How much more will you achieve when you reduce your sleep debt?

Written by Jen Ying Zhen Ang

Time: 2 a.m. But it could have been 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., and you could care less. What you care about is finishing the homework that is due in a few hours, completing the report that your boss wants you to turn in, or having fun with all your friends around you. Sleep is the last thing on your mind. It is really not that important, a waste of time, and really, if you keep sleeping people will think you are just plain lazy, right?

Sound familiar? This is precisely the reason why many of us are constantly tired in the daytime, why five alarm clocks and ten snooze alarms are ineffective in getting us out of bed and why Dreamland beckons when we least expect it.

To make the long story short, each of us has a certain sleep requirement every night that we need to keep us functioning at our optimal level. When we fall short of the minimal sleep requirement we incur a sleep debt that prevents us from functioning at our best. This debt, if not adressed, can add up over time, very rapidly, and significantly alter our productivity, mood, and even our safety.

For instance, if you need 9 hours of sleep every day, but you end up sleeping for only 6 hours each day for a week, you would have effectively incurred a sleep debt of (9-6) x 7 = 21 hours. If I did that for 2 weeks--just 2 weeks!--I would have incurred a sleep debt of a WHOPPING 42 HOURS!

So what happens when you have a high sleep debt? It starts taking over your life and your mind. It causes you to be moody and grumpy towards people around you. It consumes your mind with thoughts about beds, pillows and bolsters at times when you badly need to concentrate on what your boss is telling you. Most importantly, it shuts down your eyelids when you least expect it, putting you at risk for accidents (especially on the road) that can be fatal.

The comedic and cute video below, created by a group of Stanford students, demonstrates many of these degenerative effects of sleep debt, in this case on a college student:

You wouldn't close your eyes while biking or driving, would you? No one in their right mind would do that consciously, but many people end up doing just that subconsciously when they are deprived of sleep. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drowsy driving results in around 100,000 automobile wrecks each year--and that number is conservative, for fatigue often plays a major role in many accidents where it is not officially documented.

Imagine the lives that could have been saved if each of these people had gotten more sleep. Imagine that anyone, including you, could have wound up a fatality statistic like them just because of not getting an adequate amount of sleep.

Sleep debt is like real-time debt on credit. It is cumulative, and it never dissipates over time. If you owed $5 a year ago and you never paid up, you can be sure that the credit card company will chase you down for every single cent of it (and the interest is all the productivity you lost in the meantime). It is the same with sleep debt; it does not disappear...

...until you pay it back. Yes, by sleeping more than the daily requirement, you are essentially reducing the amount of sleep debt you have. It is that simple. Sleep more. Lower your sleep debt. Live a full life. After reducing your sleep debt, you will feel your productivity increase by volumes (so much so that it outweighs the amount that you would have done otherwise slogging through the night in your sleepy state), your mood uplifted and a much more optimistic outlook on life.

"But I don't believe you", I hear you say, "I tried to catch up on my sleep by sleeping for 12 hours yesterday and I don't see any significant change." Well, that only means that you should sleep MORE. Assuming, for instance, that you had a sleep debt of 30 hours and your daily sleep requirement is 9 hours, an increase of 3 hours of sleep in one day would only reduce your sleep debt to 27 hours, which is still a sizeable amount.

The only solution is to try to catch up on your sleep more often, on a consistent basis, in order to reduce your sleep debt further. You will know it when you have reduced it enough because you will feel yourself being much more alert throughout the day than you used to be.

I used to be a skeptic of this theory about sleep debt. I did not believe that it was possible to "achieve more by sleeping less". I used to be a college student who felt that I did not have enough time to study and get good grades, let alone join student group or be social. I survived (miraculously) on 5 hours of sleep per night. I would drag myself out of bed every morning, entertaining thoughts of skipping class just for that day in exchange for more time with my pillow and bed.

However, over a recent holiday break, I tried catching up on my sleep, and it has worked wonders. I am taking the maximum course load right now, much more work than I used to have, but I am a week ahead in my readings, and I finish my assignments at least half a week before they are due. I feel so happy every single day doing my work and being able to concentrate on what I am doing. And I'm sure I am retaining a whole lot more of it than I would if I were glossing through it with sleepy eyes.

Most importantly, I am getting my healthy 8 hours of sleep every day and am not prone to potentially fatal accidents that may be a result of my sleep deprivation!

You can be like that too! If you are still skeptical, I say try it for a week. Just sleep more than what you think your daily requirement (typically 8-9 hours) is. Do that for at least a week, make it two if you feel drastically sleep deprived, and you will notice the drastic change in your life - simply due to the simple yet beneficial step of sleeping MORE.

Of course, life sometimes makes it hard to get extra or sufficient sleep. But trust me, your life will thank you for it.

After all, why would you, or anyone for that matter, want to live a life where you are not operating at peak alertness and potential? Sleep debt is real, and you have the power to eliminate it. You have the power to optimize your life!

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