After having chained the short nights during the week, some decide to make up for their lack of sleep by sleeping more on Saturday and Sunday. But that would not be enough. Explanations.
- Sleep represents more than a third of our life.
- It is essential for growth, brain maturation, development and preservation of our cognitive abilities.
- “Sleep should be considered a priority and one of the pillars of overall good health, along with diet and exercise,” according to James A. Rowley.
Bad mood, memory problems, high risk of heart disease, weight gain… Lack of sleep has consequences on our physical and mental health. To recover the hours of sleep lost and compensate for the harmful effects of this nocturnal deficiency, some people sleep in or take a nap on weekends. According to previous research, it seems possible to catch up on late sleep, but it’s harder than you think.
“If the sleep debt is greater, the recovery time becomes significantly longer, and full recovery may not be possible, so it’s important not to let the sleep debt go too far,” said, to Business InsiderAlex Dimitriu, founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine.
About 20 days of good quality sleep
According to a Japanese study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, for every hour of sleep lost, a person would need four nights of seven to nine hours of sleep to fully recover. According to the results, this means that it would take around 20 days of consistent good quality sleep to fully recover the lost hours.
So, sleeping in or taking a nap for a few hours on the weekend is not enough. “While you can make up for an hour or two on the weekend, you can’t compensate for a lack of sleep accumulated all week by sleeping a few extra hours”, added James A. Rowley, former president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation.
How to erase your “sleep debt”?
It is advisable not to wait until the weekend to try to make up for an entire week of lost sleep. If you’re missing an hour or two of sleep, it’s best to get it back the next day, either by taking a 20-30 minute nap or getting a good night’s sleep the following evening. To do this, you have to set a schedule and stick to it, that is, get up and go to bed at the same time every day. “Sleep loves regularity and rhythm”, clarified Alex Dimitriu.
