Name: Fact or Fiction: Is it possible to pay off your sleep debt?
Uploaded: 2023-02-24
Duration: 5 min 11 s
Description: You missed out on some sleep during the workweek and are looking forward to sleep in and pay off that 'sleep debt' once the weekend rolls around. But is that actually good for you? Sleep scientist Dr. Rebecca Robbins breaks down our sleep cycle and everything you should know about our natural circadian rhythms.

You missed out on some sleep during the workweek and are looking forward to sleep in and pay off that "sleep debt" once the weekend rolls around. But is that actually good for you? Sleep scientist Dr. Rebecca Robbins breaks down our sleep cycle and everything you should know about our natural circadian rhythms.

Fact or Fiction: Is it possible to pay off your sleep debt?

Health

Dr. Rebecca Robbins of Harvard Medical School breaks down sleep cycles, circadian rhythm, and "sleep debt".

Is it possible to pay off your sleep debt?

Dr. Rebecca Robbins of Harvard Medical School explains.

One of the most common trends in our population is curtailing the amount of sleep that we get during the work week and thinking that we can repay our sleep on the weekend, doing things that we often view as luxurious like sleeping in. But believe it or not, sleeping in is one of the worst things that we can do for our sleep spending enough time sleeping is of course one of the most important and central parts of what we're increasingly referring in the field to sleep health. It is a myth to think that we simply crawl into the sheets and enter the state of sleep and then we wake up and haven't moved an inch to the contrary. Sleep is actually a very rich and very variegated process. The gold standard of sleep measurement is something called policy sonography and that is largely done in the context of a laboratory setting. Policy. Sonography simply refers to multiple modes of measurement. We're gonna be monitoring your brainwaves, your respiratory effort, your heart rate, a host of different things that allow us to understand which stage of sleep you're in at which time Over the course of your sleep. When we crawl into the sheets at night we enter some of the lighter stages of sleep and we're entering sleep slowly and it's a stage stage one and two that are marked by slightly slower brain waves in the wake state. But as we're entering sleep, this is a period of time in the lighter stages of our sleep at night. They were very able to be awoken by noises or things that are going on around us. Then we enter stage three deep sleep, which is the closest thing we get to hibernation as human beings in a 24 hour day and then something fascinating happens after about 20 minutes in a healthy sleeper, we enter our first rapid eye movement period of the the dreaming period of our night actually plays a really vital role for our brain to bring up events that happened from the day. The rapid eye movement sleep is where we believe. We got a lot of the benefits cognitively of our sleep and our ability to retain and remember information. What's so fascinating is that the structure of sleep is actually intact almost remarkably no matter the amount of sleep that you get. So what's so fascinating is that the human body and the brain adapt to that maybe shorter period of sleep. But then in the nights following those nights of curtailed and shortened sleep, our body and our brains actually spend a little bit more time in rapid eye movement sleep, we call this rem rebound because such a vital stage for our cognitive performance and excellence. Our sleep is governed by two processes. The first is called our home a static sleep drive and what that refers to is our overall sense of sleepiness. That homo static drive simply builds with the amount of hours that we've been awake over the course of the day and then that declines it's repaid with our sleep over the course of our nighttime. The other process that has a really significant role in our sleep is something called our circadian rhythm. Now that rhythm as it sounds eggs and flows over the 24 hour day in a very rhythmic, beautiful and predictable fashion and our circadian drive determines the times that we're optimally alert and times that work optimally sleepy over the course of a 24 hour day. The circadian system is most influenced by our environment and the pattern of light and darkness in the world around us. The on switch to the sleep phase of our circadian rhythm is darkness going into an envoy is free of light when we're ideally able to align our wake up time with sunlight exposure. That flips the off switch, stops the floodgates of melatonin and allows us to be alert and go about our days without the presence of those time cues. Our circadian rhythm becomes very confused and unsure when it should be awake and when it should be sleepy. Now when we change our sleep time, believe it or not even one hour makes a big difference. So if you've ever slept in late on a saturday morning and wake woken up 234 hours beyond your normal work week, Wake up time and felt really groggy. The circadian system is why, because what you've done is you've actually done the same thing as popped in an airplane and fly into a new time zone so your brain is starting to play catch up. We often think that sleep is just relegated to the nighttime hours or just the time that you plan to start sleeping. But believe it or not, a good night's sleep really starts as soon as we wake up. So things to keep in mind over the course of the day are getting natural light exposure. That helps us think our circadian rhythm to the pattern of light and darkness around us exposure to natural sunlight also can boost our energy. So ideally what we want to do, not only get enough sleep, but one of the core tenants of sleep is keeping a consistent sleep schedule. We're all so unique and different and diverse that we each have a different sleep need now do your best to protect that night in and night out.