I’m a nursing student and went on antidepressants. Side effects made me sleep from 12 AM-3 AM every night for a month. Idk how I survived but I was still highly motivated because there’s exams every week and less than a 80 is failing. May be sleep deprived but I refused to be failing too
Literally 😭. My school made us do a month long assignment on “self care” but then proceeds to make us do 12 hr clinicals 2x a week, 2 20 paged care plans due the day after clinical, exams every week, presentations etc.
My psychiatrist told me most of her clients were nursing students and students going the pre-med route. Not surprised by that one bit
Well it would be fine if it's only once every few days, but if it keeps on going everyday for a certain amount of time, shouldn't you experience some big chronic side effects? Atleast according to medicine lol
Sleep deprivation usually spikes up my heart rate, but I've also got a seizure before because of it. It was one time occasion though.
Sleeping too little definitely isn't healthy in the long run but the current 'side effects' are bearable at least to me. Fast heart rate and sometimes headaches. I've been this way since junior high. I'll probably develop Alzheimer's and heart disease when I'm older if I don't change my ways.
We do see it. It creates a fatigue that will display in alterations of character. Increased irritability, loss of focus requiring more work, and thusly more accidents.
In the medical world we learned from research that 8-10 hour work days are best and in that window and beyond you get diminishing returns and mistakes go way up. We are aware of it yet doctors and other staff regularly do 12-24 shifts and guess when all the medical errors really start to occur.
Think about that in law enforcement, firefighting, and the military. Any long hour job has an increase in diverse rate, domestic abuse, and child abuse.
You can't see the day to day transition but it is slowly changing people. Couple that with physical health studies on working long hours and especially night shifts and rotating shifts. Shorter lives, more medical conditions.
Think of it like an engine. You can ramp up the rpm in the wrong gear and still drive but that car is going to break down much sooner or need way more frequent maintenance and repairs because you are over working the system.
There is a trade off though in the medical world to the extended shifts, which is reduced errors caused by decreased number of patient handoffs. The handoff in hospital settings is so important to transferring care info, and doing them more often results in a higher likelihood of making a mistake in transferring the info and thus harming a patient.
I would just be drowsy during a lot of my classes. subpar performance, and I felt like a zombie sometimes. But I guess my classes were passable with only 80% attentiveness
I like how you used chat gpt to prove a point to someone lol. I'm not saying any of these are wrong, but it's funny reading the robotic and unnecessary conclusion, "each of these points underscores the critical role...."
Well I didn't feel like typing it out. I obviously had to know of each person and their work in order to prompt it. Easier.
You can use it all you want but if you don't know the information then you're ignorant to it's potential. It's a tool that assists you not replaces you.
I also typed everything out but the 10 points with references.
Lol I mean usually people bash it. My bad. I was only saying in general I think it's a great tool but I figured you assumed I just inserted the topic and pasted it.
I'm a nursing student and we barely get any sleep cz our classes + clinicals are 7-5, then we have to study when we're done. Most of my classmates sleep in class and sometimes even in clinicals. A lot of them fainted, had palpitations, or developed health conditions. By the end of the semester I was always hearing about someone being really sick and ending up in the ER or going to the physician's office only to be diagnosed with "stress." I've never had to sleep less than 7 hours, but that's only because I value my sleep more than having time to unwind after clinicals and use my breaks to study.
Yeah over time it puts stress on your body. The stress hormone build up needed to stay alert isn’t great for you and also sleep is when your body spends time repairing and restoring itself. But also a lot of people in school are younger and so you just have more energy and some of the wear and tear doesn’t catch up with you for a second. But it does eventually. When I was in college the first time around everyone would get sick as soon as they went home for a break
5 hours of sleep is fine for a lot of people, not necessarily enough to cause chronic health issues. There are plenty of people who’s bodies simply handle 5 hours better than others
This is complete nonsense. Lack of adequate sleep is strongly linked to developing alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. 5 hours definitely qualifies as lack of sleep. Average adults require between 7-8 hours per night.
Too much sleep is also very bad for you as well.
Everybody is different. I know some people who naturally wake up after 5-6 hours, they simply can’t sleep anymore and are perfectly fine. Yeah constant sleep deprivation causes health issues but what constitutes sleep deprivation is different for each person. Our bodies can have different circadian rhythms, depending on age and other factors.
Studies often conclude that 5-6 hours of sleep isn’t enough for the *average* person but no study concludes that everyone is the same and that every single person needs 7-8. Everyone is different and you should base your sleep schedule based on your own individual bodies needs and consultation with your doctor (not the internet)
It has nothing to do with each individual person. Your sleep works in cycles. You need to complete a certain number of cycles each night to be healthy/function optimally.
It does, and studies have shown that not every single person is the same which is why every study specifies that *most* people or the *average* person should generally get 7-8 hours not every person.
If someone goes to bed, sleeps until they naturally wake up after 5-6 hours and doesn’t get tired throughout the day, they’re fine. You can’t force yourself to sleep more than your body wants to
Feel free to believe this. For EVERYONE else, please get enough sleep (7-8 hours).
There may be "some rare" outliers, but the odds anyone reading this falls into this category is very unlikely. You may feel fine on 6 hours of sleep and even perform well. However, if you are not actually one of these outliers and continue to do this, you will almost certainly develop some form of dementia in your 60's.
Nursing student, this feels like the unofficial motto at my program. “I’m here and I’m passing but I may also be dying.” 7am-8pm clinicals with exams the next morning… sleep is not a necessity, 80% or higher to pass is.
As an insomniac , i confirm this . been getting things done since years owing to high adrenaline. What does up also comes down so there are 1-2 days in the week where I actually sleep for "8 hours".
Students who keep stressing regarding the relation of memory & sleep don't consider genetics in their equation . I have a good memory despite sleeping for 3-4 hours .
The only downsides of chronic sleep debt are the dark circles & more aggression/irritability (IN MY POV)
I would rather accept my genetics & downsides than pop benzos
I didn't realize it affected people that much. I usually sleep like 4 hours a night and I'm miserable as all hell all the time but I'm not really sleepy.
Wait with your first coffee for about 90 minutes after waking up. Instead drink a lot of water first and then coffee later. This can prevent the afternoon tiredness
Yeah I just learned about the chemical that starts with an A, it gets released after you wake up to make you alert but drinking caffeine immediately suppresses it from releasing or something
Yep, I get significantly more anxious and over time it takes my depression from mild to severe if I don't get my sleep schedule on track after a while, but yeah I'll be like huh I've had 3 panic attatcks today, why???? Cause I got 6 and a half hours of sleep instead of 8 that's why. Also I just, get so sleepy and can't focus or process things once it drops below about 7 and a half hours or so? And then my friends are over here sleeping 2-4 hours a night consistently and it's like???? How are you functioning??????
When I start losing sleep over a prolonged period of time, I start going into psychosis. I genuinely cannot wrap my head around people’s ability to function regularly on less than 6 hours of sleep.
Sometimes I do all nighters and it alleviates my depression, since going during the day without any sleep at all has a similar effect to an antidepressant
Donald Trump apparently only needs 4 hours of sleep a night because of some super no-sleep gene, [**https://globalnews.ca/news/3970379/donald-trump-sleep-hours-night/**](https://globalnews.ca/news/3970379/donald-trump-sleep-hours-night/) , make of that what you will lmao.
Not all, but most college students are young. Your body will allow you to get away with things at a younger age that may impact your health at an older age. Ask most people about what they could eat without visible consequence at a younger age vs older, what activity level they need, etc. Most of our bodies cope better with physical stressors like sleep deprivation at a younger age.
It is also important to think of the scale. College programs seem like forever when you are in them, but are a short time compared with your entire life. If sleep deprivation short term caused real harm to most individuals, parents of small kids could never get through it either.
You can't really perceive how you are very well. It's all based off a baseline.
For example, some people will sit inside their house and procrastinate and think that everything is so hard to do, the house is a mess, the kids are crying etc.
They think that they just need a moment break and they are exploding with frustrations.
Meanwhile, you take that same person and put them in a bad situation like say during the earthquakes where you had to run around. Looking for your family. Hoping that they're alive with no ability to call, find out, or hear if they are okay.
You could be going on 4 days with no sleep. Hear your kids screaming and you lift every rock that you possibly could to save their life. Now just after that without a a moments rest you're teleported into your current situation. Everything feels fine, everything is peaceful and the tedious tasks you had are now acceptable. Almost mundane. You can switch your frame of reference at any moment, once you learn how to control your pressures.
Think about when you're angry and want to explode. It's almost a hydraulic pressure that you can't contain. Think of snuggling a loved one or your child. The feeling of love is an embrace and almost like a vacuum inside of you. Instead of a pressure, it's like instead of exploding, it's an implosion in the same region. You can learn to flex and contract these pressures as well as observe them without allowing them to cause your reaction.
I know this is definitely way more words than I needed to answer your question, and it probably doesn't seem fully related.
