The Dangers of Being Really, Really Tired

Sleepy Dog Millionare writes "Brian Palmer, writing for Slate, asks 'Can you die from lack of sleep?' and shockingly, the answer may very well be Yes, you can. Palmer points to 'ground breaking experiments' in the area of sleep research. It turns out that sleep deprivation can actually be deadly in rats. The obvious conclusion is that it is probably deadly in all mammals. So the next time you think you need to pull multiple all-night hack-a-thons, ask yourself if it's worth risking your life for."

Comments

If I were sleep deprived

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't be able to get a first post.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Anonymous Coward]

I really wish people would take the dangers of even small amounts of sleep deprivation more seriously.

Even missing an hours sleep could be enough to kill some poor sod who happens to be crossing the road at the same time as you miss the red lights.

In the modern world it seems to be macho to go without sleep. In reality, depriving yourself of sleep makes you less productive.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Anonymous Coward]

depriving yourself of sleep makes you less productive

It may, depending on what you're doing. Being deprived of sleep (or stoned) is the only way I can even contemplate boring tasks -- decorating for example. If I'm capable of doing something... anything that's even vaguely interesting then boring tasks are going to be put off.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Anonymous Coward]

In the modern world it seems to be macho to go without sleep.

Stop talking like a pussy, boy!

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Anonymous Coward]

If you need to be in any sort of altered state of mind to function, then you have deeper problems. I don't buy into all of that bullshit ADD crap, but perhaps you should get more exercise and eat healthier. It might help more than you know.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Thiez]

> In reality, depriving yourself of sleep makes you less productive.

In reality, there's more to life than being 'at optimal productivity level' all the time. Work to live, not the other way round. If you have an awesome party on your birthday but are a little less productive the day after, then the world can just suck it up. I'm not saying you should drive while (severely) sleep deprived, it's just that there are many things in life that are worth a little sleep deprivation. Just make sure you understand the consequences of sleep deprivation and use that knowledge to act responsibly.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Shikaku]

There's a whole new meaning to being dead tired...

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[MikeFM]

When I was younger I'd sometimes go as much as a week without sleep. It does make a difference in how you solve problems. With massive sleep deprivation problems requiring critical thinking become harder but problems requiring creative leaps get easier. You end up in something close to a waking dream state. I wouldn't suggest it for average problems but if you get really stuck on something that is very complex it can help.

Of course most problems of this nature can be solved by just relaxing in a quiet place for a while and letting your mind wander. There is something to different states of mind but it's best not to abuse these. With practice you can slip into the right state of mind at will without needing to force it with drugs, lack of sleep, etc.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[jamesh]

Sleep deprivation also causes you to miss jokes, and often also miss the whooshing noise that occurs after you miss them.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[SleepingWaterBear]

In reality, depriving yourself of sleep makes you less productive.

My own experience has been that a mild level of sleep deprivation increases my productivity since my mind is less resistant to menial tasks. However, and this is very important, when sleep deprived, my rate of learning is much lower. My experience is that when I'm sleep deprived it's my ability to form memories that suffers.

Since ultimately your effectiveness depends much more on how well you've learned than your current mental state, being well rested is of far more value than people give it credit for.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[orangenerd]

In the modern world it seems to be macho to go without sleep. In reality, depriving yourself of sleep makes you less productive.

(...)In reality, depriving yourself of sleep makes you less reproductive. There, fixed it ;)

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[cyn1c77]

I really wish people would take the dangers of even small amounts of sleep deprivation more seriously.

Even missing an hours sleep could be enough to kill some poor sod who happens to be crossing the road at the same time as you miss the red lights.

In the modern world it seems to be macho to go without sleep. In reality, depriving yourself of sleep makes you less productive.

Then I hope you drive alone, with the radio off, ALWAYS keep your eyes on the road, don't drink alcohol to maintain optimal reaction at all times.

I'm less worried about sleep deprived drivers than I am about the ones who are talking on the phone, texting, fixing their hair, and yelling at their kids while hauling ass behind me in their SUV's.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I don't think the parent is talking about parties, but people who stay up all night to get a project done. Working more productively means you can spend less time working.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't buy into all of that bullshit ADD crap, but perhaps you should get more exercise and eat healthier. It might help more than you know.

How do you know that many people with ADD don't exercise and eat healthy? Or are you simply basing all this on your own observations, rather than scientific ones?

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[hitmark]

Sadly, the consumer way of live do not work that way. Or at least, that's the message told to us by corps 24/7...

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[MrNaz]

There's a fair bit of daylight between being an iron pumping, celery eating health freak, and the lifestyle of the average Slashdotter, especially one who openly admits to having a severe aversion to "boring" tasks.

I think what the OP was (rather crassly) suggesting was that a combination of balanced diet, balanced lifestyle and balanced sense of responsibility could help you (or anyone for that matter) take a more realistic attitude to the boring but necessary parts that make up Life As A Human.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Hal_Porter]

Sleep deprivation is a myth. Margaret Thatcher got by with four hours sleep a night, before she went mad.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[profplump]

Is decorating now a necessary part of Life As A Human? To me that seems like a legitimately boring, completely unnecessary task where being drunk/high/sleep-deprived could be legitimately beneficial. But I'm willing to admit that I could be wrong, and that decorating could be an important part of life -- all I ask is a reasonable argument to the effect. Do you have one?

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[profplump]

Don't you dare suggest that this question has anything other than a black-or-white solution -- either sleep deprivation is terrible in all circumstances or it has no effect on life. It's absurd to suggest that sleep deprivation might have varying consequences depending on the circumstance, and you're obviously a troll to even suggest such a thing.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[cs02rm0]

She talks like a pussy cuz she's a girl, you moron.

Ah, that explains why anonymous coward posts so much, it's the only girl to find slashdot just blabbering on and on!

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[malkavian]

Wierd.. I've only once stayed awake for a whole week.. After 3 days, I started getting auditory hallucinations, after 5, that included visual. Most of the work I was on at that point was next to useless, and there was no guarantee that what went into my head actually made it intact to the paper I was writing on.
Once I'd had sleep after it, and pieced together what I was trying to do and made sense of it all, I salvaged most of it, but hey.. Not a good way to work.
The stresses on the system left me feeling not in such a good way for some time..
Personally, I'd not recommend it for any problem that you wouldn't try to solve by popping a tab of acid.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Keeper Of Keys]

Depends on what you're doing instead of sleeping.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Lorens]

boring tasks -- decorating for example.

In my experience, it is possible to find someone else who will quite happily actually insist on taking care of all one's home decorating, with even some fringe benefits thrown in. Of course some might find surprising disadvantages to my solution, like sudden difficulties completing 24h WoW sessions, but as TFA says even the average slashdotter needs his beauty sleep.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[backwardMechanic]

In reality, depriving yourself of sleep makes you less productive.

The last two chapters of my PhD thesis would disagree with you. 2-3hrs a night for a little over a week, and suddenly it all made sense

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

It does if you increase your hourly rate.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I agree with the other response to this post. I used to be a druggie myself, until one day I finally quit and began putting my life back together. The most I ever did was pot, but even that is enough to harm you. You may say it is safe, it doesn't kill you or cause cancer, but the truth is altering your state of mind isn't good.
I have found being in a clear state of mind these past five years has accelerated my learning and retention more so than doing drugs ever did. I mean, looking back at it now I wish I didn't waste so much time on smoking pot and seeking the next drag, I could have been doing a lot more useful stuff.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[mspohr]

Decorating!??!!

Why are you decorating????

Who is forcing you to decorate?

Back to your basement and put on your tinfoil hat and don't even think of decorating.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[smallfries]

I've wondered how much the side effects of sleep deprivation change between different people. I would guess that I'm more sensitive to these side-effects than most - I start getting minor auditory hallucinations after being awake for 16+ hours (not much more than a normal day), and visual effects about 20+ hours in. But then I don't think I could survive more than a couple of days, I hit a really hard brick wall at about 40 hours and can't stay awake. By that stage I've already gone through the temperature changes that they describe in the article.

Although it is a hellish way to work there is something to be said for not having to pick up context repeatedly in a problem. A 24-hr stretch in the office seems to produce about as much work as a standard 40-hr week.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[sleigher]

This can be true for you and if so that is great. I thought like that as well when I stopped smoking weed. The truth is though, there are many people who do just fine. I know directors in large companies, (fortune 15) who smoke and they do very well. It admit it is not for everyone because I hit a wall like you one day and cannot do it anymore. I cannot fathom being stoned and trying get things done. I just try to be aware that what works for me doesn't necessarily work for others.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[MrPippers]

I'm currently in architecture school, and the expectation at both of the universities I have attended is to stay up all night for days at a time, especially during mid-reviews and final reviews. As for whether it increases creativity, it certainly does up to a point. A small anecdote, if I may be allowed: During my second year in architecture school I had a professor that gave us absurd amounts of work above and beyond that of the other studio sections. Her justification? So that we would learn work ethics even if it meant staying up all night. She even had a definition for the all-nighter. According to her, if we had time to go home and take a shower, it was not a true all-nighter. The other thing I can say is that this semester, now in grad school half-way across the country, the all-nighter is just a prevalent or more so. It's the nature of architecture school. I ended up sleeping for 2-3 hours a day for almost two weeks towards the end of the semester, and eventually, with enough sleep deprivation you become despondent, and its time to put your head down or go home and get some rest so you can actually be productive. Both of these cases were somewhat extreme. There have been tales on various architecture forums of schools trying to ban all-nighters, but the expectations of perfection, extreme amounts of production, and a project constantly in flux never go away, so the all-nighter won't either. Even at Georgia Tech which touts its 24 hour access to the architecture building and its resources (even parts of the wood shop), the administration gets nervous when people move cots and couches into the building. I think I've ranted enough on the subject, but if anyone wants to start a thread, lets do it.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Yeah, that's what I meant. You charge more for less hours.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Antique Geekmeister]

Would you care to bet that you got quiet catnaps that gave you at least a bit of dream time? Dream time is pretty easily measured with EEG's and eyelid mutters to detect Raped Eye Movement, or REM, even when the sleeper is not aware that they've been doing it.

I'd guess that your "letting your mind wander" included very fast visits to actual dreamland. And any of us who've worked competently during very long shifts, such as during release time at a start-up or in rescue work at natural disasters, have learned the ability to sleep quickly and wake up quickly.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[somersault]

Raped Eye Movement

You managed to spell the rest of your comment correctly, so was this just a Freudian slip or do you want to enlighten us as to the details of this horrific biological state?

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Antique Geekmeister]

Oh, dear. Get me some coffee, quickly!

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[regrepsnefpoh]

Obviously people use it as hyperbole, but did the phrase "dead tired" ever mean anything besides "tired to the point of death"?

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Zencyde]

Yeah, but pot makes the exercising easier.

Your move, AC.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[spiralx]

After spending a year or so staying awake for 5 days at a time almost every week I can tell you that you can get used to it... for me hallucinations started around the 4 day point, by the end of that year they wouldn't kick in until I'd been awake nearly six days.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[MikeFM]

I don't think so. With that kind of lack of sleep if you sleep at all you are down for the count. It's all about keeping moving and keeping the adrenaline up.

I do dream when awake but I don't actually stop receiving all external input or stop moving. I do become less reactive to what is going on around me so I guess it's possible I could be switching off for a second or two at a time.

The problem is that I do this no matter what I'm doing - I'll blink into a dream state when showering, holding a conversation, or driving even when I'm well rested. I have to avoid thinking or I get sucked in.

As I'm getting older I don't switch between this waking-dream state and normal state so it does tend to turn into sleep more often now but I think that is a third state.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[MikeFM]

You do start to hallucinate and become paranoid and unreasonable. Not especially fun. If you are abusing caffeine it is even worse. It's certainly not a good way to work most of the time. I'll agree that it might be something like popping a tab of acid. You get very creative but it will make you very unstable. As I have a family now I try not to get this sleep deprived and I avoid caffeine.

I sometimes have sleep-walking like coding sessions where I produce amazing tricks of code but when you read the code it is almost impossible to figure out why it works. I'd put it on par with trying to figure out why a neural net or genetic algorithm has produced what it has.

I used to do a lot of work with artificial intelligence and methods of indexing and searching massive stacks of information. These problems were usually very non-linear and complex so they weren't something you could just sit down and plan out what logic needed to happen. Code produced while sleep-coding or massively sleep deprived sometimes did stuff I just couldn't explain but it was very interesting and sometimes had results I've not seen duplicated.

The code produced is just bizarre though. It has weird names and is often very much spaghetti code. Sometimes it seems to be inside out. :)

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[MikeFM]

I don't know if it's a good idea to ask students do go without sleep for so long. You really do lose your ability to think logically and you become paranoid and emotional. Combined with the stress of something like finals I could see someone snapping and going on a shooting spree or something. If that happened I think the school should be held responsible.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[AlamedaStone]

the works these individuals produced when not self-medicating or while being properly treated by a psychiatrist with medication were almost always of higher quality.

[citation needed]

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[commander_gallium]

The problem is that I do this no matter what I'm doing - I'll blink into a dream state when showering, holding a conversation, or driving even when I'm well rested. I have to avoid thinking or I get sucked in.

If this happens with any regularity you shouldn't drive.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Frantactical Fruke]

Quite a few Fortune 15 companies have not been doing well recently and many of the decisions that have led them there have appeared deranged in hindsight, be it derivatives trading or persisting with the production of monstrous SUVs in times of skyrocketing oil prices. Thank you for the insight into how that might have come about.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[Pentagram]

I'm not sure there was a "before".

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[jollyreaper]

A small anecdote, if I may be allowed: During my second year in architecture school I had a professor that gave us absurd amounts of work above and beyond that of the other studio sections. Her justification? So that we would learn work ethics even if it meant staying up all night. She even had a definition for the all-nighter. According to her, if we had time to go home and take a shower, it was not a true all-nighter.

Sleep deprivation removes my inhibitions. If I were in your class, before the end of the semester I'd have chinned the bitch. This is no different from academic hazing.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[NoOneInParticular]

Actually, being reproductive leads to excessive sleep deprivation.

Re:If I were sleep deprived

[DRACO-]

Sleep deprived driving is scary. I have a hard time staying awake sometimes while driving home from work or to work if I'm really lacking sleep. I've taken to eating sunflower seeds on the way home from work to keep me awake. It's a scarier drive to be driving sleepy on the way home as it is rush hour traffic. Mornings, I usually do ok till the last 8 miles, but traffic gets thick then and I have to sit up and pay more attention then. Sometimes I challenge myself to cut through traffic, changing lanes to keep me looking around.

Ah......

[Anonymous Coward]

But did they feed the rats Jolt?

It keeps me alive!

Now if I can just do something about those damned bats...

Re:Ah......

[Anonymous Coward]

That's so funny, I threw up my energy drink into the one I'm currently drinking!

~stolen from the brothers Chapman

Re:Ah......

[jd2112]

Red Bull gives you Wiings.

Too much Red Bull gives you Wings, And a halo.

Re:Ah......

[Landshark17]

I recommend the fly swatter.

Hack-a-thons? No.

[The Fanta Menace]

It's not the voluntary all-night hack-a-thons that society needs to worry about. It's the insistence by employers that their staff work all night, because of deadline screwups by management, or by the requirement that staff have to do on-call, rather than employing people specifically for night shifts.

I wouldn't lose any sleep at all, if it wasn't for idiotic decisions by my employer.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[paitre]

Actually, there are some Really, Really good reasons for certain individuals to be 'on-call'. However, the result of on-call actions should have the commensurate benefit of having additional time off to recover from those over night sessions.

If THAT happened more often, people would be far more willing to do on-call.

SRSLY.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[Hurricane78]

Hmm. The real problem is, that you can not go somewhere else when stuff like that happens. Usually they all are that way. And usually they can just reject you and not care, while you can not do the same.

That's why unions came up. Unfortunately it turned out being something not exactly as good as intended. ^^

Try a lightweight Hollywood model. That is, when everybody is self-employed, and you can have multiple "bosses"/clients and can always hire your own employees/businesses. Lightweight would mean, to do it, but to group with those bosses/clients/employees/businesses in a kind of "company" that lets you cut down on the administration and tax work, while still being just as free in everything else. Then you could easily say "no" to one boss/client, and choose to do work for the other one.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why unions came up. Unfortunately it turned out being something not exactly as good as intended. ^^

Speak for yourself. I, for one, am very happy with my union. Not only for all the direct things it has done for me but also for all the lobbying.

