Ok, being a college student I'm apt to pull an all-nighter every now and then. Or more often, even... So I did one last night and in thinking about it I've now been up for over 25 hours. Not feeling real great, actually. What is the long term effect of getting very little sleep? I figure it's ok for one night, right? Is this a mega mistake? Stupid midterms. If nothing else I find I've got to be very careful to make sure I don't step out in front of a truck or something. Makes the...err...thinking organ in the head...fuzzy... Thank goodness I don't have to drive anywhere.

You're legally insane if you stay awake for over 72 hrs.

Just try to sleep wherever you can. And next time, plan better so you don't hafta pull an all nighter. Thats my best advice. I didn't ever have to pull an all nighter in college, its possible to get your work done at a reasonable time.

Oh man. I remember all nighters. I pulled a few of them as an undergrad.
It feels like your body is literaly falling apart. The next day your head is in the clouds your stomach hurts and you are really shakey...especially if you loaded up on the caffine.

I would try to stay away from these as often as possilbe, but I know every once in awhile they just happen just be aware that being dead tired will not help you on your midterms. Try taking short naps too as rabid_child said. Those help sometimes.

Good luck with your exams!

If you do it regularly, it´s gonna be stress and with time some functional syndrome might develop, but nothing wrong with a couple of times.

I think I saw a study among students a while back that said that - for studying - one hour of sleep is just as good as eight.

Yeah, I've also read that if you are studying and are tired, you should take a short nap. When you wake up you will be more refresed and your brain will be able to process more. If you are tired, it is hard to remember things becasue you are too busy trying to stay awake and you are groggy.

Don't know if this is true, but it makes sense to me. Wish I would have followed this rule of thumb. :D

for me, if I do it too much, it makes my asthma go haywire and I usually end up having an attack!

i get intense headaches when i don't sleep. i've also had waking dreams at times.

having been parent to two newborns in my life i can personally attest to the fact that long periods of low or no sleep can make a person certifiably insane. when both my kids hit about 10 months of age i was poised and ready to run away, completely, just to get a few good nights of quality rest.

Oh, wow, yeah - I've been totally experiencing the asthma thing, but I didn't really make the connection. I don't do this very often and never in order to study; i'm an art student and i had an edition of prints due. Anyway, just curious. Thanks for the input. :)

Apperently the study I mentioned isn't uncontradicted.Here's a reference anyway.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1634019.stm

(I posted this in another thread earlier :wall:.)

If I stay awake all night, by morning I'm shaking, I can't eat anything or else I'll puke, I get extraordinarily pale, and I get the most gigantic circles under my eyes. It's really horrible. I'm the only one I know who's ever had that problem though.

I used to pull all-nighters, and i suffer from occasionally severe insomnia now... lack of sleep puts your body into fight-or-flight survival mode, and you generate more adrenaline... makes for a funky chemical mix in your brain, especially if you are taking caffeine and marijuana (like i used to do....). Thank god I didn't know about crank when I was in school... I never would have slept!

get as much normal sleep as you can. It will make the OCCASIONAL all-nighter easier to handle.

as a former insomniac...72 hours is nuttin.. ha.. anyways...um yeah im insane...but I find if I stay awake too long even one day my night paralysis/terrors are really bad...

I must say I'm not feeling real great right now. And I can't sleep for several hours yet because I've got class. Can't wait till tonight. :sleep: Oh, even looking at that smiley is killing me... :) Ok, I keep hearing about nausea, which I must admit I had really severely around 4 this morning. But subsequently I've been feeling completely starved - I don't mean just hungry, but with gnawing stomach pain as if I haven't eaten in days. Does lack of sleep make anybody else ravenous?

Hunger is often typical, as your body needs so much more fuel to keep going.

Kreeli, next time you want to run away, give me a call. You can look after my cats and I'll come look after your kids to remind myself why I'm leaving it up to others to replace me on earth after I'm dead :)

If I stay awake all night, by morning I'm shaking, I can't eat anything or else I'll puke, I get extraordinarily pale, and I get the most gigantic circles under my eyes. It's really horrible. I'm the only one I know who's ever had that problem though.

lucycat, I'm fairly similar to you. I don't function when I've had little sleep... no sleep is pretty much impossible or I'll get like you. When someone in my fiance's family was dying, I had the most sleep of everyone (about 5 hours) and was functioning the least... when in America, on the way back to LA I had broken sleep on the bus (about 3 hours), then forced myself to stay awake until I got on the plane almost 24 hours later... needless to say I had some interesting episodes and was almost in tears over the stupidest things (like the bus in LA). I also had several bouts of nausea (no vomiting though) and started to fall asleep while eating my meal on the plane... Sleep is my friend and I don't like getting less than 8 hours a night...

Oh, with the studying thing... I find if I go all night and then have an hour's sleep I'm doing worse than friends who had no sleep... I need a decent stretch, one hour just makes me delirious.

One night I pulled an all nighter cause it was my friend's last night before leaving for the airforce and I wasn't gonna see him for 2 yrs... The next day at work I just kept hysterically laughing over everything alternating with zoning out. My friend thought it was awesome. And I drank a lot of juice. Mmmm juice...

No sleep definitely does not work for me...I've learned my lesson. I need a lot of sleep and for a few nights in a row I only got 4-5 hours of sleep per night - I ended up with a terrible cold which led to a tonsil infection. I've read that lack of sleep decreases the efficiency of one's immune system - probably the case for me.

For some reason one of my friends always "brags" about how little sleep she gets, like it's some accomplishment, and makes it seem as though I'm being selfish by sleeping enough. But I highly value and treasure my precious sleep!!!

You're legally insane if you stay awake for over 72 hrs.

REally ?!?! that is so cool !!
Im gona try it !!
itll be hard tho cuz i have skool tomorow !

one time my nerd friends and I pulled an all night D&D session.. I then immediately had to get my kids on the bus and I had to go to class.... Then... we played D&D the next night... another all nighter...I slept something like 30 minutes....it was exhausting.. but so much fun!

REally ?!?! that is so cool !!
Im gona try it !!
itll be hard tho cuz i have skool tomorow !

haha, Unless you have a medical condition such as insomnia or mental illness to begin with, it is very hard for a healthy person to stay awake 48 hours, let alone 72. Your Body will take action against your Will and you will find yourself asleep, or nodding off regularly.

Although staying up all night once in a while won't cause any measurable long-term harm, consistently getting 4 hours of sleep a night or less will. Studies have fround that this can throw-off insulin regulation, leading to symptoms that mimic diabetes.

And look on the bright side...at least you didn't take meth to stay up. Then you would be feeling like ****, for real.

ebola
np: squarepusher

I´m a senior in college, and I´ve never pulled an all-nighter. A few times I´ve stayed up till 2 or 3 and then gotten up at 6 to work on a paper, but a certifiable all-nighter is impossible for me. I know it would be entirely pointless, so I normally don´t even study if it´s past midnight. If I´m sleep deprived, I won´t remember what I´ve studied, so I don´t see the point.

I just pulled one! The effect? I made a bunch of plain silly posts on VB. I will continue to do so until I crash. :dunce: