29 replies to this topic

[NoisyApe]

I mean no hours of sleep, not a wink. I can stay up for two days and as far as I can tell function normal, then sleep and do it again. Is this going to damage me in any way in the long term? How long can a young, healthy guy keep doing this before he turns old and sick? Did/do you do this often?

I don't want to do it often but if I do it for this next week or two I could really be ahead of everything I'm behind on.

[Waterlimon]

If i remember right, when i didnt sleep once, my head was all messed up and i got distracted to some hallucion-quality images my mind was making up... Kind of like just after waking up (tho after waking up its just weird thoughts, not random nonsense images... usually)

Though that might have been after sleeping for just a short time after the long staying up, cant really remember.

[teutonicus]

Tried this recently and started hallucinating/confusing dreams with reality after a few days. It was pretty fun. Had to stop when started falling asleep at work desk. Also began noticing heart palpitations during long sessions. Lack of food may have exacerbated things here (I tend not to eat or get hungry when in 'night mode'). Would not recommend taking it up as a hobby. I am not a doctor.

[PasiP]

When I was young, I attended to these LAN parties and played games with friends for 2-3 days without sleep.. That was a mistake and I won't do it again. I got this hallucinations and saw stuff that was scary as hell..haha

[Gaiiden]

we don't fully understand yet why we need to sleep, but we do know it's necessary. That said, sleep doesn't have to be all at once. There are several techniques out there for varying sleep cycles (like 4 hours asleep, 16 awake or something) - I forget the term used to decscribe them though I know Lifehacker had a post on it once a few weeks ago if you want to try searching there.

Here's the only thing that matters to me - you can stay up as long as you're not tired. For me that could be 9 hours, 12 hours or 24 hours or more depending on various things like what I did during my time awake, how much REM sleep I got before I woke up, etc.

It's important to realize you hit a point of diminishing returns when you force yourself to stay awake - you'll reach a point where you start making errors without even realizing it or have trouble solving the simplest of problems. As long as you know your own limits and don't push yourself too far IMO there's no real danger.

[cgpIce]

agreed as long as your not tired your fine.

[Sirisian]

There were two times where I'd be grading papers for my teaching assistantship class and would pull an all nighter without thinking about it and really regret it. Even 1 hour of sleep is better than none it seems. I sleep 4-6 hours every weekday and 12 on the weekends so ymmv, but yeah I can attest to having hallucinations. Then again I have a cat so it could just be trying to kill me in the dark.

[Antheus]

Ah, to be 18 again....

How long can a young, healthy guy keep doing this before he turns old and sick?

Low- to Mid- twenties.

[jbadams]

That said, sleep doesn't have to be all at once. There are several techniques out there for varying sleep cycles (like 4 hours asleep, 16 awake or something) - I forget the term used to decscribe them though I know Lifehacker had a post on it once a few weeks ago if you want to try searching there.

That would be polyphasic sleep -- very popular among supporters of the idea, although many others suggest there are potential dangers or downsides to polyphasic sleeping patterns. I personally haven't found "normal" sleeping patterns to be inefficient enough to bother with a) the effort, and b) any potential risk of investigating for myself.


I try to sleep at least 5 but up to 8 hours per night -- getting between 6 and 7 hours most nights under normal conditions -- and try to at least fit in some short naps if normal sleeping is temporarily impossible for whatever reason.

Not sleeping at all (especially for prolonged periods) is definitely not a good idea and should be avoided if possible, but I don't believe a couple of once-off experiments with it will do you any permanent damage assuming you don't also hurt yourself while in a sleep deprived state.

[NoisyApe]

Thanks for the replies. We'll see how it goes!

[Eelco]

Staying awake all night definitely screws with my mind. Two nights in a row of no sleep whatsoever is my max, and I got these paranoid delusions, such as a split second of thinking OMG IM ABOUT TO GET HIT BY A TRUCK, whereas infact att that happened was that I saw a cat cross the street more than 30 meters away in the corner of my eye. Definitely something out of sync in your head at that point.

But even a single <6 hour night makes itself felt immediately to me. My creativity and willpower both fall off rapidly at that point. Im little good for anything else than stacking boxes after such nights.

No clue about the long term effects, but the short term effects are sufficiently counterproductive to me that I have no incentive to go and find out.

[swiftcoder]

I've pulled up to 5 consecutive days on 1-2 of sleep each night, with no adverse effects (takes a few days to normalise sleep schedule afterwards though). Pretty sure I could push it further if I had to, but that's the limit of what I can comfortably sustain without becoming tired.

I wouldn't really recommend that you try to reproduce this yourself - I'm a borderline insomniac at the best of times. If I manage to catch 6 hours of sleep on a normal night, it's a miracle...

[Washu]

Many studies (one example) have shown a correlation between lack of sleep/tiredness and degraded ability to perform various functions. You may not even necessarily KNOW that your functions have degraded either.

Caffeine is no substitute for a good night of sleep, and the game development world's... addiction to long hours of overtime, crunch, and various other deleterious actions most likely has a measurable quality control effect.

