Sleep Debt: What Does it Mean? By: Mridula Murugan

 Sleep Debt: What Does it Mean?

By: Mridula Murugan

As a high school senior, I’ve struggled with sleeping for a long time and consistently. Over time, however, this can have a negative impact on my health, and yours, too. When you’re still young and have a growing mind, sleeping fewer hours than your body needs can result in sleep debt. As this sleep debt accumulates, you’ll start to feel the effects of not sleeping enough and might end up struggling with more severe consequences. To provide a better example of sleep debt, here’s what it looks like: 

You have a test to study for and decide to stay up until 1 AM, so you only get 6 hours of sleep when you should’ve had a full 8. Now, you have a sleep debt of 2 hours. It turns out that you had a test every day of school that week, and as it adds up, you now have over 10 hours of sleep debt! If your late-night habits are getting progressively worse, those thirty minutes of extra time on your phone can seem insignificant now, but will show up in your decreasing good health further on in the future. 

In the short term, a bad night of sleep or a few weeks of sleep debt could mean feeling tired throughout the day, poor focus, or being unable to retain much information for future tests. In the future, this could lead to hypertension, or high blood pressure, or even other cardiovascular diseases. To avoid these repercussions, practice good sleep habits to avoid sleep debt. Figure out how much sleep you need and what time you need to go to bed in order to reach that goal. This could vary depending on your age. Keep track of your sleep using your phone, a smartwatch, or just a note to keep track of your bedtime. Get rid of any distractions from a good night of sleep, so make sure not to consume caffeine close to your bedtime. Most likely, you may already have sleep debt, so try to recover and rebuild this relationship with sleep by taking short naps and sleeping more on the weekends!

Works Cited

Felson, Sabrina. “What Is Sleep Debt?” WebMD, 17 July 2023, www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/what-is-sleep-debt.