
Getting too little sleep can have serious health consequences (2013) - gmays
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/how-sleep-deprivation-decays-the-mind-and-body/282395/?single_page=true
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otherusername2
I once, involuntary, went without sleep for around 72 hours. I was at a music
festival and we were either pulling through the night or I couldn't sleep
because of the noise. When the time came to go home, I really felt pretty
good. At that time I had been awake for around 60 hours. My body was tired and
my thinking was a bit sluggish, but nothing too bad...

Until I got home and tried to sleep. By then I was feeling dead-tired, but I
simply couldn't sleep. This wasn't your average "Oh I can't sleep, guess I'll
do something else and try again later" case of 'insomnia'. I was _so_
extremely tired; all I wanted was to sleep. I started having hallucinations
much like the early stages of a mushroom trip (minus the fun). My eyes
couldn't focus, I couldn't think.

Finally I managed to fall asleep (while constantly suppressing panic attacks;
something I've suffered from in the past and know how to deal with now). I had
lucid dream after lucid dream during that sleep. It was very unsettling as I
got the feeling (during lucid dreaming) that I wasn't getting any "real" sleep
and I'd go insane.

All in all the lucid dreaming aspect was pretty cool, and in retrospect
perhaps worth the unsettling experience of being awake so long. But I'll never
ever want to repeat that experience.

~~~
globuous
That's a crazy story, I could never imagine myself not sleeping for 72 hours!!
When I mess up my sleeping schedule pretty bad (which happened a lot back in
college), I usually do sleep paralysis when falling asleep (as opposed to when
waking up). And I can do it 6 or 7 times in a row, it's a nightmare. Usually
though, I realize what's going on (it's happened to me so. many. times.) after
the second or third 'paralysis' and sleep on my stomach, which for some
reason, allows me to fall asleep without the whole paralysis thing going on.
You can actually turn sleep paralysis into a lucid dream if you 'control' it
properly. I usually just wake up thinking 'thank god I'm alive' though.

For those interested in sleep paralysis, wikipedia's got a pretty good page
about it:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis)

Sleep is truely fascinating.

~~~
ogreveins
Ah I get that too. I figured out why sleep paralysis happens and here's how to
fix it. When you sleep on your back your pillow is compressing your brain stem
at the base of your skull. Get the pillow further up on your head so as much
as possible it doesn't touch your neck or the fleshy part just below the back
of your skull. It'll feel a bit different (weird?) but you should be able to
sleep without issue.

Tell as many people as you can after you see for yourself.

edit: As an additional tip, the way I get out of the paralysis is by trying to
rock my body as if I'm building up momentum to jump or at least jerk a limb.
Once I twitch a limb it feels easy enough to break everything else out. That
rocking feeling is probably imaginary so I don't know how transferable the
technique is to other people.

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narsil
Psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia are more likely to manifest in
those already susceptible to them, if they are subject to sleep deprivation.
This remains one of the few known correlations in long-term effects of sleep
deprivation.

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-a-lack-of-
slee...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-a-lack-of-sleep-cause/)
[http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Sleep-
and-m...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Sleep-and-mental-
health)

------
marincounty
It seems like every person I know has problems with their sleep. My only
reference is the United States. I wonder if other countries have such a high
percentage of the population that has sleep problems?

I didn't read the article. I have read so many sleep studies; I have kinda
given up on every having the sleep the kind of sleep I had up until about 25.
I hate not getting enough sleep. To me, sleep is more important than money? I
once remember thinking I would sell my soul to the devil in order to get some
good, sound sleep. (God forgive me--just joking. Yea, I'm still not positive,
and don't want to piss him off.)

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yAnonymous
"Spending 25% more time sleeping increases your life expectancy by 25%."

Awesome.

~~~
wargaarbl
But that extra time spent sleeping is time spent not being awake to do things.
So the overall number of useful hours is the same either way?

~~~
nicboobees
Also if you sleep well, and live 25% longer, that 25% will be when you're old,
senile, and unable to do anything useful.