The reason why I get to live in an European welfare state is because of forming of the unions and the massive lobbying they have done during their whole history to this date.

Actually just some months ago, government decided to raise the retirement age by a few years but unions told them that they would never agree to it so the prime minister endured quite bad political defeat as he had to forget the plans he had announced.

I have heard that unions in the USA aren't that strong but well... Saying that unions failed is wrong. They can work really well. It is just that american mentality and unionizing didn't really fit together that well...

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[Krneki]

*Boss put his hands on his ears*

Lalalalala, I can't hear you, lalalalalala!

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why unions came up. Unfortunately it turned out being something not exactly as good as intended. ^^

Try a lightweight Hollywood model. That is, when everybody is self-employed, and you can have multiple "bosses"/clients and can always hire your own employees/businesses.

You do understand the only reason that works at all in hollywood is because the entire hollywood business is the most union-heavy business in the country, right?

There's no way in hell anyone working for the big studios would be able to make a decent wage if that weren't the case.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[PopeRatzo]

hollywood business is the most union-heavy business in the country

Only because the Republican administrations since Reagan did everything they can to destroy labor unions.

The only reason the US has a middle class at all is because of organized labor. If the industrialists in the first few decades of the 20th century had gotten their way, workers in the US would be about where workers in Mexico currently find themselves. We'd probably all be trying to sneak into Canada.

You really have to be ignorant of US history not to realize the importance of the labor movement. By the way, since the all-out attack on unions started, real income of American middle and lower-class workers has declined at a steady rate. If it hadn't been the ready availability of easy credit, our standard of living would have plummeted. Now that the bill's coming due you're going to see very clearly what damage anti-union policies have done.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[sodul]

I used to be on-call a few years ago. We had a pager rotation from Thursday to Thursday followed by Friday off.

It was awesome since I could start the weekends early. Go to the movies on Friday at discount price (until 1pm or something) in an empty theatre was great. I would regularly take the following Monday off, getting a 4 days vacation and avoiding all the weekend traffic out of the bay area.

Nowadays ... I have not taken a single day of vacation in the past 10 months. I swear Once I buy that house I want and pay it off I'll take a very long vacation and stop working insane hours. It will be in 30 years, I guess I'll call it retirement.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[Khyber]

I'd be more than happy to be on-call if it were to do something other than help some poor lazy management head get their fucking quota.

Quotas are the bane of productivity. You may think otherwise but most any employee at that level will flat-out laugh in your face if you say otherwise.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[fm6]

Forced overtime can certainly be bad for your health. But I don't think a few allnighters are going to kill you outright. They might shorten your life a bit.

And some gamers do play themselves to death. That actually happened at small colo provider where I used to work. They often sponsored LAN parties, and once a guy who'd apparently already been awake for a couple days showed up and played continuously for about 24 hours. Then he stood up, walked out to the parking lot, and dropped dead.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[yourassOA]

Volunteer Fire & Rescue I'm on-call 24/7. Our radios have this horrible tone that wakes you from your sleep so well your not even tired. But I'm self employed so in theory I can sleep in but that rarely ever happens.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[Brandybuck]

I was at a company that did that. Everyone was told to stay until midnight on a Saturday to meet the deadline. At 6:00pm I walked out the door. The boss tried to stop me, but I told him the truth: "I'm a consultant, you only paid for eight hours. See you Monday morning."

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[PTFD5023]

We are all slaves to the god Motorola. My wife once asked why the pager had to make such a shrill tone. Told her it was designed that way for a reason.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, we're seeing bills coming due, alright. The collapse of the American auto industry is one whopper of an invoice.

Thank you, unions! May I have another?!?

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[4D6963]

Aren't you basically describing consultancy?

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[Z00L00K]

An occassional lack of sleep isn't the problem, it's the permanent lack of sleep that's the problem.

And yes - you can die from it. Either by having an accident or because the brain actually isn't able to recover itself as it should.

There is a rare disease that shuts off the ability for the brain to go into sleep and that will make a wreck of the victim and after a few months there will be death. Fatal Familial Insomnia is the sickness.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[X0563511]

Darwin at work.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[Jedi Alec]

Oh, we're seeing bills coming due, alright. The collapse of the American auto industry is one whopper of an invoice.

Thank you, unions! May I have another?!?

Yeah....it must be the unions. Can't have anything to do with the fact that on the whole, non-americans consider cars made by GM, Chrysler etc. to be big ugly unreliable inefficient heaps of crap. That can't go around corners. But there's hope on the horizon! When the trade ban with Cuba gets lifted there's a whole new market opening ;-)

Keep gobbling up the propaganda boys.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[Kjella]

You must be seriously dreaming if you think being a contractor means you can just cherry pick clients. Usually you end up with one or two really big clients that you depend on almost as much as a regular employee. There's always going to be a disproportionate distribution of power if they stand for say 40% of your income, yet you are 0,1% of their workforce. Particularly if you're in a line of work where you can't just drop in and be productive almost from day one, other potential clients have a long process and meanwhile you don't have any work. It can work out if you have unique skills but most companies work hard to avoid having such irreplacable persons for many reasons, if you're part of say ten people doing the same work they can probably temporarily do just fine with just nine.

Companies have so many more ways to squeeze you as a contractor, there's of course the "not renewing" your contract but that would also mean losing you. There are many more less drastic ways like tying how much work you'll get in the next contract period to your rates in negotiations, nobody would tell a full-time employee that if they insist on a wage raise their position will be cut to 50% but for contractors sure. Also while they're terribly good at making you come when they need you even though you're already 100% booked out, corporate memory doesn't work the other way around and you're usually the first to be let go in poor times.

I do work as a consultant, but for a consulting firm. I know exactly how much I've billed - my bonus depends on it - and it doesn't take a genius to add up the Excel sheets and see what the total comes out to. But there's a lot more to being part of a company than just the base administration and billing - I could have an accountant doing that as a service, there are insurance policies to give me protection against long-term injury/illness but there are other bits that are really hard to estimate. Such as that other companies rarely wants to mess with another company that they will probably need services from in the future, though I know there's some that's acted unprofessionally with us in the past and are blacklisted or under tight supervision with an added risk premium. That's one of many kinds of shit I would have to handle if I went self-employed.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[Dogtanian]

Yeah....it must be the unions. Can't have anything to do with the fact that on the whole, non-americans consider cars made by GM, Chrysler etc. to be big ugly unreliable inefficient heaps of crap. That can't go around corners.

Not really. I don't know about the rest of the world, but as far as Europe goes, GM doesn't really have that bad reputation.

This is probably because GM's European line-up (mainly Vauxhalls/Opels, along with Saabs and some ex-Daewoos that are now marketed as "Chevrolet") is quite different to the much-maligned models sold in the US. Not saying that they're all considered the best in their class, or that everyone loves them, but- like most manufacturers nowadays- their European cars probably go from "reasonable" to "very good". (As someone pointed out recently, there are very few outright bad models sold here nowadays).

Although you didn't mention them, it's similar for Ford, whose American models seem to be held in generally low regard (both for design and construction quality). No such problem with the models built and sold in Europe.

Can't really comment on Chrysler because they don't have a significant European market share. They tried during the 60s and 70s, and ended up pulling out. Aside from the Chrysler Neon a few years back- which didn't exactly set the market on fire- most of their models sold here are niche ones.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[Edgester]

You really have to be ignorant of US history not to realize the importance of the labor movement. By the way, since the all-out attack on unions started, real income of American middle and lower-class workers has declined at a steady rate. If it hadn't been the ready availability of easy credit, our standard of living would have plummeted. Now that the bill's coming due you're going to see very clearly what damage anti-union policies have done.

Unfortunately, my history classes rarely made it to the 20th century, and it might have been 1 class session, if that. I would have loved to know more about the 20th century. FYI, yes, I went to public schools. The sad part is that I haven't done much to fill that gap in my knowledge besides watching the History channel. I do see value in labor unions, but I probably don't have the historical knowledge to fully appreciate their role in history.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[slimjim8094]

Heh. I'm in EMS and I know what you're talking about, but I'm not lucky enough to be on 24x7. I pull a 24-hour shift every week and any other bits I need to do - most I've done was 72 hours straight.

What paging system do you use? We use MINITOR II-V, two-tone.

P.S. Low-band sucks ass.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[CodeBuster]

The notion that organized labor created and maintained the middle class and that without organized labor there would be no middle class is a common misconception that is often perpetuated by those who support organized labor. However, like most common knowledge it mostly isn't true or at least it isn't the primary cause. The middle class in the United States and Europe was not the result of organized labor so much as it was the result of rising productivity and standards of living that accompany increased production per capita. When considering standards of living it is not enough to look at just income, one must consider the whole of the society and the benefits of living in it. For example, even the poor in the United States and Europe are much better off than their counterparts in the third world. For additional edification might I suggest the following video? A bit dated perhaps (1980s) but still relevant to the issue of organized labor and its vaunted associations with "the middle class" (I remind you that many of the middle class are NOT union members in 2009 and not all of us are drowning in debt).

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[CodeBuster]

A higher quality version is available on Google Video.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Yeah....it must be the unions. Can't have anything to do with the fact that on the whole, non-americans consider cars made by GM, Chrysler etc. to be big ugly unreliable inefficient heaps of crap.

Yeah, and that can't have anything to do with the fact that on the whole, american cars are in fact big, ugly, unreliable inefficient heaps of crap? Read Consumer Reports' used car reviews sometimes. My personal experience agrees 100%. I've owned 3 fords and one chrysler all of which had major problems (multi-thousand-dollar throw the car away and buy a new one problems) before they had 130k miles on them (I think the neon made it to 131k before the head gasket failed). The past few years I've had a corolla which has 225k on it, still runs amazingly well, and I would estimate has needed fewer than $2000 worth of repairs its entire life time. What kind of car do you suppose I'll be buying next....

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[fm6]

Uh, no. Even if be had lived, what were his chances of reproducing?

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[lxw56]

By the way, since the all-out attack on unions started, real income of American middle and lower-class workers has declined at a steady rate.

Cited by Thomas Sowell in Economic Facts and Fallacies, average real income per household has only risen 6% per household, but has risen 51% per individual, between '69 and '96. Wages have increased significantly, the problem is smaller households. Furthermore, households with higher incomes usually have two or more wage-earners, lower-income households have one or none, making household income a terrible substitute for individual wages in this discussion. Unions have been an important check on the power of big business, but all-out attack or no, they aren't in a regulatory disadvantaged position today. Rather, they're in decline because what they offer either isn't valued by many workers (for lower-wage walmart-type jobs often taken by people who either don't fight for their rights or don't care much about the job anyway/short-term workers) or isn't especially needed (for higher-wage jobs that you have to not suck at to keep).

If it hadn't been the ready availability of easy credit, our standard of living would have plummeted.

Of course, easy credit only returns to bite borrowers in the ass, to the benefit of the banking system.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[bhtooefr]

What happened was not that unions failed to take hold, but rather that unions took hold too well, to the point that they started choking the industries that they really deeply took hold in (automotive manufacturing and public education, mainly.)

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[L4t3r4lu5]

But I don't think a few allnighters are going to kill you outright. They might shorten your life a bit.

For what value does your life need to be "shortened" before you die?

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[bhtooefr]

What about Korea? Also, quite a few "European" and "Asian" cars are built right here in the US by non-union labor.

And, the American automotive industry didn't have to try to convince people here that they "needed" to drive a tank to work - people were all too willing to buy tanks, so they reacted by building more tanks. Which happened to be high profit margin.

Granted, they should've put more funds into engineering efficient cars, to plan for the contingency of tanks no longer making sense.

Re:Hack-a-thons? No.

[fm6]

For the typical gamer, 40 years.

I'm not saying forced overtime is OK. It would be bad even if it didn't have any effect on your health (which it clearly does). But it's still not as bad as the health effects of gaming for many days without rest.

Some slashdotters seem to think that saying something isn't as bad as you think it is means excusing it. It isn't.

Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[Macblaster]

According to a reliable source, a lack of REM sleep in a group of people will cause them to go crazy and start murdering each other...

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[siddesu]

Death from too much work/too little sleep is so popular in Japan, that they have a nice name for it here - karoshi.

Which, surprisingly, translates literally to "death from too much work".

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[Necrobruiser]

Karoshi is fun!
http://armorgames.com/play/2407/karoshi-suicide-salaryman

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[DoofusOfDeath]

Death from too much work/too little sleep is so popular in Japan, that...

I'm never going to understand Asian tastes...

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[kklein]

Yeah, they call it "death from overwork," but I've rarely seen Japanese salarymen work in the way that I would consider "work." I have decided that the Japanese concept of work has little to do with measurable results and a lot to do with how awful the process was and how long it took.

When the culture puts a lot of value on suffering for your employer, it's no wonder that some people push themselves to suffer so much that it literally kills them. When you live on cigarettes, One Cup single-serving sake, and vending-machine coffee; when you are getting a couple hours of sleep a night, tops; when you are spending 3 hours of your waking day running after trains and then being crammed into them with the other exhausted, smelly people; when you continue this lifestyle for years on end; yeah, you're going to die. And you probably won't even have that many results to show for it.

So much of the "work" that Japanese companies have people do is just kind of meaningless activity. All it does is exhaust people and turn bright, energetic college kids into the dead shells you see riding the train (full disclosure: I'm a university teacher in Japan).

There seems to be a growing movement in Japanese society, however, that is realizing this and pushing back. The economic downturn is helping, too. It used to be that once you landed a job, you were set for life. However, if you ever got fired or downsized, you were screwed for life; no one would ever hire you again. You were damaged goods. Now, the latter is still true, but the former isn't. People get laid off all the time now. Last year a few major companies hired a bunch of new college graduates, those people turned down other offers, and then the companies came back and retracted their offers and paid them about $5k to go away. These people are now both never employed and damaged goods. Hiring only happens once a year here, so they were basically paid $5k to live on for the next year of their lives, after which they got to do the whole grueling interviewing and testing process again, this time with a lingering question about their CV: "Why was this person cut at the last minute by the other company?"

So all of this is building up what I--and any other Western person, who is used to crap like this--can only call a healthy cynicism about employers, and a rejection of their bullshit in favor of an easier life with fewer problems. Temp agencies are taking over as they have done in the US, etc., with all of the bullshit, but all of the benefits as well. I did IT temp work before becoming an academic, and although the lack of security really was pretty scary, the pay was good and the hours were great. I wasn't a salary slave like I am now. Oh, and guess what? Tenure is getting harder to get, so I'm on a year contract anyway! Nothing has changed. Security is dead. Fuck the companies and live your life!

I am hopeful that we here in Japan will see less karoshi as the new generation takes over--the new generation who sees that it's possible to live without being a slave to a company--and that the difficult economic conditions force companies to cut out nonessential make-work activities, increasing efficiency, and evaluating people on what they get done, not how late they stay.

Sleep and lifestyle are important, folks. Don't forget that quality of life is the only thing you should be worried about, because you only get one. If you're having fun staying up all night working (because you might be!) then great! But if you don't like it, don't do it.

I sleep at least 8 hours a night. I am one of the most productive people I know. I'm not interested in dying for my job.

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[oldhack]

Yep. Let me break it down for you:

"ka" - death
"ro" - too much
"shi" - work, borrowed from the English word "shit"

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[siddesu]

You're only slightly wrong, as in 3 of 3.

ka - over, excessive
rou - labor, work
shi - death,

all borrowed from our Chinese overlords.

In glorious Japanese, here: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%81%8E%E5%8A%B4%E6%AD%BB

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[franki.macha]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi

Here's a wiki link for those interested.

Those who are interested and haven't figured out google yet? ;)

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[symbolic]

Fascinating lesson in Japanese culture. Thanks for taking the time!

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[X0563511]

karoshi != karaoshi

That's a completely different particle.

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[X0563511]

And for those of us who can't read Japanese:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%81%8E%E5%8A%B4%E6%AD%BB

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[sydneyfong]

I know you're going for +5 funny, but as an Asian I tell you as the largest continent in the world, Asia is pretty diverse.

I'll agree that I'll never understand Japanese tastes...... they really tend to be extreme.

