Lesson 11
Sleep Debt
See why short nights stack up even when the weekly average looks fine, and how to recover from a short week.
Sleep on a budget
Most of us run sleep like a budget: short in the week, catch up at the weekend, and as long as the total comes out about right, call it even. Sleep researchers use the word "debt" too.
The metaphor half works. Short nights do leave you behind, and recovery sleep does help. But there's no statement, no exact repayment rate and no rule that the books balance at the end of the week. The question is whether the weekly total is the number that counts.