How to catch up on lost sleep
By Liji Thomas, MD
While it is tempting to stay up late on weekdays trying to get everything done, and then sleep in on weekend mornings to ‘catch up’ on sleep, more and more studies are demonstrating that this is simply not possible. In other words, sleeping extra to make up for earlier sleep deprivation does not result in a return to normal attention spans, muscle reaction times, or concentration.
The effects of lost sleep linger for a very long time, in terms of performance and attention deficits. It is also noteworthy that the sleep-deprived person finally loses the ability to gauge the level of sleepiness, and falsely thinks of himself as functioning normally when performance indicators are way down.
http://www.news-medical.net/health/How-to-catch-up-on-lost-sleep.aspx
