I have not read the book, but could the author simply mean that the recovery period for sleep deprivation is the same regardless if one try to make it up with m

I have not read the book, but could the author simply mean that the recovery period for sleep deprivation is the same regardless if one try to make it up with more hours of sleeping than is regularly necessary? Let say an individual is working 20 hours a day for 5 days, and in order for the brain and endocrine system to return to normal it takes 14 days of recovery. A few days of 12+ hours of sleep might not have any beneficial effect because the involved biological systems are too slow to get any benefit from the extra sleep, and the excessive amount of sleep might even cause additional problems which hinder recovery. Making an educated guess, endocrine system is likely a big culprit here. Some hormones are specifically secreted during sleep, while the recipients of hormones are often triggered based on relative changes in hormone levels. If you have first a period of very low levels, followed by a period of sudden spikes, getting back to normal might take a while.