When I get a lack of sleep, I often have a splitting headache the next day. Other people never get any headaches. What's wrong with me?
When I get a lack of sleep, I often have a splitting headache the next day. Other people never get any headaches. What's wrong with me?
When I get a lack of sleep (or especially multiple nights of bad sleep), I often have a splitting headache the next day that makes me unfunctional and worsens until I get more sleep. Other people I'm with have the exact same sleeping routines and never get any headaches, and can still function despite being tired. What's wrong with me?
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Some people don't require the same amount of sleep to function. I sometimes go weeks only sleeping 4-6 hours a night without being too drained, while my wife is exhausted if she gets less than 8 hours of sleep for a single night. Also, some people need a similar sleep schedule nightly while others can be sleep deprived on the weekdays and make up for the deficit on the weekends.
I did read about a long-sleeper gene and a short-sleeper gene, which made me curious if I could be a long-sleeper
Yeah, I believe my wife read an article relating to this. I'm squarely in the short-sleeper side of things.
The long-term effects of sleep deprivation are devastating, dementia being the main problem. Check out some of the research on the subject.
While this sounds scary, I don't know what I am supposed to do to address the issue. I can't force myself to sleep an extra 3-4 hours a night. I just wake up and can't fall back asleep.
Plus, telling us that a lack of sleep is going to be doom to us later doesn't help us sleep at night, right?
I am on a cycle right now where I can't sleep without ambien and 300mcg melatonin. I've struggled with falling and/or staying asleep my whole life. My brain will calm down some and ill taper off of the ambien again at some point.
Besides the long term health, i am just not a pleasure to be around if i run on no sleep.
Different people need different amounts of sleep to function and be healthy, but you can't "make up for the deficit". If your body needs 8 hours per day and you sleep for 4 hours one night and 12 the next, your body doesn't net it out. (Just using 8 hours as an example, it could be different)
From my understanding, the science for and against this is still being researched. I know it's not a 1:1 "catch-up" period, but I believe that you can somewhat balance your sleep debt over the course of several days to some effectiveness.