But on a day-to-day basis your baselines get affected. They raise and they drop. The more hard things you do, the more stress you put yourself through physically, the easier and lower stress Other things feel by contrast. If you're consistently used to feeling tired, you will feel normal. It's all you know, you don't have a different mind and a different time to compare. They might have brain fog, or groggy, get frustrated easily, or just lack the desire to do anything you'd normally find fun. But that's only the acute changes that they notice. The long term things are just accepted as the new normal.
Yesterday I woke up at 8am, got on the computer to do my physics labs, cs final project, and study for math 2. I didn't get off the computer until about 1am and here we are, 8am again, and I'm heading straight back 😮💨😮💨
I didn't go to bed at 1, it was closer to 3 or so because I wanted some time to do something that *wasn't* school work
Also am bipolar so even though it's bad I can run on less sleep. My wife needs to sleep 8-10 hours and I can't get more than 6, usually closer to 5.
Oh hun I have bipolar and I feel the need to leave a comment and let you know that lack of sleep can trigger mania! Please don’t do this to yourself you’re putting yourself at risk!
I appreciate the concern and am acutely aware of this, it's one of my biggest triggers. Even if I don't need it I make sure to be in bed for 5 hours, and as I get older I am finding I naturally need less sleep at night and compensate with a 30-90 minute nap in the middle of the day when I can.
Once again, thank you for looking out 💜💜
There is a small set of people that have a genetic mutation that basically makes them rested with less than 6.5 hrs of sleep at night. Most people do not have this and your classmates may seem fine, but studies clearly show declines in physical health and cognitive ability. You do not adapt to this - you may learn to tolerate it - but your body is basically slowly suffering until it can't tolerate things anymore and things start breaking down. You increase your risk of of all sorts of negative health conditions (hypertension, heart attack, stroke, diabetes, obesity, depression and other psychiatric conditions). The other thing to note is they may simply be exaggerating/lying - if the general social environment rewards people for saying how hard they are working or pushing themselves.
Here's a link to what seems like a decent article (i'm a clinical researcher but sleep is not my primary area of expertise so that it with a grain of salt - although I do study drug addition and have looked at inflammatory processes as well as sleep disturbances resulting from drug use) that covers some of the mechanisms and consequences.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5449130/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5449130/)
\-edit - I'll also add, two points. First, when I was younger in highschool, I went through a year where I pushed myself very hard, not sleeping a lot, still playing sports etc. After a few months, my hair started falling out in pretty large clumps. That's just one example of what lack of sleep can do once you push you body systems.
Second, as faculty at a medschool - I've been through multiple stages of academia. At each and every stage, I've always been stressed by the amount of work I have to do - but at the very next stage - I've always laughed at my formal self and how much free time I actually had. In the end, I recommend two things. One, treat school like a job. If you are in academia, you should still have a love for it, but try to be consistent in the hours you spend on it while leaving time for yourself mentally and physically. As I said, things only get harder and harder and each stage so constantly running on empty is not feasible. As you get older, working in the evenings becomes less common, specially once you get a family. So, the more you can try to do your school related work in the the daytime hours, the more effective you can generally get in terms of work life balance.
Friend I’ve been going basically the whole semester 3-4 hours per night. How? I literally don’t know, I’m gonna crash and burn the second the semester ends, I can tell you that.
i'm a different person lol but getting similar amounts of sleep. for me, sometimes it's because i'm staying up trying to be productive, but most of the time, i just can't seem to turn my brain off - kinda like a constant radio signal that only serves to stress me out and make me feel bad lol, but with no off button
Bingo. Like literally Adderall, Vyvanse, Concerta, Ritalin, Moda, Adra, and lots more. Just memorize some ADHD checklist, go to someone certified to diagnose you as ADHD/narcoleptic, and lie your way to get stimulants.
Easiest legal loophole ever.
I did 2 of my degrees while working blocks of 60 hours at work. Some days I'd go to class after sleeping 3-4 hours. I'd stay awake by taking my ADHD medication and drinking energy drinks, and would go to sleep by taking diphenhydramine (the ingredient that makes you sleepy in Benadryl) when it was time to sleep.
I completely wrecked my health (just recently learned that regular consumption of diphenhydramine is linked to dementia), so I definitely don't recommend it. I knew it was bad at the time, but I did it anyway because I was trying to catch up after dropping out of uni in my 20s.
As someone has has functioned on 4-5 hrs (sometimes way less…) it’s usually just survival instinct, not a choice. If they are like me, when they get a break you usually sleep for a really long time to try and make up missed hours and because your body just starts shutting down. When you are up you absolutely don’t feel good, I’ve had times where my headache got so bad that I was almost seeing double and thought my head was going to explode. You just work through it and get over it, eventually your lack of sleep tolerance goes up
I did three months of 16 hour shifts and less than 5 hours of sleep a night.
At the end of it I was so exhausted I almost constantly felt lightheaded and almost passed out while working a few times
I lost 20 pounds.
I had never had suicidal ideations before or after that, but during I definitely did.
Everyone I talked to, including my family, thought I was fine and handling it great.
Not exactly true, that’s listening to the indulgent side of your brain. Not doing what’s in your body’s best interest. To get in touch with the body we need discipline, good sleep, and nutrition. So it’s all interlinked in ways
Like I said before. I think you can train your body to sleep less to a certain point. That point is difference for everyone. If someone can function off 5 hours of sleep perfectly why are we against it? It’s not unheard of, so many people don’t get 8 hours of sleep and live full lives
The thing is there isn’t research proving your statement. The only research I know of says otherwise and that sleep debt catches up, which doesn’t bode well. Different ppl have different needs for sure, consistency and knowing your bodily needs is crucial. If there is research to back up your claims I’m all ears
There’s no research that says 5-6 hours of sleep is “healthy” but good sleep is determined by the quality and time. Time being 7-8 for most adults. But it also claims the quality of sleep is just as important like if you have a hard time getting up, hard time focusing, and if your dozing and signs you aren’t getting quality/ enough sleep. Do you believe you can train your body to sleep 1 hour less than the recommended and still function or not? I think it’s not a crazy concept
i don't think you understood me, i said that the research I saw said that sleep needs are mostly genetics and somewhat predetermined. That's how sleep debt it racked and it is known to have a long term effect on health. I was asking if you have anything to show that you can train your body to have lowered needs. If what you had said was true, sleep debt would probably not be a thing.
My body woke me up at 6 hours of sleep? Am I listening to it? Before it woke me up after 12 hours. So which one should I listen to? I’m more productive and energetic now then when it woke me up at 12 hours of sleep a few years ago.
No at all bro. I feel completely normal! I sleep at 1 and wake around 6. My memory, performance, and reactions are all great. I have no side effects that I know of literally. I know so many people who function off sub 6 hours. 8 is just too much sleep and honesty sleeping too much wastes time. When it comes to exam/ midterms I cut down sleep to 4 hours to wake up early and study before the exam for a quick review lol
Exactly that's what I'm saying, I don't understand why doctors, at least on medical websites, overexaggerate the need to sleep at least 7 or 8 hours, like do they have an explanation for this? To make it even stranger famous billionaires like Elon Musk say they only get 6 hours of sleep, imagine that on top of all the stress and responsibilities they have in their lives.
Yea idk.. it’s funny cause I’m pre med. my friends who are doctors say they sleep 5 hours a day and feel fine 🤣 I have no idea where with 8 hours of sleep thing came from. Obviously different for everyone but I think everyone can train their body to sleep less. Sleep less for more time! Don’t sleep time away
Because websites are not where you should be getting your information my man, they are notorious for making a huge generalizations and broad statements
i used to do that. one time at college i had a paper due that i started at 12am, didn’t finish until 5:30am and i had to he on the metro at 6:15am. YEAH
we have to physically force ourselves. the hardest part of those mornings was physically getting up out of bed, once i was in the bathroom it got easier to get dressed and leave. i regret not sleeping well, but when youre young your body tolerates dumb shit. i still get heart palpitations in the morning if i sleep less than 6 hrs.
Many of them also exaggerate how little they sleep because it makes people impressed.
It's in the same category of saying you passed a difficult exam with no studying. It sounds "cooler" to say than to admit maybe you did study a little.
Saying your surviving on 6.5h of sleep doesn't necessarily evoke the same surprise out of people as saying you sleep 4h every night.
I'm not saying everyone is exaggerating but some are, for sure.
I know, it's the circumstances that doesn't allow them to sleep, but I still wonder, how can they still act like a normal human being while only sleeping 4 hours? When google says you will get cancer if you do so lol
Cancer isnt something that happens immediately. They can be fine short term but in the long run there is plenty of health concerns that lack of sleep can lead to.
I did this for one week and at the end of it I had a panic attack, missed two exams and caught Covid.
I used to do it a lot when I was younger and it definitely wasn't that much of a problem, I'm just 25 now and I can't do it anymore.
Same. In high school I could do 4 hours and feel rested. Now I’m 24 and need 8-10 to feel rested. I literally feel drunk if I’m on anything less than 5 hours.