Not that I think eating bull penises, chicken testicles, etc. (it's pretty common around here) is "normal" tastes...

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[DoofusOfDeath]

Well, since you're obviously an unpatriotic Taiwanese, ...

Oh, sorry. I got caught up in the scrum. Never mind.

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[Sponge Bath]

...chicken testicles, etc. (it's pretty common around here)

KFC is common all over the world.

Re:Lack of sleep IS dangerous

[oldhack]

Pretty close, though, huh? Anyway, I like my breakdown better.

Rats make for lousy test subjects

[JaredOfEuropa]

I don't know... so far, research indicates that any test will at some point cause death in rats. I've never read conclusions like "tests indicate that the rats live on just fine throughout the experiments".

Re:Rats make for lousy test subjects

[tchuladdiass]

Yeah, it's gotten to the point where my response to most of these studies is "Thank God I'm not a rat".

Re:Rats make for lousy test subjects

[Anonymous Coward]

Funnily enough...

Calorie Restricted Diet

Calorie restriction, or caloric restriction (CR), is a dietary regimen thought to improve health and slow the aging process in some animals and fungi by limiting dietary energy intake below the average needs. CR is the only dietary intervention which has been documented to increase both the median and maximum lifespan in a variety of species, among them rodents, yeast, fishes and dogs. The life extension is varied, for mice and rats there is a 30-40% increase [1].

Re:Rats make for lousy test subjects

[Anonymous Coward]

That's very true. Remember back in the late '70's / early '80's when Saccharine was banned? Ever wonder why it's sold now?

The Saccharine ban was based on lab rat tests that indicated that rats that were fed huge amounts of Saccharine had an increased incidence of cancer.

Later, animal researchers learned that rats are genetically predisposed to cancer. Almost all rats that die naturally die of cancer. So an increase in incidents likely was, in reality, only an acceleration of their genetic fate. And that fate is pretty hard to superimpose upon humans, or even mammals.

So the started selling Saccharine again, and pretty much stopped testing the effects of Product X with respect to cancer on rats.

Re:Rats make for lousy test subjects

[radtea]

Calorie restriction, or caloric restriction (CR), is a dietary regimen thought to improve health and slow the aging process in some animals

CR is a case where animal models are even less applicable than usual. Humans are tuned up for obvious evolutionary reasons to live about twice as long as one would normally expect for a mammal, well beyond our effective reproductive lifespan.

The average mammal lives about a billion heartbeats. Humans live twice that--way off the scale. Ergo, assuming that life extension techniques that work on other animals will work on us is problematic to say the least.

One of the mechanisms that has been optimized by evolutionary selection in humans to extend our lives is our extreme resistantance to cancer, which is why animal models for cancer (both causes and cures) have been so problematic over the past few decades.

Rats are nocturnal social scavengers, which may make them a better model for sleep research than cancer research, but given how weird the human brain is compared to most other animals it is again quite problematic to simply extrapolate any conclusions from them to us.

Re:Rats make for lousy test subjects

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been experiments done with CR in humans. The one that got probably the most coverage was the Biosphere 2 experiment.

For those who don't know, Biosphere 2 was (is) a huge closed structure in which a closed ecological system was created, and they put a crew of eight inside. They were on a CR diet. Furthermore, itt turned out that they couldn't produce enough food so the R in the CR got even bigger. While they all experienced hunger, it turned out that all their health indicators were excellent and, in fact, better than before the start of the experiment.

Naturally, this doesn't conclusively prove anything, but the basic premise behind it seems logical (the less your engine burns, the longer it's gonna last) and it shows that not all of it is just extrapolation from animal experiments.

Personally, I'd still have my steaks and bacon instead of another couple of decades, thank you very much.

"Shockingly"??

[mcmonkey]

Who thinks this is shocking.

We need water. Would you be shocked to find a lack of water can be deadly?

Why would anyone be shocked to find lack of sleep can kill?

Re:"Shockingly"??

[centuren]

It would certainly be a lot more helpful to have specifics about what sleep provides that we require versus, say, a rest while conscious.

Water is a good example, where it's thoroughly understood just how our body uses it, i.e. what role hydration plays in our continued functioning.

What is it specifically that requires us to lose consciousness to get what we need from sleep? Can it be artificially supplemented?

Re:"Shockingly"??

[timmarhy]

i think the traditional wisdom that a person would simply fall into a deep sleep eventually that you couldn't wake them from until their system had recovered enough. i admit i'm suprised, i would have thought coma would have been the worst you could do.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[Moraelin]

I think the biggest thing you need sooner or later is REM sleep, not just a lie down. Lack of REM sleep (which, as we'll see is possible while technically still getting some sleep) can result in actual brain damage, or in the very long run even death. (Ironically, it's also produced _by_ certain kinds of brain damage.) Also, while we still lack the complete picture, it's proven that at least one type of memory isn't updated without REM.

REM sleep also doesn't come instantly. In most people you need at least 90 minutes from falling asleep to having your first REM period. Anything under about half an hour is a sign of narcolepsy. Your longest REM episodes happen after several hours.

On the average over a whole night, about a quarter of the time will be REM. It's safe to assume that in the long run those two hours or so of REM a day are what your body actually needs.

But again, you don't get them in one big chunk. You get them interleaved with periods of non-REM sleep. So what it boils down to is that to get your normal quota of REM sleep, you'll actually need those 8 hours a night. You might get by with just 7, but anything less (unless you're over 70) is putting stress on your brain in the long run. You might not outright die, but you won't be very smart or attentive after months of getting significantly less.

But if you know how to get that REM while awake instead, I'm listening.

Because otherwise, no, you can't get your daily sleep by laying down on the couch for half an hour. You need to actually sleep. Not even from having the occasional half an hour nap. You just don't reach REM that fast, unless you're narcoleptic.

Which also brings us to: if whatever project or job actually makes you ask yourself if you could get by with just a lie down now and then, well, ask yourself if it's worth the problems in the longer run. Again, even if you don't outright reach the death point, you _will_ lose neurons, and that tends to be fairly permanent. You might also get other problems too.

And if you're the employer, well, ask yourself if you want to be an evil fuck. We're not talking just greedy, or just pushing them a little harder, but actual long term damage. If actual harm to some people is a perfectly acceptable trade off for a few more bucks in your (or the company's) pocket, that's comfortably in the zone I'd call outright evil.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[Dahamma]

Gotta say that was a very long post that repeated a lot of conventional wisdom but said almost nothing to answer OP's question...

"What is it specifically that requires us to lose consciousness to get what we need from sleep?"

From a neurobiological perspective that will not be answered satisfactorily until we know at a basic biochemical level what happens during sleep to "recharge" the brain to its normal function.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[centuren]

I think the biggest thing you need sooner or later is REM sleep, not just a lie down. Lack of REM sleep (which, as we'll see is possible while technically still getting some sleep) can result in actual brain damage, or in the very long run even death. (Ironically, it's also produced _by_ certain kinds of brain damage.) Also, while we still lack the complete picture, it's proven that at least one type of memory isn't updated without REM.

The next question is, what does REM sleep bring? It's commonly believed to be the required / most beneficial part of a person's sleep, but what specifically occurs during that period to, for example, update the type of memory you mention?

There's a good amount of research on the subject, but I think it's something that's just naturally more complicated and harder to examine.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[retchdog]

unless your a lazy fuck like most workers

Prime example of managerial talent, here...

Re:"Shockingly"??

[charlieman]

It's so shocking it will leave me sleepless.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[Bamafan77]

You're being unfair.

Parent asks:
"Gotta say that was a very long post that repeated a lot of conventional wisdom but said almost nothing to answer OP's question..."
"What is it specifically that requires us to lose consciousness to get what we need from sleep?"

The grandparent post answered that question with:
"I think the biggest thing you need sooner or later is REM sleep, not just a lie down. Lack of REM sleep (which, as we'll see is possible while technically still getting some sleep) can result in actual brain damage, or in the very long run even death."

Sure he didn't say "The thing that specifically requires us to lose concious to get what we need from sleep is REM sleep", but he did answer the question.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[BikeHelmet]

But again, you don't get them in one big chunk. You get them interleaved with periods of non-REM sleep. So what it boils down to is that to get your normal quota of REM sleep, you'll actually need those 8 hours a night. You might get by with just 7, but anything less (unless you're over 70) is putting stress on your brain in the long run. You might not outright die, but you won't be very smart or attentive after months of getting significantly less.

Some people require less sleep. It was linked to their genetics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_thatcher

I wonder if they slip into REM quicker? It's possible that the 8 hours of sleep thing came around because of the highly physical nature of survival. (Bodies needed more time to recover than our minds)

Now that things are rapidly flipping the other way for many of us, evolution has to play catch-up.

And if you're the employer, well, ask yourself if you want to be an evil fuck. We're not talking just greedy, or just pushing them a little harder, but actual long term damage. If actual harm to some people is a perfectly acceptable trade off for a few more bucks in your (or the company's) pocket, that's comfortably in the zone I'd call outright evil.

Ignorance is bliss. Most of America is "outright evil".

Re:"Shockingly"??

[Dahamma]

No, I am not being unfair, and no he didn't answer the question (unless you think making up an answer qualifies).

First, he said "I think" - what kind of scientific qualification is that?

Second, he claimed "lack of REM sleep can result in actual brain damage" - which has not been proven anyway.

Third, you have even stated he didn't say anthing about the original question that specifically used the word, well... "specifically"! What about any of it was specific, even if it wasn't vague pop science and making wrong conclusions?

In fact, I wasn't meaning to be THAT harsh - a log of this statements as regards to REM sleep have been borne out by research - but mostly statements that can be quoted from a wikipedia article, inexplicably mixed in with a few things that are totally unproven. But I guess that's the /. way...

Re:"Shockingly"??

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that it's the biological equivalent of defragging a hard disk, or perhaps a memory management garbage cleaning routine. Imagine how poorly computers run if they go too long without doing either of those too long. Sometimes one of those things can lead to system freezing or even a BSOD. (The biological equivalent is either entering a catatonic state or keeling over dead.)

So why wouldn't a biological system need time to do internal housekeeping and optimization? It's likely these functions need processing power to work in a reasonable time (about 5 to 8 hours for a human) and all other functions are made idle to make it happen. It may even involve the nerve cells doing stuff for their own metabolism because they were too busy pushing data for the rest of the body during awake time, now there's a big pile of homeostasis type stuff to catch up on.

As for greedy-fuck employers that push people beyond normal hours? You're just asking for mistakes or accidents to happen. It may help for a short term deadline, but don't be surprised at all if you end up with bugware, damaged workplace equipment, or a much inferior quality end product. Let your employees get well rested (within reason) and they'll be much more effective the next day. Also management should be prepared to eat the results of scheduling problems, since they're the ones that made it in the first place.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[PopeRatzo]

what does REM sleep bring?

Lovely dreams, dramatic nightmares, improved performance, elevated mood, enhanced creativity and better health.

If someone tells you they only sleep 6 hours per night, you can bet their either lying or deteriorating.

After I got married and my daughter got beyond infancy, I started knocking off a little earlier in the evening and getting at least eight hours of sleep per night. I have found, to my great delight, that I have much more energy than I did when I was 25 and staying out 'til "last call" every night. I also learned that I can be more productive between 6am and 9am than I used to be all day.

But one of the best benefits to longer sleep is the growth of my dream life. Because I reliably remember my dreams now, I've learned to have lucid dreams and have come to really look forward to even the most horrific nightmares. For some reason, I've found that when I have one of those crazy, terrifying dreams where I practically wake up screaming, clasping the bedpost or pillow, I have particularly good days afterward.

Maybe this is because I make a living in the arts and imagination, lucidity and other right-brain activities are my stock in trade, but I've got non-artist friends who saw the change in me and have started getting a little more sleep and they've seen dramatic improvements too.

I think the key to this change, though, may have been getting married and having a happy marriage. I don't have the need to be out late every night in a desperate search for pussy. I used to be always looking for "something" without really knowing what (or who) it was. Now, most everything I'm looking for in life is either at home or in my head.

If your job requires you to give up sleep, you have to be aware that you're paying a very high price and you might not notice that price until your body (or mind) complains to you in an unpleasant way. Lost sleep is not something you can easily retrieve.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[MightyDrunken]

Gotta say that was a very long post that repeated a lot of conventional wisdom but said almost nothing to answer OP's question...

"What is it specifically that requires us to lose consciousness to get what we need from sleep?"

From a neurobiological perspective that will not be answered satisfactorily until we know at a basic biochemical level what happens during sleep to "recharge" the brain to its normal function.

Well as a guess the real reason why we lose consciousness when we sleep is, "Why be consciousness and active 24 hours a day?". Most (all?) land animals go through periods of activity and rest throughout the day. Presumably consciousness is an energy expensive state and therefore to rest and save energy it is worth being less aware while we sleep.
I wouldn't be surprised if there is no biochemical reason though, rather sleep has probably evolved in mammals to fulfil several separate roles.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[pm_rat_poison]

This is another classic example of "Thanks, captain obvious" journalism

Re:"Shockingly"??

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably consciousness is an energy expensive state and therefore to rest and save energy it is worth being less aware while we sleep.

If sleep is just an energy saving state, why can't I just ingest more energy to make up for it? What's so special about sleep that we need it? That was the question noone has answered yet.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[Khyber]

"But if you know how to get that REM while awake instead, I'm listening."

Transcendental meditation? Usually works just fine for me. Daydreaming hard enough will drop you into REM, I've done that many times in high school. The teachers thought I wasn't paying attention but I certainly passed those classes without any issues.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[tsotha]

I'm on first name basis with my sleep doctor. And why not? I put his kids through college. According to him, REM sleep is pretty much garbage sleep - you don't need it at all. In fact there are some drugs that suppress that stage of sleep, and they seem to have no effect on overall well being. Sleep doctors have quantified four different stages of sleep based on EEG readouts, and it turns out what you must have is a few hours of stage 4 sleep, though what that means beyond being the deepest kind of sleep I'm not sure. I can tell you from personal experience lack of stage 4 sleep causes all sorts of problems, from hypertension to memory loss to anxiety attacks.

It's a bit off topic, but if you're suffering from anxiety attacks make sure you get a sleep study done before you go on an SSRI. You could save yourself a whole lot of heartache.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[MindlessAutomata]

From a neurobiological perspective that will not be answered satisfactorily until we know at a basic biochemical level what happens during sleep to "recharge" the brain to its normal function.

Actually, it's rather contentious over whether sleep is recuperative in function or just an evolved "standby"/energy conservation mode, or what exactly its function is.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[shentino]

The fact that we sleep anyway probably means that perpetual wakefulness isn't free.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[Mandrel]

The next question is, what does REM sleep bring? It's commonly believed to be the required / most beneficial part of a person's sleep, but what specifically occurs during that period to, for example, update the type of memory you mention?

No, the most essential type of sleep is slow-wave sleep, which is even mentioned in TFA.

I've done some computational modelling of the cerebral cortex, and my hypothesis (page 7/139) is that slow-wave sleep is used to re-strengthen competitive connections between cortical columns, restoring the ability to think clearly.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[DaZZl3R]

Reminds me of this from TheOnion.com: "Multiple Stab Wounds May Be Harmful to Monkeys" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6CSIFi78Nw

Re:"Shockingly"??

[Anenome]

I don't think it's just the brain that needs sleep. The article states that the body even begins failing in its ability to process glucose correctly after 24 hours deprivation. The brain ain't the thing that processes glucose. So, let's look at sleep a different way, as the rest it is, but not just for the brain, but for the whole body, indeed for cells themselves.

When you sleep your body expects about eight hours rest, we all generally agree, though it can wake and resume normal processes before that if need be. But, when you sleep, your brain sends out hormone telling your body its time to recover.

Imagine that being awake and walking around is like a performance, and sleep is the act of getting ready for that performance. Everything from the muscles, organs, and obviously the brain, needs periods when it doesn't have to be instantly ready for fight or flight response. When you're awake, your body is ready to defend itself at moments notice, ready to do any work required, ready to make clear-headed decisions. Each night allows setting up the organs that achieve that feat, and each day the feat is accomplished.

I also think that sleep is gods way of giving everyone a weakness. No matter how much of a badass you may think you are, no matter how many people you've killed, or whatever weapons you have, you will always have to sleep, you will always be vulnerable to the assassin with the knife.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[ignavus]

I don't have the need to be out late every night in a desperate search for pussy.

