Lost Sleep Can't Be Made Up, Study Suggests | Hacker News Reader

Lost Sleep Can't Be Made Up, Study Suggests

livescience.com

29 pointsdmv14 comments

The study examined a sleep schedule equivalent to 5.6 hours per day. That's not studying if sleep deprivation can be made up, that's simply studying sleep deprivation.

My own experience with sleep deprivation is that the sleep it takes to make it up is longer than the amount of sleep I was missing, especially if I put off the recovery.

I've got a different experience; ~14 hours is the maximum sleep needed to completely recover.

I get by on 2 hours of sleep a night all week and just have an extended 14 hour sleep on Sunday.

I've been doing this for about 3 years now so maybe I'm just used to it.

I think this is interesting, I've never heard nothing similar. Do you feel tired during the week? Can you concentrate on difficult tasks that requires attention?

I feel tired as the day ends, but never that I'm too tired to think stage until just before I'm ready to sleep.

There are several study's which suggest you are shortening your lifespan.

I am awake 30 hours more a week than on the regular 8 hour sleep. By the time I'm 50, I've have been conscious 5 years longer than most people.

I don't think you'd meet any older person who won't trade 20 of their older years to be 5 years young again.

So while my absolute life span may become lower, I'm living more of it now rather than later; Besides, who knows when you are going to die anyway, could even get hit by a bus tomorrow.

Also the abuse my body is going through, I doubt it will live to a ripe old age, I both smoke and drink and have cancer in my family history. I doubt I'll make it past 50 anyway.

The study didn't actually demonstrate that it can't be made up.

Yeah, that's how I read it as well. It just showed the deleterious effects of one particular sleep regime ... which surprised no one I expect. It was clearly for the whole "how do we work residents" issue.

I was impressed by the reaction time loss. 2 seconds very long.

I find myself wondering just how many of these "the resident sleep schedule is fucking insane and kills patients" studies we'll have to get through before someone, anyone, finally takes the oh-so-radical step of actually changing the schedule.

BREAKING NEWS: Medical residents are in fact not superhumans invulnerable to sleep deprivation. That the medical community doesn't understand this actually offends me; it's my life and yours they're dicking around with. (Yes, I know they intellectual understand it, but until their actions reflect it I will not say they "understand it".)

The bulk of the data shows that errors due to sleep deprivation are less than those due to context switching to a new doctor. This is the reason for the intense schedules, not sadism. If you're aware of studies that dispute that I'd be interested in reading them.

The other day, I was speaking to a doctor friend who's in the middle of sleep-deprived training, and she defended the practice.

She said that even as a senior doctor, you are going to have to pull insanely long shifts at times. Under those conditions, you're clearly not going to be working at your best. So you're going to have to develop good instincts; more importantly, you're going to have develop trust in your own instincts, that will allow you to operate effectively despite ridiculous levels of sleep deprivation.

And the only way to do that is to go through that in a semi-controlled environment in your training.

Says my friend the doctor anyway.

Yeah, I've wondered if this was akin to military Basic Training and the like, where one of the objectives is exactly that, to learn how to preform when sleep deprived and stressed out.

Another factor is being on call, getting woken up at a bad time and nonetheless having to make the best possible decision.

Either way, I'm still going to take a nap when I get home.

"If you think ... think again."

Why do so many journalists write in such cliched ways?

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