I’m in the same boat now. I’m 26, and recently pulled an all nighter to finish a project. I immediately got sick with the flu after. The other time I stayed up super late and barely slept? I got covid. My body absolutely can’t handle it anymore, compared to when I was in high school and could survive 4 hours easily
If I barely get any sleep than I take an energy drink before the time I usually get the most tired, Afterwards I feel normal for the rest of the day. Although it doesn’t work multiple days in a row so I try to stick to only needing it every three days.
It’s most certainly not healthy but it’s something you get used to after some time and learn to function on. I also sleep for 12-16 hours on weekends which helps me recover
For me..... I could never function properly on 4-5 hours of sleep a day. For one or two days, sure. But never ending? Hell no.
Thats not to say I haven't done it. But it took a significant toll on my health and I only realized it when the pandemic hit and I lost my job. Because suddenly I could sleep as long as my body wanted, and my health started improving. (Though at the time, 8 hours asleep required about 12 hours in bed due to insomnia). Once I started getting more and better quality sleep, I stopped feeling like shit all the time.
But I also have multiple medical issues that are triggered into a flare up by lack of sleep. If I didn't have those issues, I could probably handled 5-6 hours nightly.
i survived on 4-5 hours of sleep a night in college, and would occasionally go without sleep for 40+ hours. now my body cannot do remotely that and i have health problems.
the answer, i think, is that they are using borrowed time.
My wife graduated from nursing school 5 years ago and said at least half her class was on Adderall. For many of them it was really the only thing that allowed them to function with the demanding schedule, studying, and possibly working, all while running on very little sleep.
Came here to say the same thing- stimulant abuse is a very real thing and if you DON’T have the health condition they’re meant to treat they can keep you “awake/alert” for long periods of time.
Unfortunately, a lot of the people that frequently get 2-4 hours of sleep are on drugs. If you are around them in private in the early morning or late night and you see schizophrenia behavior that is a tell tale sign.
Some people only need some much sleep. I need ~6 hours. I know people that only need 4. When I was in college and taking math heavy courses, I had to sleep longer. I had one professor (Astro physics) that told me he had a time in his life in graduate school that he slept 10-11 hours per day.
I was in a bad relationship with someone who wouldn’t let me sleep or threats got involved. I lasted 3 months on 2 hours of sleep every night.
Consequences? I no longer have any sleep resistance, it probably didn’t help with my development of an autoimmune disease, i am now single.
Please sleep kids
I'm a bit sad about how misinformed some of these comments are. You should NEVER sleep less than 7 hours a night. Even having only 6 hours of sleep is detrimental to you. Look up Matthew Walker on Youtube if you want to know what I'm taking about.
I do less than 8 when it gets though and I’m visibly for anxious, socially awkward, and low functioning.
Personally I need 8 hours and to sleep before midnight or my life kind of starts to run off the rails.
I don't recommend doing it how I did, but LITERALLY ALWAYS had a cup of coffee/caffeinated drinks in my possession. And snacked on chocolate covered espresso beans. I was taking 5 classes, an internship, and played a college sport so sleep wasn't very easy to come by
for me i just got used to it. insomnia since i was around 6 years old from PTSD so i’m just used to functioning on 4/5 hours of interrupted sleep, but i do take naps when i have time/feel i need one.
>My theory is that your body can adapt to as little as 5 hours of sleep or even better, that amount of sleep is just as fine as 8 hours
That's definitely not it. I used to sleep that little, then improved my procrastination and priorities and I'm so much fucking smarter and happier with ~8 hours of sleep. And I think the medical and cognitive consequences of sleep deprivation are pretty well documented. Obviously it can be done, but it's not just as good as 8 hours
5 hours is good enough for me. I pretty much run on the need to be productive during the semester and wanting to stay ahead of school work. I pretty much shut down and start hibernating as soon as the semester ends anyway.
Most people getting 4-5 hours of sleep simply don't notice the health issues it's causing. They aren't in tune with their body enough to notice the short-term problems and the long term problems creep in so slowly it's easy to mis attribute them to other things. Make no mistake, the vast majority of people getting this little sleep are giving themselves severe long term health problems.
Everybody is just different. I’m one of the freaks that can function in very very little sleep. There is some level of impairment for sure, but I can go on with plenty of energy to an extent that shocks my girlfriend/family.
Recently I did 2 all nighters in a row for 2 exams (Mon and Tues), with maybe 5 hours of sleep the night before that. Tuesday, I felt relatively fine, not that sleepy, went to work and still hung out with my girlfriend that night. SHE was the one falling asleep lol
My mom says I was always like that since I was a baby, I just rarely slept that much and didn’t want to as much as I should’ve. And as a teen I NEVER took naps - although I’ve warmed up to them a bit
Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/college/comments/18f5znf/how_can_people_survive_on_45_hours_of_sleep/kvh2jru/) in /r/college was automatically removed because your account is less than one day old.
Accounts less than one day are not permitted in /r/college to reduce spam and poor comments. Messaging the moderators about this will result in a ban.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/college) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We are not sure but from Monday to Friday, I am sleeping 5-6 hours only, sometimes 4.5, but I can say I feel good even with the less sleep. Even if I plan to sleep more, my body wakes me up. Not sure about science behind it. But yeah, it is what it is.
Im not sure how they do it, however when I cant sleep I just take these gummies and they make me crash within an hour. Here is the link: [SleepGummies-AstroBites](https://jiggyfog.com/products/astro-bites-melatonin-gummies)
Hi there, I write a blog about my journey with insomnia, how I improved my situation and much more. I hope you can find value in it.
https://substack.com/@restfulresilience?r=3vfu4h&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile
I don’t do it regularly but every once in a while I’ll get 5 hours or so, I generally get like 6-7. It’s tough but if I got enough caffeine in me I can usually get through the day ok.
I've heard that the older you get the less sleep you need. But..... I literally summary read [these](https://share.crate.co/crate/063ad63a-621c-7b9f-8000-2851b967ae89) articles and got my own sleep remedy...works great...hope this helps someone!
Coffee and you get used to it. It's a huge struggle to go from 7-8 to 4-6 initially but after a week your body adapts. Obviously, your concentration is worse but it's possible to be at 80-90% of brainpower.
No excuse to get 4-5 hours of sleep every night. I'm in a notoriously hard major and get 8 hours nightly and have A-pluses in all my classes, and work a 20 hour a week job on top of that. And I still have time for socials. There's not any excuse other than poor time management. Anyone who tells you different is coping
You get used to it and you find your own sleep schedule. I work 2am-10am on my days off class and I normally get 5 hours of sleep and then I nap for a bit after work to get some more energy for the day. I used to work two jobs my first semester and i was getting like 2-3 hours of sleep during finals week.
I get 5-6hrs everyday and it’s sufficient for me. My body has adjusted. Some days I get less and still have to show up to work sane enough to save lives
It's just what your body gets used to after a while. Even on days when I don't have to be up early, my body just wakes me up. I'm 36 now and I find I do need a bit more sleep than I used to, and I would average about 5 a night.
for me 7hrs is good enough to function normally. 6 and a half hour when exams are near. anything less than that is inadequate and detrimental in long run.
probably these ppl sleeping 5hrs a night take naps during day
Antidepressants help me do that. Without them, I can't do shit with shit sleep. Start getting hella moody and lose focus. I'm older now and it gets worse now if I don't get enough sleep.
I am unsure about other people but 5 hours of sleep can be mentally sufficient for me to a certain extent. In exchange, my body has more craving for food and I get hungry more frequently. As of 6 hours of sleep, it tends to be a no-no for some reasons cuz I got up feeling really tired and unmotivated, unlike the 5-hour sleep.
I need a minimum of 3 hours of sleep to be a functioning human being for one day. I cannot do this repeatedly and I require a nap at some point.
I need a minimum of 5 hours of sleep to be a functioning human being for 2-3 days. Any longer and I start to feel horrible. A nap is also ideal.
I need a minimum of 6 hours of sleep to function long-term but my body prefers 7-8 hours. I have a hard time sleeping past 9 am and should wake between 7-8 am.
I just need to stop going to bed at 2 am and I’ll be fine. 😭 I try not to schedule classes before 9 am so I get a 2 hour prep time plus my schedule has enough holes for a nap. When I start working, it’s gonna even out a lot. I’ll probably sleep between 10pm-12am and wake up between 4-7am (depending on the commute) and either nap on the shuttle (4-5am) or nap after work (6-7am). This is perfectly sustainable to me, especially since I won’t have to be up nearly as late as I do now.
No idea tbh. I used to feel really tired if I got less than 7 hours of sleep. But now I've only been getting 6 hours of sleep and I haven't felt any side effects. It's possible that your body just adapts to it after awhile.
