Slashdot Mirror
How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?
not_you asks:
"Clinton, Giuliani, Bloomberg, and even Martha Stewart are rumored
to only get only 4 hours of sleep on a normal night. Being a student
without enough time for all the socializing (and studying) I'd like
to do and lacking the ability to dream lucidly, I'd like to get the
minimal amount of sleep necessary to function effectively. However,
I tend to make up for anything less than about 7 hours by dozing off
in class! Aside from taking espressos intravenously, how I can
function effectively with less sleep?" There are several factors
that affect how much sleep one can away with on a given day. Diet,
activity level, and other factors all will affect how long and how
well one rests. I've always heard that "nothing beats a full night
of rest" and to me, that always means close to 8 hours of sleep. Of
course, like most things Your Mileage May Vary, still, it would be
interesting to know how much sleep some of you can get by on, and
what conditions you have to maintain to keep it up. Comments?
On my last vacation, I had the priviledge of going to Jerusalem via Amsterdam - a total of 58 hours sleepless, since I cannot sleep on planes or in public areas, and I was kept active in Amsterdam by visiting with a friend.
While I didn't get to 112 for certain, and I didn't go barking mad, I definitely had some interesting experiences - I had a 2-hour nap at about 44-46 hours, and when I woke, I was more fucked up than I'd ever been. I'd had a dream about Hebrew having some weird grammatical rule, and it scared the bejeezus out of me; I ended up not being able to eat anything for a few hours, and I was pretty strung out (coffee helped).
I found that I sort of sine-waved my way through those last 33 hours or so - I would go from fully conscious, aware, everything I am when I get enough sleep, into drowsy, and then more-than-drowsy - I think I passed out for a few minutes on the flight to Tel Aviv, and I nearly passed out (and cracked my head open on the pretty stone floor) of the hallway of the apt/condo I was staying at. Either way, I have some large gaps in my memory.
Sleep is definitely good, though I'd be interested to hit 112 hours and see how it affects me. After 25-28 hours, it seems, sleep isn't a pressing issue if I can't afford to let it be, but still, it'd be fun.
--Dan
I find that sleeping for 10 hours and then staying awake for 20 hours works best for me. The problem is trying to get everyone else to work around my schedule! I've read that without light cues, people's circadian rhythms change by varying degrees. From the link above:
Kind of makes you wonder if our planet has always been spinning this fast, doesn't it?
-RayA buddy of mine in HS decided to try the 'five day' rule; damn near killed himself when he was riding his bike, and hallucinated, four days in. Me, I know that it's time to toddle off to bed when I get paranoid. Usually, this manifests as seeing my mouse move out of the corner of my eye. I swear the little bugger tries to crawl across me desk when I'm really really tired.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I've worked first, second, and third shift, and can honestly say that sleep is my least favorite activity. I feel as I'm being robbed of part of my life.
However, once im nice and asleep, it typically takes me 10-11 hours to wake back up naturally. If i have to wake up before that (Read: Work), it takes an act of G-d to get me up and out of bed. My body (and simiconcious mind) hate waking up so much that i can turn off an alarm (even my winamp alarm) without ever becoming completely lucid. I do it every night. I have to set 3 alarms to wake up. They recently all became ineffective. (Sometimes, i'll get up, turn the alarm off BEFORE it goes off!). Now I have a flesh-and-blood alarm that makes sure im awake in time to come to work.
Once i'm awake, and have had a good 8 hours, im fine after 30 minutes, but my brain doesnt enter init 3 until about 2 hours later.
I want to beg my doctor to prescribe me modafinil, the drug they use to treat narcolepsy. A recent study by doctors at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston showed the drug is effective in letting healthy people stay awake and completely in control of their mental facilities for up to 4 days at a time. This raises an interesting question, at least for me.. my personality changes dramatically from the morning to the night.. wonder what would happen after 4 days.
I recall recently reading an oncology (cancer) report that indicated that the human brain does in fact GROW NEW NEURONS throughout life (haven't seen an online version.) The report summary indicated that the brain loses the nerve connections during the day and re-grows them at night.
A seperate study also showed that the popular anti-depressent prozac makes changes to this neural re-growth.
Further to how this tie's into Ask Slashdot - Neural re-growth normally occurs ONLY DURING REM STAGES OF SLEEP.
This (likely) explains the many reports of people hallucinating after long periods of REM sleep deprivation - A waking brain loses connections in that section and when enough connections are lost - mental coherency is lost.
There you have it folks - a reason for WHY sleep is needed
Lord_Hern (at) h o t m a i l d o t c o m
P.S. - An interesting thing about modafinil (often given to sufferers of sleep apnea - It has demonstrated the ability to restore brain function similar to good REM sleep. I *STRONGLY* suspect that it acts on the brain stem the same way as REM sleep - promoting neural regrowth.
I had a great
Winston Churchill did this without the aid of a Visor. His solution? Sit in a comfortable chair, hold your keys in one your hands and let that hand rest in such a way that when releasing the keys they'll fall to the floor. Then fall asleep - when you are about to enter deep sleep your muscles will loosen and your keys will hit the floor, making sufficient noice to wake you up. Simple, but very efficient :-)
Black holes are where God divided by zero
Well, then they have to make up for it on the weekend, or they have some serious brain disorder, and not the kind you want to have. Almost everybody needs about 8h of sleep per night. Some people need more. If you sleep less than what you need, you incur a sleep debt which you will have to repay. If the debt gets too large, you'll just keep falling asleep briefly throughout the day and not even notice (which can be rather dangerous). And if you are living with a large sleep debt, it's bad for your health.
Most Americans are already chronically sleep-deprived and suffering numerous health problems as a consequence.
One research group that has done excellent work on this and published a lot is Prof. Dement at Stanford (no, I'm not making up the name).
He has a guide specifically for students.
Now, I get around 7-8 hours a night, sometimes a lot less (I'm a grad. student). I have experiment with getting more, and I noticed that I feel a lot better with 9 hours of sleep than with 8. As a student, though, I find it hard enough to get 7 or 8. I feel 'normal' on 8, but feel better than normal on 9.