Studies about sleep are often just crazy. When did people stop using their
common sense? Just have as much sleep as you think works for you.

~~~
perfTerm
Has every old person you've ever met been old, senile, and unable to do
anything useful?

My Grandma walked to the supermarket the morning of the night she passed and
was totally lucid for the entirety of her years.

~~~
tedks
I'm sorry to hear that your grandmother passed. How did her startup take the
loss?

~~~
perfTerm
Hahaha I don't usually laugh at jokes about Grandma's passing but that got a
good chuckle out of me.

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icehawk219
Sleep is something I've kind of battled with for some years now. I have a job
with a long commute and long hours but like to still be able to come home and
make dinner and watch an episode or two of some of my favorite shows but when
I do I end up awake instead of tired. If I do that I get 4 - 5 hours of sleep
at night but if I get the full 8+ I basically have no life but work and sleep.

Basically everyone I know always tells me "Only 4 - 5 hours? That's not
healthy!". But here's the thing, I don't feel like it. I wake up fine, go
about my day, and usually fall asleep when I'm tired. I don't need to chug
caffeine to stay awake or take shots of some energy drink. Once I wake up I'm
wide awake and alert despite getting so much less sleep then everyone tells me
I'm supposed to.

~~~
rrss1122
Doesn't sound like you are battling with sleep then. There are some people who
do get by with 4-5 hours of sleep.

Then again, there are a lot more people who think they can get by with so
little sleep, but when they do start committing to 7-8 hours of sleep they
realize that extra time spent watching TV or browsing the internet doesn't
make them feel nearly as good as they do when they are fully rested.

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darkFunction
This reminds me of a programmer and very talented blogger who wrote a book
("And Then I Thought I Was A Fish") about his experience of staying up for
many days under the influence of LSD, and who is also committed to an
institution as a result of his delusions. Very interesting and entertaining
read. [http://www.stilldrinking.org/the-episode-
part-1](http://www.stilldrinking.org/the-episode-part-1)

~~~
anon4
He is still in the institution? If he's still crazy, how did he write the
book? Or did he half-coherently narrate it to someone who then posted it for
him?

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gdubs
Funny how not sleeping is still considered a badge of honor -- a demonstration
of strength. As a new parent, I've let go and will happily go to sleep at 8PM
if the opportunity arises.

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malyk
Freakonomics just did a 2 part podcast on sleep.

Part 1: [http://freakonomics.com/2015/07/06/the-economics-of-sleep-
pa...](http://freakonomics.com/2015/07/06/the-economics-of-sleep-part-1-a-new-
freakonomics-radio-episode/) Part 2: [http://freakonomics.com/2015/07/16/the-
economics-of-sleep-pa...](http://freakonomics.com/2015/07/16/the-economics-of-
sleep-part-2-a-new-freakonomics-radio-episode/)

------
ilaksh
Is it really such a mystery anymore?

Routine maintenance is prudent for any system. Sleep is a maintenance mode.

At night, the sun goes down, it gets cold, predators come out. You save a ton
of energy and maybe your life by avoiding activity at that time. When its cold
you burn extra calories just to stay warm.

Haven't biologists got a lot of evidence by now?

~~~
Qantourisc
It's more about why/what _exactly_ ? What is taking place during maintenance ?

~~~
athenot
We don't fully know, and I'm not a neurologist. But it appears that sleep is
when memories of the day get consolidated. There's also some garbage
collection that runs, for the well-being of the system.

~~~
cgriswald
There's also, possibly, the flushing out of toxins in the brain:

[http://www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2013/ninds-17.htm](http://www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2013/ninds-17.htm)

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vincentbarr
I've found CBTI for Insomnia[0], an asynchronous 'course', to be helpful in
improving my sleep. Of note, some elements of the program – particularly the
metrics/habits that are most important to improving sleep – were not factors I
had previously focused on or considered really.

I'm 3 weeks into the program and this is the first time I've been even
remotely successful at improving my sleep.

