Forum Moderators: open
(We are not talking short terms here)
And do you really like to sleep?
I have been working on a time sensitive project which deadline/launch date is mid October.
I have been known to vege out on the weekends.
Also to, SMXwebcrawler, I have heard of people getting special 'Desert storm speed' which was some pill that can keep you up for 3 days that was developed for pilots in Desert Storm. Craziness. I also know of a few students who got hooked on 'yellow jackets' which are gas station 'stay-awake' pills. I will just stick to exercise and coffee.
One thing I have never understood though, you go to bed awake and get out feeling shattered lol.
It's only a matter of time before someone invents the microwave bed... Get 6 hrs sleep in 25 mins :)
Mack.
A few years ago I read an article about a device you wear to help you to achive lucid dreaming. I actually ordered on-line but my card was never charged and I never got the machine.
Stretching and meditation has helped me make more of my sleeping.
I agree though, sleeping is a pretty big waste of time.
But, don't let that deter you from getting the rest that your body needs. Again, as you age, you tend to need less sleep. I think it varies by person. The standard 8 hours of sleep per day does not apply to everyone. I've seen some people who live on 2-4 hours per day. They probably won't live to be 100, but they are sure as heck are enjoying life right now.
Hey abbeyvet, Welcome to WebmasterWorld! I had to do a double take on the username and make sure that was who I thought it was. Glad to see you over here.
Japan's oldest person lives in 2-day sleep, 2-day play cycle [mdn.mainichi.co.jp]
<added>
>hooked on 'yellow jackets' which are gas station 'stay-awake' pills.
Oh yeah, I was going to mention those little foil packs of ginseng(?) they sell at gas stations. They work pretty well.
I love sleeping. Am I the only one here who adores sleeping?
Nope. I can sleep 16-17 hours without a problem, and have slept longer than that many a time (usually following or preceeding a 24-36 hour awake stretch - I swear that I have a different rhythm that the average person). 10 hours seems to be my ideal.
atob
c
But you're going to lie on your deathbed and say "Wish I'd spent more time sleeping"?
No way, man, I'll sleep when I'm dead!
I enjoy sleeping but I'd prefer if it were a luxury rather than a necessity. I don't always have time to sleep, and i resent it when I'm really interested in something and begin to get too fuzzy to continue. Nothing's more frustrating than to start making mistakes because you're too tired to continue.
I do well on a nonstandard rhythm as well. I have trouble getting to focus when I'm working, and it's very difficult for me to really get into what I'm doing and work at my most effective. Once I'm in the groove, I don't want to stop. I do my best work when I'm motivated, seek out total isolation, shut out all distractions, and go for about 10 hours. I'm definitely at my most productive when I'm on no schedule but my own, and can interrupt myself as needed and resume when I'm ready.
Sleep gets in the way of that, but only because I have to be at work at 9 etc., so by the time I get home and have dinner and can start working, it's already about 7 pm, and since I have to get up at 6:30, i certainly can't put in a 3-hour prep plus 10-hour work stretch.
So, bummer. If I didn't have to sleep, i could finish all my projects in no time!
Reality - I wish I could get a solid 8 hours of sleep each night because it's painfully obvious that's what my body needs. I'm over 40 now - Oilman you're a pup - no comments from you rc ;) - and when I don't get a full 8 I notice it. Especially if it happens several nights in a row. Sleep deprivation does have an accumulative effect. But in reality - I get by on 6-7 most nights. Man how I look forward to Saturday morning and no alarm clock.
There was a documentary on once profiling people who claim they couldn't sleep. Most of the participants hated it, one guy though said he loved it as he could pursue his interests through the night without interuption... I envy him.
I used to regularly - at least once a week - do 3 day stints. It's amazing how, when stimulated by a project, you can trick the mind to over-ride the body's desire to rest.
By the 3rd day though life becomes... interesting lets say; Time flies at an amazing pace, you start "sensing" movement around you and the limbs take a life of their own... a bit like Parkinson's disease in a way.
However, after a year or so of this behaviour I hit the wall; After an impassioned 5 min argument with my girlfriend, I had to lie down simply - in hindsight - because of the exhausting energy required... I slept for 3 DAYS! Waking up for 2 hr periods every 24 hrs for toiletry and food intake exercises.
It took me a while to fully recover - As I said earlier, your mind plays tricks and it's not until you "wake up" that you realise just how the tiredness was in fact causing you to take longer to do things, so a cycle ensues where you won't let go until you've, '... just done this, then I'll hit the sack!' but because it's taking longer, another day goes by!
Also, 'cos time seems to fly quicker the longer you're awake, you become more anxious as again, you can't seem to finish... which in turn fuels more adrenaline.
Overall, I feel better in myself now but still think I shouldn't have top put up with these daft sleep regimes!
I shal be lodging a complaint with our maker when/if I meet him/her ;)
<added> I've come to notice since, that if I have too much sleep beyond 7hrs, I actually feel tired all day... just can't win! </added>
In the mornings, gurana (not the pills, the real fresh ground stuff) and pineapple juice does the job for me. There is a knack to mixing it though :)
If you ever have a time when you wake up totally disoriented, not knowing where you are or that type of thing (and alcohol wasn't involved) then your mind actually did shut down during the night. His research determined that the mind has to stay at some level of alertness to maintain orientation in its environment through the night.