You should keep your cat indoors. And anyway, they attack the native wildlife if you let them out at night.

(What do you mean "Slashdot nerd"? I don't understand.)

Re:"Shockingly"??

[Dahamma]

Well, I agree at the level of "we barely know anything" about what the function is but it's *clearly* more than "energy conservation". Sleep constitutes almost 1/3 of every human life, there are bound to be endless crackpot (or interesting) theories...

Multiple studies have shown recuperative processes ranging from cell growth/recovery, immune system function, working memory, etc. I doubt any neurobiologist these days would claim it's just "energy conservation".

Re:"Shockingly"??

[profplump]

Modern humans in the first-world don't live in energy-poor environments -- I can take in as many calories as necessary to be awake without any significant burden, economic, physical, or otherwise. The fact that eating more doesn't make up for sleep suggests that there is more to the problem than simple energy efficiency. Unless you know something you failed to express in your post the question of what exactly sleep does, and why that process requires the loss of consciousness to achieve that purpose seems perfectly valid.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[profplump]

If someone tells you that all humans require exactly the same amount of sleep, they're lying. I believe that you personally need 8 hours, PopeRatzo, but to suggest that some people couldn't do perfectly well on 6 seems presumptuous at best, at least unless you're going to cite significant study beyond your personal experience.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[profplump]

Does that qualify as awake? The fact that you passed high school is hardly evidence that you were substantially aware of and reactive to your surroundings.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[cp.tar]

Also, while we still lack the complete picture, it's proven that at least one type of memory isn't updated without REM.

And I can attest to that.
Yesterday I participated in a Chinese language competition, as a 1st year student. Of course I did badly; I am a total beginner, after all.
Anyway, a part of the competition was the speech we all had to make. We first year students had our speeches translated by our teachers and were told to try to learn them by heart.
The first day, I'd remembered most of the first paragraph and bits of the second. Try as I might, I could not remember any more.
Next morning, I could remember some parts I had not been able to remember when I was studying them; apparently, sleep updated my memory, just as you say.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[cp.tar]

In fact, I seem to recall a study claiming that 6.5 hours of sleep per day is considered optimal, at least with respect to longevity.
I do just fine with some 6 hours of sleep on average, and have done so for the best part of my life. Even my parents say I've always slept less than normal kids, and much less than my sister, who on one occasion slept for 23 hours, got up for an hour, then went back to sleep.
BTW she's doing just fine, too, though now that she has a daughter, she does not tend to sleep much.

My only annoyance is that I tend to drop off somewhere between 11 pm and 1 am, then sleep until around 6 am, while my girlfriend goes to sleep around 4 am and then sleeps till noon.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[CODiNE]

But if you know how to get that REM while awake instead, I'm listening.

I'd imagine it would be rather uncomfortable what with your eyes rapidly moving around and making everything wiggly.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[ardle]

I stayed up late the night before a Physics exam. Towards 6am I was failing to remember the derivation of the Schrodinger Wave Equation. Gave up to catch some z's. Woke up 3 hours later with the whole thing running through my head. Only problem was I was late for exam ;-)
Time-wise, it worked out ok: I only lost 15 mins. Ironically, in the exam I needed to know the formula for the Schrodinger Wave Equation, not its derivation. I didn't know that, so I had to derive it for 0% benefit (end product looked ok ;-)
I'd never had that experience of knowing that my memory had benefited from sleep before. I reckon that I personally need a minimum of 3 hours for things to "stick". If I sleep less than 2, I think I lose stuff ;-)
Musicians (and other "physical" people) will be familiar with the experience of performing some "problem" piece better after a sleep (or even a break).

Re:"Shockingly"??

[DoofusOfDeath]

If your job requires you to give up sleep, you have to be aware that you're paying a very high price and you might not notice that price until your body (or mind) complains to you in an unpleasant way.

I agree. My weight generally shoots up when I'm short on sleep, and goes down when I'm well rested. For me, it's this system:

1. Lack of sleep on day N, so drink Mt. Dew to be alert. Mt. Dew packs a lot of calories, so that's bad.

2. Lack of sleep also messes up people's appetites, making them over-eat.

3. Lack of sleep also lowers self-control, so when I over-eat, it's not carrots, and when I seek caffeine, it's regular Mt. Dew, not green tea.

4. At the end of day N, I'm wired on caffeine, so I can't go to bed on time. Also needed caffeine to drive home safely. End up staying up late, which is the last thing I needed at this point.

5. Day N+1, just like day N.

I've found that the best balance in my life is to have the policy: whenever possible, sleep as long as my body wants to each morning, and work the rest of my life around that.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[DoofusOfDeath]

Oh, and another part of the better lifestyle is that I generally get my caffeine from green or white tea, not soda.

It has enough caffeine to help me be alert, but not so much as to make mess up my sleep schedule. It also has basically no calories, and helps me to not be hungry.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[Savantissimo]

True,there are some people who need only 6 hours of sleep, and modern societies try to make everybody believe that they should be like that, but assuming a symmetrical distribution with an 8hr. average there will be just as many people who really need 10 hours of sleep and for whom getting 7 hours will have the same effects as an average person getting 5 hours. The people who need more sleep are screwed when it comes to college or typical work schedules, let alone professions that traditionally haze new members with sleep deprivation. MD internships are impossible for people who need 10 hours sleep to complete without severe effects on their health, and the certainty of misjudgments, often fatal for their patients.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[Khyber]

I passed physics and Hort. Sci. while daydreaming the entire time. I didn't even do the homework. Hell I ended up teaching the Hort. Sci class the next year when the teacher got sick and there was no substitute.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[PopeRatzo]

I seem to recall a study claiming that 6.5 hours of sleep per day is considered optimal

I believe you will find that that study is out of date and has been superseded by studies showing that between 8 and 9 hours is best for most people.

Re:"Shockingly"??

[winwar]

"According to him, REM sleep is pretty much garbage sleep - you don't need it at all. In fact there are some drugs that suppress that stage of sleep, and they seem to have no effect on overall well being."

Your doctor is an idiot. While you do go through 4 stages of sleep before the REM stage, if you don't get enough REM sleep your body sacrifices the other four stages to ge to REM sleep. It certainly isn't "garbage".

Re:"Shockingly"??

[tsotha]

Oh, who to believe? A doctor who specializes in sleep disorders or some random guy on the internets? Let me think...

Re:"Shockingly"??

[cp.tar]

I seem to recall a study claiming that 6.5 hours of sleep per day is considered optimal

I believe you will find that that study is out of date and has been superseded by studies showing that between 8 and 9 hours is best for most people.

Unless you provide me with a link, I will not. I am way too lazy to seek it myself.

But fair enough.

w00t!

[powerslave12r]

Is this official? Does this mean I can sue my University for torture!

Re:w00t!

[PopeRatzo]

Dreams are sleeping hopes

No, dreams are awakening hopes.

World Record

[Ghubi]

The current world record for time without sleep is 11 days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Gardner_(record_holder)

Re:World Record

[MichaelSmith]

Thats not very long. I could go two days without sleep but I couldn't go anywhere near one fifth of the world record for (say) free diving.

Re:World Record

[brasselv]

Uhm... does this mean that Usain Bolt is "not very fast", since you can probably run 100M in less than 1 minute?

Re:World Record

[Hurricane78]

That's like holding the word record for the times being raped. Or for the days without water. Not something to be proud of...

Re:World Record

[MichaelSmith]

Uh maybe not. I suppose my point is that the sleep record is a bit like the running record. Getting to 50% of the record would be easy. Going an extra day might be impossible.

Re:World Record

[machine321]

Times being raped... that was one hell of a summer.

Re:World Record

[rhizome]

The current world record for time without sleep is 11 days.

Tied with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, I'm guessing.

Re:World Record

[neuromanc3r]

Easy? People are different, so maybe it's easy for you, but after two days of not sleeping I'm a nervous wreck. More than three and I seriously start losing it (as in, I talk to people who aren't actually there, see things that are definitely not happening etc.). I really don't want to experience 5 days, let alone 11

Re:World Record

[Keyper7]

Exactly. The Guiness Book comitee stopped caring about it because they realized it's not something people should try.

Re:World Record

[PopeRatzo]

after two days of not sleeping I'm a nervous wreck.

Man, don't do that to yourself. If you really need to hallucinate, you're better off using entheogens.

You can hurt yourself by missing more than a night's sleep.

Re:World Record

[PopeRatzo]

You shouldn't have been wearing that miniskirt. You were asking for it.

Re:World Record

[Anonymous Coward]

What about this guy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Ngoc

Re:World Record

[stonewallred]

Weak dude. Give me about 2oz of crank and a few syringes, and I'll do 14 days with no problem. Of course, throw in some heroin to chill the edge of perception hallucinations after the first three days, and some valiums/xanaxes to help after 7 days, because the nerves are frayed and the crap starts creeping up on you when you ain't looking, so you got to look all the time. So glad I put that shit down and just went back to drinking large quantities of alcohol. The buzz ain't as good, but the down side is nowhere near as bad.

Re:World Record

[Kaell Meynn]

That's not entirely accurate. That's the documented world record for sleep _without any stimulants_. Plenty of people have gone much longer without sleep.

Re:World Record

[almechist]

That 11 day record has surely been exceeded by addicts detoxing from drugs like heroin and methadone. I have heard anecdotal evidence from high-dose methadone patients who were arrested and jailed - most prisons will not treat such cases with anything other than cold turkey - of continuing sleep deprivation lasting as long as a month or more. There is of course presently no way to confirm such claims, but detoxing addicts might be a place where scientists could study extreme sleep deprivation without being personally responsible for keeping their subjects awake for long periods, which would be unethical. Of course, many would consider the withholding of any kind of treatment from withdrawing addicts to be unethical also, but that doesn't stop jails from doing it on a routine basis.

Re:World Record

[juancnuno]

Try 33 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Ngoc

Re:World Record

[moortak]

Opiate detox tends to allow some limited sleep, but no lucid baseline to study from so it fails to be a study population for many reasons.

Re:World Record

[myrdos2]

People with fatal familial insomnia invariably die after around nine months without any sleep whatsoever. Strange that this condition was not mentioned in the article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_familial_insomnia

It can do it to cats

[mbone]

I remember reading some time ago (in the 1970's) of some research that was already old then (1950's?), about sleep deprivation literally killing cats. (Who would do such research is not clear, but looking back on things I suspect a military connection.)

This must be available in some public archive, if anyone cares to hunt for it.

Re:It can do it to cats

[ushering05401]

Not sure about which experiment you are referencing... but the 'Who would do this comment' nearly made me snarf a nose-full of green-tea.

I thought this was a joke first time I heard it referenced on an NPR gameshow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty

Re:It can do it to cats

[Hurricane78]

Well, cats sleep 18 hours a day. So of course they have the biggest problems with that. Poor kitties though. :(

Re:It can do it to cats

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember reading some time ago (in the 1970's) of some research that was already old then (1950's?), about sleep deprivation literally killing cats.

Anybody who can keep a cat awake deserves a Nobel Prize.

Re:It can do it to cats

[N3Roaster]

Odd that it would happen to be green tea. Back when tea started to get popular in England, there was a person who wanted to convince people that green tea was deadly. He did this by preparing green tea at ridiculously high concentration and having cats drink it. Not surprisingly, the cats died.

Re:It can do it to cats

[The Standard Deviant]

I've not heard anything about poisoning cats, but green tea sourced from China sold in the west contained the toxic pigment Prussian Blue, as discovered by Robert Fortune on his expedition to collect tea plants to start plantations in India. This was at a time when foreigners were forbidden in China, and he risked death by going.

Mr Fortune witnessed the process of colouring them in the Hung-chow green-tea country, and describes the process. The substance used is a powder consisting of four parts of gypsum and three parts of Prussian blue, which was applied to the teas during the last process of roasting.

'During this part of the operation,' he says, 'the hands of the workmen were quite blue. I could not help thinking, that if any green-tea drinkers had been present during the operation, their taste would have been corrected, and, I may be allowed to add, improved. One day, an English gentleman in Shang-hae, being in conversation with some Chinese from the green-tea country, asked them what reasons they had for dyeing the tea, and whether it would not be better without undergoing this process. They acknowledged that tea was much better when prepared without having any such ingredients mixed with it, and that they never drank dyed teas themselves; but justly remarked, that as foreigners seemed to prefer having a mixture of Prussian blue and gypsum with their tea, to make it look uniform and pretty, and as these ingredients were cheap enough, the Chinese had no objections to supply them, especially as such teas always fetched a higher price!'

Read the section called The Tea Countries of China in the file below for more of the story. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20792/20792-8.txt

Re:It can do it to cats

[shermo]

"The cat was released nearby, but was hit and killed by a taxi almost immediately. Shortly thereafter the project was considered a failure and declared to be a total loss."

I know it's wrong, but this made me laugh so much.

Depends what you're doing

[innocent_white_lamb]

Years ago I was working on a project to export data from a fancy survey instrument. After working at my office all day, I started work on the survey project in my basement around 5pm on a Friday night and worked on it for a while and had a wonderful time and everything was coming together nicely. After a while I suddenly felt sick; thought I might have to lie down or something. I then noticed that it was about 7pm on Sunday night. I hadn't noticed until then. That's why I was suddenly sick.

It's one of the strangest things that ever happened to me. I subsequently felt much better after having a meal and a nap.

I guess that if something is sufficiently interesting and so on, you won't notice that you haven't had any sleep for quite some period of time.

Re:Depends what you're doing

[Scrameustache]

After working at my office all day, I started work on the survey project in my basement around 5pm on a Friday night and worked on it for a while and had a wonderful time

You make slashdot proud.

Re:Depends what you're doing

[SirLurksAlot]

I think we've all had times where we were "in the zone," though maybe not as extreme as your case. I know there have been several times that I suddenly became very productive after hours and didn't notice while time just flew past. Usually this happens after stepping away from a project at the end of the day to get a bite to eat and suddenly realizing a new possible fix to the problem. This happens to me less with work-related issues than it does for personal projects, and I've also noticed that it happens much less frequently now than it did say, 5-7 years ago.

I've also had the opposite experience in which I go to bed with the current project on my mind only to sit bolt upright in the middle of the night with the (complete/near complete) solution in my mind. Of course, I went back to sleep after some of these experiences thinking I would remember them when I woke up and it never failed that the solution had become hazy ;-)

Sleep or the lack thereof can definitely have an interesting effect on your work performance.

Re:Depends what you're doing

[Eil]

Probably it was the lack of food that contributed to the feeling of sickness more than anything else.

I did this at a geek/sci-fi con once. They had free snacks in the consuite throughout the weekend and I thought I would survive just fine on those. Got plenty of sleep. But by Sunday, I was ready to keel over. Though I had some bad lunchmeat or something from the consuite, but after I finally ate a full meal that afternoon I felt just fine.

Maybe not eating much for that long a period of time drops your blood sugar down to rock-bottom levels or something, but I'm not wise in the ways of nutrition so maybe someone more qualified can answer.

Re:Depends what you're doing

[BikeHelmet]

Keep a notebook beside your bed!

Electronics are nice, but not very helpful when groggy. I can write in a notebook with the lights off, and it comes out semi-readable!

It's enough that I can remember (or figure out) the brilliant solution. ;)

Re:Depends what you're doing

[Twinbee]

That post got 4 insightful before 5 funny :)

Re:Depends what you're doing

[TapeCutter]

1. Wake up from dream.
2. Make a note; "Boobies"
3. ???
4. Profit!

Re:Depends what you're doing

[bryan1945]

In this case, I believe "???" = "Porn"

Re:Depends what you're doing

[bryan1945]

Well, the crap food you ate would keep up the blood sugar. But crap food normally has little in the way of vitamins and other necessary nutrients. And most likely way too much salt, which can do a doozy by dehydrating you.

For the OP, he probably had a blood sugar crash. The body can only convert so much of itself into sugar before it calls a mea culpa.

Re:Depends what you're doing

[badkarmadayaccount]

After working at my office all day, I started work on the survey project in my basement around 5pm on a Friday night and worked on it for a while and had a wonderful time

You make slashdot proud.

FTFY.

