What Happens to the Body on No Sleep
I&#x27;ve suffered from insomnia most of my teen and adult life (I am 37). I sometimes go up to 3 days without sleep (thus 2 nights, ~60 hours total; &#x27;record&#x27; just shy of 80 hours), then sleep for ~12 hours. I usually work almost the <i>entire</i> time.<p>My &quot;default&quot; day seems to last 25~30 hours, give or take, which means that naturally there are more like 6 &#x27;days&#x27; per week for me. <i>(&#x27;days&#x27; roughly defined as periods of wake time &gt;12h between sleep times &gt;6 hours)</i> Sometimes, a &#x27;night&#x27; just skips, well beyond 30 hours into the 40&#x27;s or more — a <i>no show</i>, literally — and I simply go on for that time...<p>But knowing this, and being a workhorse in permanent training — <i>I made a point in my early 20&#x27;s to train myself to become able to work for 12~16 hours a day if I want to, because it seemed like a skill in demand</i> — I&#x27;ve largely accustomed myself to my weird body rythms. It&#x27;s <i>OK</i>. Not that I can do a marathon in the last 20 hours, but I can function intellectually, emotionally and socially normally &#x27;enough&#x27; that people don&#x27;t notice unless I tell them — <i>goes like: “btw, sorry if I&#x27;m a little slow, I haven&#x27;t slept in 40 hours...” “WHAAAT!?... couldn&#x27;t tell, but please don&#x27;t die right now!”</i><p>The best judge is quality of work, right? Well, on the next day after a good <i>night&#x27;s</i> sleep, when I look back at it, I&#x27;m often amazed actually at the level of detail and attention, the elegance sometimes (think code, writing, making stuff&#x2F;systems). Productivity is admittedly not great due to numerous breaks (coffee, eating helps a lot, just strolling for 10-15 minutes too), but not bad at all. &#x27;Good&#x27; or &#x27;deep&#x27; is more important to me than &#x27;fast&#x27; anyway, so I probably geared for that along the years.<p>I know all the risks of acute and chronic sleep deprivation, biological, psychological, I know. It&#x27;s just surprisingly easy for me, and my body &#x2F; thought just won&#x27;t shut down anyway.<p>I know I may die young — actually at any time whenever I&#x27;m beyond 40 hours awake... which may happen 10-20 times per year easily. Sometimes twice in a row (2 nights &#x2F; 7 days). Nonetheless... it&#x27;s proved impossible for me, for now, to just shut down. I admire people who can just go to bed and fall asleep &#x27;on demand&#x27;. <i>What is this sorcery?! Why can&#x27;t I?</i><p>I feel like I have unlocked the &#x27;intelligence switch&#x27; quite early in my life (not 100% but well enough), and recently around 34 I unlocked the &#x27;happiness switch&#x27; (took two decades but I basically &#x27;solved&#x27; mental states and happiness for myself, I hope others too when I write this blog&#x2F;book). I just hope the &#x27;sleep switch&#x27; actually exists, and isn&#x27;t 20 more years down the road for me.<p>I&#x27;ll say this: this condition is much harder from a social &#x2F; career standpoint than from a physical one. It&#x27;s easy on my body, but it&#x27;s been incredibly hard and frustrating for my mind and heart to be out of sync with civilization for as long as I can remember. I mostly live in sync with NA, from Europe... <i>(would that help a remote position? haha)</i><p>I really don&#x27;t know what to think of it, I just cope basically, and make the best out of it.