Sleep Debt - What is it and why it is important to take care of sleep?
First, let's explain what Sleep Debt is - it is a growing sleep deficit, i.e. the accumulation of sleep deprivation from each subsequent night, including the accumulation of effects it brings. This can be compared to a bank loan, in which, apart from the loan itself, the interest rate must also be repaid. In sleep, the consequences can be pathetic and even fatal.Here are 3 common misunderstandings and facts:
1. We think our body will adapt
The human body is amazing! Its special feature is flexibility. It can adapt to a warm, cold, dry, tropical environment, it can eat meat, but also not. Thanks to this, we are able to obtain various information from various places around the world. What does this have to do with sleep? Well, it has quite a lot.I assume that each of us had a sleepless night and then walked all day like zombies. We call this syndrome Micro Sleep Debt, which can be quickly repaid. Just sleep the same or the next one. Often among the people you hear: "I got used to a 6-hour sleep and that's enough for me!" - well, it may work in a short time, but in the long run, the body will start "crisis management", which will cause:- micro dreaming
- overeating
- limiting contacts with other people,
- slowed metabolism
- focus on survival.
2. Lack of sleep is not responsible for all diseases of the world
It's not like people who sleep well don't get sick, but they get sick much less often. People suffering from lack of sleep have a disturbed hormonal balance, which means that they have reduced immunity, an increase in cortisol, which in turn means that fat and water are accumulated, which can lead to obesity, and appetite is also disturbed.
3. Debt can kill you
Concentration, or rather not enough, can be tragic. For example, while driving a car. The fatigue that our body feels due to lack of sleep can cause that for a split second our senses are turned off, which with driving a car can lead to an accident and, as a consequence, even death. Another thing can be increased irritation, which often leads to limiting contacts with other people, lack of patience, quarrels. This, in turn, can lead to a disorder of self-esteem, which often means depression.
Okay, we know what Sleep Debt is and what the consequences of it can be, now I will give you some points on how to recover from it:
- Take care of regular sleep - from 7 to 9 hours.
- Falling asleep supports melatonin secretion - limit your phone / computer sitting at least an hour before bedtime.
- If we sleep well, we exercise better and vice versa :)
- Keep the bedroom dark, quiet and cool.
- Make sure nothing disturbs your sleep.
- Do not drink coffee 10 hours before bedtime and do not eat heavy meals for 4 hours before bedtime.
Question for you:
1. Do you have trouble sleeping?2. How much do you try to fall asleep? Do you do short naps during the day?
3. Do you use any applications, devices such as Smart Wear to analyze sleep?
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892834/https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/8/eaar8590
https://www.health.harvard.edu/womens-health/repaying-your-sleep-debt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_debt
I think that I don’t have any problems with sleeping but it’s obvious that I often don’t sleep enough. The good thing is that the older I am, the smaller the sleep debt is because I’m getting more conscious about sleep importance. I can really feel the downsides of not sleeping enough in my body and mind and that’s why I’m trying to pay more attention to sleep.
ReplyDeleteUsually, I fall asleep in no time but of course, sometimes it takes some time. I used to take short naps during the day when I was younger and I can say that it was working but as for now I don’t feel the need to do this.
I don’t use any smart alarms or things like this.
Unfortunately, at the moment I have a lot of trouble sleeping, I go to bed late, I get up in the morning.
DeleteI often do naps during the day - 30 minutes. Unfortunately, sometimes I am so tired that I do not hear the alarm clock and I wake up only after 3 hours.
This is a relatively big problem, especially if you have a day planned, and then the whole day falls apart :(
I think I may have some problems with sleeping. Sometimes I'm shocked when someone can fall asleep in about 2-3 minutes when I need nearly hour at least. I tried limiting phone and computer time but it didn't change anything. Sometimes I do short snaps during the day, mostly when I was sleeping about 6 hours or less at night. I had to use some kind of apps to analyze my sleep, but now I don't. Maybe it's time to start using it again?
ReplyDeleteDo you play any sport? In many guidebooks on better sleep, it is repeated many times that sport has a very positive effect on falling asleep. I can also confirm that after intensive training you fall asleep like a child.
DeleteYou can read about using Smartbands or Smartwatch to measure sleep. Maybe it will help you somehow :)
I used to have some problems with falling asleep but I started going gym and then switched to jogging and home exercises, which helped me greatly. Since then I encourage everyone to do the same, because it's not really time consuming but still improves sleep quality a lot.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure but I believe falling asleep takes me 5-10 minutes. Sometimes it prolongs to 20 or even 30 minutes but I think it's mostly due to naps I tend to take during the day if I have some free time.
