> You're trying to sleep off a debt that you've lumbered your brain and body with during the week, and wouldn't it be lovely if sleep worked like that? Sadly it doesn't.
But it does somewhat, just not fully.
Thought experiment for the author. Say he slept 6 hours every day during the week, and come the weekend, is he going to say that there is no benefit to sleeping more than 8 hours, or will that 10+ hour sleep do any good over 8 hours? I strongly suspect that, yes, "catch up sleep" is useful, but just not 100% restorative. But the original claim sounds more like the former, "catch up sleep isn't useful".
But it does somewhat, just not fully.
Thought experiment for the author. Say he slept 6 hours every day during the week, and come the weekend, is he going to say that there is no benefit to sleeping more than 8 hours, or will that 10+ hour sleep do any good over 8 hours? I strongly suspect that, yes, "catch up sleep" is useful, but just not 100% restorative. But the original claim sounds more like the former, "catch up sleep isn't useful".