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How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

nytimes.com

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Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#21

Post by smokinn »

baddox wrote: post #17
thebooktocome wrote: post #7

I've completely stopped going without sleep this since the last semester ended. Of course, we'll see if we last through the next semester... The thing I've noticed is that I have way more free time than I thought I did, because I wasn't explicitly thinking about things in terms of "hmm, I have five hours before bed, I should probably do X". Also, melatonin supplements are my friend. :)

Another grateful melatonin user here. That stuff got me through college, and I've successfully recommended it to friends (mostly the stereotypical geeks like myself who, left to their own devices, will keep pushing back bedtime a couple of hours every day ad infinitum). Just prepare yourself for some strange dreams for the first couple of months.

Could you expand on this please? I'm one of those geeks that keeps pushing bedtime back. (Right now I'm waking up around 9pm and going to sleep around 1-2pm. By mid-to-late week I'll probably be back to a regular 8am-midnight.

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#22

Post by pstack »

I'd settle for even being able to sleep at regular intervals. I have a habit of staying up until I'm tired and waking up when I can't sleep anymore. As a result, I may stay up all day for several days and then stay up all night for several days. Or for several days, I may sleep twice during 24hrs, in completely random periods. I just don't do well with the concept of "well, it's 10pm, so that means it's time to get into bed".

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#23

Post by Apocryphon »

jarin wrote: post #20

Strangely enough, I've found that since I increased my caffeine intake (to around 900-1200mg/day via energy drinks) I've been sleeping great. I usually go to sleep around 10pm, wake up naturally around 3am, and take a 1 hour nap around 3 pm. I've been drinking a lot of water as well, and I've had no problems focusing on work. I think the nap is the key though.

That sounds like segmented sleep. You're channeling your ancestors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/opinion/19ekirch.html

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#24

Post by pjscott »

smokinn wrote: post #21
baddox wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another grateful melatonin user here. That stuff got me through college, and I've successfully recommended it to friends (mostly the stereotypical geeks like myself who, left to their own devices, will keep pushing back bedtime a couple of hours every day ad infinitum). Just prepare yourself for some strange dreams for the first couple of months.

Could you expand on this please? I'm one of those geeks that keeps pushing bedtime back. (Right now I'm waking up around 9pm and going to sleep around 1-2pm. By mid-to-late week I'll probably be back to a regular 8am-midnight.

If you take a melatonin tablet about half an hour before what you want your bedtime to be, then by the time bedtime rolls along, you should be sleepy enough to get to sleep quickly. At least, that has been my experience, and the experience that others typically report.

This is very useful if you're someone whose bedtime tends to be pushed gradually back because you're not ready to sleep yet -- the easy act of taking a pill can make it less difficult to go to sleep at a consistent time. It can also be useful in periodically resetting your bedtime, by going to bed a few hours earlier.

This may or may not help you, though. You have a pretty high rate of bedtime drift. Could you elaborate on how it happens? Do you just not feel tired when you should? If that's the case, then melatonin might help. Other things you could try include:

1. Use something like f.lux to make your monitor use lower-energy colors at night. Melatonin production is photosensitive, so artificial lights with a lot of blue (such as LCD backlights) can throw that out of whack if they hit your retinas.

2. Exercise vigorously every day, in the evenings. Even if this doesn't help with sleep, it's a good idea, so why not?

And in general, when trying to figure something like this out, it can help to keep logs so you have some data you can analyze later, to see what's working and what isn't. Good luck.

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#25

Post by markbao »

credo wrote: post #5

The report is interesting and it isn't surprising that partial sleep deprivation results in a cognitive deficit. I'd be more interested in understanding the long-term effects of insufficient sleep. Is the cognitive deficit a temporary problem that goes away after a few days (or more of) sufficient sleep OR will sustained lack of sleep (over a long period) result in a long-term problem that persists even after the sub…

The problem with this is the search terms are pretty difficult to get right and requires a lot of sifting. Some studies concern themselves with studying "sleep deprivation" as in total sleep deprivation (see the sibling comment in this thread talking about rats).

