No Sleep! No Bed!

[Taco-Calamitous]

Last night, I was out until about 3 AM. I got home at about 3:15, and stayed up for an additional hour, until a little after 4, then went to bed. This morning, I got a call. I was still half asleep as I answered. "Hello...?" "Hey Tom, do you want to work today?" "...sure?" "Okay, come in as soon as you can." I'm thinking to myself, "What time is it?" My alarm clock-which is a few minutes fast-reads exactly 7 AM. I got to work at 7:30, and got off just now. It wasn't too bad.

There was another time, however, where I had to work a 9 hour shift starting at 5 AM at Jackson's-pumping people's gas-and I was going to a concert the night before, guaranteeing me that I wouldn't be home until midnight at the earliest. I tried to get the day off, to no avail. My boss was like "You're young; you can handle it." That day was like the worst day ever, particularly since I only slept like an hour all night. I felt like absolute crap all day. Not just tired, but sickly and weak, because I didn't get any sleep.

How do you handle no sleep? How many hours do you generally require to properly function? (I generally require at least 6 and a half without feeling totally crappy, and I prefer like 9 or 10, heh.) What was the earliest work shift you've ever worked? (Mine was that 5 AM shift.) Didja like it? (No, I did not.) Is sleep the best thing ever? (Probably not quite, but close...) Anyhoo...

Wuv, Yer Mom

[RamesesII]

My body is used to little sleep i can sleep for 2 to 3 hours and wake up perfectly fine and be as chirpy as for the day until the afternoon and then it hits haha. So i can get as little as 3 hours and be fine and sometimes if i sleep to long i wake up over tired and lethargic so my sleep has to be quite exact i cant sleep long but i cant sleep too little.
I have gone to work the next day after a big night out when i was a private gardener and my boss used to work on the weekends he would ring up at 7 in the morning and say 'Hey can you work today' and i would be like 'No piss off' and he would be like 'I will pay you double time all day' and i would be like 'Hell yeah i will be there' it only happened a few times most of the time my weekend work was planned so i didn't go out the night before.

[Unknown Entity]

I need sleep, but I just don't get any. I usually get about five hours - on a good night, eight or nine. I tend to either get playful when tired to the point I piss people off, or I get very grumpy.

It was yesterday I went to bed at 2am. My friend came around and didn't leave until 11pm, and I had to finish an assignment. So I worked on that for two and a bit hours before doing the washing up and going to bed. I then woke up at 5am to get a drink, and couldn't go back to sleep. I was tempted to get on MSN and say hi to everyone still awake or in another part of the world, but thought against it because my typing would wake my mum up. So... went back to bed, tried and tried to go to sleep, and next thing I know my phone alarm is buzzing somewhere under my duvet. I'd set it for 7:10am. I hit snooze twice, but didn't really sleep any extra.

Once, when we were on holiday at a campsite, we got back from the club house at 5am. The entire campsite which pitch black - bob knows how we made it back to the caravan, the majority of us being drunk. It was our last evening, and the people who work there wanted the keys back at 9am sharp the next day. THEN we had to drive home, which is like... a four or five hour drive. So we had four hours to get some sleep, sober up, clean up the caravan, pack our stuff and get the keys in before 9am. I don't think we did it on time, but I know we we're driving home just before 10am.

If I knew I hadn't got enough sleep, and my boss rang me up on the weekend to ask if I wanted work, he'd get an earfull of abuse until I heard the words TRIPLE pay. Then I'd be happy, but then think I was dreaming and not turn up at all. =/

[MILK]

umm its rather weird for me and you can call me a lier but this is how it goes:
Less then Five im perfectly chirpy and can go throughout the day fine granted i sleep normal the next night
More then five im really grumpy unless its 9 then thats about the perfect for brain power
A minute more then 9 im lazy and lethargic and will tell you to F off

[Shan'do Spike]

I, uh, just kind of got used to 5-6 hours of sleep a night. It really sucked for about a month, but after that I got completely used to it.

As for when you're not used to it: caffeine and willpower is basically how I had to get through it. Also, the last poster is somewhat correct: below a certain amount of sleep, adrenaline will start pumping and keep you awake for a while (until you crash, of course). Between that and a full night's sleep, you'll probably be very tired.

