Queso Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 What happens to the Human Body when it has been deprived of sleep? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay-qu Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 you get tired :D I normally get headaches, loose concentration, eyes hurt.. etc I would suggest that you would eventually just fall asleep and wouldnt be able to do anything to stop yourself Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monomer Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 The brain functions very slowly. You get irritable and irrational and have difficulty focusing and remembering. Reaction time decreases so you're more likely to have an accident. If you go without sleep for long enough you'll likely start hallucinating. You'll also be more susceptible to illness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeztar Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 I concur with Monomer's last two sentences. In college, I was VERY interested in this and performed experiments myself. For me, I experienced a wave. Let me explain:-First effect is tiredness-Once that is overcome, my body kicks in and I feel awake and alert-Sunrise occurs and my body slumps again-Morning continues, but I feel odd and buzzed in a sense-In the afternoon, I become more awake, but feel very 'strange'-The night is hallucination central. I've heard conversations and seen movement that is not happening. It is a strange state of mind, very pleasant, but the taxation on the body belies any inclination towards a no-sleep diet. When I was younger, I felt that it was imperative that I studied mental shifts and modality. Today I see it as insomnia... Anti-sleep is indeed a mind altering substance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monomer Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 I remember learning that tiredness comes in waves, with about 90 minutes between each wave. If you don't go to sleep, then you get that second wind and it's like you weren't tired just ten minutes ago. I've heard that people can go for five days before they start hallucinating, but I don't think I'd last that long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthepon Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 Actually, there's an excellent article on wiki on this. They also mention that a study in 1999 found that long term sleep deprivation results in reduced levels of cortisol. Cortisol is what helps us to overcome painful and stessful situations. They also say that it's quite a lot like getting drunk... For me, sleep deprivation always seems to take on it's effects with ease. Losing an hour of sleep may give me severe haedaches and periods where I almost blackout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffy Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 I pulled my last all-nighter freshman year in college. I found it was far better to get the sleep and have less time to work on the paper. I have stayed up continuously for up to 48 hours traveling though, with one presentation to 500 people in Oslo Norway when I had been up for about 30 hours after the reverse flight to what Tormod just did last weekend...luckily I was filled with coffee and it was an easy audience and they took me to the bar for 4 hours of "discussion" afterward. The effects *definitely* depend on your mental state and adrenaline levels... Cheers! :evil: :DBuffy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeztar Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 They also say that it's quite a lot like getting drunk... For me, sleep deprivation always seems to take on it's effects with ease. Losing an hour of sleep may give me severe haedaches and periods where I almost blackout. Headaches have been mentioned a few times now. I've never experienced that. In my longest endurance, 50 hours, I noticed that my processing was down. Thoughts took a minute to process. I was slow, but blissfully so. I felt completely disconnected from my environment and relied more on info supplied by my constant hallucinations. The feeling is indescribable, unless you have hallucinated before. It is all-consuming and very unhealthy so I'm told. Too bad I frequently experience insomnia these days. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monomer Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 I need about 7-8 hours sleep, and with anything less than 6 hours I end up with an awful headache that often ends up as a migrane. Freeztar, it's terrible living with insomnia. You should read the Insomnia thread to see what others have gone through and their tips for overcoming it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthepon Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 I'm pretty sure that headaches arise from a different cause. Sleep deprivation does eventually result in chemical imbalance in the brain. I'd assume that there were a group of chemicals that could 'imbalance'. One group of chemicals leads to one symptom, some other problem leads to another symptom. The question is: what exactly happens? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeztar Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 I'm pretty sure that headaches arise from a different cause. Sleep deprivation does eventually result in chemical imbalance in the brain. I'd assume that there were a group of chemicals that could 'imbalance'. One group of chemicals leads to one symptom, some other problem leads to another symptom. The question is: what exactly happens? Good post! I'll have to ask my nuerochem friend.I'm guessing that no sleep results in lower excitation globally, but yet more centralized. That's the way it feels anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormod Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 I have stayed up continuously for up to 48 hours traveling though, with one presentation to 500 people in Oslo Norway when I had been up for about 30 hours after the reverse flight to what Tormod just did last weekend... You've been to Oslo? :eek2: Anyway, I pretty much wrote the book on sleep deprivation, but I lost it somewhere during my zombie hours. My record is two weeks with no "real" sleep. I had several rounds of that in the mid 1990s. I was unable to sleep at all, and eventually my body collapsed around 5am. Sadly I had to get up at 6am to get to work. Since I worked as a substitute teacher at the time, it was pretty horrible. After two weeks the headmaster found me half asleep in the home room and I was sent to the ER to get some assistance. I was basically so exhausted that I was unable to function normally (so what else is new :hihi: ) and I got some sleeping pills and was sent home to catch up. I've had sleeping problems since I was a little kid, and it's still my main problem in life. On average I get 4 hours of sleep, so I rarely sleep very well and