Re:Depends what you're doing

[VeNoM0619]

Hmm, lost track of more than 24 hours of time... and you didn't pick the obvious "Aliens abducted me!"?

Try this (or perhaps better not)

[Fuzzums]

After a good night of no sleep, get in a car to test your reflexes. Probably better have the Mythbusters test things like this.

Re:Try this (or perhaps better not)

[saiha]

Done it, usually on the drive to work. For me it actually catches up with me later in the day, in the morning I'm still very alert.

But yes it would be a pretty cool mythbusters to see how it affects you throughout the entire next day.

Re:Try this (or perhaps better not)

[Hurricane78]

Just take a simple test. Some intelligence test. And I mean all types of intelligence.
I bet by the third day (at latest), you will stop staying awake, when you see the results. ^^

Re:Try this (or perhaps better not)

[saiha]

Ouch. I'm specifically talking about non-habitual lack of sleep, lets say one night out of a month. Continual poor sleep definitely is bad, and something that is hard to fight.

There have been a few times when I've had bad insomnia and thankfully my job allows me generous flexibilty in driving into work (i'll work from home till I feel well to drive).

This is news?

[Malc]

That article about "ground breaking experiments" is from 1997. I'm trying to remember when I read the story about Rechtschaffen's experiments the first time, and it is entirely possible that it was a /. story then too, which would make this a dup. This story is hardly news.

Sure about that?

[Tony Hoyle]

There was a programme on TV the other week about some guy in Canada who's been awake for about 3 years, using some experimental drug (that they named, but I forget about it other than I discovered it was illegal in this country).

He didn't seem to be dead. Could have been a zombie, I guess.

Re:Sure about that?

[commodoresloat]

[citation needed]

Re:Sure about that?

[jamesh]

[citation needed]

It was a programme on TV the other week about some guy in Canada and an experimental drug with a name of some sort. What more do you need???

It's coming to something when..

[shabble]

It's coming to something when even the submitters can't be bothered RTFA. All night hackathons are not going to kill you:

All of these physiological changes are reversible, thoughâ"take a nap, and you'll be on the road back to normal.
[...]
After 32 days of total sleep deprivation, all the rats were dead.

So unless you work 32 days straight, you're not going to die.

Re:It's coming to something when..

[mkiwi]

So unless you work 32 days straight, you're not going to die.

If you are a rat, yes. However, YMMV

Re:It's coming to something when..

[Tubal-Cain]

This poll suggests that it is quite normal to occasionally go a day or two without sleep. It only reports the survivors, but still....

Re:It's coming to something when..

[TubeSteak]

So unless you work 32 days straight, you're not going to die.

The rats died "after their thermoregulatory systems collapsed".
In other words, they eventually become hypothermic, then curled up and died.
I wonder if rat vests and heaters would allow them to live longer in their deprived state.

/But don't get confused, during the initial stages of sleep deprivation, you are hyperthermic.

Re:It's coming to something when..

[u38cg]

Diseases, such as the encephalitic sleeping sickness of the early 20th century, that cause agrypnia (inability to sleep) tend to produce death in humans after between 10-14 days without sleep. This is in cases where the mental ability to sleep has been lost. I can't find anything offhand to indicate what the difference would be where sleeplessness is voluntary.

you will die from one night of not sleeping

[saiha]

If you die from 1 all-nighter then you probably died from something else (very poor health). I think most of science and engineering have been built on all-nighters so sorry, not going to stop.

Re:you will die from one night of not sleeping

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Can't help but compare Tesla and Edison. Both achieved a lot, although Tesla was the better scientist and engineer. Tesla keep quite normal hours, whereas Edison was certainly the kind of person to pull all-nighters. I'm sure many great people have pulled all-nighters, but there is no reason to think that if hadn't they wouldn't have achieved as much. In fact, the science suggests the opposite. But like you say, it's also not going to kill you unless you do it all the time or have some other problem.

Re:you will die from one night of not sleeping

[4D6963]

I thought that Edison was more the type who had a shitload of people to delegate things to and take all the credit for it.

Re:you will die from one night of not sleeping

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Yeah, but he still had to come up with things to delegate. Perhaps his idea to electrocute stray pets for FUD was the result of one of his all-nighters.

This is news?

[itlurksbeneath]

I remember hearing about an exactly identical study when taking psychology in the late eighties. This news article even mentions a similar thing.

Thank you Captain Obvious!

[Hurricane78]

Is there anyone here who seriously thought that it would be even remotely related to ok, to not sleep for several days?

Not only does it make you stupid as hell, and depressed. Your brain also starts to fail more and more. Even if you do not die, you will not be far away from a zombie.

Hope you do not run up to me in that state, because I am going to shoot you. I don't take risks zombies. Zombies and raptors. Especially zombie raptors. ^^

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious!

[sjames]

Is there anyone here who seriously thought that it would be even remotely related to ok, to not sleep for several days?

Apparently much of society (at least in the U.S.) believes it's fine to be sleep deprived for at least the entire work week, and often all the time.

Many people for some reason believe that the only consequence of sleep deprivation is that you tend to get sleepy, and further, that more coffee, red bull, etc is a solution to that problem.

Re:Obvious.

[saiha]

And if we could sleep half our brain at a time (like sea mammals) then that would be obvious too.

You'd be surprised

[Moraelin]

Well, as somebody above pointed out, some employers would be shocked to learn that.

IT = RIP

[haam51]

So...all of us who work on IT have our days counted? ? ? ?

Insomnian NOT know to kill humans?

[Dr.Altaica]

What about Sporadic Fatal Insomnia and Fatal Familial Insomnia.

Re:Insomnian NOT know to kill humans?

[lbbros]

To be fair, FFI is a degenerative disorder of the brain, so I don't think it really relates to "normal" sleep deprivation.

Sleep kills?

[Twinbee]

Nonsense of course. All my research proves the contrary.

Everyone who's wise knows sleep is really an addictive illness that needs to be overcome.

Re:Sleep kills?

[kms_one]

As to your addictive illness...solutions:

As a last resort, let 50 spiders loose in your bedroom when the sleeping pangs kick in. If you're even slightly arachnophobic, you'll rather stay awake than go to bed with those crawling around!

Brilliant. Anyone willing to be a guinea pig?

Re:Sleep kills?

[Tubal-Cain]

Reading that, especially the last part, convinces me you aren't serious. It would take a ridiculous amount of ignorance to sincerely use those quotes so out of context.

Oh, and regarding the sleep apnia. IIRC it is basically snoring exaggerated to the point that the person can no longer breathe for several minutes, until oxygen deprivation wakes them up (so they now need to start over with the REM cycle). This occurs several times throughout the night, so they are still exhausted in the morning.

What's the LD50?

[jmitchel!jmitchel.co]

What's the LD50?

pain sensitivity

[Chris Snook]

I once went 9 days without sleep. After 22 hours of sleep I woke up in severe pain, as an injury I had suffered halfway through, which seemed very mild in my sensory-depressed state, was in fact something that required medical attention. If it had been only a tiny bit worse, I could have developed life-threatening complications after several days of ignoring and aggravating it. Impaired motor control, pain sensitivity, awareness, and judgment, all at the same time, is a dangerous combination.

Re:pain sensitivity

[Concerned Onlooker]

How do you even go 9 days without sleep? The longest workday I ever put in was just over 24 hours and I was already completely wrecked by the end of that. How in the world do you manage 9 days? It may just incomprehensible to me because I'm not one of those people who brag about how little sleep I get/need.

Re:pain sensitivity

[Twinbee]

Just out of interest, what made you go without 9 days? The most I've ever been without sleep is 3 or 4. Programming, and particularly composing music really 'helps' to last out.

Re:pain sensitivity

[chuckymonkey]

Were you in the Army? While not injured I had shit get really weird after a few days without sleep in 2003 during the roll in to Iraq.

Re:pain sensitivity

[BikeHelmet]

I once went 40 hours without sleep.

Now I find time for a 1.5h nap if I don't get to sleep at night. It really helps a ton, and will get you through to the next night.

After skipping sleep one night, I usually get 10 hours the next, and wake up a bit tired.

Re:pain sensitivity

[TrekkieGod]

I once went 9 days without sleep...

Dude, I once went 76 hours without sleep, and by the end of it I started blacking out and hallucinating. How in the hell were you anywhere near functional for 9 days?

Re:pain sensitivity

[Brandybuck]

My dad was in the tail end of WWII, and the most he or others in his unit could do was three days without sleep. After that you start to hallucinate. Guns and hallucinations do not mix.

Re:pain sensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems unlikely a UDT/SEAL would be posting here, but they go a whole week without sleep as a kind of finale to their training. (It's called Hell Week for a reason.)

They are explicitly being trained to keep running, keep fighting, keep moving as a team even while totally out of their minds. Sort of like training the ol' hind-brain to keep going no matter what happens.

Re:pain sensitivity

[oncebitten]

How do you even go 9 days without sleep? The longest workday I ever put in was just over 24 hours and I was already completely wrecked by the end of that. How in the world do you manage 9 days? It may just incomprehensible to me because I'm not one of those people who brag about how little sleep I get/need.

Coke, perhaps?

I've done 36 hours on, 4 off for a week when I was way younger (this was during internet time, and without drugs). It's the reason I left IT.

But I've known cokeheads who can do 3-4 days easy.

Re:pain sensitivity

[Chris Snook]

I didn't say I was functional! It started out as a coding binge for a class project. Based on my notes, I later concluded that some time around day 6 I began reading wikipedia articles on topology, to formally describe the performance of my networking protocol in a network built in a 4-dimensional toroidal universe.

Adderall, caffeine, and an undiagnosed anxiety disorder were also involved.

Re:pain sensitivity

[Chris Snook]

More than anything else, an undiagnosed anxiety disorder. There was also caffeine and adderall, but not in any higher doses than I'd used regularly in the past. I was spending most of the time coding, until that somehow transitioned to studying topology on wikipedia so I could describe the performance of my networking protocol in a 4-dimensional toroidal universe. Based on my notes, I think I went psychotic around day 6.

Re:pain sensitivity

[Chris Snook]

I think the hallucinations began around day 6. I was coding for a class project, and keeping notes. The notes got very weird around then. Coding is a bit less stressful than combat though.

Re:pain sensitivity

[Chris Snook]

I was in grad school. I don't remember it very well, but my notes got really weird around day 6.

Re:pain sensitivity

[TrekkieGod]

I didn't say I was functional! It started out as a coding binge for a class project. Based on my notes, I later concluded that some time around day 6 I began reading wikipedia articles on topology, to formally describe the performance of my networking protocol in a network built in a 4-dimensional toroidal universe.

Sounds about right, but you're way more tolerant to lack of sleep than I am. I was working on my senior design project, and on hour 76 I started pulling the cat-5 cables out of my router because I thought, for about 20 seconds, that my project was to make the lights in the router blink in a certain order.

Once those 20 seconds wore off, and I had my "wtf moment" over that hallucination, I realized it really wasn't saving me any time to stay up any longer, and that I needed to sleep.

Re:pain sensitivity

[Brandybuck]

I've heard of killer class schedules, but that's ridiculous. I hope you have subsequently come to your senses.

Re:pain sensitivity

[badkarmadayaccount]

*high five*

Sleep deprivation is very serious

[Anonymous Coward]

In my early thirties I started snoring a lot, and very heavily. Two years later I started experiencing symptoms such as forgetting where I was going as I driving down the road, getting into my vehicle and not remembering how to start it, forgetting my own phone number, the inability to perform my job at any level of competency, etc.... I thought I had suffered a major stroke.

I went to the doctor and he said I was a ringer for sleep apnea and referred me to a sleep clinic.

Long story short I was waking 50 times an hour because that's how often my breathing was being interrupted and my body would rouse me due to low oxygen levels in my blood. To me it seemed as if I was awake all night long and never went to sleep.

After being fitted with a cpap mask and sleep machine to pump air into my mouth and nose while I slept it took me three weeks of normal sleep to recover my mental faculties.

Sleep deprivation will kill you, and it will also seriously degrade your mental capabilities. It's nothing to mess around with. In addition to the mental problems the probability of a stroke or heart attack is greatly amplified.

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[drmofe]

I have done multiple instances of 7 days without sleep over the years - that's about my limit. Currently I have a regime of around 5 hours per night (over the last 10 years).. At Uni I regularly used to work 9am - 6pm, break, then 11pm to 6am, then break, for months at a time.

My point is that nothing, NOTHING, prepares you for the level of sleep deprivation that you suffer when you have kids. Strategies for dealing with a 3-year old who is heavily into animals, space and big machines, anyone?

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[MrKaos]

In my early thirties I started snoring a lot, and very heavily.

Same here, although I was only being woken up 25 times a night, I started exercising (after having not for a few years) and it seemed to get better. However one of my siblings is awoken by sleep apnoea 300 times a night. After reading this it's little wonder why he is overweight and depressed.

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[Kaell Meynn]

I thought you said "snorting a lot, and very heavily". I thought that was going to be the first meth reference in a sleep deprivation thread. But I guess not.

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[MindlessAutomata]

Sleep deprivation will kill you, and it will also seriously degrade your mental capabilities.

Actually, the scientific evidence for this is not at all clear and experimental results have been inconsistent.

As mentioned elsewhere here, there's a large confound with stress hormones and actual sleep deprivation. This is particularly suspect:

After being fitted with a cpap mask and sleep machine to pump air into my mouth and nose while I slept it took me three weeks of normal sleep to recover my mental faculties.

Recovery from sleep deprivation is rather quick--it seems that sleep is more efficient after sleep deprivation. If this was caused by sleep deprivation, it is very atypical!

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[Radio_active_cgb]

I was diagnosed with sleep apnea about 16 months ago, so the experience is still very fresh in my mind. I did not start CPAP therapy until it was far too late to avoid losing my job.

For the previous couple years, my performance at work was falling off, and I was constantly flirting with burn-out. I was getting poor performance reviews and couldn't figure out why. I thought one of my problems was that my hearing was going, so I got fitted with hearing aids (I also suffer from mild hearing loss - more on that near the end of this story.)

My work performance improved slightly, but something else was going on. For some time, my wife had complained about my snoring. It was so bad that we were sleeping in separate rooms.

Sure, I was always tired, but I thought that was normal. It sneaks up on you. A parallel example would be that you can't specify a date when your eyesight got bad enough that you first needed glasses. You might be able to recall the date you got your first set of glasses though.

I had received as a gift an MP3 player that could also record 4 hours of sound in one take. About 2 years after receiving my hearing aids, I decided to record myself at night. That recording was extremely enlightening. Life changing enlightening. Based on that recording alone, I was convinced I had a breathing problem while trying to sleep. It was extremely uncomfortable listening to myself struggling to breath. If my wife had made such a recording years before, I would have acted in it then. Unfortunately, all she did was complain about it, and wake me up when I was snoring.

A week later I spent the night in a sleep lab and was diagnosed with sleep apnea. After another night in the lab, I had a prescription for a CPAP machine (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, Pressure=8cm water). This is essentially a low pressure blower that (in my case) gently inflates my lungs without any effort on my part. I have to exhale against the pressure, but its less than blowing up a balloon. I find the experience relaxing. Humans are much stronger at exhaling than they are inhaling.

After a month of using the machine, I started feeling a lot better (you don't recover from the long term sleep debt in one night - 2 to 6 weeks seems to be common). For about the next week, I was really angry about how I had been treated at work (I suspect this is a common effect following treatment for a wide range of medical disorders such as waking from a coma.)

About that time, I lost my job due to poor performance. (The performance issues were real, but the reasons they cited for my release were bogus - they gave me a problem that could not be resolved within the framework I was allowed to work in.)

I wonder at the obituaries in the newspapers. The cause of death is often given as natural causes, but I suspect many are really breathing issues related to snoring.

After starting CPAP therapy, I found that perhaps 5-10% of the people about me use CPAPs, and found about others second hand. Two people I know have started CPAP therapy in the last year. CPAP machines may be much more common than the general population is aware.

I'll likely continue using the CPAP for the rest of my life. Surgical options don't always work, can not be undone, and are often not permanent anyway. CPAP therapy always works, and can be easily adjusted.

I still wear hearing aids, but I find that I don't need them all the time like I used to. The hearing loss is real. I frequently wear them turned off (the sound of my own typing drives me up the wall) and turn them on when needed. I suspect my brain is still recovering from years of sleep apnea, but it is improving.

