I'm not sure if this is in the right sub-forum but hey. So basically, last night i kinda missed a whole night sleep and have been awake for just over 32 hours now. I feel kinda tired but nothing too major, problem is that to get my reccomended 8 hours sleep tonight and make up for last night as well i would have had to been asleep from 2:20pm today (it's now 4:13pm) till when i wake up for my paper round in the morning...so what i'm really asking is if you miss out on sleep, are you supposed to make up for the hours you shoulda had; just get a normal night sleep and ignore what you missed or make a compromise of like 12 hours sleep?
Recently I haven't been sleeping too well and have been up for a few days. But I have never been able to sleep past say 11am, so I haven't caught up on the hours I missed. But, I am doing good now. Once it is past, you don't miss it. Some people will be awake for a 30 hrs or so and then sleep for just as long before they feel themselves again. Everyone's different.
I read, somewhere, that you can never catch up on lost sleep. It's just gone. I have no idea whether that's true, or not, but if it is, you probably only need as much sleep as you usually get, or maybe just a little more - certainly not 16 hrs worth. One of the things working against you is your own Circadian Rythm. That's the internal clock that we all have, to some degree or another. As I get older, I notice that my internal clock is more insistent than it used to be. I wake up around 6:30 every morning, no matter when I go to bed. Sometimes, if I'm on vacation for instance, I can work myself up to sleeping an extra couple of hours, but mostly it's 6:30 every morning. When I was a kid, I could pull a 36-40hr stretch and then sleep a normal night and shake it off. Those days are long gone.
Yeah, don't worry about counting the number of hours and trying to make them up. Your body/mind will adjust. But you need to crash periodically to keep from losing it. BTW, those numbers about 8 hours are always thrown out by the experts. Now I have heard that older ppl don't need as much sleep and I can remember when I could sleep 8 hours a night in my 20s, but now I get 6 hours sleep and function quite well on that. If left to my own devices, like no alarm clock on the weekend I will maybe go 7 hours but if I do sleep 8 hours my body lets me know it has been laying idle too long.
I remember a study done a few years ago that said you lose the need for longer periods of sleep once you get older. Another study said people who have around four hours sleep a night, live longer!
My internal clock tells me when it's 7:15 every day, even on holiday. I like the morning so it's not a problem. As far as I'm aware it's impossible to make up for lost sleep. If you sleep longer the next night or whatever it's no substitute.