In reality, you (and me) are looking for long-term effects of sleep deprivation, where deprivation = 5-6 hours regularly, 4 or less occasionally. Unfortunately, you can't just Google that. Anyone know of any articles that target this bracket of sleep deprivation (and not something more extreme)?

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#26

Post by ianl »

During my first year of university while I was running a start up our of dorm room (modest success) and doing a full course load I was running on four hours of sleep a night and an hour afternoon's nap just before supper.

That experience taught me something very important, sleep is crucial. When you are tired you get tunnel vision and all you want to do is complete your task. The long term effects of this on your start up is that you loose the edge to be innovative while trying to solve problems.

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#27

Post by [deleted] »

petercooper wrote: post #8
torstesu wrote: post #3

It would have been really interesting to see if power naps had any effect on the performance of the subjects that were deprived of sleep. My personal experience is that 15 minutes in the horizontal position improves my awareness and performance. An additional hack is to drink an espresso the moment before you take your power nap - the effect of the caffeine will kick in in about 15 minutes after consumption.

Or the "siesta" style of sleep generally. That is, the pattern of having a nap in the day and a shorter nighttime sleep.

[deleted]

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#28

Post by anonymoushn »

jarin wrote: post #20

Strangely enough, I've found that since I increased my caffeine intake (to around 900-1200mg/day via energy drinks) I've been sleeping great. I usually go to sleep around 10pm, wake up naturally around 3am, and take a 1 hour nap around 3 pm. I've been drinking a lot of water as well, and I've had no problems focusing on work. I think the nap is the key though.

How has 900-1200mg/day worked out for you? I considered it a lot when I was doing 500-600mg/day.

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#29

Post by udoprog »

Loved this article. I would love to see a simliar test around polyphasic sleep (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep).

I've actually tried the Uberman sleep schedule for three weeks. This is where you sleep 20 minutes for each 4 hours, totalling in a whopping 2 hours sleep each day.

The time gain was insane, and the transition period aswell (between day 3-5 I actually hallucinated due to sleep deprevation). But around 1.5 weeks something strange happened. The 20 minute period that you are allowed to sleep seemed like hours each time, and I would wake up like clockwork on the 20 minute mark.

The whole routine is not just a sleep routine, it affects your entire lifestyle. No stimulants, including sugar, high degrees of fat, caffeine. No sedatives, alcohol, drugs (!). And the fact that you are awake during the night when the whole world seems dead is one of the hardest social aspects to handle. What do you do with 6 extra hours each day?

Of course there's the aspect of finding somewhere to sleep every 4 hours (was at school at the time), and if you ever missed out, you would have hell to pay.

I eventually buckled on a skiing trip with an open bar, had a nice weekend and decided to going back to normal sleeping patterns. Partly because it was not socially acceptable to sleep 2 hours a day (my father threatened to beat some sense into me). But also that there was very little foundation that this kind of sleep pattern was even safe. A couple of million years of evolution had other idea's of when and how long it is necessary to sleep.

Other than that, the foundations that I gathered up from this was that when changing your sleeping pattern. The body frantically tries to adapt. By sleeping extremely short periods the body would effectively increase the amount of REM sleep (and yes, I dreamed a lot during these sleeping periods), however, it has not been proven that you don't need the other types of sleep.

This is probably a lot of rumours, and a lot of wishful thinking. I personally wish there was some solid backing behind this kind of reasoning (more time awake is awesome!), There are a lot of buzz out there (check google and youtube), but I've been unable to find anything reasonably solid.

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#30

Post by bcl »

ajkessler wrote: post #6

I don't buy the seemingly arbitrary distinction that 8 hours is a good night's sleep. I know people who require 9+ hours per night (ie they appear sleep deprived if they get less than 9 for a few consecutive nights). I know one person who requires about 4 per night (not a forced four where you end up looking 10 years older than you really are after a few years). I do like the idea of testing where your sweet spot is,…

Read the article more closely. Most need 8. There are some who need less, some who need more. The graph might even look like a bell curve ;)
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