Given how hard it is to track accurate nutritional data, I wonder if sleep research just as evasive to study since it is very difficult/expensive to define a “control” group. I’d have to imagine you’d have to have subjects sleep alone in a controlled environment for a while before you could observe real patterns. This, we’re left with extreme cases to observe, not really normal ones.
What Happens to the Body on No Sleep
61–70 of 324 posts
Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exercise doesn't have an effect for me. In high school I played two varsity sports and in college I played in some club/recreational leagues. Now I swim and weightlift, but I wouldn't say any of these activities improve my quality of sleep or ability to induce it. This is because, for me, "sleepiness" is not the same as "tiredness." I can be extremely exhausted, both mentally and physically, but I'll still never feel…
That's not from a lack of sleep. If you want to build strength and muscle, do less aerobic exercise and eat more - a lot more. You need to be in a caloric surplus for a while.
Given that sleep provides you with HGH, sleep definitely has a massive effect on strength and muscle (of course, a caloric surplus is also necessary).
Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep
#63In case you feel sleep is a waste of time, it could actually be surprisingly productive to sleep. Once thing I noticed in grad school is that your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them. And often I would "dream" up a clever solution to a homework problem during my sleep. J.P. Serre, one of the most brilliant mathematician still living today…
I used to be really good at this. I would wake up with answers, first thought in the morning! But as I have gotten older, the "working on it" dreams have become disruptive and my sleep less sound when processing some problem.
This happens to me too for as long as I can remember. It's an endless thought-loop of abstract reasoning with a dream-like quality and coherence, never actually quite focusing in on the problem but disruptive to the goal of restful sleep.
Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep
#64In case you feel sleep is a waste of time, it could actually be surprisingly productive to sleep. Once thing I noticed in grad school is that your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them. And often I would "dream" up a clever solution to a homework problem during my sleep. J.P. Serre, one of the most brilliant mathematician still living today…
One day I could not compile something. After fighting it several hours I decided to go sleep. A few minutes before waking up I dreamed that the solution was to set an environment variable. I even saw the specific variable and which value I had to set. I woke up and immediately tried it. It worked.
Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep
#65I'm an amateur musician. Somehow all my best musical ideas pop into my brain right when I'm about to fall asleep.
Lots of other musicians I've spoken to say the same thing.
Why is that?
Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to be really good at this. I would wake up with answers, first thought in the morning! But as I have gotten older, the "working on it" dreams have become disruptive and my sleep less sound when processing some problem.
This happens to me too for as long as I can remember. It's an endless thought-loop of abstract reasoning with a dream-like quality and coherence, never actually quite focusing in on the problem but disruptive to the goal of restful sleep.
I've had these exact type of dreams 4-5x/year for the past 15 years, since being in grad school. They're an interesting phenomenon. They're also fairly disturbing.
Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep
#67This is an amazing gem:
> on the Monday after spring daylight saving time, when we lose an hour of sleep, there’s a 25 percent increase in heart attacks
> Conversely, in the fall, when we gain an extra hour, there is a 21 percent reduction in heart attacks.
So daylight saving kills an extra 4% people by heart attacks. Light Yagami approves.
I wonder whether it's because of the sleep itself, or because when people don't sleep enough they tend to take stimulants that increase heart attack risks.
Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep
#68There seems to be quite a lot of information about why =8 hours is associated with increased mortality. See for example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29790200 (an interesting study in itself). I read "Why We Sleep" but unfortunately it didn't answer this question. The association could be correlational but it's been replicated too many times for me to believe that there's not something more fundamental. Perhaps…
This is a great question. As others said, the data is contaminated. Likely people who are sick sleep a lot more. That said, I'm one of those people (healthy, I think) who sleeps 9-14 hours every day. My goal every night is to sleep as long as I possibly can. Nights when I only hit 9 hours is usually because I had to get up to go the bathroom. I have Sleep Apnea but treat it with a CPAP and went from 20 awakenings per…
How do you know you are healthy?
Edit: This isn't meant to be accusatory, I'm just curious
Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep
#69Sleep is required for proper function of the glymphatic system.[0] Insufficient sleep results in inadequate clearance of metabolic waste products from your brain via this pathway. Accumulation of said byproducts results neurological damage.
In other words, get good sleep or you're literally inflicting brain damage upon yourself. Impaired glymphatic function is linked to all manner of horrible neurodegenerative conditions.[1][2]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glymphatic_system#Waste_cleara...
Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep
#70Do we still allow medical staff and ER doctors to work 20 hour days?