Dear steve39-ga;
Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to answer your interesting
question. I’m going to approach your answer from another direction so
if it seems like I got off track it is intentional. I’ll explain in
the end.
By all accounts, it is not the “amount” of quality sleep you get but
the consistency with which you do it. Studies have shown that those
who practice regular sleeping intervals commensurate with their needs
do better at tasking than other who sleep irregularly. So, for
example, if going to bed at 10 pm and sleeping until 8 am works for
you personally, you should do that as often as possible, rather than
robbing yourself of the rest to which your body is accustomed and
trying to “repay” it later by occasionally sleeping in.
This study, from Harvard, clearly shows that while catching up on
sleep might help you physically recover from fatigue, it does little
in the way of actual improvement:
“NEW REASON TO "SLEEP ON IT": STUDY SHOWS IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP TO
MEMORY CONSOLIDATION AND TASK PERFORMANCE”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/11/001122075125.htm
“To see whether the night of sleep actually caused the improvement,
Stickgold trained 24 subjects in the same visual discrimination task,
which consisted of identifying the orientation of three diagonal bars
flashed for a sixtieth of a second on the lower left quadrant of a
computer screen full of horizontal stripes. Half of the subjects went
to sleep that night while the other half were kept awake until the
second night of the study. Both groups were allowed to sleep on the
second and third nights. On the fourth day, both groups were tested on
the visual discrimination task. Those who slept the first night
identified the correct orientation of the diagonal bars much more
rapidly than they had the first day. The other group showed no
improvement, despite the two nights of catch-up sleep.”
Studies also suggest that the ability to catch up on sleep is relative
to age and gender:
“PAYING THE PRICE FOR CHEATING ON SLEEP”
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/writing/Resources/essays/cheating_sleep.html
“The Chicago team is now conducting further studies of sleep
deprivation in women and older adults. Dr. Van Cauter says she expects
the consequences in older people to be even worse, since the time
spent in deep sleep, the most restful kind, normally declines
drastically with age -- from 100 minutes a night in people aged 20 to
25 to less than 20 minutes by middle age. When young people become
sleep-deprived, they can make up for the loss of deep sleep, but older
people may not be able to compensate adequately, she said.”
What we’ve learned over the years is that sleep loss is cumulative,
but not compensated equally by our attempt to sleep excessively in
order to make up for it. Lost sleep must be repaid in a timely fashion
or the window of opportunity to correct the deficiency closes. In
addition, the body has been cheated of the appropriate time periods in
each cycle of sleep, some much deeper than others, that cannot be
recovered through brief napping or infrequent periods of longer sleep.
Dr. James B. Maas (jbm1@cornell.edu), a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential
Fellow, Professor and past chairman of the Department of Psychology at
Cornell University, notes this in his book entitled: POWER SLEEP,
explains it this way:
“The effect of each night's sleep on your health is cumulative- in
other words, you can liken your lack or excess of sleep to an open
bank account. Each of us maintains this personal sleep bank account:
any sleep you get is a deposit, or an asset, while any hour of
wakefulness is a withdrawal, or a debt. As every hour you spend awake
increases your sleep debt, you must continually make sleep deposits in
your account.”
The key word here is CONTINUALLY. If you make a serious attempt to
immediately pay back what you have lost you stand some change or
regaining the sleep, but by waiting too long – well, if you’re like
most of us you’ve unintentionally written a hot check at least once or
twice in your life. It comes back to haunt you eventually.
This article refers to studies conducted by Emmanuel Mignot and
colleagues at Stanford University (published in the British Medical
Journal) and compares lost sleep to something we can all relate to:
ARE YOU GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP?
http://www.northcountypress.com/I00-1-10/a0000013.htm
“You cannot make up for large sleep losses during the week by sleeping
in on weekends any more than you can make up for lack of regular
exercise and overeating during the week by working out and dieting
only on the weekends…You can, however, reclaim a few winks by taking
short naps.”
Now, you may ask what all this has to do with your question since you
are inquiring as to whether sleeping MORE than normal helps in some
way to create a “surplus” of sleep, and enables you to sleep less at
other times while remaining just as healthy and alert. The answer is
much the same. I explained all this so you would know the advantages
of consistency and the importance of sleep quality. You see, while you
are not necessarily harmed by longer periods of sleep, the “surplus”
you might feel you have gained is not only unequal to the debt (need)
you have acquired; the surplus is in fact non-existent. You may begin
a day ultra-fresh from 10 or 11 hours of sleep but the following
night, presumably running on the perceived surplus, you are doing the
same harm by depriving yourself of the consistent sleep pattern your
body expects. If, however, you don’t stay awake too long and you repay
the debt without driving the body too hard, you can make up for it to
some degree, as long as you only do this occasionally. Remember,
consistency is extremely important for quality sleep.
The answer to your question, then, is “no”. You cannot build up a
productive sleep surplus and expect to balance the scales at intervals
of normal or excessive sleep. Though it may help you to feel refreshed
or maybe even revitalized, physiologically, you regain nothing and
benefit even less.
You can read more about sleep surplus in this article, which actually
deals with another matter. But the first page or some explains the
myths associated with the notion that one can store sleep and function
normally:
http://www.apta.com/services/safety/fatigue/05c_sched_intro_&_aggregate_larger_text_retry_result.pdf
Below you will find that I have carefully defined my search strategy
for you in the event that you need to search for more information. By
following the same type of searches that I did you may be able to
enhance the research I have provided even further. I hope you find
that that my research exceeds your expectations. If you have any
questions about my research please post a clarification request prior
to rating the answer. Otherwise, I welcome your rating and your final
comments and I look forward to working with you again in the near
future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.
Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga
INFORMATION SOURCES
POWER SLEEP
http://www.powersleep.org
ARE YOU GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP?
http://www.northcountypress.com/I00-1-10/a0000013.htm
“PAYING THE PRICE FOR CHEATING ON SLEEP”
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/writing/Resources/essays/cheating_sleep.html
“NEW REASON TO "SLEEP ON IT": STUDY SHOWS IMPORTANCE OF SLEEP TO
MEMORY CONSOLIDATION AND TASK PERFORMANCE”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/11/001122075125.htm
SEARCH STRATEGY
SEARCH ENGINE USED:
Google ://www.google.com
SEARCH TERMS USED:
“SLEEP SURPLUS”
“MAKE UP FOR” SLEEP
REGAIN LOST SLEEP
CONSISTENT SLEEP PATTERNS |