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the AC that you replied to.

It's funny how doctors who specialize in, and lead the field of sleep disorders, differ with you. The doctor that treated me had one of the very first sleep disorder clinics in the US. He's also a recognized expert in his field.

The doctor's expectation for my recovery time was a month. I made it in three weeks. I also know other people who suffer from sleep apnea as I did/do, and none of us had a quick recovery time. It takes time to recover from years of sleep deprivation and not very many people are treated for sleep problems promptly. Most people aren't treated until years after they start displaying the symptoms of the problem.

I also just have to laugh at your "if this was caused by sleep deprivation" statement. You weren't around. You didn't see the before and after. Funny how you feel qualified to disagree with the person who went through it and with his doctor.

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[klui]

The strategy is to sacrifice parts of your routine/life for the sake of attending to your kids. Of course, it's easier said than done as you're used to a certain type of routine.

Infants are another matter, but kids who are 2-3 years old will probably sleep for 12 hours in one shot then a 2-3 hour nap in the middle of the day.

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[matt4077]

It's interesting that you say "three weeks" as there are studies showing a lower growth of neurons (Adult Neurogenesis) associated with sleep deprivation. It's also been shown that after neuron production picks up, the effects take about three weeks. It's the same process that starts when you take antidepressants.

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[kimmp]

There are no strategies for dealing with three year olds. I have to re-evaluate my own on a daily basis.

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[Tyler Durden]

Strategies for dealing with a 3-year old who is heavily into animals, space and big machines, anyone?

Launch him into space in a ship full of animals controlling big machinery. Duh.

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[evil_aar0n]

Ooh, yeah, I got this one. I'm actually a relatively young - early 40's - and active grandpa, though her term is "papi" (sounds like "poppy"). The other night, I got to watch this darling little 3.5 year old for the evening, all by myself; gramma had a party. We did just about all the fun things she could think of. We were like Calvin & Hobbes - one thing after another - and we had a blast. We found the most interesting thing: a robin's egg with a nearly fully-developed fetus inside, but with a hole in the shell. Poor thing didn't make it. Had to drag daddy down to show him, the next day.

Long story short: Mommy & Daddy finally came to pick up the grandbaby around 9:30 pm - quit a bit before her usual bed time. After getting her home - a two minute drive - and a snack, she was out like a light. Our explorations and activities plum wore her out.

So, my suggestion? Play with the little ones and let them burn out their energy. It's win-win: they go to sleep sooner, with less fuss, and you get a little exercise, in addition to spending quality time with the little buggers. Too bad I can't get paid for just being "papi"...

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[iampiti]

Hi. I don't know if you'll ever read this but... What are the mental problems you felt? I've had memory and reasoning (things like logical thinking, reading comprehension...) for about 3 years now and I haven't been able to find a cause.
I know I've been snoring for a while but I didn't even thought of relating it to my thinking difficulties.
I've recorded myself a couple of nights now and there's just snoring I didn't hear myself struggling to breath or something like that.
Anyway, whether you read this or not thank you so much. You've given me a new path to investigate. I'm going to have this evaluated soon. Thanks!

Re:Sleep deprivation is very serious

[Radio_active_cgb]

Memory and reasoning were strongly degraded. Oddly, listening to audio stories became easier (perhaps it's because the imagination works harder). Physical coordination also suffered (typing became much easier as I became more alert).

People characterized me as being hard to work with, argumentative, and perhaps grumpy/grouchy (these were documented issues on my annual work review for several years).

If you've ever taken one of those on-line tests for burn-out, I suspect many of the same factors may be involved. (I was a strong candidate suffering from for burn-out for a very long time.)

Day to day, it was always a struggle to get out of bed in the morning, always wishing I could sleep in a bit longer. On those times when I could sleep in, it didn't really help much.

I had to have a large coffee in the morning to make it through the day, and if I missed it, getting through the day was a real struggle. When this happened, I often had headaches - at the time, I suspected it was a caffeine dependency, but now I know it was related to my sleep deprivation. Once I got the rest I needed, I found it surprisingly easy to go cold turkey with the coffee and soda.

I had little energy or motivation to do much beyond what was required. I was also annoyed by one of my lower eyelids twitching when in a stressful situation, or when I was exceptionally tired.

Waking up is like the fog in your head clearing. I didn't realize how miserable I was while sleep deprived.

I wish you success.

"Lights Out"

[Antlerbot]

http://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-Sleep-Sugar-Survival/dp/0671038680 - T.S. Wiley's been saying this for years.

Not much of a threat

[DarkOx]

I don't this is something that happens often under circumstances people normally experience.

First if it was we would already know and not need to be doing the research now, to find out if can be lethal.
Second nature probably has its methods of preventing you from killing yourself in this fashion no matter how dumb you are about trying to stay up.

You usually cannot hold your breath until you die. You might be able to do it with some contrivance like a plastic bag tied around your neck or noose, but if you just sit there in your chair and attempt to hold your breath you will pass out before you die and start breathing automatically when that happens.

I suspect you can't keep yourself awake long enough to die either without getting pretty darn creative.

Re:Not much of a threat

[CharlesEGrant]

I don't this is something that happens often under circumstances people normally experience.

True, the context of the original article on Slate was the "enhanced interrogation techniques" practiced by the US on captured terrorists. According to the recently released memos interrogators were allowed to deprive subjects of sleep for up to 180 hours (7.5 days). The starting technique was to shackle them in a standing position so that if they fell asleep, their entire weight was born on their arms. After forty hours they had to shackle them lying down to avoid permanent damage to their circulatory system. I haven't read how they kept them awake while lying down, but I think we can assume they had sufficient resources and "creativity" to accomplish it. Definitely not a normal circumstance, but not just of academic interest either.

Re:Not much of a threat

[enFi]

I don't [think] this is something that happens often under circumstances people normally experience.

I agree. In the first article, it doesn't tell us how the rats were kept awake, but it gives a hint that they were not kept up by excitement over their latest project:

It's also possible that extreme levels of stress contributed to the rats' demise.

However, the article opens talking about Guantanemo; it is relevant to consider that such treatment of fellow human beings might be more dangerous than supposed.

Re:Not much of a threat

[HydroPhonic]

First if it was we would already know and not need to be doing the research now, to find out if can be lethal.

I'm guessing they were more interested in how it killed, rather than whether it would. Sadly, the release didn't contain the sequence diagram for their shutdowns....

Re:Not much of a threat

[sydneyfong]

> I suspect you can't keep yourself awake long enough to die either without getting pretty darn creative.

Wrong.

I've seen quite a few instances on the news about teens doing a gaming marathon (eg. for like.... 40 hours non-stop) and then dropping dead due to heart failure.

Well, I think we all agree that playing WoW for a day or two non-stop isn't really that creative.

Sorta

[Moraelin]

Sorta. After 32 days the damage got to be deadly. It doesn't mean you can't get smaller doses of damage long before that. Keep doing it often enough, and it might just add up.

And the darndest thing is that your cells have Telomeres, i.e., maximum division counters. So even damage that can be repaired, only goes so far. E.g., old age and death by old age, are simply a matter of more and more of your cells reaching the limit, and thus more and more damage can't be repaired. So, anyway, that which doesn't kill you, usually shortens your life instead of making you stronger.

Sorta if you will, like saying that you need a whole 0.45% alcohol in your blood to have a 50-50 chance of death. Yeah, but much smaller doses, if done often enough, can kill you just the same.

And to answer to your objection from a different message too, yes, 1 or 2 nights you can recover from. (Though if done for work reason, it may still be interesting to remember the study where the students who were allowed to have a good 8 hour sleep solved a problem actually faster than those who pulled all nighters. You're a lot less smart when very tired.) After about 3 you start getting permanent brain damage.

Re:Sorta

[shabble]

And to answer to your objection from a different message [...]

I raised no objection in a different message, this being my second on this story.

Re:Sorta

[MindlessAutomata]

Sorta. After 32 days the damage got to be deadly.

Most of the damage to the rats was likely due to extremely high levels of stress and not actual sleep deprivation

Re:Sorta

[Moraelin]

Sorry, then, I had confused you to something else. Just shows that I should have taken my own advice and gone to sleep instead of posting after midnight :P

Re:Sorta

[Ruke]

Sorta if you will, like saying that you need a whole 0.45% alcohol in your blood to have a 50-50 chance of death. Yeah, but much smaller doses, if done often enough, can kill you just the same.

But not "just the same." At 0.45, your brain is flooded with alcohol, and your NMDA receptors stop working. Which means that you go braindead, and your body follows. Long-term use of lower concentrations, on the other hand, play hell on your liver, pancreas, gall-bladder, and metabolism in general. So, in the long-term abuse case, your body craps out, and can no longer support your brain. Sure, you still die, but you die in a different manner.

Similarly, it matters what kills you from complete sleep deprivation, as opposed to a long term sleep deficit. We're pretty clear that not getting enough sleep isn't good for you, and we even have a basic understanding of what goes wrong. However, we don't have any recorded cases of a human flat out dying from complete sleep deprivation. It's important to know what goes wrong in that case, so we can ensure that those functions stay right.

You bet your life

[NicknamesAreStupid]

I guess this is something to think about when you are being wheeled into the emergency room and meet your doctor who has been up for 30 hours. See http://www.ergoweb.com/news/detail.cfm?id=1190.

Re:school or all-night-hacking?

[DarkOx]

Umm,

set some limits for yourself. Decide you are going to go to bed at 12:00 or whatever. I know you don't want to break concentration by watching the clock you setup an interrupt timer for yourself ahead of time. There is no reason why you can't use the alarm clock to tell you when to go to bed instead of when to get out of it. Maybe you will need two alarm clocks.. Get an extra to have by the computer.

Inquisition.

[santax]

There is a reason why people tend to sign and say anything you want them too if you keep them awake long enough. That's why modern countries don't use this any..., ah never mind.

Shenanigans!

[JoeDuncan]

Let me be the first to call shenanigans on this.

Any studies on the harmfulness of sleep deprivation are so horribly confounded as to be practically useless.

The problem lies in the fact that in order to deprive rats of sleep you have to apply some kind of aversive stimulus to disrupt their sleep. Not only that, but the more tired an animal gets, the stronger the aversive stimuli needed to keep them awake. These aversive stimuli cause stress, and we already know that chronic, unavoidable stressors can kill.

So how can they make the attribution to lack of sleep rather than to stress? There's no simple way to separate them.

One of the articles even states that one of the physiological results of lack of sleep is an increase of cortisol and TSH - *BOTH* of which are known effects of stress. I would rather say that the physiological results they are seeing have been caused by the stressors they are applying to keep the animals awake than the lack of sleep.

Shenanigans I say, shenanigans.

Re:Shenanigans!

[MindlessAutomata]

Damn you! You beat me to the punch. Even pointing out the rising cortisol levels! Damn you again, I wanted that Score 5, Informative/Interesting.

I will affirm everything the parent says.

In a sleep-deprivation study with rats where they would be awakened if they fell asleep by dunking them in a rotating platoform, control rats that could avoid getting dunked stayed much healthier than the rats awokened by being dunked in water (which would be much more stressful!)

Re:Shenanigans!

[MindlessAutomata]

It should be noted that sleep deprivation in humans for similar periods of time has not let to death or ill health.

A leading view of sleep nowadays is that it's a sort of evolved standby function that has some application to memory consolidation but otherwise isn't really necessary. At least to my understanding.

Re:Shenanigans!

[hamburgler007]

Let me be the first to call shenanigans on this.

I'll get the broom!

Re:Shenanigans!

[Savantissimo]

It should be noted that sleep deprivation in humans for similar periods of time has not let to death or ill health.

You mean other than reducing mental health, memory, judgment, executive function, pattern recognition, reaction speed, visual acuity, strength, stamina, productivity and essentially every test of mental and physical function? Lack of sleep is often fatal when treating patients, driving, piloting or operating machinery.

Re:Shenanigans!

[JoeDuncan]

And, trying to say it's the stressors created by sleep deprivation that kill/harm rather than the lack of sleep itself is nonsensical. The stressors arising from sleep deprivation wouldn't exist without the sleep deprivation itself.

A.C. - I'm afraid you've misunderstood and gotten this quite backwards; we agree on the fundamental point and you are actually re-enforcing my argument here.

It's the sleep deprivation that arises from the stressors, not the other way around. They can't tell rats not to sleep, so they have to apply some kind of stressor in order to cause the sleep deprivation. It is the stressors which are causing the lack of sleep, not resulting from it (although I am sure lack of sleep does cause stress - how do you parse them out?)

Your argument is like saying that getting shot in the heart doesn't kill people; that they die from the lack of blood being pumped to their brain and the rest of their body. You completely ignore the primary cause and say the consequences arising out of the primary cause are responsible.

No, that's the argument presented by these studies, and the logical error you are pointing out is the same one I am pointing out in studies of sleep deprivation.

In studies of sleep deprivation:
CAUSE = stressor/aversive stimulus
EFFECT = sleep deprivation

The researchers in these studies would like to say that it is the sleep loss that is causing the rats to die; completely ignoring the primary cause which is the massive amount of stress they are inducing in order to keep the rats awake.

Humans do this to themselves on a regular basis. How many posters here talk about living for extended periods of time with lack of sleep and use stimulants to keep themselves awake when they should be sleeping?

Just because there are no studies that track these people for the next 20 years to see how much their life span has been shortened does not mean it is not being shortened.

Sure. I agree with you 100% on this, people that regularly abuse stimulants to keep themselves awake probably do have shortened life spans. But how can you disentangle the effect on lifespan of the stimulants (PRIMARY CAUSE in this case) from the loss of sleep itself (EFFECT again)? Seeing as how it is the stimulants which are the cause of the lack of sleep; it seems more likely that any loss of lifespan should be attributed to the chronic use of stimulants rather that one of it's effects (loss of sleep).

Again, the issue with people is the same as with the rats. You cannot, through sheer force of will, force yourself to stay awake. If you try, you will eventually fall asleep. Humans also need to apply some kind of external stimuli (e.g. stimulant drugs) in order to stay awake.

"ground breaking experiments"

[seeker_1us]

What about the ground breaking experiments involving insane World of Warcraft players who stay up for several days at a time?

This is stupid.

[Antisyzygy]

People have went over a week without sleep and still survive, so there no reason to get all worked up about it, nor use it as an excuse to miss work.

Re:This is stupid.

[Darkness404]

The problem isn't working, its driving to work, which I'm sure we can all agree isn't going to be very safe if you were up for a few days.

how do you keep rats awake?

[Cyko_01]

how did they conclude that sleep deprivation was the cause of death? perhaps it was the repeated shocks being administered, or the strobe lights, or the coffee they gave them

Re:how do you keep rats awake?

[PPH]

Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon, Carson Daly,......

Fatal Familial Insomnia

[The_mad_linguist]

There's a reason the disease is called fatal familial insomnia, and not mildly inconvenient familial insomnia.

Seriously, this is not new knowledge.

And Guiness' "world records" are much shorter than the months-long completely sleepless descent into complete insanity

Well, tell this to those going through grad school

[iris-n]

Try sleeping more than 5 hours a day when you're trying to graduate to see what happens. It is impossible to keep up schedule.

It's ironic that sleeping less makes you dumber. The less you sleep, the less productive you get, and the less time you have to sleep.

What I do is go trough the week with caffeine and energetics, party saturday and sleep the whole sunday. Yeah, I know more than anyone that this isn't healthy, but I plan to graduate some day and get fitter, happier. At least, most people survives.

Fatal Familia Insomnia

[Anonymous Coward]

The result of prolonged sleep deprivation are studied in Fatal Familia Insomnia cases. It is rare and not much studying has been done though.

http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/0906N_1432/007/2006/10/rare_disease_fatal_familia_insomnia_--_terminal_insomnia.html

Anybody with young children...

[cailith1970]

...understand the joys of lack of sleep for extended periods. You have periods - sometimes weeks on end - where you get interrupted every couple of hours, which means you're not getting much, if any, REM sleep. I know of other parents who say that with multiple young children they have periods of YEARS where everything is just a bit hazy.

There has been some research (can't remember where I saw it) that sleep is vital for moving the day's memories from short term memory into long term memory where it can be accessed. Extended lack of sleep means that new information isn't properly transferred into the cortex and so gets "overwritten" with fresh information, resulting in some memory loss.

