sleep debt! myth or truth?

[Wulfman]

Is there relly such as thing as being in sleep debt? Could this be the reason why even after getting the right therapy one doesnt feel better immediately?

Along the lines of what Rooster asked.......

If one has a data-capable machine and the software to monitor their therapy......AND......gets their machine and pressure setting(s) optimized (including getting a good mask) as soon as possible......THEN......they can start looking at the calendar to determine how long it takes to repay their "sleep debt". Yes, I believe it is REAL (in some form).

This therapy is "baby steps".
Far too many people are impatient for the benefits to kick in and don't seem to be able to do enough analytical thinking to figure out what it takes to optimize their therapy......or may be unwilling to do what it takes to achieve it.


Den

[brain_cloud]

I agree but with a different time frame. Observation of healthy people (no SDB) who are sleep-deprived indicates one or two nights of about eight hours sleep each is enough to recover the "sleep debt".

Citation for this?

I'm not going to hold my breath as it 'twould be suicide.

[roster]

I agree but with a different time frame. Observation of healthy people (no SDB) who are sleep-deprived indicates one or two nights of about eight hours sleep each is enough to recover the "sleep debt".

Citation for this?

I'm not going to hold my breath as it 'twould be suicide.

Rooster R. Rooster, On Life and Sleep Apnea (New York: Macmillan, 2005) 45–60
"From years of observation while traveling with associates to Europe, S.A. and Asia and starting up projects requiring 20-hour days and sleep deprivation. I always wondered why some guys handled jet lag and sleep deprivation so easily. Now I know it is the ones who have open airways while sleeping."

[Uncle_Bob]

In my experience there is both short term and long term sleep debt.

And its easier to pay it off with an Resmed S9

[brain_cloud]

I agree but with a different time frame. Observation of healthy people (no SDB) who are sleep-deprived indicates one or two nights of about eight hours sleep each is enough to recover the "sleep debt".

Citation for this?

I'm not going to hold my breath as it 'twould be suicide.

Rooster R. Rooster, On Life and Sleep Apnea (New York: Macmillan, 2005) 45–60
"From years of observation while traveling with associates to Europe, S.A. and Asia and starting up projects requiring 20-hour days and sleep deprivation. I always wondered why some guys handled jet lag and sleep deprivation so easily. Now I know it is the ones who have open airways while sleeping."

For a quite different take by a real sleep researcher, I refer the OP to Chpt. 3 of "The Promise of Sleep" by Dr. Dement. O yes, quite a nice book.

[roster]

For a quite different take by a real sleep researcher, I refer the OP to Chpt. 3 of "The Promise of Sleep" by Dr. Dement. O yes, quite a nice book.

I've read it and have it on my shelf. I think he is wrong on sleep debt. He was often dealing with people who have sleep apnea and don't get good sleep due to breathing and other problems when using CPAP - it is not a perfect therapy.

Dr. Dement did some groundbreaking work, but much of what he did is being refined or refuted by recent research.

[brain_cloud]

For a quite different take by a real sleep researcher, I refer the OP to Chpt. 3 of "The Promise of Sleep" by Dr. Dement. O yes, quite a nice book.

I've read it and have it on my shelf. I think he is wrong on sleep debt. He was often dealing with people who have sleep apnea and don't get good sleep due to breathing and other problems when using CPAP - it is not a perfect therapy.

Dr. Dement did some groundbreaking work, but much of what he did is being refined or refuted by recent research.

Capital! Now we are getting somewhere. Since you have your finger on the pulse of recent research, it should be a snap to let us in on something that moves us at least some ways away from Dement's position on sleep debt (a pretty unintuitive one, admittedly) towards yours.

And just to sharpen the dialectical points by oversimplifying a tad (but yours no more than his, mind) the opposing positions are as follows IIRC:

Rooster: 2 nights of 8hrs sleep (on healthy sleepers with large sleep debt) pays off the sleep debt.
Dement: 2 nights of 8hrs sleep does precisely nothing for significant sleep debt other than keeping it from growing larger still (for the average person).

