"My Sleep Debt Is Insane – Can I Ever Catch Up?"

When I first learnt about the concept of ‘sleep debt’ I felt sick to my stomach. I already knew I’d missed out on an unfathomable amount of sleep in my life (thanks for that, insomnia and sleep paralysis) but the idea that I was also in some type of debt was alarming. Despite first learning about sleep debt in my mid-twenties, I never really bothered to get a firm understanding of what exactly it is. I didn’t search it up online for fear of finding out information that would make me feel even worse about my sleep struggles, but it’s always been an amorphous concept at the back of my mind when I’ve had a sleepless night.

Now that I’m in my thirties, I’m trying to address my sleep issues head on and have made some progress – I’m not permanently tired these days, just frequently tired. Yay! – but I’ve realised it’s high time I actually understand what sleep debt is and, more importantly, whether I can ever get back in the clear. To find out, I asked Dr Moira Junge, a registered health psychologist and CEO of the Sleep Health Foundation, to unpack the concept for me.

The lowdown on sleep debt

First things first, Dr Junge wants to make it clear that the information she’s sharing doesn’t apply to people struggling with chronic insomnia. If you find yourself in that position, it’s a lot more nuanced and worrying about sleep debt will only make things worse – instead, insomniacs need to take their focus away from how many hours they’ve slept and seek professional help if necessary.

But for everyone else who’s eager for the lowdown on sleep debt, she shares her definition with me: "Sleep debt, which is also sometimes called sleep deficit, is the term used for when we are falling short of our required amount of sleep. It’s the difference between the amount of sleep we need and the amount that we actually get.”

Dr Junge tells me that while sleep debt can, as you imagine, adversely impact your quality of life, it all hinges on how long and how severe the sleep deficit is. “We know that about 40% (at least) of Australians struggle to regularly get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep per night and people who haven’t been getting enough sleep will tell you that they feel less patient, more tired and have less energy and less ability to focus.”

Aside from feeling sluggish and sleepy, I ask her if accruing sleep debt comes with any longer term health risks. “If the sleep debt is prolonged and on a regular basis then there is increased risk of some chronic health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and stroke. Having inadequate sleep is also linked to reduced immune function, metabolic disruption and being overweight or obese, and a greater risk of accidents and injuries,” she says.

Can you get rid of your sleep debt?

If, like me, you know you’re in sleep debt, is it possible to catch up? Dr Junge explains that it really depends on the causes of the sleep deficit, but generally speaking yes and no. “It’s best to avoid sleep debt as it can be hard to catch up but life happens and sometimes it’s unavoidable to lose sleep. So although you don’t get those hours back, you can get back on track and in most cases you can catch up in the coming days with better sleep quality if not the quantity.”

She says that instead of aiming to get, say, four lost hours of sleep back, just know that your body will attempt to pay back the sleep debt by getting deeper sleep over the next few days once there’s an opportunity for your regular sleep patterns to reestablish themselves. But she warns that, like most things health related, “It will take days and won’t just happen overnight”. She suggests that people in sleep debt focus on increasing their sleep time slowly by 15 to 30 minutes at a time, until they reach their optimal amount of sleep, noting that everyone’s sleep needs are different.

The takeaway

As for her final words of advice? “Stay calm, try to not overthink things, focus on improving your sleep hygiene and consistently create enough time for sleep, and your body will do the rest. Both napping and sleeping in on weekends may help ease symptoms like fatigue or daytime sleepiness, but they are sometimes not enough to adequately recover from sleep debt if the sleep debt is occurring regularly with no attempt to get back into a healthy sleep routine.”