h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

i agree with the point about no sleep being better than a couple of hours. Back in the distant days of unemployment i used to stay up all night and the following day occassionally. Nothing worse though than just geting 2-3 hours* (especially if alcohol is involved).

I also believe that at least as important as how much sleep you get, is the point in your 90 minute sleep cycle that you awaken.I usually sleep for around 6 hours, cause i have to get up early, but i can't bare to go before midnight. If i sleep for 10 minutes more, or less than normal, it can throw me off-kilter all day, so i reckon this is due to me hading back to REM sleep or being jolted out of it, instead of waking gradually at the usual time.

Does that make any sense ?






* unless you are margaret thatcher

* unless you are margaret thatcher

didnt she go mad thought??

I've been doing about 2-3 hours a night & sometimes 2 days without sleep for last few months, i dont get/feel tired but think could be going mad as cant remember stuff or concentrate on owt.

I often go a long time without sleep. Especially on Sunday / Monday time. I find the shift in schedule from BWT (Brilliant Weekend Time) to GMT (Grimwork Midweek Time) is a right bummer. Longest I managed was about 2 and a half days with occasional 20min naps. I find sleep goes in a 4 hour cycle for me, and 4, 8 or 12 hour kips suit me best.

Yep i have the same prob. adjusting from holiday- going to bed at 3am, getting up at ...3pm- to 'normal' work hours.

Usually start each week dog-tired for a couple of days !

I'm not really brave enough to try any sleep experiments. maybe if i could take a few weeks off work, i would like to try sleeping less, or in different patterns.

One thing i do know is that i am a completely different person when i've not had enough/too much sleep. for a start my i.q halves.

If i was wide awake every day, i really believe that i would be in a better job/ more money etc; when i'm thinking clearly (maybe one or two days a week?), i really get stuff done, and make good decisions, when i'm tired(the rest of the time), i'm sluggish in thought, don't take any risks, and generally just plod blindly through life.

I find that I need to sleep for at least 5 hours for the sleep to actually wake me up. If I sleep for less, I just get even more lazy and tired.

I haven't slept for four years.

No wait... it just feels like that with blooming kids disturbing my sleep patterns.

I generally get woken up approximately every 4 hours at the moment... and I am sleep deprived!!!!!

My youngest (18 months) slept though the night for the first time on Saturday - and I just woke up twice for no reason and had to go and check her

*sympathetic thoughts*

*nods* that's the worst thing about them sleeping through.... you're so in tune with them waking you up when they actually sleep through you think something terrible is wrong with them! In a few years time we'll be lying awake in bed waiting to hear them come home and then spending half the morning shouting at them to get out of bed!!

I wonder does sleep deprivation ever end once you've had children?

Just had two night in a row of going to bed at the kind of time i normally get up. I am going to be soooooooooo wrecked tommorow when i have to re-reverse my sleep patterns for work....

I think it makes a difference whether you're deliberately not sleeping cos you're having a good time, or being kept awake e.g. by noise. It's definitely the quality of sleep that's important too.

I bet those record holders had just cultivated the art of sleeping with their eyes open.

I have to keep to my routine or I just stop functioning, during the week I sleep 10pm - 6am (although its more like 9:45pm - 5-30am), at the weekend I can wake up at my normal time, at which point I usually make a quick trip to the loo and settle on the sofa with a book which will send me back to sleep (unless the book is really good) untill 9-10am (an extra 3 hours). I don't need the lie in but I like it.

If I don't get my 8 hours a night I get headachey and slow and will fall asleep given 5 minutes (this has happened a couple of times in the canteen on my lunch break...however I blame the sunshine and a slow moving book).

When I was at school/uni I used to go to be at around 1-2am and get up at 7-8am and then sleep from 4-6pm in the evening...this would be my ideal sleep routine (ie if I could do a job which involved me getting home before 7pm and I didn't have to share a bathroom with my other half and I didn't have to align my sleeping patterns with his) as I never want to go to bed at night (although I have no troubles sleeping once I'm there) I don't mind getting up early and quickly and I function so much better with my afternoon nap (means I can be a night owl AND an early bird).

I find it very easy (frightingly easy sometimes...I spent my first year at uni sleeping through lectures and then wondering how I'd picked up the points so much better than the other people who were awake and taking notes...I now always sit at the front for meetings/lectures but it doesn't always work) to doze off and I find it refreshing to take short naps...these facts will be borne out by anyone who has heard me snoring loudly in a canteen.

Mmm. longest is approximately 4 days. (I accidently deleted one third of my undergraduate dissertation 48 hours before it was due in. Stayed up the entirety of the weekend re-writing the lot printing it out and handing it in Monday afternoon.)

I took Tuesday and Wednesday off.

Isn't listening to things while you sleep a recognised method for learning?
Or is that just in comedy programmes?

I've heard that as well ... so it must be true !

subtel cause and efect thats why not.

I can go for about 48 hours at a push, but I used to stay up some nights while I was a school and I felt OK, mainly because I way interested in other things at the time.

I've got to say this about not sleeping.. half of my brain goes to sleep while, the other half is ok and they keep on switching, I'll probly find out what prion is responable and replace it with a better one

-- DoctorMO --

Listening to things while you sleep eh?...I've heard about how that can be a learning process too...indeed, it was on The Simpsons in one episode...

I don't think it works. I listen to CDs to put myself to sleep (for some reason, the loudness of the music does not seem to matter that much). If the learning process through listening to stuff in your sleep is true, that would mean I would know all the lyrics to the songs I listen to...I don't...

good point smartie.. loud music often sends me to sleep- kind of hypnotic effect
maybe your subconcious knows you're listening to p**s poor lyrics, and it's just not wirth the effort...

more like the amount of information, when I listn to clasical music on clasic FM most of the music is stored but none of the information. so i can hum to the song but I can't tell you what it is.

-- DoctorMO --

SOME of the lyrics are good...

Hypnotic eh? I don't know about that...

Funny how I can nod off on the train or in front of the telly, then go to bed & toss & turn for ages.