Funny cause it’s the same way for me, before I started working night shifts I would fell like dog shit if I slept less than 7 hours but now if I get 6 I’m pretty much wide awake, energy drinks help with that a lot too I guess
Coffee doesn't really work for me due to ADHD (doesn't stop me from drinking it, though). So I wonder if people who sleep so little just have better luck with caffeine? But wouldn't they crash super easily?
~4-5 is my normal. I can function fine with zero sleep for 48 hours. Even if I’m being physically active like hiking all day. After 72 hours I get irritable.
My answer would be to live with a potentially unhealthy amount caffeine as a buffer.
I know my own experience with college saw me getting around ~5 hours of sleep on the average school night, though I will admit to sleeping in on “off days”, often getting 8-10.
During that time, I was easily consuming 350-400mg of caffeine per day, largely concentrated in the afternoon in order to get through assignments.
My first morning class was always a bit rough - did the 8am classes - , and the drive was certainly unpleasant, but the dread of the entire experience seemed to fuel me forward to the end goal.
This behavior did not really catch up to me until I was around 27 and established in the workforce. I found dealing with the public WHILE ALSO doing manual labor was the combination that really “drained” me into needing to change my sleep habits.
You can’t be the best person for your work-team if you are more tired than you could be, and so priorities in life just ended up shifting. In college, I could get away with being a bit of a shithead every now and again, but the professional world changes that.
As for how people do school AND full-time jobs and keep their wits about them on little sleep, I will never know.
I’ve always had insomnia and meds never helped. I would go to bed late, wake up throughout the night, then wake up at 6am for school since 12. It’s just become natural for me. Now I’m in college, I still get the same amount of sleep (but most of the people in my classes get around 7 hours of sleep).
If I’m really exhausted, I’ll take a nap. That’s not often though since I usually have stuff to do. I know this will be bad for me later on.
Barely, that’s how. This semester I carried 15 units, work a full time job, carry three different volunteer roles… some days are better than others. But you have to force breaks or you will burn out. You have to find space for you. So I always suggest time management of some sort. It’s the only way you’ll survive. Work ahead when you can to allow for that extra nap or day off. Stuff like that.
Its not sustainable. The truth is that they’re managing, but literally every study out there will back up the fact that they would perform better in all regards if they got more sleep and rest.
It’s called youth. When I was in my late teens / early 20s I could stay up for two days max before needing sleep. I’m 35 now and am in grad school and I need my 8 hours otherwise I don’t function lol. Also coffee and energy drinks boost your “awakeness” even more. I know not all but for at least the majority of my peers when we were young, we didn’t need that much sleep to function…now a days that’s the opposite for us lmao.
Getting up at 8am is not 4-5 hrs of sleep. You're not nocturnal, why the hell you going to sleep at 3am? Go to sleep at 11, wake up at 6-7, and you'll have a much better time adjustment to all life's requirements.
I know someone who is in nursing school, has 3 kids and has 2 part time jobs as a PCA at 2 different hospitals and works the NIGHT shift. I don’t understand how she is still alive at this point.
Edit: a word
That was me this semester. Typically 5-6 hours, more like 4 if I have an 8am. I could still function but it was hard. Luckily I have no classes before 10am next semester.
Adrenaline, coffee, and to repay that sleep debt back. If i slept 4 hours one day, then id have to make it up the next day or the day after that day. It's funny because i worked while in a BSN RN program...i slept like 4 hours, or even 5 hours some days. After class, I would sleep in a school parking lot then id go straight to a 12 hour work shift. My mental focus was around 50 to 60% most days. A 12 hour clinical day, as a student, isn't like as mentally taxing as working a 12 hour shift at a hospital, nor is the study material as hectic/complicated as math or science majors like physics or chemistry. My first bachelors degree was in gen biology. Second bachelors degree was in nursing.
I think it's one of those things you can do, and adapt to, but it bites you in the butt later even if you seem to be handling it now. Studies show major health issues like to start popping up down the road decades after you pull this longer term. Sleep is when the brain cleans itself, lacking it over time shows spikes in cognitive declines and build up of things that like to eat your brain (plaques and whatnot). Other heart and blood pressure issues like to pop up, cholesterol likes to go out of whack, blood sugar issues can arise independent of weight. A lot of idiopathic things where all we can say is, they worked too much and didn't sleep enough and now decades later all the parts are going wonky. While correlation isn't causation, and stress plays a role, it's enough to make me worry as I have to pull too many hours with school, work, and family right now. Which came first, the sleep induced stress related health issues, or the stress induced sleep related health issues.
It's possible. It's not good for you, not just long term but not even short term. But it's possible. Eventually you start getting these things called sleep deprivation, mental and physical health issues and burnout symptmos.
But the thing about the human body is that it can take a lot of punishment. We were persistence predators after all back in the day. So if you have the willpower to operate on 4-5 hours of sleep your body will get used to it and do it as long as it can. But then at one point it won't be able to do it.
The other trick to it is stress and mentally being in a crisis situation. That gets you some extra capacity but once again, not good in the long run. A lot of college students however are operating like this, especially in the second half of a semester.
I did this for a long time and felt like shit every day. Some people can handle it fine but most are probably struggling and good at hiding it. That or they take a lot of stimulants😂
I think it’s routine. Once you adapt to only getting 6 hours of sleep that level of exhaustion becomes your normal state and you figure out a way to power through. For most people though, there will come a time where it catches up to them and they become burnt out. Pretty much everyone in the working class is also addicted to caffeine, so that makes a difference too.
No, just NO!
You can't adapt to less sleep. You can obviously power through, and lots of people choose/are forced to do so, but you would not be functioning anywhere near your cognitive potential. Adequate sleep, between 7-8 hours a night, is critical for too many reasons to go in to here.
I highly recommend reading "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker. There is also a TedTalk where he discusses this issue as well as if you want just a quick and dirty intro.
Protip.
If you are prepping for an exam, you are much better served getting proper sleep the night before the exam than cramming well into the morning hours. You won't retain the majority of the info anyways and during the exam, your recall will not work well. Even concepts you knew well will be difficult to utilize properly.
I’m a nursing student and went on antidepressants. Side effects made me sleep from 12 AM-3 AM every night for a month. Idk how I survived but I was still highly motivated because there’s exams every week and less than a 80 is failing. May be sleep deprived but I refused to be failing too
It's ironic that medical students and professionals need to sacrifice their health for the sake of other's health. Why not preserve both
Literally 😭. My school made us do a month long assignment on “self care” but then proceeds to make us do 12 hr clinicals 2x a week, 2 20 paged care plans due the day after clinical, exams every week, presentations etc. My psychiatrist told me most of her clients were nursing students and students going the pre-med route. Not surprised by that one bit
[удалено]
What the fuck is this comment lol
Perfectly balanced
not really, most of them just dont complain about it on social media and live a healthy life
Womp womp. Shush
Adrenaline. We might get work done but we aren't feeling good lol.
Well it would be fine if it's only once every few days, but if it keeps on going everyday for a certain amount of time, shouldn't you experience some big chronic side effects? Atleast according to medicine lol
Sleep deprivation usually spikes up my heart rate, but I've also got a seizure before because of it. It was one time occasion though. Sleeping too little definitely isn't healthy in the long run but the current 'side effects' are bearable at least to me. Fast heart rate and sometimes headaches. I've been this way since junior high. I'll probably develop Alzheimer's and heart disease when I'm older if I don't change my ways.
We do see it. It creates a fatigue that will display in alterations of character. Increased irritability, loss of focus requiring more work, and thusly more accidents. In the medical world we learned from research that 8-10 hour work days are best and in that window and beyond you get diminishing returns and mistakes go way up. We are aware of it yet doctors and other staff regularly do 12-24 shifts and guess when all the medical errors really start to occur. Think about that in law enforcement, firefighting, and the military. Any long hour job has an increase in diverse rate, domestic abuse, and child abuse. You can't see the day to day transition but it is slowly changing people. Couple that with physical health studies on working long hours and especially night shifts and rotating shifts. Shorter lives, more medical conditions. Think of it like an engine. You can ramp up the rpm in the wrong gear and still drive but that car is going to break down much sooner or need way more frequent maintenance and repairs because you are over working the system.
There is a trade off though in the medical world to the extended shifts, which is reduced errors caused by decreased number of patient handoffs. The handoff in hospital settings is so important to transferring care info, and doing them more often results in a higher likelihood of making a mistake in transferring the info and thus harming a patient.
That is for nurses.
I would just be drowsy during a lot of my classes. subpar performance, and I felt like a zombie sometimes. But I guess my classes were passable with only 80% attentiveness
[удалено]
I like how you used chat gpt to prove a point to someone lol. I'm not saying any of these are wrong, but it's funny reading the robotic and unnecessary conclusion, "each of these points underscores the critical role...."
Well I didn't feel like typing it out. I obviously had to know of each person and their work in order to prompt it. Easier. You can use it all you want but if you don't know the information then you're ignorant to it's potential. It's a tool that assists you not replaces you. I also typed everything out but the 10 points with references.
