how safe is it to pull an all nighter?

[Thug Love]

Now that its summer and i'm always having fun i just dont want to go to sleep sometimes! i heard that you can never catch back up on your sleep or something? what does that even mean? is it harmful for your brain or anything to pull an all nighter once a week? every 3 days?

thanks

 

[n3ophy7e]

i heard that you can never catch back up on your sleep or something?

Where did you hear such a thing? Think about it, it doesn't even make sense. Sleep isn't a finite thing where everyone gets their life's sleep allowance or something like that :D

But skipping a night's sleep is quite distruptive to your body's natural daily cycles. I don't have any solid data on how different systems and functions of the body are directly affected but you should listen to your body. If you feel tired, or if you feel like you need a rest/break from partying, then do it. Plain and simple.

I'm going to shift this over to HL for better responses

 

[jam uh weezy]

It's not unsafe.

I think the only danger lies in the subtle lack of control you have over certain functions. You may feel completely able to drive a car, and you probably are, but you'd be a fool to not pay extra attention to compensate for lack of reaction time. After about 24-30 hours without sleep, things that require precision are nearly impossible for me. Playing guitar is hilarious, drawing is a no go. The 'danger' lies in not even being aware that your performance is being affected.

 

[Enlitx]

The biggest problem you woud have is losing the ability to efficiently consolidate memories into neuronal connections. As such, you will lose many long term memories that could have been formed from that time period. Of course, if you are cramming for a test and you don't care if you know the stuff later, that might be a sacrifice you are willing to make.

Physiological effects outside of the brain are minimal, except that your immune system will work at around 1/3 of its normal capacity.

 

[мDма]

It messes up with your sleep cycle, but you don't need to wake up for shit now that theres no school ^____^ go for it.

 

[Pillthrill]

I heard somewhere in one of my college courses that your body keeps track of your sleep, and how much you aren't getting or whatever, for 2 weeks or more. So you could feel a little run down for awhile afterwards.

 

[mannequin]

what they mean by not being able to catch up is that you cant sleep for 24hours and then stay up for 3 days and not feel it. just as easily you can stay up for 3-4 days (ive done it many times without drugs) and sleep 8 hours and feel fine.

check out the uberman sleep schedule.. i did it for 2 years.. you sleep 15 minutes every four hours... once a month id sleep for a whole day almost to rejuvinate.

 

[euphoria]

as long as you make up that sleep later on in the week and take some vitamins and take care of yourself otherwise, i don't see why pulling an all nighter once a week would hurt you. i know that lack of sleep can age you faster, but if you're only doing it for the summer im sure you'll be fine.

 

[mariacallas]

But skipping a night's sleep is quite distruptive to your body's natural daily cycles. I don't have any solid data on how different systems and functions of the body are directly affected but you should listen to your body. If you feel tired, or if you feel like you need a rest/break from partying, then do it. Plain and simple.

Yesss. Listen to your body. When I was younger I'd go for a week without sleeping 8( of course I was also twacked out of my mind and the binges would last that long before I'd eventually crash for a few days and repeat cycle. I hated sleeping, I always wanted to be on the go , doing things, afraid of missing out lol. Than I sobered up, and probably slept too much for a year just to kind of catch up and heal myself. Now I love sleeping...cant not sleep even for one night. (Well....except for those occassions when I party which is very rare...)

Age has something to do with it too, I think. I could pull all nighters frequently when I was much younger, sleep for a day, and be normal and rejuvenated again. Now I probably need five days to completely be myself after a couple days of indulgence. Take advantage of your youth and the summer, enjoy yourself. Just make sure you drink your vitamins, hydrate, dont neglect basic hygiene, try to eat when you can, yadda yadda yadda. And dont overdo it. Know when enough is enough and you need to rest already.

 

[Dtergent]

I would limit all-nighters, but would definitely not skip some good communal fun for the sake of health. For personal reasons, I try to do them during full moon!

 

[An Iz]

What happens when you pull an all-nighter in terms of sleep debt is pretty complicated.

You have 4 stages of sleep, alpha wave sleep, beta wave sleep, REM, and Delta wave sleep. REM and Delta are the most important in terms of 'refreshing' your body an mind, and there is a bit of a correlation between more physical activity in a day and more delta, and more mental activity and more REM.

Your body really likes REM and if you don't get your night's allotment of it, either by staying up or even things like going to bed drunk or with caffeine or nicotine in your system, your body remembers and will skew your next night's sleep in favor of getting more REM at the expense of your other cycles. It doesn't correct itself in one night though, it'll take like 50% more the first night, 25% the second, and I don't remember the rest (I don't remember the proper percents either)

That amounts to you not being on top of your game for as long as your body is out of equilibrium.

HOWEVER most people in a modern society get all sorts of fucked up sleep. Add that to our lifestyles of daily drug use (even caffeine fucks rem sleep for at least 8 hours) with hours spent in front of a screen every day while eating a crazy diet with minimal exercise, PLUS all the other hidden costs of modern life, and you quickly realize that just about no one is ever on top of their game. So it doesn't make sense to worry about it any more than you worry about the rest of your health. Think about how you'll feel the next day when you make the decision. Only you know your limits and what level you need to preform at to maintain your lifestyle.

 

[An Iz]

There is a lot more to think about on top of what I posted, concerning the strange nature of sleep itself.

The latest theory is that sleep is an "emergent property" of the brain, meaning it's a result of many different sort of unrelated events, like different subsystems of the brain all shutting down at the same time. One consequence of this is that even if you don't give them a chance to go down all at once with regular sleep, some of them will shut down and go to sleep independently, while you're still basically conscious. You've probably experienced some form of this if you were ever woken up from a deep sleep and you couldn't talk right away or you were confused and felt all weird.

Anyway, that sort of thing is responsible for reducing your performance the next day, parts of your brain will literally be asleep.

Then your brain goes into compensation mode. It compensates by increasing your dopamine levels, which makes you feel better than you should, and helps make you a little more alert.

I've found that to be a really noticeable effect, almost a high. Last summer when my girlfriend practically lived with me, she didn't get off work till 10pm and I woke up to go to work at 6am. As a result I didn't sleep much at all, and I'd feel really goofy and happy during the day. Other people perceived me differently though: for example, when my boss and I went out for coffee one day I said something, I don't remember what, to which he paused and thought for a while, and then broke down laughing. "An iz... you say the STUPIDEST shit sometimes man..." and he literally leaned against a building lauging his ass off while I was just like "what..?"

 

[Thug Love]

yeah! sometimes i feel high from it haha. so it increases more dopamine levels to stay up all night?

 

[Dxmmonster]

yeah! sometimes i feel high from it haha. so it increases more dopamine levels to stay up all night?

Yeah I get this too, is this what people call the second wave?

I love that feeling, and it does hit me like a wave. If say iv been up all night and see the sun coming up, at one point or another(usually around 6-7am) while Im walking home from the bars/clubs I get this great wave of warmth, energy and clarity. It's really quite amazing, sorta like taking a small hit of MDPV or Coke. but mellow at the same time.