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🌙 Sleep
How much sleep debt do you carry?
Calculate your cumulative sleep deficit.
Rate how often each applies: 1 (never) to 5 (daily).
1I sleep less than 7 hours on weeknights.
2I sleep 2+ hours longer on weekends to "catch up."
3I need an alarm to wake up — I'd sleep through it without one.
4I feel drowsy during the afternoon (2-4pm slump).
5I fall asleep within 5 minutes of lying down.
6I rely on caffeine to stay alert during the day.
7I doze off during meetings, lectures, or while watching TV.
8I have difficulty concentrating or making decisions.
9I feel more emotional or irritable than usual.
10I've had microsleeps (brief blanking out) during the day.
Sleep debt: you can't cheat biology
Sleep debt is the cumulative effect of not getting enough sleep. Your body keeps a running tab — and the interest rate is brutal.
Score interpretation
- 10-18: Minimal sleep debt — you're getting enough rest
- 19-28: Moderate debt — your body is compensating but it's catching up
- 29-38: Significant debt — cognitive impairment is measurable
- 39-50: Critical — you're operating impaired, equivalent to being legally drunk
The science of sleep debt
- 17 hours without sleep = cognitive impairment of 0.05% BAC (Dawson & Reid 1997)
- 24 hours without sleep = equivalent to 0.10% BAC — legally drunk
- Falling asleep in <5 minutes means you're severely sleep-deprived (healthy: 10-20 min)
- "Catching up" on weekends doesn't fully reverse metabolic damage (Depner et al. 2019)
- Drowsy driving causes 100,000 crashes/year in the US (NHTSA)
Sources: Dawson & Reid (1997), Depner et al. (2019, weekend recovery), Van Dongen et al. (2003, cumulative deficit), Walker (2017).