In general, I suggest just getting to bed when you're tired. I usually take a nap part way through the day, simply because I tend to prefer the quieter hours of the night to do work, not to mention staying up late to gaze at the stars through the telescope means no late night sleep.

[Erik Rufelt]

I tried once to sleep 30 minutes every 6 hours, for about two weeks. It worked reasonably well for a few days during the second week, when I actually managed to keep that exact schedule precisely (fall asleep in 1 minute and wake up after exactly 30 minutes every time). A couple of times I failed to wake up to my alarm clock and slept for 1-3 hours which made me very tired those days and broke the pattern. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep

Nowadays I try to sleep 7-8 hours, but it's often 5-7 most weekdays. It's probably not healthy to sleep too little... from what I've read sleep helps your body in many ways, like heal wounds faster, strengthens the immune system by replenishing blood cells, and many more. Probably good for your eyes to rest also.

[Tachikoma]

I am a night owl, but usually sleep 7 hours. Still tired afterwards. In fact, my problem is constant tiredness. I hate it.

[jbadams]

I am a night owl, but usually sleep 7 hours. Still tired afterwards. In fact, my problem is constant tiredness.

Try sleeping less -- I used to have a similar problem, and was given the same apparently counter-intuitive advice and had pretty good results -- by sleeping less overall and going to bed only once you're well and truly tired you may well be better rested when you are asleep rather than being fairly restless and waking up tired. I got good results from fixing the time I had to get up but only going to bed once tired. Don't try it for too long if you're not getting good results, and see a doctor if you're having serious problems. You should also make sure you're getting what your body needs in your diet, and that you're not trying to rely on caffeine (or other energy supplements) for your energy so that your body becomes reliant.

Since I tried that a few years ago I eventually settled into a much nicer sleep pattern, I'm only tired if I miss sleep because of something out of the ordinary, and I've gradually built back up to a "full" night's sleep without it being crappy ineffective rest.

[Krohm]

I mean no hours of sleep, not a wink. I can stay up for two days and as far as I can tell function normal, then sleep and do it again. Is this going to damage me in any way in the long term? How long can a young, healthy guy keep doing this before he turns old and sick? Did/do you do this often?

Don't mess up your sleep. I've been there for two years. It's serious shit.
Cannot sleep well? Have a 15km run.

[coderx75]

I did this a lot in my younger days and, although I wouldn't say there were any long term health issues, I would say that it was pretty f*%king stupid. You're just not going to be as productive and you'll only be wasting precious time. You won't realize it while you're doing it (you'll actually be amazed at your productivity while sleep-deprived) but you'll be producing very little.

Look, any teenager can stay up all night. If you are really dedicated to being productive and catching up on work, get to bed early (8 pm), wake up early (say 3 or 4 am), make yourself a cup or two of coffee and get some work done without distraction while you're still fresh. Take breaks when you need to as well. You can get a solid 12 to 14 hours in a day, be done by about 5 or 6 pm and still have 3 hours to chill out before getting to bed. This has been my crunch time schedule for the past few years and it's worked wonders for me.

Being up all day and staying up all night, you'll only be spinning your wheels. I'm an atypical sleeper, requiring very little sleep and, even for me, this is completely impractical. At various times, dealing with really bad management at a job and especially the birth of my son, I've had to go very long stretches without sleep, around a week to two weeks. I was able to keep going, function fairly well and never experienced hallucinations (bummer). I'm the guy that probably requires the least sleep and I'm telling you this just isn't the way to go. You will always do better with a good nights rest, period.

[vaaver]

I do not often stay awake for the whole night. I hate this feeling when your thoughts are messed up and you need to move in order to stay awake!))
I think that staying awake for the whole night is harmful. But if it happens not really often it is ok!

[slayemin]

I've just turned 30 recently and I've experienced many many days/nights where I haven't slept for 24+ hours. My recommendation: DONT DO IT. It wears down on your body (unnecessarily at that!). I'd collapse into my bed, completely exhausted and I'd literally feel the exhaustion in my heart. Like, it's taking special effort to keep beating at a normal pace. Sometimes I'd go for 36-48 hours without sleep, then sleep for 16-20 hours (and not getting up to eat). Staying up for long periods of time and then resting always makes me feel like shit, so if I'm listening to what my body is telling me, it's not healthy and I shouldn't do it. Our bodies need the sleepful rest to regenerate and rejuvinate on a predictable and periodic basis. It's not just for our bodies either. I had an interesting experience when I was trying to learn calculus. I had spent most of the night studying and doing math problems, but was having a hard time with getting the material to sink in. I gave up and went to sleep. I had dreams about math problems. Something must have clicked in my brain while I was sleeping because the clarity I was looking for was suddenly there the next morning. It's as if I had learned more in my sleep than I did at night. I suspect that the things we learned during the daytime get ingrained into our memory while we sleep. Anyways, do yourself and your health a favor and get a healthy amount of sleep on a consistent basis. If you need to get work done, focus on improving your working habits rather than shorting your sleep.