What is Sleep Banking? Can it Make Up for Lack of Sleep?

Isabel del Barrio 6 min. of reading Fitness Leave a comment

‘Sleep banking’ refers to the practice of intentionally getting extra sleep in advance to help mitigate the negative effects of future sleep deprivation.
While oversleeping does not make up for the sleep debt accumulated, there is scientific evidence that it can help in situations requiring sleep deprivation, avoiding the effects such as lack of attention and concentration, physical fatigue, etc.

It is a strategy of accumulating a few extra hours of sleep in the days leading up to a situation where sleep deprivation is expected, such as military operations, days before a competition, travel, night shifts, and on-call duties, etc.

In this way, it has been found to minimize and counteract some of the negative effects of sleep deprivation.

Sleep fulfills important biological functions and influences health and longevity through related endocrine and metabolic systems. Sleep debt, circadian misalignment, and sleep disorders derived from obstructive sleep apnea are widespread in today’s society and accumulate over a lifetime, as recovery sleep is not completely restorative.

Sleep disorders accumulated throughout life influence the aging process and the development of age-related diseases.

Research on ‘sleep need’ often involves various sleep reduction methods, but experimental paradigms involving ‘sleep extension’ have also been used in multiple studies. And this is the topic we address in this article.

In particular, several studies have reported that prolonged sleep reduces sleep propensity and improves performance and mood, suggesting that sleep not only allows for a discharge of previously accumulated sleep need but may also provide a sleep reserve that could be used during subsequent wakefulness.

However, relatively few studies have directly addressed this hypothesis, and the study by Arnal and colleagues provides new and important data.

How does sleep banking work?

The basic idea is to accumulate sleep beforehand before a period where our rest and precisely the sleep time available will be affected.

We can find various scientific studies related to the concept and the possibility of its beneficial effects against subsequent sleep deprivation.

One of the first articles on this topic suggested the possibility of a “sleep bank,” which was a surprise to most sleep researchers.

Additionally, the data suggested a faster recovery of various neurobehavioral variables in subjects who had obtained a ‘Sleep Bank’ before sleep restriction.

In fact, the study’s conclusions:

The extent to which sleep restriction affects alertness and performance objectively measured, and the speed at which these alterations are subsequently reversed through sleep recovery, varies depending on the amount of nightly sleep obtained before the sleep restriction period.

Allison Brager, neurobiologist and author of “Meathead: Unraveling the Athletic Brain“, says that sleep should be thought of like a bank account:

‘The more you deposit, the more you withdraw, and the more you withdraw, the more you have to deposit back to bring the balance back to normal,’ she explains.

This author explains that the results show that people who sleep an extra hour each day before the planned sleep deprivation period perform better.

Benefits of sleep banking for athletic performance

It is a fact that during rest and sleep, all processes of physical recovery, cognitive recovery, hormonal regulation, as well as tissue repair and growth hormone production, among others, occur.

This is why rest is a vital factor for athletic performance.

The proposed ‘Sleep Banking’ strategy can be beneficial for athletes when they are exposed to situations where sleep and rest hours will decrease, yet it is necessary for performance and cognitive functions to be at optimal levels.

For example: long trips before matches and/or sports events (especially those where time zone changes disrupt circadian rhythms), days before an important test or competition. In these cases, rest is usually not restorative, and fatigue accumulates, with the sensation of tiredness and lower attention levels being quite high.

An effective strategy would be to increase sleep and rest hours in the days leading up to such events to avoid a significant drop in performance and attention.

In this way, athletes can benefit from it, with a good pre-sleep hygiene strategy, as well as good nutrition and proper hydration to minimize the negative effects of sleep deprivation.

How to Practice Sleep Banking

Now, to avoid the harmful effects of sleep deprivation, Sleep Banking can be implemented in your daily routine in 3 different ways:

Increasing the number of daily sleep hours (for this, you can go to bed a little earlier).
Introducing small naps of 20-30 minutes a day.
Increasing the number of sleep hours during weekends/non-working days to accumulate sleep before an intense week.

Conclusions

It is important to note that, regardless of implementing this Sleep Banking strategy in anticipation of future sleep deprivation, the importance of having good sleep hygiene and establishing certain habits that allow you to regularly have good rest and regular sleep.

Avoid exposure to screens in the hours before going to bed.
Go to bed at the same time every day.
Stay well hydrated before bed.
A hot bath/shower helps induce sleep.
Breathing exercises that improve parasympathetic system activation to prepare the body and organism to leave the alert state and prepare for rest.

Recommended Bibliography

Arnal, Pierrick J et al. “Benefits of Sleep Extension on Sustained Attention and Sleep Pressure Before and During Total Sleep Deprivation and Recovery.” Sleep vol. 38,12 1935-43. 1 Dec. 2015, doi:10.5665/sleep.5244
Axelsson, John, and Vladyslav V Vyazovskiy. “Banking Sleep and Biological Sleep Need.” Sleep vol. 38,12 1843-5. 1 Dec. 2015, doi:10.5665/sleep.5222
Liu, Peter Y, and Radha T Reddy. “Sleep, testosterone and cortisol balance, and ageing men.” Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders vol. 23,6 (2022): 1323-1339. doi:10.1007/s11154-022-09755-4
Rupp, Tracy L et al. “Banking sleep: realization of benefits during subsequent sleep restriction and recovery.” Sleep vol. 32,3 (2009): 311-21. doi:10.1093/sleep/32.3.311

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