Dynamics of recovery sleep from chronic sleep restriction

Sleep loss is common in our 24/7 society with many people routinely sleeping less than they need. Sleep debt is a term describing the difference between the amount of sleep needed, and the amount of sleep obtained. Sleep debt can accumulate over time, resulting in poor cognitive performance, increased sleepiness, poor mood, and a higher risk for accidents. Over the last 30 years, the sleep field has increasingly focused attention on recovery sleep and the ways we can recover from a sleep debt faster and more effectively. While there are still many unanswered questions and debates about the nature of recovery sleep, such as the exact components of sleep important for recovery of function, the amount of sleep needed to recover and the impacts of prior sleep history on recovery, recent research has revealed several important attributes about recovery sleep: (1) the dynamics of the recovery process is impacted by the type of sleep loss (acute versus chronic), (2) mood, sleepiness, and other aspects of cognitive performance recover at different rates, and (3) the recovery process is complex and dependent on the length of recovery sleep and the number of recovery opportunities available. This review will summarize the current state of the literature on recovery sleep, from specific studies of recovery sleep dynamics to napping, “banking” sleep and shiftwork, and will suggest the next steps for research in this field. This paper is part of the David F. Dinges Festschrift Collection. This collection is sponsored by Pulsar Informatics and the Department of Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.