The weekend is usually when my roommate and I both catch up on any sleep we’ve lost over the course of the week. Or, in the case of fifth year, overcompensate for the sleep deficit we’re battling from the last four years.
I was speaking to some classmates from school yesterday about how it’s been 5 years since we gave our board examinations to get out of school, and how it’s been 7 years since our 10th Grade boards. The one thing that cracked us up was how these board exams seemed like the scariest endeavour at the time, but we’re looking back at it like it was some joke. I wouldn’t trade-off the effort I put in for my boards for anything; I loved studying for all of them, and I really enjoyed the month of giving exams. I would, however, take away the kind of stress I put myself under at the time. Wholly unnecessary. Maybe without it, I could’ve enjoyed the process a lot more.
In any case, the reason I mentioned boards is because what we also realized is that there’s a ton of information from our education that we don’t use everyday that’s still trapped in our brains. An example is the concept of an “oxygen deficit”. When I see sleep deficit, or actually, wherever I see the word “deficit”, that’s the only concept I associate it with. Even though it’s wholly incorrect. The Board I studied taught us the concept as an “oxygen debt”, but I remember it as an oxygen deficit instead. Why? I don’t know. But I can still tell you exactly what the syllabus needed us to remember. It was this: Oxygen debt is removed after exercise and during recovery thanks to aerobic respiration of lactic acid in the liver, the continuation, after exercise, of fast heart rate to transport lactic acid in blood from muscles to the liver, and the continuation, after exercise, of deeper breathing supplying oxygen for aerobic respiration of lactic acid.
How this information is something I need to remember verbatim in my life on the daily is not something I understand. Yet, I do. What I was wondering about this morning, when I thought about the sleep deficit I’ve accrued, is if there’s a similar process of recovery outlined somewhere.
All I know is that my process of recovery involves a ton of sleep. I woke up this morning, ate breakfast, and came back and slept till lunch. After going for a run in the evening, I slept another two hours.
It was awesome.
Tejas Rao 