system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: I've heard you can't "catch up" on lost sleep. Does this mean I'm going to keep adding to the mountain of exhaustion that is my life until my dying day?
gpt
Not quite. If you simplify and say that our body needs 8 hours of sleep for every 16 hours awake. If you miss out on some of that sleep then you may have some symptoms, one of them being exhausted. If you finally get a full 8 hours of sleep most of your symptoms go away. There may be some health affects still remaining but for the most part you are good to go. It is similar to how you need a regular oil change in your car. If you skip an oil change you may have issues with your car like overheating and lower performance. However those go away once you finally do an oil change. But there will have been some extra wear on your engine and doing two oil changes back to back will not do any good.