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Study: Waking Up Like Being Drunk
Ant writes "CNN reports that "sleep inertia" leaves some people so groggy, after they wake up, they might as well be drunk, researchers said on Tuesday. "For a short period, at least, the effects of sleep inertia may be as bad as or worse than being legally drunk," said researcher Kenneth Wright of the University of Colorado at Boulder."
I didn't get smashed last night, I just wake up drunk, honest!
Czech language for absolute beginners
So remember folks: If you fall asleep while driving it's very important that you don't attempt to wake up.
Its just like sitting and waiting for a new post on slashdot, and then quickly trying to write something usefull, witch actually ends up rather stupid.
According to this research we should not allow post for at least 3 min after a new entry on slashdot.
I think this entry proves my point.
-:) Oh no - not again.
www.rednebula.com
Just one of the reasons why I choose to shower in the morning rather than in the evening.
Shorry, I dinnt unnerstan that. Where's my damn coffee?
I have this stupid little dog that keeps waking up at night and yipping with this ear-piercing yelp. Something about taking a piss. I hate that little dog. Damn activists would have me in jail if I shot her, though.
So where's that coffee? Oh, here it is. Ahh.
Wow, what a stupid post. Better not press Submi...
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
So if you drink a lot before you go to sleep, and you wake up drunk, the two effects cancel each other out. So drink heavily every night and you'll be fine!
It may come as a great shock to these scientists to realise that most people on the planet take awhile to get fully awake after waking up. Those same people would refer to that knowledge as common sense.
There was a story about some sleep researchers from MIT having developed an alarm clock that monitors your sleep and wakes you up at a time when you're most likely to be well rested (outside a REM phase or whatever). Of course that meant you couldn't enter the exact time to wake up, just an approximate. I still thought this sounded awesome, and they were going to commercialise it, but even if they did I guess it's really expensive and also, sleeping with sensors attached is bound to be annoying.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
... waking up should be forbidden for persons younger than 21 years ;o)
There is evidence that the cortical areas of the brain thought to be responsible for problem-solving, complex thought and emotions take longer to wake up than other parts of the brain, Wright wrote.
Problem Solving? COMPLEX THOUGHT?! EMOTIONS!?!?!?
Fuck that! I'm goin' back to bed!
"Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
... but I have a shot or two in the morning, just to be shure.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Well it varies greatly depending on the situation and what state you live in. If you are drunk and creating a big scene in a public place you can be arrested for 'Drunk in Public', which is a sort of catch all which can also be used to get bums off the street and such. Then if your driving it is based off of a specific blood alcohol level, which varies by state. Also if a minor is caught drunk it has to be proven with a blood alcohol test, but the levels are very low. So really "legally drunk" is just a catch all phrase without a set scientific answer.
chown -R us
...and dreamt of being at a Black Sabbath concert. They were grinding out "Iron Man", and I was in front, doing some mighty head-banging.
Things turned literal when my head met the window sill against which my bed lay.
I became semi-conscious, with blood streaming from my forhead, but couldn't move well because my right arm was still asleep.
Almost deathly so: my sleeping position had cut off circulation to the arm, apparently for a long time. The Sabbath dream had been my subconscious trying to 'rock' me into a different position. Later, when my arm functioned again and the bleeding stopped I thought, wow, that would have been pretty funny, if it hadn't happened to me...
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
It's because there isn't a '-1, Whining'
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
It's not "legally" vs. "illegally", but, say, "legally" vs. "medically".
"University of Colorado: Quantifying the obvious since 1876"
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
If your blood alcohol concentration is above certain limits set by law, typically 0.08% these days, then you are defined by law to be drunk, whatever your state of reflexes, ability to concentrate, et cetera. Otherwise, whether you are drunk or not is a matter of judgment -- not yours, of course, but typically that of the policeman who stops you and the judge who hears the case.
However, the limit used to be 0.10%, and that is actually fairly sloshed. You would be pretty happy, typically, although people vary. The point is that it used to be the case that you could be definitely drunk, and know it, but still be under the limit at which you would be defined to be drunk by the law. Naive people would imagine, therefore, that you could be drunk but not legally drunk (because you were under the 0.10% limit). This was never the case, of course, since even under the 0.10% limit you could still be determined to be drunk by a policeman and a judge. But it was a popular fiction.
From this beginning I think nowadays "legally drunk" has morphed into a colloquial expression meaning mostly just "pretty definitely drunk" versus just feelin' good -- you know, at that point where friends argue happily with each other -- hey, I'm not drunk, man, just...relaxed...g'wan, ask me anything...look! I can balance a beer bottle on my nose (crash)!
It has nothing to do with the legal drinking age.
This was also reported by New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8564.
The sleeptracker watch is what your talking about, it monitors your body signals to wake you up at the best moment, you set an alarm window & it will wake you up at the best time, they sell on Amazon for 139.95.
