Slashdot Mirror


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."

46 of 417 comments (clear)

  1. Brilliant excuse by yobjob · · Score: 5, Funny

    I didn't get smashed last night, I just wake up drunk, honest!

    1. Re:Brilliant excuse by thermopile · · Score: 5, Funny
      No way. I don't buy it, not one iota.

      When I'm drunk, I have this irrational and very strong urge to hook up with whatever woman looks strikingly attractive in the room. Raging ball of hormones.

      When I'm waking up? are you kidding? I'm usually annoyed that the ugly troll of a thing sleeping next to me (who was strikingly attractive last night) has the nerve to have her arm draped over me.

      Way, way different.

      --

      "Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound

    2. Re:Brilliant excuse by Directrix1 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I don't understand why that wasn't formatted right, it was set to plain text:

      OK, seeing as how this is Slashdot let me load your post into vim and make a run through the standard few corrections to translate for the majority slashdot crowd:
      :%s/hook up with/masterbate to/g
      :%s/woman/german fetish video/g
      :%s/in the room/on my computer in my mom's basement/g
      :%s/who was strikingly attractive last night/a picture of a sweet transvestite from transexual, Transylvania/g
      :%s/have her arm draped over me/point out how pathetic I really am/g
      :wq

      --
      Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
    3. Re:Brilliant excuse by misleb · · Score: 4, Funny
      The difference is, when you're wasted, you'll literally be ok with curling up in a pile of leaves, laying down on the steps of the bar, etc. When you wake up in the morning, there is no substitute for the bed :)



      I dunno, my brother used to fall asleep in the shower in the morning.

      -mattew

      --
      "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
  2. Remember Folks... by Burning1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    So remember folks: If you fall asleep while driving it's very important that you don't attempt to wake up.

    1. Re:Remember Folks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      My grandfather died peacefully in his sleep. Unlike the four other people in the car he was driving.

    2. Re:Remember Folks... by Dirtside · · Score: 3, Funny

      Best version:

      When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather, and not screaming and helpless, like his passengers.

      --
      "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
  3. Its just like... by Saggi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Its just like... by Zakabog · · Score: 3, Funny

      5, insightful, I think the moderators just woke up.

  4. Wha....? by lheal · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.
  5. So if you drink a lot... by Zakabog · · Score: 3, Funny

    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!

  6. theolein reports on Common Sense by theolein · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:theolein reports on Common Sense by datafr0g · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah but do you have scientific evidence that common sense exists?

      --
      "Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
    2. Re:theolein reports on Common Sense by kfg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      . . .do you have scientific evidence that common sense exists?

      Anecdotal evidence suggests that it does not. I shall apply for a grant to conduct a rigorous test of the hypothesis. If I get it. . .

      Q.E.D.

      KFG

  7. MIT natural alarm clock by moonbender · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:MIT natural alarm clock by Red+Alastor · · Score: 4, Insightful
      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).

      No need for sensors or anything complicated. Use two alarm clocks, set one at the earliest time you want to make. Set it on radio and set the sound fairly low. Set the second at the maximum time you want to wake but put it on alarm at maximum volume.

      When you'll be ready to wake up, the low sound will wake you up. If it doesn't happen, the second will wake you. It might take a few shots to figure out how low/loud you must set the first alarm.

      --
      Slashdot anagrams to "Sad Sloth"
    2. Re:MIT natural alarm clock by jtoomim · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think this article (the news version, at least--I haven't read the actual paper yet, so I can't comment on it) makes one gross error of omission: there is very little discussion of where in the sleep cycles the subjects were woken up. The only thing I've seen that even remotely relates is the 8-hour sleep period used, and that disturbs me for reasons I'll go into later.