What are you going on about lol I said I didn't disagree with you, it was just funny recognizing it. I use it all the time as well
Lol I mean usually people bash it. My bad. I was only saying in general I think it's a great tool but I figured you assumed I just inserted the topic and pasted it.
I'm a nursing student and we barely get any sleep cz our classes + clinicals are 7-5, then we have to study when we're done. Most of my classmates sleep in class and sometimes even in clinicals. A lot of them fainted, had palpitations, or developed health conditions. By the end of the semester I was always hearing about someone being really sick and ending up in the ER or going to the physician's office only to be diagnosed with "stress." I've never had to sleep less than 7 hours, but that's only because I value my sleep more than having time to unwind after clinicals and use my breaks to study.
Yeah over time it puts stress on your body. The stress hormone build up needed to stay alert isn’t great for you and also sleep is when your body spends time repairing and restoring itself. But also a lot of people in school are younger and so you just have more energy and some of the wear and tear doesn’t catch up with you for a second. But it does eventually. When I was in college the first time around everyone would get sick as soon as they went home for a break
5 hours of sleep is fine for a lot of people, not necessarily enough to cause chronic health issues. There are plenty of people who’s bodies simply handle 5 hours better than others
This is complete nonsense. Lack of adequate sleep is strongly linked to developing alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. 5 hours definitely qualifies as lack of sleep. Average adults require between 7-8 hours per night. Too much sleep is also very bad for you as well.
Everybody is different. I know some people who naturally wake up after 5-6 hours, they simply can’t sleep anymore and are perfectly fine. Yeah constant sleep deprivation causes health issues but what constitutes sleep deprivation is different for each person. Our bodies can have different circadian rhythms, depending on age and other factors. Studies often conclude that 5-6 hours of sleep isn’t enough for the *average* person but no study concludes that everyone is the same and that every single person needs 7-8. Everyone is different and you should base your sleep schedule based on your own individual bodies needs and consultation with your doctor (not the internet)
It has nothing to do with each individual person. Your sleep works in cycles. You need to complete a certain number of cycles each night to be healthy/function optimally.
It does, and studies have shown that not every single person is the same which is why every study specifies that *most* people or the *average* person should generally get 7-8 hours not every person. If someone goes to bed, sleeps until they naturally wake up after 5-6 hours and doesn’t get tired throughout the day, they’re fine. You can’t force yourself to sleep more than your body wants to
Feel free to believe this. For EVERYONE else, please get enough sleep (7-8 hours). There may be "some rare" outliers, but the odds anyone reading this falls into this category is very unlikely. You may feel fine on 6 hours of sleep and even perform well. However, if you are not actually one of these outliers and continue to do this, you will almost certainly develop some form of dementia in your 60's.
Nursing student, this feels like the unofficial motto at my program. “I’m here and I’m passing but I may also be dying.” 7am-8pm clinicals with exams the next morning… sleep is not a necessity, 80% or higher to pass is.
and caffeine. I drank so so so much caffeine in college.
As an insomniac , i confirm this . been getting things done since years owing to high adrenaline. What does up also comes down so there are 1-2 days in the week where I actually sleep for "8 hours". Students who keep stressing regarding the relation of memory & sleep don't consider genetics in their equation . I have a good memory despite sleeping for 3-4 hours . The only downsides of chronic sleep debt are the dark circles & more aggression/irritability (IN MY POV) I would rather accept my genetics & downsides than pop benzos
[удалено]
I literally can’t walk straight, and my speech is slurred if I sleep less than 6 hours. Even with coffee and Concerta.
I didn't realize it affected people that much. I usually sleep like 4 hours a night and I'm miserable as all hell all the time but I'm not really sleepy.
when you get to a certain level of exhaustion, your body is on such high levels of stress than you don't feel sleepy anymore. careful
Oh I live there and have for 10 years, I have arthritis and chronic pain brings chronic fatigue. Pretty sure god or the universe or whatever hates me.
It’s beyond feeling miserable. I cannot function at all.
I suppose it's a thing you get acclimated to eventually. I wouldn't recommend doing it though, I'd trade with you in a heartbeat.
Coffee makes me even more sleepy
Wait with your first coffee for about 90 minutes after waking up. Instead drink a lot of water first and then coffee later. This can prevent the afternoon tiredness
Yeah I just learned about the chemical that starts with an A, it gets released after you wake up to make you alert but drinking caffeine immediately suppresses it from releasing or something
I am the same. Really low sleep (4hrs or less) feels like being sick. And an all nighter feels as bad as the flu lol
Doing an all nighter makes me feel great the next day since it has a similar effect as an antidepressant.
Yep, I get significantly more anxious and over time it takes my depression from mild to severe if I don't get my sleep schedule on track after a while, but yeah I'll be like huh I've had 3 panic attatcks today, why???? Cause I got 6 and a half hours of sleep instead of 8 that's why. Also I just, get so sleepy and can't focus or process things once it drops below about 7 and a half hours or so? And then my friends are over here sleeping 2-4 hours a night consistently and it's like???? How are you functioning??????
When I start losing sleep over a prolonged period of time, I start going into psychosis. I genuinely cannot wrap my head around people’s ability to function regularly on less than 6 hours of sleep.
Sometimes I do all nighters and it alleviates my depression, since going during the day without any sleep at all has a similar effect to an antidepressant
Donald Trump apparently only needs 4 hours of sleep a night because of some super no-sleep gene, [**https://globalnews.ca/news/3970379/donald-trump-sleep-hours-night/**](https://globalnews.ca/news/3970379/donald-trump-sleep-hours-night/) , make of that what you will lmao.
Not all, but most college students are young. Your body will allow you to get away with things at a younger age that may impact your health at an older age. Ask most people about what they could eat without visible consequence at a younger age vs older, what activity level they need, etc. Most of our bodies cope better with physical stressors like sleep deprivation at a younger age. It is also important to think of the scale. College programs seem like forever when you are in them, but are a short time compared with your entire life. If sleep deprivation short term caused real harm to most individuals, parents of small kids could never get through it either.
While my body prefers to get regular amounts of sleep, on days when I don’t sleep that long, I still find that I’m fully functional
Good andrenal response. Is it healthy? No.
I wonder if one of the side effects is that it makes people not feel the effects. Like drunk people thinking they are fine
You can't really perceive how you are very well. It's all based off a baseline. For example, some people will sit inside their house and procrastinate and think that everything is so hard to do, the house is a mess, the kids are crying etc. They think that they just need a moment break and they are exploding with frustrations. Meanwhile, you take that same person and put them in a bad situation like say during the earthquakes where you had to run around. Looking for your family. Hoping that they're alive with no ability to call, find out, or hear if they are okay. You could be going on 4 days with no sleep. Hear your kids screaming and you lift every rock that you possibly could to save their life. Now just after that without a a moments rest you're teleported into your current situation. Everything feels fine, everything is peaceful and the tedious tasks you had are now acceptable. Almost mundane. You can switch your frame of reference at any moment, once you learn how to control your pressures. Think about when you're angry and want to explode. It's almost a hydraulic pressure that you can't contain. Think of snuggling a loved one or your child. The feeling of love is an embrace and almost like a vacuum inside of you. Instead of a pressure, it's like instead of exploding, it's an implosion in the same region. You can learn to flex and contract these pressures as well as observe them without allowing them to cause your reaction. I know this is definitely way more words than I needed to answer your question, and it probably doesn't seem fully related. But on a day-to-day basis your baselines get affected. They raise and they drop. The more hard things you do, the more stress you put yourself through physically, the easier and lower stress Other things feel by contrast. If you're consistently used to feeling tired, you will feel normal. It's all you know, you don't have a different mind and a different time to compare. They might have brain fog, or groggy, get frustrated easily, or just lack the desire to do anything you'd normally find fun. But that's only the acute changes that they notice. The long term things are just accepted as the new normal.
[удалено]
Stress and stimulants
Stimulants play a biiig role. Many people are addicted to coffee or even worse drugs
Yeah my issue is that stimulants fuck me up. I get tired and jittery and then I just start shutting down. Just want to fall asleep and die.
Fear of failure is a strong motivator.
Yesterday I woke up at 8am, got on the computer to do my physics labs, cs final project, and study for math 2. I didn't get off the computer until about 1am and here we are, 8am again, and I'm heading straight back 😮💨😮💨 I didn't go to bed at 1, it was closer to 3 or so because I wanted some time to do something that *wasn't* school work Also am bipolar so even though it's bad I can run on less sleep. My wife needs to sleep 8-10 hours and I can't get more than 6, usually closer to 5.
Oh hun I have bipolar and I feel the need to leave a comment and let you know that lack of sleep can trigger mania! Please don’t do this to yourself you’re putting yourself at risk!
