How long can you survive on 3-5 hours of sleep each night?

I spent a whole week in my computer lab working on an essay on “the importance of being Earnest”. My head and chest felt odd. In a bad way. I only got a 65% on the English paper. I felt sickly for 3 months. I lost weight and was 120 lbs when I should have been 220 lbs seeing that I was 198cm tall I was drastically underweight. My lack of sleep ruined my ability to concentrate and I eventually failed out of university in my second year from not taking care of my self better.

I would get tired of that pretty swiftly.
Everytime it happens, I feel like death, upon awakening.

I can’t do it for very long. I host a 4 day event once a year. During that time my sleep schedule is greatly reduced from my usual 7.5–8 hours to about 5 hours. By day 3, I am a basket case. I need a nap.

About three days of that and I’m worthless

Me personally? By day 4 I would be horrible and desperate for sleep.

When I am overmedicated in thyroid meds I can handle it better, but I am still not doing well and it becomes hard to function at my top game. Harder to focus, grumpy, my eyes feel like they are rolling in my head. My mom used to say that about her eyes, now I know what she means.

In general, not allowing people to sleep is a torture technique. Working moms of infants all over the country are semi-tortured. I don’t mean all are sleep deprived, just that a lot of them are.

Some people naturally need less sleep. I think it was Martha Stewart who I heard years ago say she only needs 6 hours a sleep per night. That’s very little on a consistent basis (for people under 65) if she isn’t napping also.

Feasibly, a long time, but it will suck. I once went over a month on about 2–3 hours of interrupted sleep a night. I was hallucinating and unable to eat any real food. I know things are tight, but sleep is so important. It can effect every part of your life. Maybe seek out a free clinic and get some sleep medication.

I went years that way. It was normal for me.

I have a friend, a brilliant man who has averaged 4 hours of sleep a night for 55 years. When he was a teenager his parents at first tried punishing him for either staying up til 2AM or going to sleep at 10 and waking up at 2.

I’m a person who usually needs 7–8. This stretch of 3–5 has been very difficult. It’s hard to concentrate on important things and we have lots of important things going on right now.

I did get 6 hours last night and a long nap today. I feel for those who don’t get the sleep they need on a constant basis.

Sleep whenever you can. People who are extremely sleep deprived will fall asleep without knowing. It’s how bad accidents happen. God forbid. Eventually the body must sleep.

You can catch up when it’s only recent deprivation, but over extended periods it’s a different situation. I’m sure you know sleep is a big part of how the body heals and restores. Be careful. I need to practice what I preach. I can get enough sleep, but my stress level is damaging my health, and I just can’t get it all under control right now.

It’ll be another 3 hour night tonight but only because I’m excited about future posibilities. Does that make a difference?

Interesting read

Power naps HELP. They really do. A power nap is grabbing ten to twenty minutes at a time. It takes a few minutes for me to come back from one though, so refrain from driving and other such attention demands for a little while after waking.