[IceColdPillow]

Well,I need 6-8 hours but the last 3 weeks I been getting a few hours of sleep, but I've went for days without sleep, I'm not sure if its insomnia or what, but it's terrible. I have a summer job doing part time construction and another one doing bell hop at a resort and I just eat alot and drink alot to stay awake and load up on caffeine and coffee :/. But all work and no sleep is going to kill me, I'm way too young for this haha.

[Taco-Calamitous]

Kevin: Yeah, I can function pretty much normally on any level of sleep that isn't like less than an hour (actually, I've never really tried to function on less than an hour of sleep before, I don't think... or at least not resting.) It is bad for you to not get the proper amount of sleep, however. I can't site the specific studies, but I have heard that lack of sleep over the years shortens your lifespan.

Regardless, I don't give a damn. I'm tired. I don't enjoy being tired very much; I enjoy the sleep. And being lazy. I am lazy. I wouldn't like getting 5 to 6 hours every night, and would probably try to find some way around it (like going to bed earlier.) Anyhoo...

Wuv, Yer Mom

[loaf]

My body has gotten used to not sleeping over 4 hours for the past 5 years. I work at 6am a lot, I usually go to bed at around 2am, get little sleep, go to work, sleep in the afternoon. It's no big.

[Furore]

I tend to work from around 5pm to the morning most days so I don't get too much sleep. And yeah, I just got a text message myself this morning asking me to work an extra couple of shifts. Good money, but DAMN.

As for how much sleep I need, a few hours every few days is good, but sometimes I can't manage that and then I start looking somewhat zombified.
Kind of like now actually...

[Lavos]

If I dont get any sleep (like I did tonight) I will be fine over 3 days. If I wake up in the middle of the night (before 4) I'm wide awake. Between 5-7, meh....not bad. 8-12.....I am extreamly tired. If I sleep in past one.....I am not getting out of bed unless for food and bodily functions.

Once I had tons o stuff all jam packed (school, drivers ed, tons of homework, daily life just after we got a dog) and got I think a full hour of sleep over 4 days. Worst....week....ever.

[Clint]

If I get literally no sleep in a night, I'll be very sickly and weak the next day, and once I finally do sleep, I'll stay asleep for at least sixteen hours, which is the reason why I need at least some sleep every single night. It doesn't really matter how much sleep I get, just so long that it's five hours or over.

I used to work with my dad on his delivery route when he was a bread man. I'd have to go to sleep at around five or six at night, in order to wake up at midnight, in order to get to Philadelphia by one in the morning. This went on nearly every single weekend for two years until he retired (thankfully.) If I couldn't get to sleep at five or six, I'd have to load myself up with caffeine all day in order for me to get out of my own way. I only did it on weekends, but my dad did it six days a week for thirty years. I have no idea how he did it. I would never have made it that long.

[SOLDIER #819]

If I listened right, a lot (LOT LOT) of how you sleep has to do with your circadian rhythms. If you pull an all-nighter, you're going to feel really tired up until around early morning, where you'll probably start feeling a lot better. Then when evening/night hits the drowsiness will come back. Because of this, a lot of people just can't sleep past a certain period no matter how little sleep they've gotten.

I like my 8 hours though! If I sleep for 7 I won't feel very good. Less than that and I'll probably feel like crap throughout the day (relative to 8 hours). Sleep is great, I wish I could get more of it at the proper time. When I get less sleep my day just passes me by and then I feel even crappier.

Nothing like getting up early in the morning with a good 8 hours and having a nice breakfast.

[Azuteor]

I have heard that lack of sleep over the years shortens your lifespan.

I guess this is goodbye!

My sleeping pattern is rather sporadic. I get about 8 to 10 hours of sleeping during the summer and 4-7 hours during school depending on how much homework I have.

If I get less than my usual hours of sleep by sleeping late or waking up abruptly by a person, I will be very cranky and quiet.

Edit: Sleep is the best thing ever!

[Bleachfangirl]

Sleeping is probably my favorite extreme sport. No, hands-down, it's my favorite sport.

I get about six to seven hours during the school year, and that works just great for me. Any more than that doesn't do anything to me, but any less and by ten in the morning, I'm ready to bash someone with a stick. If I don't get enough sleep, I'm at my worst at around ten, then, as the day warms up, I get a little nicer.

