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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?

#41

Post by jarin »

anonymoushn wrote: post #28
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.

Pretty good, it's basically a max of 4 Engage energy drinks, or 2 of them and a mix of Nos or Monster. I don't feel jittery at all, but I do get a headache if I don't get any caffeine within a few hours of waking up.

I used to get a little heart weirdness (a weird beat once in a while), but I've cut down smoking to 1 or 2 cigarettes per day and started drinking more water and the heart weirdness has stopped happening.

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#42

Post by jarin »

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. :)

I get bad results with melatonin. It definitely knocks me out, but even taking half a tablet before going to sleep makes me feel really groggy the next day.

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#43

Post by klochner »

pstack wrote: post #22

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 i…

get married :)

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#44

Post by diego »

klochner wrote: post #43
pstack wrote: post #22

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 i…

get married :)

but don't have kids :)

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#45

Post by euccastro »

pamelafox wrote: post #18

I often get told that I don't sleep enough (more like 6 than 8, if that), but for me, my dreams get stranger the longer I sleep, and my day is happier if I can wake up without strange dreams lingering in my head. For example, last night I slept about 8 hours (probably due to wine the night before), and my final dream involved me trying to evade certain death in a circus. I'd prefer to start off my day on cheerier not…

Don't listen to siblings. :) If you can afford to _free run_ (which google for) your sleep just do it.

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#46

Post by BlazingFrog »

jarin wrote: post #41
anonymoushn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Pretty good, it's basically a max of 4 Engage energy drinks, or 2 of them and a mix of Nos or Monster. I don't feel jittery at all, but I do get a headache if I don't get any caffeine within a few hours of waking up. I used to get a little heart weirdness (a weird beat once in a while), but I've cut down smoking to 1 or 2 cigarettes per day and started drinking more water and the heart weirdness has stopped happening…

At what point is the physical need for an artificial substance considered an addiction? Not criticizing, just honestly wondering.

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#47

Post by BlazingFrog »

I envy all of you people who "choose" how many hours of sleep they will have (or not have). After you have kids, especially if their sleep pattern is very inconsistent for no apparent reason, you just take whatever you can get. Unfortunately, you may not be ready to sleep at 10pm that night that your child will decide to wake up at 1am ready to go about her day... Don't pay attention to me. Just another rant from a sleep-deprived parent... ;)

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#48

Post by smokinn »

pjscott wrote: post #24
smokinn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When left to my own devices I simply sleep when I feel tired. My normal cycle will be something like sleep for 6-12 hours and stay up anywhere from 16 to 20 hours. Sometimes I'll take a nap for an hour or two somewhere in there. As far as I can tell there's no real pattern day to day but on average I drift a couple hours or so around the clock every day. Every couple of weeks I'm back to a "normal" schedule.

When I have a 9-5 job though I end up tired one day and fine the next. I end up getting up at 8 or so and going to sleep at either 11 or so because I was really tired or 3-4 am because I wasn't.

f.lux actually did help a lot. I was much worse when I didn't use it (I could never get to sleep early so I was always tired.)

Anyway, I'll do some research into melatonin supplements, thanks for the lead.

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#49

Post by jarin »

BlazingFrog wrote: post #46
jarin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty good, it's basically a max of 4 Engage energy drinks, or 2 of them and a mix of Nos or Monster. I don't feel jittery at all, but I do get a headache if I don't get any caffeine within a few hours of waking up. I used to get a little heart weirdness (a weird beat once in a while), but I've cut down smoking to 1 or 2 cigarettes per day and started drinking more water and the heart weirdness has stopped happening…

At what point is the physical need for an artificial substance considered an addiction? Not criticizing, just honestly wondering.

Probably when it causes withdrawal symptoms?

Re: How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With?

#50

Post by guygurari »

BlazingFrog wrote: post #47

I envy all of you people who "choose" how many hours of sleep they will have (or not have). After you have kids, especially if their sleep pattern is very inconsistent for no apparent reason, you just take whatever you can get. Unfortunately, you may not be ready to sleep at 10pm that night that your child will decide to wake up at 1am ready to go about her day... Don't pay attention to me. Just another rant from a s…

We had a lot of sleep-related problems with our kid. We recently sought professional help and started a program that gives children good sleep habits. We are three weeks in, and the results so far are nothing short of amazing. To put it simply, the kid is sleeping much better, and we got our lives back.

One thing we learned the hard way is that following a method from a book is not enough -- you need a professional to guide you through this. There are many pitfalls you don't know about that will lead to failure, and you wont even realize what it is you're doing wrong. Good luck!

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