The effects of sleep debt
I had a very nasty case of insomnia 7 years ago. Without going into details of my associated illness, I went 2-3 months with almost no sleep due to hypnic jerks/sleep starts. When I told people I couldn't sleep, they assumed I just had difficulty falling asleep, but I literally could not fall asleep. It is terrifying. For whatever reason, whenever I miss a significant amount of sleep (one or two nights) I get very bad sleep jerks to the point I would start to fall asleep 30+ times a night and then wake back up immediately. The only two ways past it I found was a benzo sleeping pill or alcohol and both were hit and miss (just to inhibit the jerks - I had no problem starting to actually fall asleep). Even then, my body seems to build up massive adrenaline after sleep deprivation, so I would wake up 1-2 hours later in a cold sweat and have to start all over. The more sleep I miss, the worse it gets, and after you miss several nights in a row you get VERY "sleep anxious", and so the cycle continues. Once I'm caught up, I'm fine and the jerks disappear completely, but it takes a while. I just had another case of the jerks this year for the first time since then but I was able to get over it in about 3 weeks this time. Still, it freaked me out as I had considered myself past that and had gotten a little bit careless.<p>The point of this long winded intro: Don't take sleep for granted. If you sleep well, cherish it. Ever since this time I keep immaculate sleep hygiene. I go to bed on time, at the same time, get daily sunlight, don't eat before bed, and 9/10 times I'm asleep in minutes and sleep great. I still have occasional early wake insomnia, but for the most part sleep well.<p>Occasionally I think about things like mentioned in this article and what the long term effects will be, but mostly I just don't worry about it. There isn't anything I can do about it at this point except try to sleep as best I can from this point forward.