During summer, I sleep at random times during the day, and wake up at random times too. If you add all the hours up though, I'd say I get anywhere from eight to eleven hours of sleep. There's a lot more napping going on during the summer, so I usually split those hours into halves. =P

[Dimi]

I try to get between 6-8 hours of sleep every night. For me to be fully awake and function properly, I would need 6 hours at the least. If I get any less than that, then don't ****ing irritate me. I'm one cranky asshole. Then again, I don't like being woken up when I'm sleeping.

It does feel nice whenever I do get the chance to get 8-9 hours of sleep though. Unfortunately, it rarely happens. But once it does....dude, I feel awesome.

[Dr_Flea]

ummm i run off 4-5 hours generally!!

I get home at 11 pm stay up till 4 -5am then get up at 9 leave for work at 10 and start at 11am!!

If im not working im generally asleep for a good 8 hours any more and im tierd and lathargic!

~Dr_Flea~

[Lavos]

wow.

I pulled an all nighter (above) and... the next day I passed out around 6 PM. Literally. I was playing games (FF VII, go figure!) and I just passed out. Woke up today at 2. I was like, holy crap. I was fine till bout that time, but it was still weird.

[Sean]

I burnt myself out on functioning on 3-4 hours of sleep a long, long time ago.

When I was in high school I was always up til 1AM or later, every night, because of television shows I wanted to see, or just an inability to turn my brain off. Every morning I was up at 6:00 for school.

When I got a "real" job after high school this pattern continued, and got worse when I began working 40-50 hours a week, as well as a 12 credit hour class load AND somehow raiding 3 nights a week from 8 til midnight in WoW for a good 6 months. Every Sunday I had to be up at 3AM to be at work at 4AM, and every Saturday I left work at 9:00PM, came home and raided til midnight, and slept.....

A couple years ago I burnt out on that, and, if I have a day off, I sleep for 9-12 hours at a time, depending, if I don't have the next day off, I take a bunch of Advil PM to get to sleep pre midnight.

My "days" never start until noon, though. My class schedule, my job, everything is always noon or later. I'm not a morning person.

[Fluffy]

Once in a while I'll get 8+ hours of sleep. Most of the time, it's not more than 6.

I can function pretty normally with a minimum of 2-3 hours of sleep, though. With 2 I won't feel great, but with 3, I'll feel as if I slept normally. I do get sleepy a little earlier, though. Somewhere around 11, I'll start to get sleepy. Normally, this starts at around 1.

I once, during summer school some years ago, went a whole month on 3 hours of sleep every night. I started to feel the effects of this towards the end of that month. I started falling asleep in class and drooling on my desk... something I had never in my life done. I knew I was at my limit, but luckily, that was the last days of summer school.

I do admit that at that time, I was running off of Mountain Dew. I no longer drink that kind of stuff now, though. Soda, I mean. Or any caffeinated drinks in general. Only once in a long while.

[Xanatos]

No sleep you say. I'm used to that since high school. My body needs 4 or 5 hours of sleep and after that I'm good to go. I say 4 or 5 but I often sleep only 3 hours. That doesn't bother me at all. Yea sure I sometimes sleep on college but it's not like I listen to professors. Well it seems we all need some good sleep but I just don't have time for it. Life is short I must use every precious time I got.

[winterborn86]

I love my sleep, but having a newborn baby I don't get much anymore, I'm getting more and more tired everyday, Pep pills and lots of red bull is starting to become more and more appealing to me.

[Chez Daja]

I need to sleep. If I don't, I get headaches and I feel like I need to throw up. That said, I probably get an hour or two more than I should because I'm not working right now. The other day, I slept for 12 hours. Most nights, its about 9 or 10.

It's not that I get tired easily, it's just that sometimes I just have nothing else to do so I'll go to bed an hour earlier or sleep in an extra hour.

[Fate]

I like sleeping... a lot... but still, I manage to get by just fine without. My parents make me go to sleep at 10:00 P.M., but I don't even sleep until about 3:00 A.M., yet they never know that. And even then, I don't feel that sleepy. But I whenever I close my eyes, it just take about ten minutes of silence before I do fall asleep. I usually wake up at about 9:00 A.M. or 10:00 A.M., which is pretty early to me during the summer now. And I remember one time where I was awake for 72 hours straight without sleeping. I think I slept pretty well the fourth day!

