6 small changes you can make to get out of sleep debt

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When you’re all revved up for the new semester, it’s easy to skip sleep in favor of diving into your new coursework. (OK, it’s also easy to skip sleep in favor of TikTok, Netflix, and YouTube.) If you find yourself being a night owl too often, you might be racking up some serious sleep debt.

“Sleep debt is an accumulation of sleep deprivation,” says Dr. Michael Breus, a clinicalpsychologist in California and fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Think of your sleep like a savings account, where the minimum balance has to be roughly eight hours a night (though some of us might need more or less)—for every night you don’t put that amount in your sleep account, you accumulate sleep debt. And trust us, that can add up fast. 

On average, people may be experiencing even more sleep debt since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. With added stress and uncertainty, many people are having difficulty falling asleep—experts have even coined the term “coronasomnia.” According to research by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Americans searched Google for “insomnia” 2.77 million times in the first five months of 2020, which is an increase of 58 percent compared to the same time period for the previous three years.

Accumulating sleep debt can leave you feeling depleted. Lack of sleep can mess with:

Academic performance

Students who are sleep deprived struggle academically and are at a higher risk of failing compared with those who are getting enough rest on a consistent basis, says a 2014 study in Nature and Science of Sleep. 

Mood

Being overtired and having an irregular bedtime can have a major effect on your mood. A 2021 study of young adults—more specifically, interns training to be physicians—conducted by the University of Michigan’s academic medical center found that an irregular sleep schedule increased the interns’ risk of experiencing symptoms of depression, and getting less sleep negatively impacted their mood the following day.

Body

Sleep debt affects your body in a number of ways: It increases the production of your hunger hormones (while suppressing the hormones that tell you you’re full), raises levels of your stress hormones, and even messes with your body’s ability to use sugar effectively. 

Sleep debt can snowball fast. The more sleep deprived you are, the less likely you might be to notice. So how do you know—and how do you fix it?

How to tell if you’re in sleep debt

The simplest way to tell if you’re racking up sleep debt is to do the math. If the average young adult needs 8 hours of sleep each night and you get only 6 most days of the week, by the time Friday rolls around you’re 10 hours in debt.

The average person needs somewhere between seven and nine hours nightly, but “your absolute best judgment of whether you are getting enough sleep is if you can wake up at the time you’re supposed to without an alarm clock,” says Dr. Shelley Hershner, director of the Collegiate Sleep Disorder Clinic at the University of Michigan. 

6 ways to get out of sleep debt

Playing catch-up by sleeping your weekends away isn’t ideal, partially because you’ll throw off your sleep schedule for the following week. That contributes to—you guessed it—more sleep debt. The most realistic way to get out of sleep debt is by preventing it in the first place. And the beginning of the year is the best time to do that. Here’s how:

1. 15 minutes earlier to bed; 15 minutes later to rise

If getting to bed an hour earlier every night seems daunting, try small schedule changes, like getting to bed 15 minutes earlier and streamlining your morning routine so you can sleep 15 minutes longer. You just clocked 30 more minutes.

2. Be strategic about your class schedule

“If you can have a 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. class, you’ll probably do better than if you schedule an 8 a.m. class,” says Dr. Hershner. Look for classes that have later schedules or offer recorded video lectures so you can tune in anytime.

3. Learn to love the nap

When you just can’t fit in enough sleep at night, naps can help. A 2019 study found that adolescent students who slept only five hours at night, but were given a one-and-a-half-hour afternoon nap, were better able to recall pictures and facts than students who slept six and a half hours a night without a nap. Just make sure you don’t snooze after 3 p.m., says Dr. Hershner. “That can throw off your nighttime sleep,” she adds.

4. Keep your tech at arm’s length

The blue light emitted from your laptop or phone suppresses your levels of melatonin, a hormone that affects your circadian rhythms, says Harvard Health Publications. And that isn’t a good thing for your sleep. To minimize the impact of blue light on your sleep, the National Sleep Foundation recommends switching off your screens at least 30 minutes before bed. If you’re not going to unplug entirely, at least switch on your phone’s blue light filter and don’t hold it so close to you. “You want [your tech] as far from the face as possible,” says Dr. Hershner. And if you think you might be tempted by late-night scrolling, Dr. Hershner recommends flipping your phone over and putting it on airplane mode when you go to bed.

5. Get outside

With the rise of remote learning during the pandemic, it’s become easier to avoid leavingthe house (or even your bed, thanks to Zoom’s background swaps). This might sound like it would encourage more sleep, but for many, this has translated to additional screen time and sleep disruptions. To counter that, make an effort to get outside before noon, even just to walk the dog or take a stroll. A 2017 study in Sleep Health found that exposure to natural sunlight, in the morning and throughout the day, helped improve the quality of participants’ night sleep. 

6. Get in a Zen zone

Meditation can be “really good for helping people transition into sleep,” says Dr. Hershner. To help you keep a consistent sleep schedule, make your bed into a relaxing sleep oasis. “Do not study on your bed. Let your bed be for sleeping only,” says Jieying Q., a second-year student at Notre Dame of Maryland University. Close the books and download a meditation app to help quiet your mind before bed—just make sure you’re not taking the phone into your sleep zone.