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What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

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Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#161

Post by mirimir »

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…

It's not uncommon for me, if I'm highly engaged in something, to work straight for 15-20 hours. So as a result, my wake/sleep cycle is consistently longer than 24 hours. And that has the additional benefit of frustrating geolocation.

Even so, I rarely go more than 30 hours awake. But with occasional naps, some as long as a couple hours, runs as long as a few days are not uncommon.

I take modafinil for bipolar disorder, and zolpidem for insomnia. So I can avoid many of the downsides of sleep deprivation. One cool thing about modafinil is that it increases alertness and engagement, but doesn't interfere with sleep as much as coffee and amphetamines do.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#162

Post by emerongi »

cesnja wrote: post #147
surfsvammel wrote: post #138

If sleep is so important. Why didn’t we evolve to have our newborns and toddlers not destroy our sleep? Are parents sacrificed for the well being of the kiddos? sleep deprived and frustrated father

From natural selection perspective, at that point you've already passed on your genes and now your most important mission is to ensure those genes get passed along. Your own wellbeing is not important.

Of course it is important, a newborn is not able to survive for years to come without parental support. If terrible sleep reduces the parent's survival or its ability to protect the child by a big enough percentage, I'd imagine there would be an evolutional pressure there.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#163

Post by Smaug123 »

surfsvammel wrote: post #138

If sleep is so important. Why didn’t we evolve to have our newborns and toddlers not destroy our sleep? Are parents sacrificed for the well being of the kiddos? sleep deprived and frustrated father

Note that humans are helpless for an incredibly long period of time (compare with horses, who can run almost as soon as they hit the ground). It looks like nature has offloaded a lot of the normal work from the child to the parents, in the case of humans; we're very much an evolutionary oddity in this regard.

Interesting factoid from the fascinating Legal Systems Very Different From Ours: the Kaale (a Gypsy tribe in Finland) don't recognise the parent-child relationship at all, because reproduction is ritually unclean; the facts of reproduction cannot be admitted. Instead, a mother leaves the tribe to bear her baby, and returns with it, whereupon the baby becomes the entire kin-group's responsibility. Sounds to me like a good way to let parents have some sleep, by batching up the group's children!

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#164

Post by jeffshek »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #42
jeffshek wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joshua Waitzkin has an interesting perspective on this. He will take an idea, keep it in his hold, and then make sure he lets go of the focus a few hours before bedtime. IE. Do something with family instead. Subconscious brain still works on it, but still able to sleep well. Not sure if this would be applicable.

Very interesting! In high school, I would often "retell" the day in my mind, usually right before bed. More often than not, I would wake up with the solutions to problems I struggled with. I have been trying to recreate this as an adult, except now I'm retelling the story of my day to my wife and vice versa. Maybe the key is to do it earlier in the evening, and then disconnect for a few hours? I'll give it a shot. Be…

I'm still conflicted on the merit of lucid dreaming and problem-solving.

I find ZMA and Huperzine A can you get you lucid dreaming, but I don't know if it helps with problem-solving. IE. You'll still wake with the solution w/out dreaming.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#166

Post by yitchelle »

nashequilibrium wrote: post #73
makz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When I used to bike commute to work, I had a similar effect. My commute to work is about 1 hour each way. On the way to work, ideas about work would pop into my brain. On the way home, ideas for home would pop up. Need to say that I don't really think about either work or home, they just pop up.

Sadly that does not occur so much now that I am driving to work. I wonder if cycling vs sitting is the differentiater here.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#168

Post by copperx »

mft_ wrote: post #150
Zarath wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand why you'd write something like this, I think that this sort of thinking is the reason people get poor sleep nowadays anyway. This obsession with "efficiency" and "productivity". Even if it is more productive to get sleep, I believe that thinking about it in terms of hygiene or in terms of quality of life is much healthier. Maybe you disagree but not every minute of life should be devoted to doing t…

It doesn't have to be about work productivity. The most profound effect I noticed myself is learning passages of music on an instrument (note I'm an amateur, and not especially good!) After not too long trying to learn/practise one evening, I will be noticeably better the next day.

I found exactly the same thing and it weirded me out. How did I get better without practicing? Often I would hit a wall after practicing for hours and was not able to play a certain passage, but then the next day I magically could.

I've recently found that reading before going to sleep (while not staying up late reading) opens my mind the next day and I wake up knowing whether I have accepted or rejected a premise of a nonfiction book. It's like I read, don't think about it then, but then as I sleep I make up my mind or have more questions about the things that I read.

It's strange, and I wish I could learn more about this phenomenon.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#169

Post by robg »

I’m surprised that the work on the glymphatic system still isn’t widely known, but pretty clear it solves the why. We sleep because the glymphatic process cleans the brain of the damage caused by waking life.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25947369/

Seems likely the process is more efficient for some people versus others, just as it’s active during waking life but much less so. Less/more clearance/cleaning is mechanistically explained by the need for less/more sleep.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#170

Post by koonsolo »

surfsvammel wrote: post #138

If sleep is so important. Why didn’t we evolve to have our newborns and toddlers not destroy our sleep? Are parents sacrificed for the well being of the kiddos? sleep deprived and frustrated father

Hey I feel you.

A lot of people might not like my answer, but here it goes. I have a 2,5 month old daughter, and my wife breastfeeds her. During the night, I don't wake up because she immediately gives her milk when she wakes up. There are a few things evolution gave us for support (correct me if these 'facts' are wrong): - When women breastfeed, they get some hormone that can put them into REM sleep way faster. - Men are not as sensitive for sounds during their sleep as women.

So evolution wise, this was probably mainly a mothers sacrifice. This lets the other, more physically strong parent (when that was still important) function at 100%.

In these modern times, work is divided and so both parents divide all family and money work, and so also share the sacrifice of sleep deprivation.

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