Why You Are Chronically Sleep Deprived and What to Do About It
Are you someone who gets up too early on weekdays and then allows yourself to sleep in on the weekends?
If so, you are not doing yourself a favor.
In order to fall asleep at night, your body relies on something called the sleep drive.
You feel this at night when you feel sleepy.
Your eyes droop, and you yawn.
Before the sleep drive kicks in, you won't feel sleepy and therefore won't be able to fall asleep.
So, what’s that got to do with adjusting your wake-up time according to the day of the week?
The sleep drive results from the build-up of a chemical called adenosine.
This chemical increases in your brain while you are awake. The more hours awake, the more adenosine.
The more adenosine, the greater your sleep drive when it's time to fall asleep.
When you sleep in on the weekend, you push your window of awake time forward so that you are not ready to fall asleep until later at night.
Then, what happens when you go back to the weekday routine and have to get up earlier for work?
You cannot fall asleep earlier — the sleep drive hasn't yet kicked into gear.
Then, you don’t get enough sleep all week. And try to make up for it over the weekend.
But sleep doesn’t work like a benefit you can put in like a bank deposit and then withdraw later.
This is a setup for chronic sleep deprivation.
It's much better to choose a time to wake up that you can maintain every day of the week. Your bedtime should also be consistent.
You might find this idea off-putting and even a bit puritanical.
"But," you think, "how about going out with friends on Saturday night?"
Well, that's fine.
Just get up at your regular wake-up time on Sunday morning.
Then you'll be able to go to bed at a good time on Sunday night. This is a strategy for getting enough sleep all week long.
Your body will thank you for sticking to a sleep schedule.