The probability that the personal sleeping amount needed is approx. eight hours is about 90 per cent. About five per cent need less (five to seven hours) and about five per cent need more (nine to eleven hours). There is a tendency, that especially “owls” are accumulating a sleep debt. Because, these chronotypes hardly go to bed before 12.00 p.m. And then – at 6.00 a.m. the alarm clock is ringing relentlessly. Even in just one week an “owl” is accumulating 14 hours of sleep debt and is feeling on Fridays, as if not having slept the whole night long. The consequences: tiredness, inattentiveness, performance drop and bad mood. They are longing for the weekend to catch up on lost sleep.
I am sure, a lot of you know this scenario.
The concept of an “accumulated sleep debt” originate from an analogy that one possesses a “sleeping-account”, where one can “sleep on account” or one can have “sleeping debts”. Latest scientific findings show that a sleeping debt of 20 to 30 hours should not be exaggerated. So, this is more or less the official “sleeping-credit-limit”. It is not possible to “sleep a bonus in advance” by trying to “pre-sleep” a threatening lack of sleep.
To go on with the example mentioned above: you only can pay back your “sleeping debts” in instalments, hence only in one- or two-hours steps. Sleep-biologically it is not possible to for example pay back a sleeping debit of about 14 hours at once. A huge lack of sleep, accumulated during the week just as little can’t be outweighed by sleeping longer on the weekends like too less training and too much of eating during the week can’t be outweighed by one training session and dieting on the weekends. There still will be some sleep debt left and you won’t reach the bottom. In fact, during the week you still will be confronted with the symptoms of sleep debt (tiredness, performance drop, lack of concentration, stress- and infection-susceptibility, weight gain).
This post is also available in / Diesen Beitrag gibt es auch in: German
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