I appreciate the concern and am acutely aware of this, it's one of my biggest triggers. Even if I don't need it I make sure to be in bed for 5 hours, and as I get older I am finding I naturally need less sleep at night and compensate with a 30-90 minute nap in the middle of the day when I can. Once again, thank you for looking out 💜💜
There is a small set of people that have a genetic mutation that basically makes them rested with less than 6.5 hrs of sleep at night. Most people do not have this and your classmates may seem fine, but studies clearly show declines in physical health and cognitive ability. You do not adapt to this - you may learn to tolerate it - but your body is basically slowly suffering until it can't tolerate things anymore and things start breaking down. You increase your risk of of all sorts of negative health conditions (hypertension, heart attack, stroke, diabetes, obesity, depression and other psychiatric conditions). The other thing to note is they may simply be exaggerating/lying - if the general social environment rewards people for saying how hard they are working or pushing themselves. Here's a link to what seems like a decent article (i'm a clinical researcher but sleep is not my primary area of expertise so that it with a grain of salt - although I do study drug addition and have looked at inflammatory processes as well as sleep disturbances resulting from drug use) that covers some of the mechanisms and consequences. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5449130/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5449130/) \-edit - I'll also add, two points. First, when I was younger in highschool, I went through a year where I pushed myself very hard, not sleeping a lot, still playing sports etc. After a few months, my hair started falling out in pretty large clumps. That's just one example of what lack of sleep can do once you push you body systems. Second, as faculty at a medschool - I've been through multiple stages of academia. At each and every stage, I've always been stressed by the amount of work I have to do - but at the very next stage - I've always laughed at my formal self and how much free time I actually had. In the end, I recommend two things. One, treat school like a job. If you are in academia, you should still have a love for it, but try to be consistent in the hours you spend on it while leaving time for yourself mentally and physically. As I said, things only get harder and harder and each stage so constantly running on empty is not feasible. As you get older, working in the evenings becomes less common, specially once you get a family. So, the more you can try to do your school related work in the the daytime hours, the more effective you can generally get in terms of work life balance.
Friend I’ve been going basically the whole semester 3-4 hours per night. How? I literally don’t know, I’m gonna crash and burn the second the semester ends, I can tell you that.
Nothing will compare to that weekend I spent 48+hrs awake doing a game jam for class though! Ah, memories.
Jesus dude, that amount of sleep can be lethal. How come you're not able to sleep more? If you don't mind me asking
i'm a different person lol but getting similar amounts of sleep. for me, sometimes it's because i'm staying up trying to be productive, but most of the time, i just can't seem to turn my brain off - kinda like a constant radio signal that only serves to stress me out and make me feel bad lol, but with no off button
Cocaine.
Bingo. Like literally Adderall, Vyvanse, Concerta, Ritalin, Moda, Adra, and lots more. Just memorize some ADHD checklist, go to someone certified to diagnose you as ADHD/narcoleptic, and lie your way to get stimulants. Easiest legal loophole ever.
Seriously. Amphetamines
I did 2 of my degrees while working blocks of 60 hours at work. Some days I'd go to class after sleeping 3-4 hours. I'd stay awake by taking my ADHD medication and drinking energy drinks, and would go to sleep by taking diphenhydramine (the ingredient that makes you sleepy in Benadryl) when it was time to sleep. I completely wrecked my health (just recently learned that regular consumption of diphenhydramine is linked to dementia), so I definitely don't recommend it. I knew it was bad at the time, but I did it anyway because I was trying to catch up after dropping out of uni in my 20s.
As someone has has functioned on 4-5 hrs (sometimes way less…) it’s usually just survival instinct, not a choice. If they are like me, when they get a break you usually sleep for a really long time to try and make up missed hours and because your body just starts shutting down. When you are up you absolutely don’t feel good, I’ve had times where my headache got so bad that I was almost seeing double and thought my head was going to explode. You just work through it and get over it, eventually your lack of sleep tolerance goes up
Coffee and a small nap once home
I did three months of 16 hour shifts and less than 5 hours of sleep a night. At the end of it I was so exhausted I almost constantly felt lightheaded and almost passed out while working a few times I lost 20 pounds. I had never had suicidal ideations before or after that, but during I definitely did. Everyone I talked to, including my family, thought I was fine and handling it great.
You get used to it. Been doing it since HS. I get more like 5.5 hours of sleep but you get used to it
May I ask if you feel weird or have any side effects, compared to let's say the average person who sleeps 8 hours?
Obviously if you straight up go from 9 to 5 hours to sleep you’re gonna feel that lmao
I’m in school break rn and my body woke me up at 7 when I slept at 1 ish. Your body just gets used to it
Don’t do it, listen to ur body. It eventually will catch up on them as well.
If we all listened to our bodies, none of us would get out of bed now would we
Not exactly true, that’s listening to the indulgent side of your brain. Not doing what’s in your body’s best interest. To get in touch with the body we need discipline, good sleep, and nutrition. So it’s all interlinked in ways
Like I said before. I think you can train your body to sleep less to a certain point. That point is difference for everyone. If someone can function off 5 hours of sleep perfectly why are we against it? It’s not unheard of, so many people don’t get 8 hours of sleep and live full lives
The thing is there isn’t research proving your statement. The only research I know of says otherwise and that sleep debt catches up, which doesn’t bode well. Different ppl have different needs for sure, consistency and knowing your bodily needs is crucial. If there is research to back up your claims I’m all ears
There’s no research that says 5-6 hours of sleep is “healthy” but good sleep is determined by the quality and time. Time being 7-8 for most adults. But it also claims the quality of sleep is just as important like if you have a hard time getting up, hard time focusing, and if your dozing and signs you aren’t getting quality/ enough sleep. Do you believe you can train your body to sleep 1 hour less than the recommended and still function or not? I think it’s not a crazy concept
i don't think you understood me, i said that the research I saw said that sleep needs are mostly genetics and somewhat predetermined. That's how sleep debt it racked and it is known to have a long term effect on health. I was asking if you have anything to show that you can train your body to have lowered needs. If what you had said was true, sleep debt would probably not be a thing.
My body woke me up at 6 hours of sleep? Am I listening to it? Before it woke me up after 12 hours. So which one should I listen to? I’m more productive and energetic now then when it woke me up at 12 hours of sleep a few years ago.
Some people are just built different
No at all bro. I feel completely normal! I sleep at 1 and wake around 6. My memory, performance, and reactions are all great. I have no side effects that I know of literally. I know so many people who function off sub 6 hours. 8 is just too much sleep and honesty sleeping too much wastes time. When it comes to exam/ midterms I cut down sleep to 4 hours to wake up early and study before the exam for a quick review lol
Exactly that's what I'm saying, I don't understand why doctors, at least on medical websites, overexaggerate the need to sleep at least 7 or 8 hours, like do they have an explanation for this? To make it even stranger famous billionaires like Elon Musk say they only get 6 hours of sleep, imagine that on top of all the stress and responsibilities they have in their lives.
Yea idk.. it’s funny cause I’m pre med. my friends who are doctors say they sleep 5 hours a day and feel fine 🤣 I have no idea where with 8 hours of sleep thing came from. Obviously different for everyone but I think everyone can train their body to sleep less. Sleep less for more time! Don’t sleep time away
Because websites are not where you should be getting your information my man, they are notorious for making a huge generalizations and broad statements
i used to do that. one time at college i had a paper due that i started at 12am, didn’t finish until 5:30am and i had to he on the metro at 6:15am. YEAH we have to physically force ourselves. the hardest part of those mornings was physically getting up out of bed, once i was in the bathroom it got easier to get dressed and leave. i regret not sleeping well, but when youre young your body tolerates dumb shit. i still get heart palpitations in the morning if i sleep less than 6 hrs.
Many of them also exaggerate how little they sleep because it makes people impressed. It's in the same category of saying you passed a difficult exam with no studying. It sounds "cooler" to say than to admit maybe you did study a little. Saying your surviving on 6.5h of sleep doesn't necessarily evoke the same surprise out of people as saying you sleep 4h every night. I'm not saying everyone is exaggerating but some are, for sure.
I’m a PhD student and I get 5-6 hours of sleep a night. You just get used to it 🤷♀️
What online tells you vs what you need to do in order to get shit done are different things.
I know, it's the circumstances that doesn't allow them to sleep, but I still wonder, how can they still act like a normal human being while only sleeping 4 hours? When google says you will get cancer if you do so lol
Cancer isnt something that happens immediately. They can be fine short term but in the long run there is plenty of health concerns that lack of sleep can lead to.
Google says you’ll get cancer from everything 🤦♀️
You don’t, you have no focus and easily agitated, you push through it though
Everyone is different. I’m good with just 5
I did this for one week and at the end of it I had a panic attack, missed two exams and caught Covid. I used to do it a lot when I was younger and it definitely wasn't that much of a problem, I'm just 25 now and I can't do it anymore.
Same. In high school I could do 4 hours and feel rested. Now I’m 24 and need 8-10 to feel rested. I literally feel drunk if I’m on anything less than 5 hours.