      So the human sleep cycle is about 90 minutes in length, and is composed of up to five stages. Stage one sleep is just a euphemism for barely-awake drowsiness. Stage two sleep is the first stage of what we typically call "sleep". It's a rather light sleep, usually dreamless or with vague, poorly-defined hallucination-like dreams. The EEG of stage two sleep is characterized by dominant theta wave (4-8 Hz) activity with small amounts of alpha (8-12 Hz) and delta (0.5-4 Hz). Stages three and four are commonly called "deep sleep" or "slow wave sleep" (SWS), and are defined according to the amount of delta waves present. By definition, stage three consists of 20-50% delta wave activity and stage four consists of more than 50% delta wave activity. These stages are completely dreamless, as the brain is nearly completely inactive during these times. Stage five sleep is also known as REM sleep. During the other four sleep stages, the eyes have little or no movement (as measured by electrooculogram, or EOG), and muscle tone is moderate (as measured by electromyogram, or EMG). During REM sleep, this pattern reverses: the eyes move rapidly, as if the subject were awake and alert, whereas muscular activity and tone flatlines. REM sleep is where the majority of dreams occur, and all of the more vivid ones. EEG and brain activity is similar to stage two sleep. I don't know for sure, but something makes me want to say that while theta waves are the dominant waveform in REM sleep, a fair amount of beta (> 12 Hz) and alpha present as well, moreso than stage 2 sleep.

      There's a paper or two in Claudio Stampi's /Why We Nap/ that describes performance on cognitive tests (e.g., a mathematical reasoning test) after being woken up from each of the five stages of sleep. They tested subjects who had been deprived of sleep for some period of time (I think about 24 hours or less), and then let the subjects sleep for between something like 15 minutes and 80 minutes, depending on their random group assignment and how long they took to enter each stage. On average, the cohort woken up in the middle of stage one, two, and five sleep performed the best, with cognitive deficits disappearing after about 40 minutes, followed by performance that for up to four hours significantly exceeded their pre-nap (and sleep-deprived) performance. Of those three groups, those woken during REM sleep performed the best, and those "woken" during stage one sleep (i.e., drowsy wakefulness) performed the worse, taking about 10 more minutes before shaking off the weight of slumber. On the other hand, those woken during SWS had much greater deficits that lasted several hours, followed by a (shorter) period of above-baseline performance that lasted until about four hours after being woken.

      If the subjects in this study performed that poorly for several hours after being woken, they were probably woken during SWS. Given that they were given 8 hours to sleep, they probably were woken during SWS.

      An average (uninterrupted) sleep cycle typically consists of about 25-40 minutes of stage one and two sleep at the beginning, 10-40 minutes of SWS in the middle, and 0-35 minutes of REM at the end. The amount of each stage of sleep depends on a number of factors, such as the time of day, the time since the last sleep, the amount of "sleep debt" (which is really SWS debt), how physically active the person has been (physical exhaustion produces more and deeper SWS), how mentally active the person has been (the more things a person has learned in the last 1-4 days, the more REM sleep the person will typically get--especially if the new knowledge is procedur

  8. Then in the US by woodengod · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... waking up should be forbidden for persons younger than 21 years ;o)

  9. Where's that Snooze button? by datafr0g · · Score: 3, Funny

    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
  10. I was sleeping deeply by smittyoneeach · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...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
    1. Re:I was sleeping deeply by Bob+Cat+-+NYMPHS · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think it's funny, even though it happened to you.

    2. Re:I was sleeping deeply by Reziac · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm a very light sleeper, and typically quite aware of my surroundings even when asleep. True story:

      I'm taking a nap. I start having a dream that a spider is builing a web attached to my nose. I wake up and find... it's TRUE! Some stupid spider had just got done running an anchor line from my nose to the ceiling.

      I don't move in my sleep (I wake up to turn over). I guess the spider thought I was dead. :)

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  11. Re:Legally drunk? by Fruny · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not "legally" vs. "illegally", but, say, "legally" vs. "medically".

