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What are the effects of long-term sleep deprivation?

What is the best way to reduce the effects of 60 hours of sleep deprivation, specifically for the next day?

  • I do not need to hear how bad it is and all of the negative effects. I already know. But I am in college and you do what you have to do. Please please please, any information helps. I have to be fully able cognitively tomorrow and I know that usually doesn't happen. But what can I do to lessen the impact?

  • Answer:

    The first and best thing you can do to improve the situation—and perform better the next day—is to sleep. As much as you possibly can.I'm a college student, too, so I understand where you're coming from. The hard truth is that there is a wealth of research showing a direct relationship between amount of sleep and performance, where the greater the sleep loss, the harder the hit on performance (which includes everything from alertness, reaction times, short- and long-term memory processing, etc.). Everyone, yourself included, I imagine, knows that to some extent, but many (myself included) manage to fool ourselves into thinking we can accomplish more by staying awake—which, apart from a few short term situations, couldn't be further from the truth. After 60 hours of sleep deprivation (almost three 24-hour periods—yikes!) you're in very dangerous territory.My first note to you or anyone reading this: don't drive. Studies have shown that drivers who are severely sleep deprived (less than what you describe) are worse than drunk drivers when behind the wheel. After that, the only and best advice I can give you is to use whatever time you have to sleep—or cat nap, at the very least. Getting sleep in after that much deprivation is going to do significantly more good than any last minute studying.I'm typing this up on a break between classes, and on my iPad, so I can't include references right now. I promise that the data is all out there to back up what I'm saying; you can find it either through regular searches online (Google scholar would be a good place to start) or through your school library's database subscriptions.

Michael C. Hilliard at Quora Visit the source

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Look into sublingual Uridine Monophosphate 100-250mg in the morning. Very safe and effective. (Sorry no time right now to expand or post links, but use pubmed and some discussion board searches, e.g. site:http://longecity.org uridine

Alex Vartan

First of all, it is not a surprising news that some people die after too many days of sleep deprivation. So I think you know this: 60 hours of sleepless ness is not only harming your health but also threatening your life. Back to the question. I personally only experience with 24 hours non sleep. If I wanna make sure my brain function properly, I normally do not drink too much coffee because caffein and lack of sleep together make my heart race, which is not good for clear thinking. Also, I will not go for 1 or 2 hour sleep because this might make me feel more sleepy. I just try drink more warm water. Not sure if this works for 60 hours sleeplessness.

Olivia Xiaoni Lai

Unfortunately, sleep is the remedy for the effects of sleeplessness. Coffee and other stimulants cannot really replace sleep although they can temporarily keep a person awake. You need to make room for the sleep in your schedule. I watched a TV program where they showed researchers documenting the effects on functioning while driving after going without sleep for less time than you describe. The results were frightening. The subjects were connected to monitors checking the brain, eye movements, etc. They performed as badly as intoxicated drivers! They checked mirrors infrequently and response times to hazards like a pedestrian or animal in the road were greatly reduced from their baseline before the sleep deprivation. I worked at a major public university for years in emergency services as first response for police, fire and medical. It was frightening how often we would have a student who would have an actual psychotic episode after becoming severely sleep deprived. It doesn't take 60 hours to get to that point, so I strongly encourage you to fit in at least 4 uninterrupted hours of sleep each day if you are severely pressed for time and in the last couple of days before an event. However, know that you may still enter your test or whatever is upcoming with noticeably reduced cognitive functioning. You are risking far more than missing a deadline or getting a low grade, so please rethink your plan. I transported students to the state mental hospital who were committed to get stabilized and had to drop out of school. Other students ended up killing themselves in spite of not having shown signs of depression in the weeks before they died. http://drowsydriving.org/about/facts-and-stats/

Peri Collins

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