Re:Anybody with young children...

[JAlexoi]

Actually, according to the studies, it takes only 10 minutes to move short term memories into long term memory. And it does not happen during sleep. In fact, the movement of short term memory into long term is shut down during sleep.
Displayed by the fact that most people don't remember anything in the last 10 minutes prior to sleep. Does anyone remember how he/she fell asleep? I don't. Most people I know don't.

Re:Anybody with young children...

[cailith1970]

Interesting, haven't seen those studies, but that doesn't mean much :) The studies I've seen are to do with the hippocampus. Neural recordings taken on rats show that during sleep, memories are played back in the region, not once, but several times. The even more interesting part is that they are replayed backward. I'm not sure how this effect applies in humans, if it does or doesn't occur in humans, but I recall that the research was hypothesising that it may have been a transfer from the hippocampus (known to be involved in short term memory, along with navigation) to the cortex.

Anyway, this isn't exactly my field, so I don't really have a heavy grasp of the details here :)

someone that hasn't slept in 33 yrs

[v1]

http://digg.com/general_sciences/Man_in_Vietnam_hasnâ(TM)t_slept_in_33_years._2

It won't pull up the story right now but I recall reading it. Apparently he got some illness and it led to some very specific brain damage, (by fever?) and prevented him from ever being able to sleep again. The article said he used the nighttime over the course of several years to dig a pond to raise fish to supplement the family's income. You'd think this guy would be the subject of intense research by a variety of groups, civilian and military alike?

Re:someone that hasn't slept in 33 yrs

[Sinterklaas]

This is a working link:

http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=12673

And Snopes message board commentary:

http://msgboard.snopes.com/message/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/43/t/001054/p/1.html

Re:someone that hasn't slept in 33 yrs

[againjj]

http://digg.com/general_sciences/Man_in_Vietnam_hasn%E2%80%99t_slept_in_33_years._2

All Google hits either refer to http://www.thanhniennews.com/features/?catid=10&newsid=12673 or they have no reference at all. So, it is a matter of whether you trust that site.

It also looks like he has a Wikipedia page, but not a Snopes page.

Can't sleep

[PPH]

Clown will eat me.

didnt anyone notice the dates from these?

[onionlee]

none of this research is new. tfa says that the research was done in the 80s. the nyt article was published in 1999 (before the fucking millenium). the u of c doesnt even have a sleep research lab anymore.

1 page NYT article.

[antdude]

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/05/magazine/awakening-to-sleep.html?sec=health&pagewanted=all

Sleep Apnea

[Bones3D_mac]

One just has to look at anyone with untreated sleep apnea to see just how dangerous it is. You can easily identify such people just by looking for the signs... darkened eye sockets, labored breathing, swelling of the legs and body, disorientation, lethargy and bruising.

And it's not just difficulty sleeping either, the body ends up literally consuming more energy trying to sleep than it does while conscious. The lack of oxygen in the circulatory system fools the body into overproduction of red blood cells to compensate. This, in turn, leads to a dangerous shift in blood pressure to the point that the heart may cease to function under the load (chronic-conjestive lung and heart failure).

In many cases, those suffering from it are often discovered with blood oxygen levels lower than that of a cadaver.

One thing to remember though, is that the act of sleeping isn't just merely closing the eyes for a few winks, the body *needs* to rest lying down to recover from the negative effects of being upright all day. Blood that is left to pool in the legs for too long can eventually lead to dangerous blood clots.

At the very least, if you can't afford to sleep regularly, try taking a brief nap lying down once every few hours to help maintain normal circulation.

Re:Sleep Apnea

[Bones3D_mac]

I'm just speaking from personal experience, as I have sleep apnea myself, and nearly died because of it. It is, to an extent, "choking many times an hour", but it's not typically a complete cut-off from air. If anything, it's more like water boarding.

The problem with sleep apnea is that the strain from your body's constant struggle with it in, in itself, a form of sleep deprivation. You never actually "sleep" in any conventional sense. Instead, it's more like hundreds of micro-sleep sessions strung together back to back. (Micro-sleep is the condition where your body temporarily passes out to conserve energy when it becomes too strained for far too long. It's sort of like the body's instinctive "dead man's switch"...)

Re:Sleep Apnea

[againjj]

Blood that is left to pool in the legs for too long can eventually lead to dangerous blood clots.

This is solved with frequent movement. Walking up the stairs of your basement every 20 minutes is sufficient. No sleep needed.

Take with one hand, give with the other

[Chmcginn]

I've had some similar experience. One semester in college, I had a terrible schedule - almost all my classes were before lunch. The previous semester, I had gotten used to staying up very late since my I didn't have a single class before 2 PM. When I decided to try and stay up late, and then just take a nap in the afternoon, my grades in calculus, history, and physics suffered. But my creative writing class I did very well in. My computer science class was an even split - I came up with some very well-optimized code, but my documentation was horrible, and sometimes by the time I met up with the rest of the group to get all the modules working together, I couldn't even remember how it did what it did.

Re:Take with one hand, give with the other

[Laser_iCE]

Your naps didn't happen to occur right after 4:20, did they?

Re:Take with one hand, give with the other

[deander2]

that's funny. my math grades would usually go up. (vector calc and diffeq, most notably) i used to intentionally deprive myself of sleep before major exams.

Re:Take with one hand, give with the other

[16Chapel]

Hmm - me too. When I was 15 I'd leave my maths homework until just before I went to sleep, as I could just power through them (and get top marks).

In the last year I've done some punishing 36-hour coding marathons, and I've found that at about the 20th hour I hit 'the zone' where I can code at full speed, 100% accuracy. I can't even think about talking to clients or doing manager duties as that point, but the code just flows out.

And then.... when I'm into my second night without sleep I get euphoric and start to be able to write lyrics (I'm a musician but have terrible trouble writing lyrics to the music I write).

All the same, I have two friends whose lives have been turned upside down by bi-polar disorders, so I don't really like playing with fire like this.

11 Days is still a lot

[Chmcginn]

I made it almost seven days with increasingly large dose of caffeine. By the last day, I drank 3 pots of coffee in under twelve hours, and then I started having extremely vivid visual hallucinations. That's when I decided I was at my personal limit. (And then I slept for over 24 hours.)

Re:11 Days is still a lot

[Kaell Meynn]

There are far more potent stimulants in the world.

Re:11 Days is still a lot

[Chmcginn]

Sure, but would any of them have had any (positive) effect on the hallucinations?

mod parent up

[commodoresloat]

It's refreshing to read some intelligent commentary about unions on this page rather than the typical knee-jerk anti-union comments that generally get attention.

Research disagrees..

[278MorkandMindy]

I disagree with your assertion that you need 8 hours to get the required REM sleep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep
Some people have been shown to get 3 hours sleep per day, in 30 minute regulated naps and not go insane (or die) even after 6 months.

The issue comes when your body does not know when it should be getting the sleep. If you have irregular patterns, then you will suffer. If you have a sleep pattern that is as regular as clockwork, I would suggest that to survive you body would adapt and quite happily live on 6 hours, just run the REM cycles closer together.

Re:Research disagrees..

[profplump]

Because /. is obviously best served by a citation of a complex study, rather than the interpretation of said study on wikipedia -- after all, most readers here are anthropologists and therefore well suited to form their own well-reasoned opinions from the original subject matter.

I agree that wikipedia should not be considered an authority on any subject, but to suggest that it's not a valid starting point for discourse among laymen is absurd -- I can totally support pointing out particular flaws in articles, but to simply dismiss wikipedia as utterly useless is as ridiculous as it would be to accept wikipedia as infallible.

This is old news

[Dwedit]

This is old news if you've ever heard of the Korean Gamer who died after a 50 hour game session.

May be deadly...

[hipifreq]

but sleep dep is not likely to kill unless you are kept awake artificially. I've gone as long as 80 hours awake just for fun (teenager), and by about 72 I was having some serious visual hallucinations, and at 80 I just couldn't stay awake any longer. Slept for about 24 hours.

Ah, to be young again!

Old News

[bob5972]

The study cited in the main article was done in the '80s, and said the rats "might have died" from lack of sleep. The other link is a newspaper article published in 1997. This is hardly "groundbreaking."

Rats dying from lack of sleep not a new discovery

[imarsman]

As a grad student I talked with an assistant in a sleep research lab studying the effects of sleep deprivation in rats. The rats had electrodes implanted in their skulls which were used to monitor wakefulness as they were rocked back and forth in a cylindrical cage. Whenever they fell asleep the cage would rock back and forth, waking them up. I was told that experiments of this sort could only be done over 72 hours (after which time the rats had their heads chopped off and flash frozen for later brain slicing) or, based on previous research, they would be likely to die (from lack of sleep rather than the guillotine). I assume that this was not a new discovery. Perhaps the new part is actually trying to kill rats through lack of sleep and keeping track of how long it takes to do so.

My sleep story, how about yours?

[JavaManJim]

I had a night job at a factory one time. 11pm to 7am. This meant that I slept about every two days.

I had a beekeeping hobby during the off factory hours. Can't put those little critters off. Once I was so sleepy I gathered a swarm into a box on the top of a 10' ladder. Then took a good nap up there with the idea or waiting for the bees to move to my box. Woke up a couple of hours later to an unpleasant dream which turned out to be reality. I had slept through a few bee stings. The swarm had moved, not into the box, but over and into my bee netting, clothes, hair, face, etc.

It was just annoying because swarms are fairly placid. So I carefully pulled my bee covered bee netting off and put that in the box. Went and took a proper nap in a bed.

You folks do anything interesting while sleep deprived? Leave out anything that could get you into trouble.

Re:My sleep story, how about yours?

[ColaMan]

You folks do anything interesting while sleep deprived? Leave out anything that could get you into trouble.

Used to do shiftwork from 11pm - 7am for 7 days at a time.
Usually had "lunch" at 4am..... decided a small nap over lunch would help, climbed into the back seat of a truck, lay down, closed eyes, opened eyes..... sun's up? Hmmm.

Peeked out from back of truck, it's 7:30am, new shift is on, everyone else has gone home. Decided to brazen it out - leapt out of the truck, strode purposefully past boss's office, put tools away, washed hands ,cleaned up and said, "righto, all done, seeya later."

Not too interesting, but it's only the second time in my life that I've experienced 'instant' dreamless sleep. Literally felt like I had closed my eyes, counted a second and opened them again and it was very disorienting to suddenly snap from dark quiet workshop to brightly-lit busy workshop.

"Fatigue management" has really helped in my industry (mining). I can go see the boss, say, "look, I didn't get any sleep today, I feel like crap, I'm just going to have a quick nap. If I'm not about in 30 minutes, come wake me" and he's fine with it, because he knows that otherwise I might get pasted up against the wall by some bit of heavy equipment in an inattentive moment.

Re:My sleep story, how about yours?

[donatzsky]

Hardly as interesting, but when I was in the army I had to look up something on the map for my sergeant. I look down at the map and next thing I know is that he taps me on the shoulder and asks me if I had fallen asleep :)

Re:My sleep story, how about yours?

[sjwt]

I went for a drive on my first ever long weekend after changing jobs (as I had been working as a kitchen hand, no time off on hoildays or weekends), I clearly remember thinking 'ill just pull over at the next truck stop' at about 2:30am after starting driving at 6am.. I also remember seeing the signs saying something along the lines of "death strech ahead, dont drive tired" then I started seeing faces trying to eat my car and blood in the clouds, and the next thing I remember it was its 8:30am and im arguring with a girl at a motel who is telling me they only have one room avible and it dosent have a good view, could I come back in two or so hours? I informed her that I needed the room as I had been up and driving for over 24 hours and didnt care if there was a dead guy in the loo.

I try not to push past when I start to feal like noding off now, and most of the time if I do I defnetly hear and see things, as of yet I havent ever mistaken them for real, its got to be the best trip.

I do also remember not sleeping for 3 days once when I was extreamly depressed, when I did goto sleep, I slept for about 12 hours, a friend woke me up, and I informed them that I was a little tired still, id phone them when I got up and I went back to sleep for just over 24 hours.. but I like my sleep and dreams, sleeping 12 hours stright is rather easy for me.

Re:My sleep story, how about yours?

[icepick72]

Betcha' don't remember posting that either.

Re:My sleep story, how about yours?

[JavaManJim]

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry I could not mode some of you up!

So if we happen to wind up sleep deprived on a project or something. Lets all take a quick nap. I had a college graduate instructor who went five days without sleep. You know who you are Dr G! That's what comes of loving computer science more than sleep. I tried that, two days was my max. Operating machinery or driving or thinking deeply just doesn't happen if you are sleep deprived. And your life might not happen either if you do this. So take time out for sleep.

SLEEP MUSIC By the way SIRIUS/XP Channel 116 AFTER 11PM CT, Kids Channel has a nice "sleepytime" sleep songs. Again after 11pm and that might be a little different in Mountain and Pacific time zones.

Jim

Re:My sleep story, how about yours?

[JavaManJim]

Oh well that was the only one I could relate that was not actually hazardous. The bees were just in the top part of my little bee outfit. They wanted to find that queen!

Slow /. day?

[WinstonWolfIT]

I think it's safe to say that you're going to fall asleep long before lack of sleep is in itself life threatening.

feh

[jughead]

I have twin ten-month-old boys. Apparently, I should have died dozens of times over by now.

So then sleep deprivation is...

[SupremoMan]

Torture? And even more importantly rather dangerous to the victim's life. I can tell you guys if I go 20 hours without sleep I start feeling the effects. Any more than that I'm liable to just fall asleep, even while walking.

From a psychological point of view...

[Etherproof]

As an undergrad psychology student I recently had a few lectures delivered by a very up-to-date sleep researcher. First of all, circadian rhythms (our internal wake-sleep schedule, sort of) control (a) blood pressure, (b) heart rate, and (c) core body temperature. Despite unverified self-reports that conveniently occur in relatively deindividuated internet forums, I can't possibly think of how severely disturbing our circadian rhythms would result in normal functioning. Secondly, as some readers have speculated while actually reading the linked article, it would most likely take a lot of sleep deprivation to kill an otherwise healthy individual. Last, but not least, studies have shown that sleep deprivation for 11 days led to considerably increased slow wave and REM sleep for several nights thereafter, so obviously the mind is prepared to deal with sleep deprivation. I'd better get some sleep now.

Sleeping after kids

[HydroPhonic]

The hardest part of getting sleep with an infant only lasts 4-6 months. Switch off duties with your partner to ensure she gets some sleep too.

If (s)he's 3 already, your sleep troubles should've been over a long time ago. If they're not, put that kid on a schedule with a bedtime routine. Schedule mealtimes (roughly) too - set his/her circadian rhythm. (S)he'll sleep several hours longer than you, giving you and your mate much needed together time....

Does he/she have a pet? How does one explain space to a toddler?

Re:Sleeping after kids

[drmofe]

Ah, THOSE sleep problems are long gone, yes. The 6-month old sleeps all night and so does the 3-year old. I got the bedtime routine sorted fairly early. My only issue now is that he is full-on from 5:22am until 7:30pm. All day, every day, no exeptions for daylight savings. Lots of fresh air and exercise helps, and rock-solid routine at bedtime.

Explaining space to a 3-year old? I don't know. He seems to explain it to himself as we go along. Here we are blessed with clear skies and not much light pollution, so a lot of stuff is obviously visible. He knows the difference between stars, moons, suns and planets. We are just back from the local observatory where they have an indoor 30cm telescope and two outdoor 50cm ones. So after tonight, he knows about galaxies and globular clusters as well.

Some do slip into REM quicker

[Moraelin]

Yes, some people do slip into REM much quicker. As I was saying, narcoleptics can get into REM in 15-25 minutes, sometimes less.

Also, you do need less sleep with age. Margaret Thatcher was born in '25, and was PM between '79 and '90, i.e., between roughly 54 and 65 years old. Admittedly still a bit young for 4 hours a night, but less spectacular than if someone half that age pulled that stunt anyway.

Re:Some do slip into REM quicker

[Scannerman]

I don't really like this being modified as flamebait, I'm trying to make a fairly serious point here, Obviously I'm not a fan of the woman, but as the years of power went on she did get increasingly irrational and prone to distrust all outside opinion. This contributed significantly to the manner of her eventual downfall. I think more sleep might have made quite a difference.