  12. Classic by hairykrishna · · Score: 4, Funny

    "University of Colorado: Quantifying the obvious since 1876"

    --
    "Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
  13. drunk according to statute by Quadraginta · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  14. Sleeptracker by Freaky+Spook · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Sleeptracker by moonbender · · Score: 3, Informative

      Heh, Slashdot rules. I checked it out, and 1) it does seem to work, 2) it just monitors your movement, that's all. If you're moving, you're probably not in a state of deep sleep and are more easily woken up. Interesting, but still too expensive (if not quite as much as I'd have thought). Oh and 3) it's just a wrist watch, so not that annoying to wear, I guess.

      --
      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
  15. My brain is slower in the morning by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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 :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
  16. Anyone else here... by aug24 · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...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.
  17. where this scares me is wrt medical care by mrpeebles · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  18. Not like being drunk at all by Admiral+Burrito · · Score: 4, Funny

    I must disagree with the article.

    I hate waking up.

  19. British army by 19061969 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...
    1. Re:British army by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      Dunno about in the British Army, but in the American Army this same meme exists -- and it's a (rather dangerous) urban legend. I know this, unfortunately, because when I was an infantryman, a buddy of mine tried to use this as an excuse for kicking a 2LT in the face, and it didn't work. And yeah, the lieutenant deserved it; he used to think it was fun to sneak up to someone's tent and grab their feet and yell "Boo!" if they were sticking out. I'm 6'3", and my buddy was about the same height; you'd better believe that when we were in a tent together, especially those damn issue pup tents that probably haven't changed since the height of the average GI was 5'4" back in the Civil War, our feet were sticking out. To be fair, the 2LT got an ass-chewing -- but my buddy lost a stripe and his next three paychecks.

      Really, when you think about it, it makes sense that this principle isn't generally followed; infantrymen have to be able to wake up and function almost instantly. Generally, only one guy in a foxhole is going to be awake. The other guy has to be able wake up and roll into a firing position the instant anything Really Bad starts happening. It took me years to break that habit.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  20. I see you're problem by lheal · · Score: 5, Funny
    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.

    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.
  21. you're - "your" by lheal · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sorry. I just woke up.

    --
    Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
  22. Re:Just one of the reasons... by trandism · · Score: 3, Funny

    You mean you shower? :o :o Every morning? :o ooops this place has changed radically lately :|

    --
    www.lemonodor.com A mostly Lisp weblog
  23. Re:Legally drunk? by masklinn · · Score: 3, Informative

    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
  24. Re:Attestation by Fred_A · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.
  25. Easy to scoff by SimianOverlord · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Easy to scoff by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Informative

      Is there anyone, anyone at all in the world who thought it would be a good idea to perform critical medical procedures just after waking up?

      I worked in emergency medicine for nine years, and I can tell you that unfortunately, the answer is "yes." In small, rural ER's, there's almost always only one doctor on duty, and on night shift he's napping until someone comes in. In bigger, urban teaching hospitals, most of the doctors are interns and residents, and they're so exhausted from working their absurdly long hours that they grab sleep whenever they possibly can. And it's been a dirty little not-so-secret in the medical community for ... well, pretty much ever ... that this kind of thing kills patients. That's why this subject needs investigation; it's not just a waste of your preciousss tax dollars.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  26. Oblig. Futurama by Dachannien · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  27. I don't believe it... by Flaming+Babies · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.
  28. Re:Totally Inaccurate Report by hotdiggitydawg · · Score: 5, Funny

    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

  29. We already proved this... by ayjay29 · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.
  30. No kidding by Hosiah · · Score: 3, Funny
    My spouse has watched with amusement over the years as I have attempted my first task of the morning - making my espresso. It's a 50% shot if I can pull this off the first time, without forgetting to add water, add beans, turn on pot, plug pot in, get coffee cup, avoid cracking head on cupboard doors, etc. By the time I have espresso in cup in hand and I'm right-side up, I'm OK from there.

    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...

    1. Re:No kidding by jcuervo · · Score: 3, Funny
      The first five minutes after waking is POST, kernel module loading, login, starting the desktop...
      Brain error or brain not present, please insert caffeine to continue...

      --
      Assume I was drunk when I posted this.