Working At/Past Body Limits?

[evan]

So I've got a question for those who may have done some more enduring schedules and I'd like to ask around in case advice can be taken.

I've been working some pretty difficult schedules, to the point where I'm starting to run out of time on daylight. There's definitely some procrastinative habits I could take out, and some social shutdowns I could do as well (and probably will do this coming week) but above anything I just want to take a week and just...fix absolutely everything. The problem is that my schedule is even busier than the past few weeks, with a lot of nights going extremely late and then still having to study.

So I raise this question because it's context for my needs;

How long has anyone here gone without sleep? What did you notice about it? I've done 40 hours or so this semester, but I'm thinking...well, honestly I don't know if it sounds ridiculous but I was just planning on not sleeping from Monday-Friday, or until I can't anymore. I really don't necessarily feel much overtiredness unless I do nothing for a long period of time, and class concerns can easily be diverted with coffee at the current time, it's more that I've been letting myself go to sleep just because I've felt tired. So I'd like to just try and know if there's anyone who's done anything like this. 

I do realize there are some health-based stipulations about this, and if you feel those are important too, I'd like to hear about them. Just the short answer is that I need to make up for lost time somehow.

[Alexxx-Returns]

I personally just CANNOT do it. Sure, I mean physically is it possible for me to study until like 2,3 AM, and get up at 7 for lectures, but I sure as hell am not gonna be productive the next day. I'll fall asleep in lectures, and I won't concentrate. I'll fall asleep in group work and that just affects everyone else because I can't contribute effectively. And I'll DEFINITELY sleep when I get home, meaning 2 or 3 hours less study time.

So in all, it's just not effective for me if I wanna study at all well after the contact hours are done. So for me, it's a trade-off between how well I wanna do in my own time, and how well I want my lecture attendance to be. And I chose to favour my own time studying. I'm doing much better now that I let myself miss a couple of lectures here and there. it makes me less stressed as well because it means I don't feel the pressure of having to go to them all.

[Antumbra]

It isn't healthy to go that long without sleep.  Longest I have ever gone was 4 days in college.  My entire body ached, I was getting jumpy at almost anything in my peripheral vision, and it was one of the most miserable things I have ever done.  Not to mention anything done when you are that tired is going to be very hard to do correctly, including retaining information.

 

I would definitely recommend not doing anything social to give you more time.  It also makes that first beer post-finals that much more enjoyable if you haven't seen your friends for a few days.

[Sarcastic Coffeecup]

I've gone more than three nights without sleep. Granted I had nothing else to do so I couldn't get an accurate reading on how much it affected my functionality other than I started to hallucinate mildly and that I began dozing off standing.

Mon-Fri sounds pretty hard I'll be honest, especially if you have work to do.

[Onnes]

I think there's a far larger question here than how long can you go without sleep. Because the answer to the sleep question is easy: you can stay awake as long as your body allows; however, you obviously shouldn't.

The real question is: why do you need to eliminate sleep? Even if you can still pass your courses with the grades you want and otherwise perform to standard while running that kind of schedule, and even if you can do that without permanent health problems, you still have to ask whether it is worth it. In all likelihood, trying to do too much simultaneously and running sleep deficits is going to decrease the effectiveness of learning and skills acquisition while also undermining your social life and health. 

People I knew in undergrad running crazy schedules usually shifted some classes either into the summers or into a fifth year to keep things reasonable.

[Fantasma]

I really, really do not think this is a good idea simply because the time you spend studying and learning will be much less effective without atleast some sleep. 

It's almost wasted time.

 

What I would recommend is to find the intervals to sleep at, for me I believe it is an hour and a half to wake up fresh. Eat healthy and drink water to also help with energy.

[Sutekh_the_Steak]

Oh god no, 40 hours without sleep or anything around that length is not good. You need at least 6/7 hours each night to function properly - if you stay up for too long you'll get way too tired to do anything properly.

Maybe one or two nights a week it's ok to get 3 or 4 hours of sleep, but make sure they aren't over two consecutive nights - then the lack of sleep will catch up to you much quicker.

[#00Buck]

Get the sleep.

Staying up for several days straight can cause permanent health problems.

It isn't worth it.

[Azure]

i dont recommend staying up for 5 straight days

not only will you be seriously unlikely to be able to accomplish, even with the aid of energy drinks, caffeine, etc

but the hallucinations are gonna be fun until you sit down for one minute and wake up a day later

 

[Sourdough]

i dont recommend staying up for 5 straight days

not only will you be seriously unlikely to be able to accomplish, even with the aid of energy drinks, caffeine, etc

but the hallucinations are gonna be fun until you sit down for one minute and wake up a day later

 

Pretty much this. Anything you think you can do well without sleep, you'll do much better at with sleep.

[Lisek]

You should always sleep. Sleep is very important to the body and there is no good reason, ever, to stay awake for a week.

As for my personal experiences, I stayed awake for three days over a long weekend just to try it and I got extremely vivid hallucinations (I'm still not sure what was real or not on that third day), paranoia, voices in my head, and literally believing I was dead or didn't exist. It wasn't fun, and none of that is going to help you with anything, that's for sure.

[Pignog]

Speaking as someone who did this kind of thing through undergrad, grad school, and shift-work, don't do it. Your body needs sleep and you should listen to it. It's better to develop good study habits and time management skills. A good way to think of it is like this: When you pull an all-nighter or forgo sleep you're borrowing time from the future at a poor rate of return. Your sleep-deprived awake time is going to be less productive and enjoyable than if you spent that awake time in a well rested state. Unless this is one of those rare crunch-times where you absolutely have to get something in and pull an all-nighter, ask your professors for extensions or take a late penalty to do a better job. If you need to take a bit longer to get all your stuff done than so be it.

[Vallium]

Never passed out due to lack of sleep but nearly passed out on two occasions due to heat exhaustion and illness.

Both were pretty bad, I'd regret to work myself into actually passing out one day.