Sleep Debt and REM Rebound

It’s important to note how your body reacts when you do in fact deprive yourself of sleep, even partially, over a period of time. Partial sleep deprivation for a college student is when you receive less than nine hours of sleep per night. When someone receives less than adequate sleep over time, that person accumulates what is known as sleep debt. You can think of this as the body’s way of logging how much sleep you miss. Just like total sleep deprivation (seen in Peter Tripp’s case), accumulating too much sleep debt through partial sleep deprivation can also lead to mental and behavioral deficiency, though less intense. The body tends to remember the loss of REM sleep in particular during sleep deprivation. This was evident in the case of Dement (1960) in which certain subjects were deprived of NREM and others of REM sleep. The latter group seemed to exhibit a higher amount of “REM rebound”, meaning there was a higher proportion of REM sleep (more than 25%) in their nightly sleep cycles after deprivation. This is significant because it it shows the importance of getting a full night’s sleep. If you’re not getting good quality sleep, chances are you are not getting the REM sleep that your body needs. Think about that next time you choose to go to that party the night before an 8 AM lecture!