I used to use smartwatch with sleep tracking feature built-in but now I don't care about it too much and just try to go to bed and wake up at the same hours. I found good-bad sleep measures not really accurate and they are many factors which aren't taken into account, for instance room temperature, fresh air etc.
*there are many factors
DeleteI agree 100% with you.
DeleteAs for Smartwatche / Smartbands, at the moment they mainly measure REM sleep phases and the hours you sleep or wake up.
It will take a long time before the devices fully analyze human sleep and take into account those things that you mention :)
I’ve never experienced any trouble with sleeping. Even when I had a lot of problems in many different areas of my life my sleep was almost always untouched. Usually, I fall asleep in one minute or less 😉 I just remember the moment I laid down and in a second I’m in the arms of Morpheus. Sometimes I take a short nap during the day, more or less 30-60 min but only if I feel really tired. I don’t do this on a daily basis. I used to use the “Sleep as Android” application and also the Xiaomi Mi band sleep monitoring app and the results were cheering. According to statistics I was in 3% of people with the deepest sleep.
ReplyDeleteWow! In that case, congratulations!
DeleteThanks to this, you are rested and you can make the most of your day!
I am still working on regular sleep :)
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ReplyDeleteFortunately I don't have any troubles with sleeping. Actually I am usually so tired, that I fall asleep immediately after going to bed. The fact, that I'm trying to exercise several times per week might be helpful in this matter. I've tried to do short naps during the day. I've once read about power naps, that lasts for about 16 minutes, but in my case it didn't work. I've been using 'Sleep as Android' or something like that, but as soon as it stopped being free, I stopped using it. To be honest I completely forgot about this application and I do not miss it at all.
ReplyDeleteI assume that physical and mental effort adds up the effect of fatigue, so you fall asleep immediately after laying your head on the pillow.
DeleteAs I wrote above, good sleep means better use of the day :)
There was time in my life when I was lying in bed for hours, trying to go to sleep with no luck. Fortunately when I've started more active lifestyle and healthy diet everything changed and now I'm sleeping like a baby (it's not too easy to get to work on time!). Few years ago I've tried to sleep 4 times for 2 hours a day, but it didn't work. I sleep too long or I can't fall asleep after nap during day, so I'm trying to avoid any naps and even go to sleep earlier than have a "short" break, which honestly is never short.
ReplyDeleteWhile studying daily I was using phone app which was measuring my sleep time and trying to help my to sleep well, but it didn't help too much. I was also trying to use smartwatch to track my sleep and use alarms scheduled by the watch to wake up in correct sleep phase but again, it did not work. Since then I rely on casual morning alarms.
You hit the center with naps during the day. This is a big problem because I often have a nap instead of 30 minutes for 3 hours, which completely spoils my day.
DeleteQuestion: Where did the idea of sleeping 4 times 2 hours a day come from? What would the advantages of this approach be?
I don't have any trouble with sleeping or falling asleep. Really, it was never my problem. On the contrary, I have always problem, that I don't sleep enough. Only at weekends I have a little more time to rest. I try to avoid "power naps", because in my case after nap during the day I can't go back to reality and I want to fall asleep again :P
ReplyDeleteI used to use mi band 2 to monitor my sleep, but it won't be so precise. Now I have mi band 4 and it's more advanced, but those data which it gets are really useless for me.
How many hours do you usually sleep per week?
DeleteIf you have no problems sleeping, you have a lot of strength during the day, you will not need different types of applications.
1. Do you have trouble sleeping?
ReplyDeleteMore stress means more troubles with sleep for me. Beside that I could easily sleep anytime, anywhere. All of good habits that you've mentioned above are well known by me, except this 10-hours-thing with coffee - I can literally fall asleep straight after drank an espresso. Anyway - what best works for me is getting some (hopefully) fresh air in the bedroom for an hour before going to sleep, accommodate the place with few plants and keep it clean of electrical devices.
2. How much do you try to fall asleep? Do you do short naps during the day?
If I've busy and stressful day I'm trying to get some nap after reaching home. Time of falling asleep depends as mentioned previously on stress. If I'm good it didn't take more than a minute of sheep counting.
3. Do you use any applications, devices such as Smart Wear to analyze sleep?
I gave it a try few times but I don't know how accurate are those kind of things thats why I didn't take into considerations outputs of that measurements. What made my doubts so strong is that few nights when I have my Garmin on it didn't took data at all so it's highly possible that's not the most trustable source for such kind of data.