I literally think more slowly after waking up. When I shower in the morning it takes me like 20 minutes to do the exact same procedure I can complete in 10 minutes if take a shower in the middle of the day.
;)
I bicycle to work, and I've found the exercise really helps to jolt you awake. Fresh air and exercise in general wakes me up much better than getting on a bus to work does. Below freezing temperatures help too
I think people tend to take their need of sleep too lightly these days. I would prefer to sleep about 9 hours a night, but practical issues and social pressure keeps me at between 6 and 8 hours per night. I don't feel that time spent sleeping is wasted, as a programmer I often that I've solved problems during sleep.
.: Max Romantschuk
Ah! Then in that case, I'm fine with it.
--
silas
hobbit
london
Drunk as defined by law.
With a blood alcohol content over a certain percentage.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Legally drunk simply means you are drunk as defined by law.
This may or may not imply that you are illegally drunk, since being drunk in and of itself may not be illegal, say, if you are home in bed. Being legally drunk in public where such is against the law would make you illegally drunk and subject to arrest simply for being drunk, illegally.
If you are driving a car while you are legally drunk it is the act of driving the car that is illegal, not the being drunk, per se and the charge would be Driving While Intoxicated. Driving illegally, not illegally drunk.
Ain't legal semantics fun?
KFG
...ever woken up still drunk? I remember doing so after my mate Frank's stag do. Got downstairs, drank some water, out of the house to Fulham High Road to a coffeeshop, bought coffee and a Sunday paper, sat down and realised that (a) I couldn't read and (b) I forgot shoes.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
For a short period, at least, the effects of sleep inertia may be as bad as or worse than being legally drunk," said researcher Kenneth Wright of the University of Colorado.
Is this one of these scientific tests that involve lots of alcohol and plenty of sleeping?
Was this experiment by any chance conducted by The Maximegallon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious? (Mostly Harmless, Chapter 6)
Where all this scares me is with respect to medical care. My understanding is that while there are guidelines on how many hours, eg, medical residents can work, at least in many cases it is cheaper for hospitals to pay the fine than to hire more residents. I have heard of studies comparing sleep deprivation to being drunk for a long time. Hopefully they are starting to add up, and we'll stop having to wonder whether the doctor looking at us in the emergency room hasn't slept in the last 24 hours.
I must disagree with the article.
I hate waking up.
This problem of getting to full cognitive capacity after waking is a serious one in some professions. Think about doctors who are on night duty and are woken up to immediately deal with an emergency. In some cases it might be better to just stand around and do nothing for a few minutes unless it really is life threatening.
I had a doctor friend who, after coming in from a night out drinking, used to hook himself up to a drip. End result: waking up with no dehydration and much less of a hangover, but that's slightly OT.
I also heard that in the British Army, the first minute after waking up doesn't officially exist - that's because they're aware that people are still "out of sorts" and incapable for at least a minute. In theory, you can punch the Sgt-Major and get away with it.
Of course, he would make you pay one way or another...
bang goes my karma... again...
Perhaps you should find some other place to conduct that procedure. Most slashdotters do it in front of their PC at night, I think.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Sorry. I just woke up.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Legally drunk would probably be closer to "drunk according to the local laws/regulations", I think. I Am Not A Native English Speaker though.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Well, I moved my alarm clock to my neigbour's house and it worked great for me.
I haven't been to work since.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
If you had gone to a hospital bureaucrat and argued against shift patterns for junior doctors requiring them to nap during the night when no patients were around, and they asked you for evidence, what then do you do? Say that they would be sleepy? That it was common sense that they couldn't do their job safely?
I suspect you'd be dismissed because people don't make important decisions like that based on what Joe Schmoe reckons is 'obvious'. That's why things that, on the face of them seem obvious, must be checked out scientifically. There has to be evidence to base decisions on, as gut feelings and common sense are, in many cases, completely and flagrantly wrong.
You demand those new conditions for junior doctors, and you're suddenly paying them millions of pounds more countrywide. I wouldn't stake millions of pounds on someones common sense without something more to back it up.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
Yeah actually the feeling i feel when i wake up is more like being drunk (as in glass of water) than being drunk (as in beer)
p.s. i hate you for posting that DA reference first
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I always thought that I am more productive after a few hours of nap in the afternoon. This study is going to spoil my productivity.
They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. -Nathaniel Lee
I have the same problem and think I know the solution. What we need is a loud alarm-clock with no or very limited snooze that cannot be turned off (its alarm would stop after say 5 minutes). The time and alarm settings could only be altered in a fixed window (say between midday and midnight), and the thing would be indestructible. What do you think?
Leela: Look at that 5 o'clock rust. Bender, you've been up all night not drinking, haven't you?!
