Can I Make up for Lost Sleep on the Weekend?

What we tend to do is create sleep debt during the week, trying to meet all the demands and expectations and trying to get in to work, get the kids off to school. What we then do is say to ourselves, I've worked hard all week I'm going to sleep in on the weekend, and what you do when you sleep in on the weekend is really a problem.

Because you really can't make up for lost sleep without having consequences because when you sleep in on the weekend there is a clock in your brain that knows what time you're supposed to get up. And every single time you open your eyes in the morning, that clock is set and helps set rhythms for wake and sleep and many other bio rhythms.

So when you sleep in on the weekend, you actually reset the clock in your brain. So let's say you need eight hours of sleep and you get up everyday during the week at 8 AM. Well if you've not gotten enough sleep and you're sleeping in on the weekend and get up at 10 AM, that is now as far as your brain is concerned the new wake up time and it resets all the rhythms for that wake up time.

When you try to go to sleep Sunday night you're going to find you're not going to be ready to go to bed at the time you normally do. Your time to bed will be shifted by two hours. So you'll have difficulty transitioning to sleep and on Monday morning, you won't be ready to get up at 8 AM.

It will be 10 AM. That your body will be saying is the time you should get up. So it really is disruptive to that sleep pattern, and can have significant consequences because of the stress it causes on your body.