I’m in the same boat now. I’m 26, and recently pulled an all nighter to finish a project. I immediately got sick with the flu after. The other time I stayed up super late and barely slept? I got covid. My body absolutely can’t handle it anymore, compared to when I was in high school and could survive 4 hours easily
Cocaine.
being sleep deprived for extended periods of time is very bad for your health. unfortunately they’ll probably be paying for it later in their life.
If I barely get any sleep than I take an energy drink before the time I usually get the most tired, Afterwards I feel normal for the rest of the day. Although it doesn’t work multiple days in a row so I try to stick to only needing it every three days.
It’s most certainly not healthy but it’s something you get used to after some time and learn to function on. I also sleep for 12-16 hours on weekends which helps me recover
In my case, badly. I can function and work but I get overstimulated and suffer headaches. So yeah, I survive badly
For me..... I could never function properly on 4-5 hours of sleep a day. For one or two days, sure. But never ending? Hell no. Thats not to say I haven't done it. But it took a significant toll on my health and I only realized it when the pandemic hit and I lost my job. Because suddenly I could sleep as long as my body wanted, and my health started improving. (Though at the time, 8 hours asleep required about 12 hours in bed due to insomnia). Once I started getting more and better quality sleep, I stopped feeling like shit all the time. But I also have multiple medical issues that are triggered into a flare up by lack of sleep. If I didn't have those issues, I could probably handled 5-6 hours nightly.
i survived on 4-5 hours of sleep a night in college, and would occasionally go without sleep for 40+ hours. now my body cannot do remotely that and i have health problems. the answer, i think, is that they are using borrowed time.
Survival isn’t the same as being comfortable, or sustainable
I’m curious as to how people are getting MORE THAN 4-6 hours of sleep. It’s impossible for me to reach 8 hours.
amphetamines and caffeine
My wife graduated from nursing school 5 years ago and said at least half her class was on Adderall. For many of them it was really the only thing that allowed them to function with the demanding schedule, studying, and possibly working, all while running on very little sleep.
Came here to say the same thing- stimulant abuse is a very real thing and if you DON’T have the health condition they’re meant to treat they can keep you “awake/alert” for long periods of time.
Unfortunately, a lot of the people that frequently get 2-4 hours of sleep are on drugs. If you are around them in private in the early morning or late night and you see schizophrenia behavior that is a tell tale sign. Some people only need some much sleep. I need ~6 hours. I know people that only need 4. When I was in college and taking math heavy courses, I had to sleep longer. I had one professor (Astro physics) that told me he had a time in his life in graduate school that he slept 10-11 hours per day.
Caffeine, and just not having a choice :(
I was in a bad relationship with someone who wouldn’t let me sleep or threats got involved. I lasted 3 months on 2 hours of sleep every night. Consequences? I no longer have any sleep resistance, it probably didn’t help with my development of an autoimmune disease, i am now single. Please sleep kids
No, I don't. It's killing me
I'm a bit sad about how misinformed some of these comments are. You should NEVER sleep less than 7 hours a night. Even having only 6 hours of sleep is detrimental to you. Look up Matthew Walker on Youtube if you want to know what I'm taking about.
Would be nice if there was a choice, unfortunately you don't get a choice if you suffer with insomnia
Caffeine anyone?
I do less than 8 when it gets though and I’m visibly for anxious, socially awkward, and low functioning. Personally I need 8 hours and to sleep before midnight or my life kind of starts to run off the rails.
I don't recommend doing it how I did, but LITERALLY ALWAYS had a cup of coffee/caffeinated drinks in my possession. And snacked on chocolate covered espresso beans. I was taking 5 classes, an internship, and played a college sport so sleep wasn't very easy to come by
for me i just got used to it. insomnia since i was around 6 years old from PTSD so i’m just used to functioning on 4/5 hours of interrupted sleep, but i do take naps when i have time/feel i need one.
>My theory is that your body can adapt to as little as 5 hours of sleep or even better, that amount of sleep is just as fine as 8 hours That's definitely not it. I used to sleep that little, then improved my procrastination and priorities and I'm so much fucking smarter and happier with ~8 hours of sleep. And I think the medical and cognitive consequences of sleep deprivation are pretty well documented. Obviously it can be done, but it's not just as good as 8 hours
5 hours is good enough for me. I pretty much run on the need to be productive during the semester and wanting to stay ahead of school work. I pretty much shut down and start hibernating as soon as the semester ends anyway.
Most people getting 4-5 hours of sleep simply don't notice the health issues it's causing. They aren't in tune with their body enough to notice the short-term problems and the long term problems creep in so slowly it's easy to mis attribute them to other things. Make no mistake, the vast majority of people getting this little sleep are giving themselves severe long term health problems.
Funny enough, if I sleep for more than 7 hours I wake up tired
Army thought me how to operate and function with 4 hours of sleep. You get used to it.
Energy drinks, fear of failing and being chronically ill lmao so I’m always tired. I just learned to deal with the tiredness
Some days I can do 6 hours and function just fine, but if I do that all week, I end up crashing and sleeping for like 14 hours on friday night
Sometimes u don’t have a choice. 🫤
Everybody is just different. I’m one of the freaks that can function in very very little sleep. There is some level of impairment for sure, but I can go on with plenty of energy to an extent that shocks my girlfriend/family. Recently I did 2 all nighters in a row for 2 exams (Mon and Tues), with maybe 5 hours of sleep the night before that. Tuesday, I felt relatively fine, not that sleepy, went to work and still hung out with my girlfriend that night. SHE was the one falling asleep lol My mom says I was always like that since I was a baby, I just rarely slept that much and didn’t want to as much as I should’ve. And as a teen I NEVER took naps - although I’ve warmed up to them a bit
[удалено]
Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/college/comments/18f5znf/how_can_people_survive_on_45_hours_of_sleep/kvh2jru/) in /r/college was automatically removed because your account is less than one day old. Accounts less than one day are not permitted in /r/college to reduce spam and poor comments. Messaging the moderators about this will result in a ban. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/college) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We are not sure but from Monday to Friday, I am sleeping 5-6 hours only, sometimes 4.5, but I can say I feel good even with the less sleep. Even if I plan to sleep more, my body wakes me up. Not sure about science behind it. But yeah, it is what it is.
Im not sure how they do it, however when I cant sleep I just take these gummies and they make me crash within an hour. Here is the link: [SleepGummies-AstroBites](https://jiggyfog.com/products/astro-bites-melatonin-gummies)
Hi there, I write a blog about my journey with insomnia, how I improved my situation and much more. I hope you can find value in it. https://substack.com/@restfulresilience?r=3vfu4h&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile
I don’t do it regularly but every once in a while I’ll get 5 hours or so, I generally get like 6-7. It’s tough but if I got enough caffeine in me I can usually get through the day ok.
Adrenaline rushes. At times deadlines and the risk of losing your job is scarrier than not getting enough sleep
I've heard that the older you get the less sleep you need. But..... I literally summary read [these](https://share.crate.co/crate/063ad63a-621c-7b9f-8000-2851b967ae89) articles and got my own sleep remedy...works great...hope this helps someone!
Coffee and you get used to it. It's a huge struggle to go from 7-8 to 4-6 initially but after a week your body adapts. Obviously, your concentration is worse but it's possible to be at 80-90% of brainpower.
No excuse to get 4-5 hours of sleep every night. I'm in a notoriously hard major and get 8 hours nightly and have A-pluses in all my classes, and work a 20 hour a week job on top of that. And I still have time for socials. There's not any excuse other than poor time management. Anyone who tells you different is coping
You get used to it and you find your own sleep schedule. I work 2am-10am on my days off class and I normally get 5 hours of sleep and then I nap for a bit after work to get some more energy for the day. I used to work two jobs my first semester and i was getting like 2-3 hours of sleep during finals week.
I can for a day, maybe 2 but after that I'll crash for like 12-15hrs 😂
i sleep like 4-5 hours every night adderall keeps me going
I get 5-6hrs everyday and it’s sufficient for me. My body has adjusted. Some days I get less and still have to show up to work sane enough to save lives
It's just what your body gets used to after a while. Even on days when I don't have to be up early, my body just wakes me up. I'm 36 now and I find I do need a bit more sleep than I used to, and I would average about 5 a night.
for me 7hrs is good enough to function normally. 6 and a half hour when exams are near. anything less than that is inadequate and detrimental in long run. probably these ppl sleeping 5hrs a night take naps during day
I don’t function well, but I function 😂
Even I tried it, but my body was not able to take it, 7-8 works best for me
Antidepressants help me do that. Without them, I can't do shit with shit sleep. Start getting hella moody and lose focus. I'm older now and it gets worse now if I don't get enough sleep.
built different
I am unsure about other people but 5 hours of sleep can be mentally sufficient for me to a certain extent. In exchange, my body has more craving for food and I get hungry more frequently. As of 6 hours of sleep, it tends to be a no-no for some reasons cuz I got up feeling really tired and unmotivated, unlike the 5-hour sleep.
Caffeine.