never wake up feeling refreshed (I usually feel worse in the mornings than the evenings). When things are bad (usually 3/4 of any given time period) I sleep two hours, wake up exhausted, feel like a zombie at work, run out of energy around 4-5pm and the evenings can be a PITA to get through. Occasionally I pass out on the sofa, but if I manage to pull myself together I go out for a run. I also try to spend time on Hypography and my music projects, but I'll be too tired to do anything creative so I'll just stare at the monitor, more or less. On good days I get about 6-7 hours of sleep, and then I function pretty "normally" (I must admit to not knowing what normal is, since I never ever sleep well). I am so used to not sleeping much, so that if I go through a night or two without sleep, I can usually manage to catch up on the third or fourth night so that I do eventually get some sleep. I should add that I have now used sleeping pills (pretty strong ones) since 2000 and they do help me fall asleep, but usually it takes hours. And I have a tendency to wake up very early and lie in bed with "waking nightmares" which are the worst kind IMHO. I know the question was "sleep deprivation", which could imply that it is *forced* - ie, a torture method. The response is what people have posted above. The sad thing is of course that the bodily response is the same whether it's done to you or whether you suffer from insomnia like I do - it is exremely unhealthy and I have read some news here and there stating that insomnia is as bad as smoking when it comes to life expectancy etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boerseun Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 I've heard it explained this way, kinda makes sense to me: Your neural paths and patterns can be likened to hair. Each strand represents one neural pathway. As the day goes on, the hair gets messed up, and it gets harder to see the 'ponytail for the crow's nest'. When you sleep, your brain uses a specific rythmic pulse that is quite unlike the brainwaves generated when you're awake. It's a synchronised slow firing of all synapses, them getting more and more in synch the deeper you sleep. Coming back to the analogy, this can be likened to the hair being brushed, rythmic strokes getting all the strands in line again. So that when you wake up the next morning, your neurons have been 'groomed' and are fresh and in-line, ready for use and easily accessable, seeing as they've been so carefully 'combed' during the night. Obviously not physically, but you get the idea... All-nighters I've pulled used to be work-related, where we migrate thousands of machines overnight when the user impact would be negligable. So you go to work 7am and start prepping the site for the evening's migration. 6pm the machines are downed, software distributed, etc. etc., and we do the do till 7am next morning. Then we have to hang around the rest of the day to stabilise the site and ascertain whether it was a success or not, and to assist in solving problems the techies can't sort out. On three occasions we had to roll-back the entire previous night's migration, which kept us running around for 72 hours straight. And I tell you, sleep is much more important that we'd normally think. And that hair analogy of combing out all the kinks sure works for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalexia Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 Does anyone get that weird occurence when you feel more tired getting up late then when you get up early? If I get up at 7 I feel tired initially but then soon wake up, but then get tired in the evening, but if I get up at 11, I feel less tired at the start but more sluggish for the rest of the day, and usually not be tired til really late at night. I've heard it's something to do with sleep 'shifts' or something, when you go past one sleep segment and into another one which is why you feel more tired getting up late? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maikeru Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 Headaches have been mentioned a few times now. I've never experienced that. In my longest endurance, 50 hours, I noticed that my processing was down. Thoughts took a minute to process. I was slow, but blissfully so. I felt completely disconnected from my environment and relied more on info supplied by my constant hallucinations. The feeling is indescribable, unless you have hallucinated before. It is all-consuming and very unhealthy so I'm told. Too bad I frequently experience insomnia these days. :Exclamati My experiences with sleep deprivation are similar to yours, minus the hallucinations. Headaches sometimes, but more often dreamy, disconnected, body temperature drops and feeling cold, incredibly slow, and increasingly mentally handicapped as the day goes on. It did depend, though, on a couple things. Coffee can help out initially, but has no effect after a couple hours. Tea works better, really sharpens the mind, but eventually has no effect as well. I eventually end up as responsive as a couch potato. I've read that much of this are due to problems with glucose metabolism and insulin release. It appears that sleep is important to resetting several of the body's control systems and hormonal levels, which help with glucose metabolism. Since the brain is so dependent on glucose for fuel, screwy glucose levels = brain damage of a sort. :) Log In Problems (Funny, I could access this freely from my Google search, but now I have to register? Well, it's a good article if you do.)Sleep Deprivation Can Hinder Sports PerformanceEntrez PubMed Sleep deprivation is really bad for any extended length of time. Depression, memory loss, attention and focus problems, personality changes, anemia, and more are serious risks. Also, by losing sleep consistently, you can increase your chances for diabetes type II, heart disease, and cancer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheFaithfulStone Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 I find that I only really function if I sleep in 90 minute intervals. 90 Minutes - Good to go, if a little loopy.3 Hours - Reasonably rested. Once a week tops, though. Might need a nap later.4.5 Hours - Pretty good. I can do this for long periods of time if required.6 Hours - Perfect. If I get 5 hours, or 4 hours, or 3 hours and 45 minutes, I am utterly useless. I suspect this has something to do with the 90 minute REM cycle, but don't really know. TFS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay-qu Posted March 23, 2007 Report Share Posted March 23, 2007 I have read an article on this, I just went and found it again to refresh my memory - anyone thats interested on how to live off 4.5hours of sleep a day: www.glenrhodes.com - The power of the Sleep Cycle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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