Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013)

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 4:06 PM UTC

otherusername2 wrote: post #5

I once, involuntary, went without sleep for around 72 hours. I was at a music festival and we were either pulling through the night or I couldn't sleep because of the noise. When the time came to go home, I really felt pretty good. At that time I had been awake for around 60 hours. My body was tired and my thinking was a bit sluggish, but nothing too bad... Until I got home and tried to sleep. By then I was feeling d…

Post by reagency » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 4:22 PM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #45

alexholehouse wrote: post #17

One angle not touched on here is the link between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and sleep. There has always been evidence that AD patients sleep less than the general population, but obviously there's a chicken and egg problem here - are they sleeping less because of neuronal disruption caused by the disease, or is the disease progression catalyzed by a lack of sleep[1-3]? While I think this is still an open question, the…

Thanks for putting these links together. It's beginning to look like sleep is the brain's garbage collector.

Post by Ramsus88 » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 4:37 PM UTC

otherusername2 wrote: post #5

I once, involuntary, went without sleep for around 72 hours. I was at a music festival and we were either pulling through the night or I couldn't sleep because of the noise. When the time came to go home, I really felt pretty good. At that time I had been awake for around 60 hours. My body was tired and my thinking was a bit sluggish, but nothing too bad... Until I got home and tried to sleep. By then I was feeling d…

Post by TheBeardKing » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 5:10 PM UTC

nsgi wrote: post #49

leni536 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume you spend 30% of your time sleeping (7.2 hours a day), and your expected lifetime to be T. Then your "useful time" is 0.7T. So you decide to sleep 25% more (9 hours), so you sleep through 37,5% of a day and your life expectancy is now T'=1.25T, so your useful time is 0.625T'=0.625 x 1.25T=0.781T. Your useful time grown around 12%. Note that if you take your working hours into account and you are only int…

But on the other hand, getting less sleep gives you more time when you're young.

Post by oskarth » Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

scott_karana wrote: post #51

PuffinBlue wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had sort of an 'opposite' experience following 86 hours of no sleep and lots of physical labour. Military training, 3 1/2 days of digging ad building trenches by hand. Middle of high summer and digging through stony clay. Interspersed between the digging were numerous patrols and mental tests. I experienced the hallucinations whilst fully awake from about hour 76 particularly throughout the night and early morning.…

What possible benefit was there to be ordered to work without sleep for 86 hours? Was this in a possible combat situation? Or a test of your mettle? I hope? :P