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What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

outsideonline.com

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Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#71

Post by pravus »

eyegor wrote: post #50

I'm sure that it must be true based on how other people act on little sleep, but for me the effects this article claims are blown way out of proportion (or just seem wrong). > longer than 48 hours and you’re looking at behavior that mimics psychosis—incoherent rambling, disconnection from reality, prone to outbursts Does anyone else here have experience staying awake this long? In college I frequently stayed awake fo…

This is very much a personal thing and the article is only showing one end of the spectrum. While I have issues staying up past 48 hours and my longest ever stint was 56 or so, I can go for 36 hours easily without any real dramatic adverse effects. I certainly don't feel drunk and am quite capable of performing complicated work even after 24 hours of being awake.

As long as the sun is up my body generally wants to be awake and when going for long periods of uptime I only have an issue with tiredness between 2am and 4am. After 4am I can convince myself that the sun will be up soon and once I can actually see the sky brighten I become energized rapidly.

The one time I did go past 48 hours I never hallucinated but simply felt like a zombie. My mind basically shut off and I felt very detached and remote to my own consciousness. The odd thing is that when I finally got into bed it still took me something like 2 hours to finally fall asleep because I felt too tired to actually fall asleep.

Anyway, that's my experience. When I read through the article I kept thinking it was missing the mark for me completely.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#72

Post by dwd »

K0SM0S wrote: post #35

I've suffered from insomnia most of my teen and adult life (I am 37). I sometimes go up to 3 days without sleep (thus 2 nights, ~60 hours total; 'record' just shy of 80 hours), then sleep for ~12 hours. I usually work almost the entire time. My "default" day seems to last 25~30 hours, give or take, which means that naturally there are more like 6 'days' per week for me. ('days' roughly defined as periods of wake time…

I can fall asleep quickly, but I would also fit into the definition of chronically sleep deprived. (4 1/2 or 6 hours each night, sometimes only 3 hours) I never use an alarm and rely on daylight to wake up.

You could try all those meditative techniques to get your brain to stop thinking actively about things but what I would suggest if you've tried everything else is - work out your sleep cycle and time going to bed to sleep some multiple of that.

For me it's 90min, so if I need to get up at 6:00am, I strictly get to bed by 11:55pm, 1:25am, etc allowing myself 5 min to fall asleep. Seems to work for me.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#73

Post by nashequilibrium »

makz wrote: post #64
motivic wrote: post #9

In 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.

Just had one of these moments two days ago, the only other thing that comes close is when I go for long walks.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#74

Post by jmspring »

motivic wrote: post #9

In 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 of my undergrad (and favorite) required classes was Graph Theory at UCSC taught by Gerhard Ringel. Asked how he solved problems - he pointed out that he slept on them.

It was a comment I heard from many Profs. but his was the first and it stuck.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Ringel

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#75

Post by boomboomsubban »

Barrin92 wrote: post #12

the article points to a lot of adverse health effects that undoubtedly exist but it also sounds a little dramatic. That sleep deprivation after 18 hours for example significantly degrades performance is something I have not experienced. The sluggishness after all-nighters I can attest to but not to the level that I'd compare it to alcohol intoxication. I've heard of people having drug-induced hallucinations after day…

>I've heard of people having drug-induced hallucinations after days without sleep, but the article states that hallucinations seem to be common after only 48 hours, which surprised me.

I think the usual hallucinations aren't as complex as the example. More simple shapes, colors, or sounds that aren't actually there. You may have experienced them and not been bothered enough to even remember it.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#76

Post by rcpt »

franciscop wrote: post #67

This 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…

It could also be the added stress of having to get going an hour earlier and likely being late.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#77

Post by neom »

o10449366 wrote: post #48
neom wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same deal here, same age as well - I often wonder if I did it to myself by staying up all night every night in my teens IRCing with folks in the US, never the less I don't get jetlag (currently in Seoul and adjusted that day) and I don't feel uncomfortable (prefer?) 4 hours sleep.

That's interesting. I've heard several people say they developed insomnia as teenagers, but for me it was ever since I was a kid. My parents would always get annoyed with me when I was young because I would talk with my siblings all night instead of sleeping.

I should ask my mum about this, maybe the IRC was a byproduct of insomnia, I'm not sure. FWIW I'm also dyslexic and when I do sleep, I almost never dream.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#78

Post by RandomThrow321 »

theatraine wrote: post #11

There 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…

He didn't answer the question directly, but he did have a possible explanation that's at least worth a mention.

In the book, he suggested that many of the studies detailed people with preexisting disease, which was the hidden variable for both an increase in sleep length and an earlier mortality.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#79

Post by mikelyons »

jeffshek wrote: post #17
motivic wrote: post #9

In 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 think the different stages of sleep play a part here ... Salvadore Dali apparently liked to keep an object/pen in his hand that would drop and wake him up. Still can't find enough real examples of polyphasic sleeping working, but love to know how well people of that retained content.

Have you read Steve Pavlina's account of transition to and from polyphasic sleep?

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#80

Post by rcpt »

o10449366 wrote: post #6

I was born with chronic insomnia and I'm now in my early 30s. I never feel sleepy and just this past Monday I went to work having not slept the night before. I'm healthy now and I guess my body is so used to the effects of sleep deprivation that I feel no side effects (such as headaches), but I wouldn't be surprised if I die very young. If you have any questions feel free to ask them, just please don't suggest I try…

Ever try CBT? I've never been great at sleeping but that changed my life. Better than any drug or medication I tried.

Only drawback is that you need to stay vigilant once you get it sorted out.

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