Of course REM (rapid eye movement) sessions produced the bizare world of dreams, but even then most happenings in the dreams are a representation of self in orientation to the mental and physical world of oneself as it butts up against its environment.
So, sleep is important for processing and digesting information, much like food, and the body needs the rest to rebuild itself in many ways. 8 hours or 5 though a personal preference... my doc says 8 min. period. anything else is sleep deprived.
Surrender and enjoy sleeping.
Then try to delegate and outsource everything in life - and then - even delegate that..
If you ever have a time when you wake up totally disoriented, not knowing where you are or that type of thing (and alcohol wasn't involved) then your mind actually did shut down during the night. His research determined that the mind has to stay at some level of alertness to maintain orientation in its environment through the night.
I have no idea where I am in the morning, regardless of the amount of sleep I get. This lasts for at least a good 5 minutes and a few cycles of the alarm clock.
The official verified sleeplessness record is 11 days, set by high school senior Randy Gardner in 1964.
[sleepnet.com...]
When totally denied of sleep rats die after 3 weeks. First their fur drops out, then they lose weight, then they lose their ablity to regulate their body temperature, and then they die.
Same source
We don't know how long a human can go without sleep, but a rat drops dead, of infection, after three sleepless weeks.
[wsu.edu...]
There's more:
Michel Jouvet and his colleagues in Lyon, France, studied a 27-year-old man with this disorder and found he had virtually no sleep over a period of several months. During that time he did not feel sleepy or tired and did not show any disorders of mood, memory, or anxiety. Nevertheless, nearly every night between 9:00 and 11:00 p.m., he experienced a 20 to 60-minute period of auditory, visual, olfactory, and somesthetic (sense of touch) hallucinations, as well as pain and vasoconstriction in his fingers and toes.
[sciam.com...]
Sleep Deprivation Effects (a scientific study):
Day 10: In a serial sevens test, where the respondent starts with the number 100 and proceeds downward by subtracting seven each time, Gardner got back to 65 (only five subtractions) and then stopped. When asked why he had stopped he claimed that he couldn't remember what he was supposed to be doing.
[web.bvu.edu...]
[day off, bored, all work finished, desperately bored...]
9:00 and 11:00 p.m., he experienced a 20 to 60-minute period of auditory, visual, olfactory, and somesthetic (sense of touch) hallucinations, as well as pain and vasoconstriction in his fingers and toes.
Doesn't sound all that bad.
Another rare disorder, Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI), is an autosomal dominate disease that is invariably fatal after about six to 30 months without sleep.
This didn't sound to bad if you slept within the limit so it didn't became fatal.
Then i read this part.
FFI belongs to a class of infectious prion diseases that include Mad Cow Disease.
And was less happy...
Well, that's my complaint as well. I like sleeping, I just wish i didn't have to do quite so much of it.
have children.
LOL
After testing many subjects he discovered that if they were woke up between REM periods likely as not their mind was working on solving a problem presented to them during the day.
Seems I've been under-billing my clients. :p
DSPS
A-ha! There's a name for it? I've come up with a similar theory. Some people (myself and several friends included) just have a different rhythm than the typical circadian cycle that most people live live by. Could swear that I'm on more like a 36 hour cycle or something. Problem is that the rest of the world gets in the way. Wonder how many other poeple can attribute their sleep patterns to this.
I do know that in daylight-deprived situations with no clocks, humans actually default to a 25-hour cycle. Which just goes to show that punctuality is actually hard-coded out of us...
I could get up, putter around the house to my heart's content, get to my favorite coffee shop for a latte and breakfast right when they opened, and make it to my first class on time, wide awake, with all my errands for the day already finished... and then I had the entire afternoon free to do whatever I wanted.
Only problem is, I completely lost touch with all my friends... They usually went to bed around 3am, shortly before I woke up. ;)
Went to a chiropractor who was absolutely amazing, could put me to sleep in minutes so if that’s possible surely the reverse must be true! Only problem beware the bills
It is a true account of his year long (more or less) study with Artic Wolves in the mid 1950's. As part of his study he learnt to adopt the sleeping patterns of the wolves so he could conduct more accurate obsevations of their behaviour. In doing this he would take very short naps of 15-20 miutes at regular periods and never let his body fall into deep sleep. He went on to explain the improvements of his health and general well being as a result of this. And that he never felt tired or the need for long sleeps. This carried on into his personal life long after the study had ended. I have no idea how long and prosperous his life was and if the patterens he adopted actually had any detrimental effects but his account was facinating. A great read.
(It made me think very deeply about our placement in the order of things aswell ;))
The problem is not that there are too few hours in the day, but that i have to spend too many of them on the wrong things. Eating-- that's time mostly wasted. Commuting-- more wastage. Sleep could be trimmed but I really do like sleeping. If only I could be in decent shape without exercising, I could cut that out too. It's not the effort I mind, it's the time!
Sigh.
I don't know how most people manage to have any time at all...
One of my city's richest men never slept more than 1-2 hours a night. He was a very average student in school (I know someone who went to school with him). Yet he started and ran many highly successful firms. He died a few years ago when he was about 70.
He saw his condition as an affliction and sought out medical experts. According to a newspaper article about him, only about a dozen people in the U.S. are known to sleep so little.
An interesting subject: Wonder how the economy of the world would change if sleep were no longer necessary?