Re:Some do slip into REM quicker

[Savantissimo]

Well, they used to believe that your blood pressure would naturally go up as you aged and your arteries would naturally harden as you aged. It turned out that it isn't so - these conditions are disease processes more commonly found after years of eating an unhealthy diet.

I think that the increase in insomnia among the elderly is also likely to be the result of disease processes, and that insomnia is a large part of the reason why the elderly are usually markedly less creative, mentally adaptable and able than they were when they were younger, and if such people got a decent week's sleep, they would show dramatically improved mood and mental ability.

Re:Some do slip into REM quicker

[Moraelin]

Well, that's certainly a possibility too.

When dreams are shattered...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with some of your statements, but a lot of your rant was (dis)coloured by the typical attitude of 'Foreigner in Japan' syndrome: which is that the Japanese way is not the same as my way, therefore it is inferior.

Many of my gaijin acquaintances in Japan do nothing but complain about the place, yet whenever I ask them if they've forgotten the correct route to the airport, they clam up and don't speak to me for a while.

Almost all of them came to Japan for at least one of the four main reasons foreigners (who are almost always male) come here.

1. They believe that in Japan they will at last be Big Men, physically, and not average-below average men, as they feel they are in their home country, because "all Japanese men are midgets".

2. They believe that in Japan they will be treated like movie/rock stars, women will throw themselves at them, and the president of Sony/Hitachi/Corp X will beg them to sign on and "show them how to do it".

3. As per reason 2. they believe that Japanese women accept it as their place in life to be shockingly mistreated by men, and that males in Japan are expected to have, oh, I don't know, let's say a wife and four girlriends.

4. They couldn't cut it in the west, so they come to Japan thinking they'll earn a fortune teaching English (with absolutely no formal ESL qualifications and experience), and that reasons 1-3 will also apply.

One of the reasons gaijin in Japan complain incessently about Japan is because they very quickly discover that 1-4 are all grossly incorrect, and they usually discover it the hard way.

Have you ever read a book called 'Notes from Toyota-land' by Darius Mehri? He came to Japan believing he would be a God amongst short people, mostly because he could speak Japanese, but also because he assumed westerners were heroes in this country.

When he discovered that his presumptions were incorrect, he wrote a book whining about how the Japanese do everything "the wrong way" and wept like the little bitch he is because nobody fawned all over him for being a westener who could speak some Japanese.

If you don't like the Japanese way, if it's "not as good as your way", you have two options: shuttup and live with the "fact", or fuck off back to your own country.

Note: I'm a 6'5" westerner with a Japanese wife (met and married her outside Japan, had two kids), and have lived and worked in Japan for a couple of years (as just another corporate drone), and understand that 99.999% of Japanese would be happy to see me and all other foreigners leave Japan forever, mostly because 99.9% of gaijin fall into motivational categories 1-4.

Re:When dreams are shattered...

[Bryan Ischo]

I'm a white western male and I would really like to live in Japan, and I like to think that it's not for any of the reasons you stated. I've actually travelled there, once, for two weeks. It's a supremely beautiful place, and there is something about the aesthetic of the country that's very intruiging. I can't quite put my finger on it - but as an example, Japanese characters (the real Japanese ones, not the ones borrowed from Chinese) just seem so beautiful to me. I don't know if Japanese people can look at a Roman "P" or some other letter and think that it has something especially artistic about it, but I certainly feel that way about Japanese characters. Similarly, I found the style of houses, of public art, of clothing, just about everything, in Japan to be somehow more beautiful than anything I'd experienced before. Also, there is something so ultra-genteel about Japanese society, it feels very modern and refined. It feels like something I'd want to be a part of - if only I weren't such a western slob!

Of course I only spent two weeks there. And even that was enough time to get an idea of what *real* xenophobia feels like - from the outside. So there are things that are certainly not ideal about Japan. But in many ways the country felt like a living, breathing, work of art. I was there in October so maybe the fact that the countryside was in such wonderful fall colors had something to do with it, I don't know.

It was a while ago (2001) but you can read about my trip if you are at all curious, at
http://www.ischo.com/china/japan2/index1.html.

I certainly envy you for living in Japan. My wife and I (and our kids) just spent more than two years in New Zealand thinking that maybe it would be the perfect place for us. Unfortunately, distance from family and my tech career were just insurmountable problems in the end and we moved back to the USA last month. I dream of giving Japan a try but ... having already experienced the financial setbacks of a short term life in another country, I'm not sure it's the best choice for us right now. And also, I've become convinced that the best way to kill your romantic vision of a place is to live there.

Re:When dreams are shattered...

[Patch86]

So you're of the opinion that it isn't possible to live in a place, like a place, and yet still find fault with the way said place does things?

I live in the UK. I enjoy living in the UK. Given an opportunity to live anywhere in the world, there's a decent chance I'd choose the UK. But I know sure as hell that there is A LOT wrong with the place, and that I'd be remiss (read: a complete tool) not to my best as a citizen to right these wrongs- or at the very least acknowledge that they exist.

Japan (full disclaimer: never been there) may be the best place to live in the world, but still have god awful labour laws and working practices. It is the duty of everyone there (including people with a different skin colour) to attempt to make their country a better place.

Anyone who dares hold the opinion that "everyone should just shut up and live with it or fuck off to another country" should be beaten to death with their own sizeable idiocy.

Re:When dreams are shattered...

[ultranova]

When he discovered that his presumptions were incorrect, he wrote a book whining about how the Japanese do everything "the wrong way" and wept like the little bitch he is because nobody fawned all over him for being a westener who could speak some Japanese.

I see. He was critical of Japan, so clearly he must be a loser and can thus be ignored.

If you don't like the Japanese way, if it's "not as good as your way", you have two options: shuttup and live with the "fact", or fuck off back to your own country.

Actually, you have a third option: laugh at the funny slanty-eyed infidel midgets getting their panties in a bunch over someone daring to suggest that they just might be wrong. Or better yet, someone else getting his panties in a bunch over it and make Japanese seem morons while defending them.

Note: I'm a 6'5" westerner with a Japanese wife (met and married her outside Japan, had two kids), and have lived and worked in Japan for a couple of years (as just another corporate drone), and understand that 99.999% of Japanese would be happy to see me and all other foreigners leave Japan forever, mostly because 99.9% of gaijin fall into motivational categories 1-4.

And yet they still allow foreigners into their country, and even marry and employ them. Clearly, this is not a sign of utter stupidity, but simply the "Japanese way", which is just as good as my way despite making its practitioner miserable; to suggest otherwise would make me a failed English teacher, which I'm not, so it can't be true.

But then again, I'm only 6'1", so disregard that, it's just my gaijin bitterness speaking :(.

Re:When dreams are shattered...

[pikine]

Japanese characters (the real Japanese ones, not the ones borrowed from Chinese) just seem so beautiful to me

Hiraganas are rooted in Chinese cursive form of the characters.

And also, I've become convinced that the best way to kill your romantic vision of a place is to live there.

The best way to want living in a place even though you absolutely hate it is to have strong ties to local people there. This is easier said than done though.

Re:When dreams are shattered...

[1arkhaine]

I enjoyed the write-up of your trip. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

Why is this news?

[JAlexoi]

Really? News?
A human can stay awake for max 11 days, after 11 days any human would probably die. And it has been known for quite a while now.
There are 2 bio imperatives that can override sleep: self preservation and hunger.
And lack of sleep can cause a ton of sleep related illnesses, most fun of witch are cataplexy and narcolepsy :) Just google it for some funny videos.

Carbohydrate cravings

[euice]

I can confirm the carbohydrate cravings from first hand experience

Fatal Familial Insomnia

[wickerprints]

I'm a bit surprised that nobody has mentioned this rare but 100% fatal, autosomal dominant disorder. IIRC the first symptom is the sudden onset of insomnia, followed by hallucinations, dementia, catatonia, then death, typically by middle age. The progression is rapid, irreversible, and totally untreatable by modern science. Insomnia appears to be a symptom of the disease and not the direct cause of death; but it is often the loss of the ability to sleep that is most disturbing to the afflicted individuals, as it is in this early stage when their cognitive function remains largely intact.

It stands to reason that a biological process that is common to nearly all animals such as sleep is so essential that the lack of it would be a serious health issue, if not a direct contributor to death.

"I don't recall..."

[CuteSteveJobs]

There was an excellent (BBC?) Documentary Series on Sleep I watched many years ago (on VHS!) It had:

* A story of a Canadian man who found he couldn't sleep. Turned out he had a malfunction in his brain in a part that controlled sleep. No matter how hard or what he tried, he couldn't sleep. It took him six months to die and it was a horrible death.
* A story of a radio announcer who did a stay-awake-athon. He went for something approaching a week without sleep. Pscyhologists watched and said in hindsight they wished they'd stopped him. He got dellusions - spiders - and in the end he would dream while awake. THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART: After the 'thon was over he took a good long sleep, woke up refreshed and appeared to go back to his old self. But his personality changed, and his old amiable friendly self - as radio announcers tend to be - faded and he became irritable and just didn't get along with people. He lost his job. He was never the same again.

So sleep depravation is dangerous and may be damaging you in ways you don't understand. If you can find the series, highly recommended. BTW pretty clear our Justice Department knows as much about Medicine as it does about Law. I don't mean that as a compliment.

Re: OT: Hack-a-thons? No.

[gilgongo]

OT, but I wonder what the general mechanism is that produces situations in which employers have to ask their staff to work through the night to meet some deadline. I mean, at some point it must pass from the rational and industry-specific and into the irrational and the realms of psychological dysfunction. What makes an otherwise sane (and presumably reasonably intelligent) project manager or senior manager agree to push ahead with something that they know is going to be impossible?

"I have decided that we will deliver X, with Y resources, but I know that to deliver X you will need Y*10 resources. I shall ignore this and end up making 10 people work all night for a week to deliver something that I will eventually get fired for being barely production ready, it at all."

I have see exactly this on more occasions than I would think would be just bad luck.

no human being known2have died from staying awake?

[D4C5CE]

no human being is known to have died from staying awake

The case of a woman in her 20s compelled to work several days and nights through until her fatal collapse in the Japanese financial services sector (not strictly karoshi as the cause of her demise seems to have been neither cardiac nor a stroke, but attributed to the sleep deprivation itself) is notorious in particular as her family was denounced for suing the employer, which public opinion reportly considered an immoral action there.

Re: OT: Hack-a-thons? No.

[The Fanta Menace]

Well, in the case of my previous employer, it was due to the CTO fucking around with irrelevant aspects of the project and having hours and hours of meetings that achieved nothing but arguments - and then bang, the deadline was a week away and they'd achieved nothing. And thus the all-nighters began.

Re:"my creative writing class I did very well in."

[sleigher]

This is exactly why good bands start to suck after a few albums. If they get successful they get comfortable. At least that is my theory.....

Enhaced Interogation

[elkto]

(Sarcasm)What a timely article(/Sarcasm)
Now that the CIA was/is to use sleep deprivation as a means to interrogate subjects.
Maybe the FBI and Janet Reno will be sued for using sleep deprivation on the Branch Davidians.
Oh yeah, Reno was on of the good guys....Bahhahaha....

News Time Machine?

[Shaiku]

Wait, this has been general knowledge for decades... What the hell? Am I really so old that I'm seeing the body of human knowledge being rediscovered again by an entirely new generation of n00bs? Sleep deprivation studies and experiments were carried out AGES ago, people.

Re:"my creative writing class I did very well in."

[shawb]

That is one element involved... note how (at least in the 20th century) almost all musical innovations come from people in oppression or at least a lower economic class. Blues, Jazz, Country, Soul, Rock N Roll, R&B, Techno, and Hip Hop came from poor people. Reggae, Dub and Dancehall from Jamaica where people live in shacks around the razor wire and broken bottle topped walls of manor houses. The whole Latin Music movement started primarily in Cuba, with everything that goes along with living on a dictator run island nation under a trade embargo with the largest economic superpower which lays less than 100 miles from your shores. Rai from the Maghreb (Northern Africa) where simply practicing their own culture could get people jailed or worse by the controlling Islamic population.

That being said, there are many other elements allow bands to only get a few good albums out:

The so called "Genius Curve" in which people in any creative discipline (Including theoretical scientists) as a rule produce their most influential work in their late mid to late twenties.

A limit of good ideas. The environment a person surrounds themselves with may limit themselves to one or a few good, creative ideas. Bands like the Beatles (whether or not you like them, they did put out a large number of albums which were liked by a large number of people) strove to immerse themselves in other cultures and ways of thought, which could expand the number of ideas to combine allowing for a new idea to emerge.

Getting stale or selling out. If you keep doing the same thing musically, it gets old. It gets old both for you and for the audience. If you try something new, your old fans accuse you of selling out and there are lots of people who may have liked your new stuff, but their image of what you are doing is tainted by their perceptions of your older works. This may sound cynical, but in fact musicians write music to be listened to by other people... it is a performance art. If writing music was done purely for the love of the process of making something new, that could be done in your basement without the hassle of getting it recorded and pressed. A good set of headphones for the musician sounds much better for the money and is a lot easier to manage than the amplifiers and PA systems needed to perform modern instruments for the public, but headphones isn't what musicians spend their money on. Other responsibilities. When musicians dedicated to becoming great start out, The Music is their primary responsibility. Everything else is just a vehicle to allowing the music to happen. They get jobs to pay for instruments and other band equipment. They choose where to live based on the ability to practice their without the neighbors complaining, as well as the proximity to other musicians and artists who would serve to enhance creative discussion. They socialize based on people's ideas. Eventually the business end of being a musician starts to creep up in importance simply to maintain the band's status, so time spent with lawyers, PR folks, managers, accountants, touring, making videos etc starts to eat away at practice and writing time. Musicians who tend to keep making innovative music often have to get away from the world to keep doing so. The Band would spend months and years on a plot of land with a studio built in an old farmhouse doing nothing but music. Rivers Cuomo reportedly has a cabin he retreats to and writes music for long stretches of time. And once a musician has a family, that almost universally becomes the focus of their life. Once this happens, it is almost only family tragedy that can bring out a new, powerful, successful song which can spark a renewed passion in music, such as Eric Clapton writing Tears in Heaven after his son's tragic death.

Getting older demographically: younger people (teens and twenties) tend to be far more interested in music than older people. So the conversations of the people around you tend to start drifting away from music and on to ot

air traffic controllers 2...

[airdrummer]

back in 1984, shortly after ronnie fired all the strikers, i rented a room from a replacement atc who told me that not only do atcs swing shifts weekly, they swing back: taking an earlier shift, similar in effect to flying east: it's easier to adjust to flying west (later.)

since it takes ~2 weeks to adjust fully to a schedule change, our air transportation system is being run by sleep-deprived zombies;-{

Re:"my creative writing class I did very well in."

[MikeFM]

I think under moderate stress I produce but under to much stress I become very focused and don't have time or energy for creativity. Under a lot of stress I also tend to become depressed and that makes me feel uncreative. Leisure time tends to be of mixed results. The first few days of leisure I just want to recover but once recovered I'll tend to become very productive. I become so productive that I'd say that I'm again under moderate stress because I keep myself so busy. I wouldn't say it is bad times though - usually it's these times that I'm most fulfilled.

One word reply.

[Muchsake]

Snowly.

What else is new?

[tekshogun]

This information is nothing new, honestly. We've seen people literally stay up for several days, and then die. We've seen people sleep a few hours here and a few hours there and then die. Lack of sleep is extremely dangerous. Nothing new and then you have people that like to pop Adderall on a regular basis. These people are scary after they've been up for more than a couple of days on stuff like that. Do your self a favor and GO TO SLEEP!

How are they kept awake?

[ch33zm0ng3r]

I'm obviously not going to RTFA so I'll just blindly ask instead. How are these rats being kept awake? It seems to me that you're not going to be able to ask these rats to voluntarily attempt to stay awake as long as possible. I would wager that the stressful conditions used to prevent sleep are probably just as much to blame as the lack of sleep itself for the untimely death of the test subjects.

Yes, but...

[sean.peters]

I think the thinking is that there's more going on than just loss of sleep in FFI. In other words, the lack of sleep and death are correlated, but not necessarily causally connected. It's tough to make a determination because the syndrome is so rare.