Saving Sleep

Problem:

In the past two weeks, I have been trying to adjust my sleep schedule. I have found that I have been becoming increasingly tired despite a 0100 to 0830 sleep schedule. I believe in cumulative effects.

Now, I am the kind of person who works best with 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I believe the adolescent me needed more, but I'm just going to have to leave that out to simplify the matter.

So using a bit of technology,

http://www.thewhitenoisealbum.com/sleepdebtcalculator.multiple.html

punching in 7h30m every night for a week, I get...

If I just add up all the debt since the beginning of college in 2010, that's

4years * 52weeks/year * 5.25hours/week = 1092 hours.

I think I have so much sleep debt it's like US national debt. 1092 hours. I don't think the body even keeps count of this.

Solutions

The Sleeping Beauty Solution

It takes 208 sets of 15 debt-repaying nights to repay the debt. 
So...
~7months -13h15m
~14 months - 10h38m
~21 months - 9h45m
~28 months - 9h19m
~35 months - 9h3m

Adds up to 8y9m to repay all the debt. oOoh...might as well be forever!

The Practical Solution

Just sleep when tired. Never push the limits. I guess that means sleeping more than 8 hours everyday from now on, focusing on maximizing "sleep quality" and maintaining sleep schedule consistency.

Another school of thought suggests you can't make up for sleep debt. The body doesn't keep direct count of sleep debt. I guess this fits in pretty well.

More on that later.