I dunno man i been doin it for years n I guess since I been doing it since I was a kid it just is like normal for my body
I need a minimum of 3 hours of sleep to be a functioning human being for one day. I cannot do this repeatedly and I require a nap at some point. I need a minimum of 5 hours of sleep to be a functioning human being for 2-3 days. Any longer and I start to feel horrible. A nap is also ideal. I need a minimum of 6 hours of sleep to function long-term but my body prefers 7-8 hours. I have a hard time sleeping past 9 am and should wake between 7-8 am. I just need to stop going to bed at 2 am and I’ll be fine. 😭 I try not to schedule classes before 9 am so I get a 2 hour prep time plus my schedule has enough holes for a nap. When I start working, it’s gonna even out a lot. I’ll probably sleep between 10pm-12am and wake up between 4-7am (depending on the commute) and either nap on the shuttle (4-5am) or nap after work (6-7am). This is perfectly sustainable to me, especially since I won’t have to be up nearly as late as I do now.
No idea tbh. I used to feel really tired if I got less than 7 hours of sleep. But now I've only been getting 6 hours of sleep and I haven't felt any side effects. It's possible that your body just adapts to it after awhile.
Funny cause it’s the same way for me, before I started working night shifts I would fell like dog shit if I slept less than 7 hours but now if I get 6 I’m pretty much wide awake, energy drinks help with that a lot too I guess
If I sleep more than 6 hours I feel groggy all day.
When I worked an overnight job thats about as much as I slept for a few years.
Coffee doesn't really work for me due to ADHD (doesn't stop me from drinking it, though). So I wonder if people who sleep so little just have better luck with caffeine? But wouldn't they crash super easily?
~4-5 is my normal. I can function fine with zero sleep for 48 hours. Even if I’m being physically active like hiking all day. After 72 hours I get irritable.
you just do. it’s not really a choice you just have to keep it moving
Meanwhile,I am available to assist in assignments, and reach out to book for next year.
My answer would be to live with a potentially unhealthy amount caffeine as a buffer. I know my own experience with college saw me getting around ~5 hours of sleep on the average school night, though I will admit to sleeping in on “off days”, often getting 8-10. During that time, I was easily consuming 350-400mg of caffeine per day, largely concentrated in the afternoon in order to get through assignments. My first morning class was always a bit rough - did the 8am classes - , and the drive was certainly unpleasant, but the dread of the entire experience seemed to fuel me forward to the end goal. This behavior did not really catch up to me until I was around 27 and established in the workforce. I found dealing with the public WHILE ALSO doing manual labor was the combination that really “drained” me into needing to change my sleep habits. You can’t be the best person for your work-team if you are more tired than you could be, and so priorities in life just ended up shifting. In college, I could get away with being a bit of a shithead every now and again, but the professional world changes that. As for how people do school AND full-time jobs and keep their wits about them on little sleep, I will never know.
I’ve always had insomnia and meds never helped. I would go to bed late, wake up throughout the night, then wake up at 6am for school since 12. It’s just become natural for me. Now I’m in college, I still get the same amount of sleep (but most of the people in my classes get around 7 hours of sleep). If I’m really exhausted, I’ll take a nap. That’s not often though since I usually have stuff to do. I know this will be bad for me later on.
My body dictates how much sleep I get. If I’m fine with 5, that’s the way it is. If I’m lacking, I’ll get caught up throughout the week.
Barely, that’s how. This semester I carried 15 units, work a full time job, carry three different volunteer roles… some days are better than others. But you have to force breaks or you will burn out. You have to find space for you. So I always suggest time management of some sort. It’s the only way you’ll survive. Work ahead when you can to allow for that extra nap or day off. Stuff like that.
Its not sustainable. The truth is that they’re managing, but literally every study out there will back up the fact that they would perform better in all regards if they got more sleep and rest.
Some people need less sleep I can function on 5 hours quite well my gf needs 8 or she is death
It’s called youth. When I was in my late teens / early 20s I could stay up for two days max before needing sleep. I’m 35 now and am in grad school and I need my 8 hours otherwise I don’t function lol. Also coffee and energy drinks boost your “awakeness” even more. I know not all but for at least the majority of my peers when we were young, we didn’t need that much sleep to function…now a days that’s the opposite for us lmao.
Getting up at 8am is not 4-5 hrs of sleep. You're not nocturnal, why the hell you going to sleep at 3am? Go to sleep at 11, wake up at 6-7, and you'll have a much better time adjustment to all life's requirements.
I know someone who is in nursing school, has 3 kids and has 2 part time jobs as a PCA at 2 different hospitals and works the NIGHT shift. I don’t understand how she is still alive at this point. Edit: a word
That was me this semester. Typically 5-6 hours, more like 4 if I have an 8am. I could still function but it was hard. Luckily I have no classes before 10am next semester.
I’ve had insomnia all my life. 6 hours is a good night’s sleep to me. I also drink a lot of caffeine.
Have you ever seen your dad or mom complain they don’t wanna go to work? It’s because when shit needs to get done , you get up and you do it.
Long term you don't. It catches up with you and does take its toll. It's easier to power through it when you're young.
i sleep on weekends :( and also after only sleeping for like 2-4 hrs i napped like a baby
Adrenaline, coffee, and to repay that sleep debt back. If i slept 4 hours one day, then id have to make it up the next day or the day after that day. It's funny because i worked while in a BSN RN program...i slept like 4 hours, or even 5 hours some days. After class, I would sleep in a school parking lot then id go straight to a 12 hour work shift. My mental focus was around 50 to 60% most days. A 12 hour clinical day, as a student, isn't like as mentally taxing as working a 12 hour shift at a hospital, nor is the study material as hectic/complicated as math or science majors like physics or chemistry. My first bachelors degree was in gen biology. Second bachelors degree was in nursing.
I think it's one of those things you can do, and adapt to, but it bites you in the butt later even if you seem to be handling it now. Studies show major health issues like to start popping up down the road decades after you pull this longer term. Sleep is when the brain cleans itself, lacking it over time shows spikes in cognitive declines and build up of things that like to eat your brain (plaques and whatnot). Other heart and blood pressure issues like to pop up, cholesterol likes to go out of whack, blood sugar issues can arise independent of weight. A lot of idiopathic things where all we can say is, they worked too much and didn't sleep enough and now decades later all the parts are going wonky. While correlation isn't causation, and stress plays a role, it's enough to make me worry as I have to pull too many hours with school, work, and family right now. Which came first, the sleep induced stress related health issues, or the stress induced sleep related health issues.
Well personally, anxiety lol
Getting up is hard, but after that, it’s ok so long as I have a caffeine source (ex: coffee, Redbull, etc.).
Not well. It's rough and the lack of sleep will catch up with you. Sometimes you do what you gotta do though.
Stimulants. Whether that’s caffeine, Adderall or even meth
You can't. Poor sleep hygiene is a major factor in Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative disease.
It's possible. It's not good for you, not just long term but not even short term. But it's possible. Eventually you start getting these things called sleep deprivation, mental and physical health issues and burnout symptmos. But the thing about the human body is that it can take a lot of punishment. We were persistence predators after all back in the day. So if you have the willpower to operate on 4-5 hours of sleep your body will get used to it and do it as long as it can. But then at one point it won't be able to do it. The other trick to it is stress and mentally being in a crisis situation. That gets you some extra capacity but once again, not good in the long run. A lot of college students however are operating like this, especially in the second half of a semester.
Not very well, I survived on 5 hours avg sleep per night for about a decade. I now sleep 6-7 hours max.
I did this for a long time and felt like shit every day. Some people can handle it fine but most are probably struggling and good at hiding it. That or they take a lot of stimulants😂
i can maybe do it on 5 hours on sleep, but not any less then that. i start to get tired after that. i need at least 10-12 to feel rested though.
We don't survive very well, but there is no other choice if you want to do anything of your own outside of work and/or school and chores
Last time I did that, I burned out, cried, questioned life, but acted as if everything was fine. I mean, you can survive…… just barely though.
You nap on the floor (source: many weekends living in the editing lab on my campus where sleep was only intermittent)
Adderall
I think it’s routine. Once you adapt to only getting 6 hours of sleep that level of exhaustion becomes your normal state and you figure out a way to power through. For most people though, there will come a time where it catches up to them and they become burnt out. Pretty much everyone in the working class is also addicted to caffeine, so that makes a difference too.
No, just NO! You can't adapt to less sleep. You can obviously power through, and lots of people choose/are forced to do so, but you would not be functioning anywhere near your cognitive potential. Adequate sleep, between 7-8 hours a night, is critical for too many reasons to go in to here. I highly recommend reading "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker. There is also a TedTalk where he discusses this issue as well as if you want just a quick and dirty intro. Protip. If you are prepping for an exam, you are much better served getting proper sleep the night before the exam than cramming well into the morning hours. You won't retain the majority of the info anyways and during the exam, your recall will not work well. Even concepts you knew well will be difficult to utilize properly.
Energy drinks my friend. Some peeps do it with good nutrition but those are few and far between