Bender: Hey, what I don't do is none of your business!
Leela: Please, Bender, have some malt liquor. If not for yourself, then for the people who love you.
I'm always tired when I get to work,
yet the women I work with are consistently unattractive all day long.
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
Obligatory quote: "I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day." - Frank Sinatra
I'm like that as well. That's why God invented coffee.
That you are groggy after waking up is no news. What was surprising was how strong this effect is. When someone is awake for 26 hours, although he is obviously very tired, he his still mentally more fit than 10 minutes after he woke up.
That there is a relation might be obvious. But still it is of interest to get the numbers: what is the probability to get pregnant after having sex, what conditions have an influence on this probability? How big is the risk of getting cancer if you are an average smoker (*very* interesting for insurance companies). Those numbers may not be listed in a short news message, but experts can get something out of the study, making it worth the money.
On holiday with friends, we got into the habit of a group of us suddenly waking someone up and asking stupid questions or saying stupid stuff.
"Wake Up!!! Wake Up!!! What's the captial of Paris? What's the captial of Paris? What's the captial of Paris?"
"Uhh, duhhh, uhhh, France!, uhh, no, no, Paris, uhh France?"
or even
"Wake Up!!! Wake Up!!! The Zebras have escaped!! The Zebras have escaped!! The Zebras have escaped!!"
"Uhh, uhh, Zebras, oh no, shit, Zebras, where, no, shit, what, Zebras?"
There's definatly a period of a few seconds after waking up when you have no idea what's going on around you. (And it's even worse when a bunch of gits start taking advantage of the fact.)
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
When I first wake up in the morning, I feel like someone has taken a baseball bat and nailed me in the back of the head with it. This is related to some serious headache issues I have, but it leads me to something else.
My cognitive abilities upon waking are nearly non-existent: I've been known to slur words and been unable to string together a coherent sentence.
My physical abilities aren't much better: I've fallen down the stairs, walked into doors, and walked into walls.
What's scary is that for years I've been on call for various employers (ISPs mostly). When that pager goes off and I have to wake up and troubleshoot a problem, just getting to my office downstairs can be dangerous. Then trying to "rev up" my brain to work on the problem can take a long time. You should talk to some of my coworkers who've called me in the middle of the night for help with a problem - I'm sure that the conversation sounded like one with a person who has been drinking heavily.
I have no difficulty at all in believing that waking up makes some people so groggy that their abilities are no better than those of someone who is drunk. And when that person needs to make decisions with serious consequences, that is not a good thing.
I get some pretty weird ideas when I'm first waking up. I always use the snooze alarm, setting the clock to start half an hour before I actually have to get up, because I like to sort of 'ease into' waking up. But sometimes, when I'm particularly fatigued, I get strange ideas about what is going on with the alarm clock. On a few occasions, I've hit the snooze and thought to myself, "I'm tired, but at least I have this button that gives me 10 more minutes of sleep," and I would translate this as, "Good thing I can travel back in time by 10 minutes, I can keep this up indefinitely until I am bored with sleeping!" Then there'll be a harsh moment of panic when I actually look at the clock and realize that the time travel isn't working right for some reason.
:)
Other times, back when I was learning the guitar, I had the weirdest notion that the pulsing tone of the alarm clock was actually a musical scale of a particular key, and I've have to guess what key it was as I hit the button. Then I'd lie back down to wait for the next "test". The clock was a monotone, but I'd declare, "C minor!" and would feel that I had gotten it right, and I would get it right each time with different answers.
Not always. In some states in the US (like mine for example, and I sat on a jury for a DUI case), the percentage is not relevant. The jury is instructed to decide if, in their judgement, the person was "impaired" due to the consumption of alcohol, based on their own experience and witness testimony (arresting officer talking about a sobriety test and/or observed behavior, generally.) Matter of fact, we asked the judge for information regarding the legal definition as related to BAC, and we were told "never you mind, facts not in evidence."
BTW, shotgunning 2 beers inside 15 minutes after driving for 6 hours = impaired. Guilty.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
My theory is there's a boot-period for your brain just like a boot period when your computer turns on. The first five minutes after waking is POST, kernel module loading, login, starting the desktop...
For some reason I'm reminded of a bumper sticker I once saw:
Beer! It's the reason I get up in the afternoon!
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I'm also amused by my stint in big companies that they seem to be alright with waking people up in the middle of the night in order to have them fix something on multi-million-dollar systems doing huge financial transactions.
For a while, I was the guy staying up all night for a large bank, calling the day-shifters when something broke. The people were very good about it, and generally were able to cope with this, but I always thought it was a recipie for disaster.
I find it difficult to make good decisions during my normal waking hours if I'm very tired, let alone being awakened a few hours after having gone to sleep and asked complex questions during my normal sleep time.