The term sleep debt is trending on social media again — but what does it actually mean? Sleep debt, sometimes also referred to as sleep deficit, is when you get less sleep than you need, resulting in racking up "sleep debt."
Unfortunately, paying back sleep debt isn’t as simple as paying off your credit card. Even though you might essentially catch up on any lost hours, the sleep debt is never really paid off. “Sleep is not like the bank, you can’t accumulate a debt and hope to pay it off without consequence,” explains Dr. Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the university of California, explains in a viral TikTok video.
