Missing a little bit of sleep each night adds up:
“Conclusions:Since chronic restriction of sleep to 6 h or less per night produced cognitive performance deficits equivalent to up to 2 nights of total sleep deprivation, it appears that even relatively moderate sleep restriction can seriously impair waking neurobehavioral functions in healthy adults.”
Heck, they didn’t need a big study for that. They could have just asked me.
You are getting very sleepy….
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Well, on a personal level I tend to disagree with the findings, simply because I haven’t found that to be the case in my own behaviour. Of course I may just be too stupid and sleep deprived to tell
. If I can get time I’m going to write more about this.
Back when I was in college, I could go for several days in a row with very little sleep (avg 4-5 hours a night) with no apparent ill effects. And I probably only averaged about 6-7 hours a night most of the time. But now that I’m in my mid-thirties, I find that I just can’t do that any more.
If I don’t get at least 7 hours of sleep, I start to notice it. After just a couple of nights without sufficient sleep, I get irritable and short-tempered. I also find that in the mid-afternoon (usually between 12:30 – 2:30) I can become practically narcoleptic.
Hmmm… I currently survive on somewhat less than 5 hours sleep a night. I generally go to bed around 2am (it’s 1:45 now) and get up between 6:30 and 7am.
I’ve been doing this for about the last four years. I do tend to have a couple of hours more on Saturday and Sunday mornings, but not always.
I started requiring less sleep when I started cycling to work and improved my fitness (by probably an order of magnitude).
Strangely, I no longer cycle to work (more than a year now), but still manage on so few hours.
I don’t know whether it is age related, I’ll be 41 next month.