I sound like an advertisement.

[0] [http://www.cbtforinsomnia.com/](http://www.cbtforinsomnia.com/)

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nemesisrobot
I've had the opportunity to sleep in a lot lately, and I've found that I feel
physically and mentally the most rejuvenated around the 9 hour mark. Shorter
than that and my thinking is on the sluggish side, and longer and I feel tired
and unmotivated. Personally, I've found the time that I wake up to also be a
factor. Waking up at 7 or 8 in the morning after 9 hours of sleep has me in a
better mood than at 10 or 11 with the same amount of sleep.

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jameshart
The headline is, of course, tautologically true. Too much|little _anything_
can have serious consequences, because "too much" or "too little" is defined
by its negative consequences. "Getting enough sleep" can't have serious health
consequences, because... it's enough not to. Too little sleep is "too little"
precisely _because_ it has health consequences.

------
Avalaxy
"Too little sleep can have serious health consequences"

"Too much sleep can have serious health consequences"

~~~
gesman
Agree with first one.

Too much sleep is usually already consequence of something else.

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alexholehouse
One angle not touched on here is the link between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and
sleep. There has always been evidence that AD patients sleep less than the
general population, but obviously there's a chicken and egg problem here - are
they sleeping less because of neuronal disruption caused by the disease, or is
the disease progression catalyzed by a lack of sleep[1-3]? While I think this
is still an open question, there's growing research that interaction with
sleep related systems in the brain can have a major therapeutic impact on the
disease itself - obviously this doesn't actually answer if it's 'sleep' or
some process related to sleep, but clearly something is going on here [4].

From the press release associated with [4];

 _The new research, in mice, demonstrates that eliminating the protein –
called orexin – made mice sleep for longer periods of time and strongly slowed
the production of brain plaques.

“This indicates we should be looking hard at orexin as a potential target for
preventing Alzheimer’s disease,” said senior author David M. Holtzman, MD,
head of the Department of Neurology. “Blocking orexin to increase sleep in
patients with sleep abnormalities, or perhaps even to improve sleep efficiency
in healthy people, may be a way to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. This is
important to explore further.” _ \- [5]

[1] Xie, L., Kang, H., Xu, Q., Chen, M. J., Liao, Y., Thiyagarajan, M., …
Nedergaard, M. (2013). Sleep drives metabolite clearance from the adult brain.
Science, 342(6156), 373–377.
[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373)

[2] Ju, Y.-E. S., McLeland, J. S., Toedebusch, C. D., Xiong, C., Fagan, A. M.,
Duntley, S. P., … Holtzman, D. M. (2013). Sleep quality and preclinical
Alzheimer disease. JAMA Neurology, 70(5), 587–593.
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23479184](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23479184)

[3] Ju, Y.-E. S., Lucey, B. P., & Holtzman, D. M. (2013). Sleep and Alzheimer
disease pathology - a bidirectional relationship. Nature Reviews. Neurology,
10(2), 115–119.
[http://www.nature.com/nrneurol/journal/v10/n2/abs/nrneurol.2...](http://www.nature.com/nrneurol/journal/v10/n2/abs/nrneurol.2013.269.html)

[4] Roh, J. H., Jiang, H., Finn, M. B., Stewart, F. R., Mahan, T. E., Cirrito,
J. R., … Holtzman, D. M. (2014). Potential role of orexin and sleep modulation
in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease. The Journal of Experimental
Medicine, 211(13), 2487–2496.
[http://jem.rupress.org/content/211/13/2487](http://jem.rupress.org/content/211/13/2487)

[5]
[https://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/27721.aspx](https://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/27721.aspx)

~~~
dreamcompiler
Thanks for putting these links together. It's beginning to look like sleep is
the brain's garbage collector.

~~~
reagency
That has been the standard theory of sleep for many years.

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rrodriguez89
"Modalifinil" the solution to all the problemas

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dominotw
no shit!!

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richmarr
Oh dear