[BlackSpinner]

No I have agree with Rooster on this one. (OMG I am agreeing with the cock of the walk)

I haven't got the citations but I do remember reading on this with respect to shift work and flight attendants time change issues. But it had to do with healthy breathing people. I believe they were military studies to do with sleep deprivations and accuracy especially around nuclear installations. Both my father and sister worked shift work for years and they could recover in no time too.

[kennethryan]

But how many people, due to schedule demands, sleep short all week then "sleep in" on the weekends and say they are catching up?

*raises hand*

5-6 hours per weeknight, 8-9 on weekends. If I don't get that weekend sleep-in, I'm virtually useless on Monday.
Work demands, kid demands, dinner and dinner cleanup, making lunches the next day, and a little downtime
reading cpaptalk, Groklaw and Bad Astronomy and I'm pretty much done.

And yes, the sleep I get during the week is not enough. Once in a while after getting the kids out the door I go
back to bed for an hour just because I don't feel safe driving.

[brain_cloud]

No I have agree with Rooster on this one. (OMG I am agreeing with the cock of the walk)

I haven't got the citations but I do remember reading on this with respect to shift work and flight attendants time change issues. But it had to do with healthy breathing people. I believe they were military studies to do with sleep deprivations and accuracy especially around nuclear installations. Both my father and sister worked shift work for years and they could recover in no time too.

I fear we are talking about two different issues--this isn't about phase shift.

[BlackSpinner]

No also about sleep deprivation and sleep debt with regard to nuclear installations safety.

[GTOJim]

From my personal experience, no one will ever convince me there isn't such a thing as sleep dept.

Once my sleep apnea was under control my life changed. It took a long time before this happened, more about this later.

As soon as my apnea was under control every time I woke I was dreaming. When my alarm woke me in the am I was dreaming, hit snooze and when the alarm woke me eight minutes later I was having a different dream. Hitting the snooze yet again I would wake having another dream. This pattern continued for months, I would estimate a good six months. It was so wonderful it is hard to put into words, dreaming, waking up feeling refreshed in the mornings. Something I thought would never happen again for the rest of my life.

Previously most mornings I woke with a head ache, basically drug myself out of bed, wondering how I could possibly make it through the day, always feeling like crap.
I would have given just about anything to wake up just one time feeling refreshed.

The short version of a very long story. When I got my CPAP I used it all night, every night. 1 1/2 years later and not feeling even a tiny bit better I went to a sleep doc and requested a sleep study, he refused, no reason given. Fast forward, I purchased an auto CPAP and software for about $900 out of pocket which turned out to be the best investment I have ever made. My prescribed pressure was to low, combined with my DME setting my CPAP to the wrong pressure, I wasn't getting any benefit from my CPAP.

From what I understand, with untreated sleep apnea, a person never reaches rem sleep. When first getting sleep apena under control other stages of sleep get passed by, instead going right into rem sleep. Later after the sleep debt is being repaid all of the stages of sleep return to a normal pattern.

[kteague]

I like to think of the need for sleep like credit card debt, with our health being an exacting lender. If I don't make at least a reasonable effort toward payments, I will at some point be in crisis on the account. If I make only the minimum payment, I may avoid an acute situation, but will live in a chronic worsening state, and in the end, it could cost me far more than I ever planned to pay, in ways I never imagined. Ok, I know that's a very loose comparison, but having gone thru financial adversity, it helped me be mindful to take my sleep very seriously and understand I had to do my best to work thru resolutions or there would be consequences.

As with anything regarding sleep, there are so many variables that I doubt any "conclusions" can be considered absolute. When comparing the sleep deprived, how much diligence is there to assuring that the subjects really have had like sleep in the time leading up to the study period, or that they have similar sleep architecture on a nightly basis, etc. For me it's, if you feel the need, get more sleep. If you feel the need but don't get more, expect consequences in how your recovery looks. If you don't feel the need or it is short term and minimal, count your blessings.