The topic of sleep is something that intrigues me, if not most of the people I know. Sleep too much and you wasted good productive hours. Sleep too little and you are depriving yourself of one of life most simplest pleasure.

Sleeping has also spun off a profitable industry. Look at the many type of pillows and beds on the market. Surely that is huge money. And who can forget those late night infor-mercials (who on earth came up with such a word! Darn marketers!). Here is one for those who wants a good laugh.

Wikipedia has one entry on sleep that makes for interesting reading. It serve as a good introduction to the topic generally but I will not recommend to take whatever on it as the absolute truth. What interest me, and hence the topic of this post is Sleep Debt.

Sleep debt is the effect of not getting enough rest and sleep; a large debt causes mental and physical fatigue. Scientists do not agree on how much sleep debt it is possible to accumulate, nor on whether the prevalence of sleep debt among adults has changed appreciably in the industrialized world in recent decades. It is likely that children are sleeping less than they used to in western societies

There are not much researched articles one the web that talks about sleep debt and how we can go around to handle them. And the most recently read article on the topic from Scientific America states the following:

The good news is that, like all debt, with some work, sleep debt can be repaid—though it won’t happen in one extended snooze marathon. Tacking on an extra hour or two of sleep a night is the way to catch up. For the chronically sleep deprived, take it easy for a few months to get back into a natural sleep pattern…

A few months. That is a scary thought to entertain. Given that the exams season had just gone by, many students should be under some form of sleep debt. I do encountered some of these sleep debt issues during my undergraduate and army days. It seems a good and lengthy night rest followed by a series of days of napping takes care of most sleep debt issues.

I may have to lean towards the side that sleep debt varies from people to people and hence the way to handle and repay sleep debt varies too. Napping works for me and hope it works for others too. At least napping kept my productivity level bearable after rushing datelines and such.

Moving on, repaying sleep debt is not the root of the issue. The issue should be at least tackled to allow any sleep debt repayment tactics to be effective. If it is worked or studies related, like rushing projects and reports, then take a look at your working patterns, your co-workers and even your work-life balance as a whole.

Else if it is leisure induced, like levelling up your characters in some MMORPG, or making more friends in some trendy social network or even getting a dose of free videos in other video sharing sites, you should be sleeping my friend. And yes, blogging late into the night as in this post is been made counts for too.

And for the last scenario, if you are sacrificing sleep for the next generation. Good for you if you are procreating. And you get what you sow if you are not sleeping while you change diapers in the middle of the night.

To round off this post, good sleeping habits count for good productivity. Get a regular sleeping pattern and have a conducive sleeping environment. If all yes fail, get that support pillow. You may just need -1 hours of sleep after using it!