Personally I'm a night owl. I work as a freelance artist and I do a lot of commissions during night time. There isn't any particular reason why, I just prefer late hours. When I was in middle school, five times a week I had to woke up early around six o'clock to attend to my swimming training. Maybe that's the reason why now I love to get up late. I'm aware that it's not very healthy to stay awake at night but this habit of mine is optimal for now and I sleep for 7-8 hours a day. Before I haven't done any naps and it didn't change. Generally I fall asleep fast, a lot faster then in middle school where sometimes I had to struggle a lot. From what I know, in order for sleep application to work properly you need smart watch to track your pulse so I'm not using any because the one working with microphone aren't very reliable in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteSo what are your hours of work and sleep? I assume that:
Delete- work: 21:00 - 3:00
- sleep: 3:30 - 11-13: 00?
Fortunately, I rarely work / study at night. I got used to getting up early in the morning because of commuting, and when it is weekend and I get up around 9 am, I am in a bad mood right away.
I also don't trust applications that analyze sleep using a microphone. In addition, these types of applications must be turned on at all times of sleep, which causes a significant load on the phone itself (long ago it was considered a serious drawback of this solution).
The issue of sleep debt is a known issue to many, but as a person working in the IT industry, it is obviously hard to follow a proper, healthy sleep routine; creeping deadlines, everlasting projects, late night calls with customers or associates from different time zones do not help in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The institution of an evening nap can be very helpful, especially during the finals, when most of the students (including myself) can practically forget about a normal sleeping routine. The technology can also come in handy - one of the main tools that help me with trying to keep a proper sleep hygiene are applications that adjust display's colour temperature like f.lux both on my phone and my computer; apart from that, I've also experimented with some smart alarm clock phone apps that analyse sleep based on gathered sounds and movements, but they didn't work mostly due to my dog's awful snoring issue...
ReplyDeleteIndeed, when you work with people from different time zones, there may be big problems maintaining proper sleep and work culture throughout the day. In my work we have a branch in San Francisco and from what I talk to people, many people complain that they have to wait until late hours to talk to someone from the Product Team (SF time zone is -8 hours in relation to Poland ). That's why I'm glad that it doesn't concern me :)
DeleteYou just mentioned one of the reasons why applications using the microphone for sleep analysis are ineffective :)
1. Yes, sometimes I have problems falling asleep
ReplyDeleteas we functional cycle gets disrupted often as
sometimes I have to go to sleep earlier on some
days than on others. On some days my head hurts
because of this way of functioning. I also try
not to drink tea/coffe in the afternoon hours.
2. I rarely take naps during the day, as I try
to keep me daily cycle regular.I can image
this can be a problems for people,
who have to work at night or odd hours like
doctors or policemen. They often find themselfs
falling asleep during the day. Probably it can
be detrimental to their health over a long period
of time.
3. I tried to use an application, which was playing
a calm tune to so, that I would fall asleep, unfortunately
it did not work too well, but I think I will try something
similar soon.
1. Perhaps on such days I would try to wake up in the "light" phase of sleep, thanks to which a person is not so lazy. I encourage you to read about it!
Delete2. Night shifts can be a big problem in maintaining a balance between sleep and work. Especially when you have to get up in the middle of the night and go to work, because there is a breakdown. Nevertheless, I assume you can come up with something that will bring you closer to maintaining a healthy sleep.
3. Maybe try meditation?
I have trouble sleeping. I'm trying go to bed at 00:00, but I don't remember when was the time that I fall asleep before 02:30. I'm waking up at 08.00 every day. I prefer to sleep 9-10 hours to have a productive day. It's the best time for me. If it would be more that 10 hours I'll have a headache. If less than I feel really sick. Also I don't do nap during the day because I have an 8 hours work day. When I come home after work, I feel exhausted but still I can't go to sleep, because I have so much thing to do.
ReplyDeleteI have tried to use different applications to analyze and improve my sleep, such as modern alarm clocks or meditations apps. It starts off great, but doesn't last very long.
I assume that you walk like zombies at the end of the week (Thursday - Friday). In addition, I assume that you stick to coffee or energy drinks.
DeleteUntil moving to Warsaw, I slept only as much as you did, and I also tried to sleep on the bus while traveling from home to work or to university.
Unfortunately, this dream was terribly weak, when the trip was getting longer, I was even more tired and I had to take a nap at home a bit.
So I understand a bit how to sleep so little during the week.
Explain to me what you mean by "It starts great, but it doesn't last long."