronic sleep loss? Harvard Women’s Health Watch suggests if you’ve missed 10 hours of sleep over one week, make up for it over the weekend and the following week. If you’ve missed sleep for decades, it could take a few weeks to repay the debt. Plan a vacation with a light schedule, and sleep every night until you wake naturally. Once you’ve determined how much sleep you need, factor it into your daily schedule. Here’s a link to a sleep calculator to help.
You are getting very sleepy …
A very welcome and reassuring post!
ZZZZZZ,
Deborah
At the risk of sounding like a spammer there is an alternative aid for sleeping that can improve sleep quality and relieve muscle tension. I invented the ergonomically correct SquidFace and ComfyRest pillows to relieve pain from my herniated neck disk. Additional benefits give me better sound sleep facedown, on my back and side. It works well on a desk for a quick power nap. The many additional pain relief benefits are on my website. Hopefully it may help others. http://www.SquidFace.com
I tried the sleep calculator, thanks for the interesting link. I haven’t gotten more than 4-5 hours of sleep in years, though I’m the kind of person who could probably go 10 hours given a chance to sleep in. The calculator says that I would need 5 nights of 13 hours of sleep to recover a sleep debt of just one week of snoozing 5-6 hours/night. Multiply that by 52 weeks, so I think I have a sleep deficit of more than 600 hours for one year alone. Guess I won’t be recovering my sleep debt anytime soon.
I WIll NEVER be out of debt.
What about me?
I don’t get enough sleep, but I’m not a woman.
Does that mean I can never get even?
I remember one year a couple of decades ago when, as a writer, I was able to begin working at home nearly every day. I’d been a single mom by that time for several years, with two little kids, and both my kids were at last at school during the day. I got into the habit of taking a nap after lunch and, for maybe eight months, I went through a phase of taking LONG naps - two hours or more - in the middle of the day. I was just tired! Clearly, had a sleep debt. After about 8 months, I seemed to have “caught up” and didn’t need such long naps anymore.
That was a great year!
I still remember it fondly.
Deborah
While building a house, I was also working, caring for two kids and doing housework. During that period I found that the level of tiredness varied depending on what was going on during the day. The more engaging and fullfilling the activities of the day, the less tired I felt. I guess it is mind over body at work. Then again, on some days it would all hit me like a brick. I’m definitely for implementing traditions followed in other places where you are give some time to take a break and enjoy a “siesta”.
global warming is becoming such a obvious problem that someone somewhere other than Al Gore needs to step up to help drive the bus!
This is probably going to make me sound like a spammer as well, but one of the biggest things I did that dramatically help reduce what felt like the ammount of natural sleep I needed was a memory foam mattress. I made a bit of a blurb about them on my site. But anyways, prior to getting a Memory Foam, I had a lot of troubles sleeping and DEFINITELY fell very far into sleep debt.
I would be brutally tired and laying there with a soar neck or back trying to fall asleep. After a few weeks of having the memory foam mattress, sleep became wonderful again, and since it took away a lot of the tossing and turning at night I wound up waking up earlier and feeling more refreshed.
I don’t really understand how you can pay off sleep debt which you’ve accumualted over the years What if you’ve suffered for more than 10 years of insomnia and then you began sleeping again properly, is your body still in debt?
It is important to understand the laws related to debt collection. Most debt collectors are violating your rights.
Interesting. I slept an average of 2-3 hours daily this week and now I just woke after 12 hours of sleep. Totally unhealthy and I don’t even feel refreshed.
Thanks for sharing.. Interesting post..
It’s important to pay off your debt. To bad you can’t work hard and make the benjamins unless you get enough sleep and feel well rested. Keep up the good work and the quality content.
Good to know!