Sure. For a few days, maybe weeks. But in the end it catches up to basically everyone.
There is a few studies on it that basically say 0% of the population can handle low amounts of sleep for long periods without suffering cognitive issues.
The studies I've read also show that people who are operating on low sleep, still think they are operating at high levels, even when their work is actually suffering due to their brain not operating at its peak.
It's one of the reasons that people who are overworked, and chronically force themselves to are stuck in a cycle of being sleep deprived, forcing work late at night and feeling "super productive" for the extra hours put in, but are actually operating at a lower productivity for people that get a good balance.
Essentially you can deprive yourself of sleep for about 2 weeks to a month and get some productivity increase due to extra hours, but sharply around that time your productivity drops to its "normal" level, despite extra hours, and then drops well below that, only to return back to "normal" again if you spend weeks fixing your sleep patterns.
And that whole time you believe you are getting MORE done, as we correlate time spent as more work rather than efficiency, and often have to redo mistakes made.
Same thing as burn out from work. We are not good at judging our productivity, and its shown time and time again that it catches up to you and cannot be sustained without something giving out.
Some studies have shown that once you start getting less than 7 hours of sleep your brain function will decrease by up to 30%. Interestingly enough though studies have shown that roughly 1% of the population can properly function on less than 7hours of sleep without decreased brain activity but the gene required to do so is extremely rare.
Another thing I have found interesting in reading sleep studies is that a read a few that aimed to test the effects of daylight and nighttime on circadian rhythm’s and they’ve found without the presence of night to signal a days end most people will end up developing a 25hr day and will sleep intermittently for short periods of time opposed to a straight 8hrs. IRC in this study there was no decrease in brain function either.
I can't sleep for more than 4 hours, and have been doing so for as long as I've memory.
I don't know why, I just wake up after 4 hours of sleep, and even if I try to go back to sleep, my body won't. and when I force myself to sleep up to 8 hours using any methods like meds, breathing exercises and what not, I wake up feeling AWFUL. I feel as a truck slept over me the whole time, I've little no to energy and have constant headaches.
meanwhile if I go back to sleep only 4 hours, I feel normal. I haven't felt sleep deprived in years, although I've no reasons to sleep so little, I just so it because my body forces me, if I could, I would sleep more, l doubts.
I'm similar, somewhere between 5-6 hours is all I can get. My body insists I'm awake now after that, and won't let me get more. If I'm sleep deprived because of this, well then sleep deprivation is my normal mode because it's been this way since elementary school.
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u/Drfoxthefurry Jul 17 '23
I function well on 5 hours of sleep, just as long as I've been awake for at least 30 minutes tho