[Govinda]

It depends on whether I have to function, or to actually perform. I can get home from a night out at 4am and be awake at 8am to get to work for 9.30pm pretty easily. I won't look healthy, but I'll do my job and get through the day. The same goes for classes, but if it's an important day ahead or one I want to be sentient for, I like a good snooze.

I'm very good at getting up late though. I can have myself fully dressed and ready to go in four minutes. This has been tested and proven many times, most recently when I woke up at 8.43am for a 9am exam. I live 20 minute's walk from the campus. **** knows how, but I sat down in the exam hall just as the guy called for us to turn over our papers. Life would be easier if there wasn't a giant hill between my house and campus, but with a lot of weird smells, I made it.

[Maridia]

Sleep is actually one of the things I can do without. The problem is I just love it too much. From about 13-16 I used to get 3-5 hours every night aside from weekends. Alot of people get bitchy without it but I'm usually fine. If I don't have any food I get testy but sleep isn't a big deal. There have been plenty of times I'd get 3 and function in a full day of work. If I do get 2 hours or less I am out of it. Not angry just spaced out. I only did no sleep once when I was 15 with work and that wasn't something I want to try again.

[Meier Link]

I used to be a power napper, 15 minutes here and there then an hour over night. I was working 2 jobs and going to school at the time. I am suprised at how well I could function doing so also. This went on for about 3 years.

After that I got into the routine of about 3-4 hours per night. I am fine to function off of this and have been this way for over 5 years. I don't sleep "well" by any means so by chance if I do get a good nights sleep or over sleep I wake up in a bitchy mood.

Of course my daily routine requires the first thing I do is go out and smoke a cigerette. i advise not to get in my way before the first smoke of the day. I am a SoB before I get that first fix of the day; after that I am good to go.

[Dodie16]

How do you handle no sleep? How many hours do you generally require to properly function? (I generally require at least 6 and a half without feeling totally crappy, and I prefer like 9 or 10, heh.) What was the earliest work shift you've ever worked? (Mine was that 5 AM shift.) Didja like it? (No, I did not.) Is sleep the best thing ever? (Probably not quite, but close...)

I am one of those people that if they don't get enough sleep, then they are not pleasant to be around. So, I guess I don't handle lack of sleep very well. I need my beauty rest. If I take a little nap during the day, then I can function just fine.

I can usually feel pretty good after 6 hours of complete slumber. However, any less than that, then I just feel like crap. I do prefer to get 8 hours, but sometimes, it just doesn't happen. I've noticed that as I have gotten older, I don't really require as much sleep as I used to get. I guess that's the wonder of aging.

Earliest work shift I have ever done was the breakfast shift on weekends. I had to be at the restaurant at 6:00 and get the store ready to go for the customers who are insane enough to want to eat that early in the morning. I hated working breakfast. Thank God I don't do that shift anymore.

Is sleep the best thing ever? I do enjoy it a lot, but there are plenty of other things in the world that are far better.

[DragonHeart]

5-6 hours is ideal for me. Any less and I'll be quite grumpy (especially since I recently gave up coffee, crazy I know), any more and I'll be tired from too much sleep. Every once in a great while if I have a sleep deficit or something I will sleep for 8-9 hours.

The earliest shift I've had to work is the 7a.m. opening. I am not a morning person so it's always awful, particularly since I usually close the night before. I'm lucky to get 4 hours of sleep on those nights. Thankfully I don't get stuck with those very often.

Lately I've adopted a much earlier schedule though. I'm falling asleep around 10-11p.m. depending on what time I'm out of work and getting up around 5 or 6. Used to go to bed around 2a.m. then get up for 8ish. Strange but useful, I suppose.

~DragonHeart~

[gothdra]

hehe Im a true night raven I can stay up all night until early morning.
During that time, I either read, play games, listen to music, go out for a walk( everything is so silent and peaceful at night) or I watch a movie

ahh nothing can beat the enchanting night

[celebrity.skin]

I never used to be able to sleep in past a certain time of day when I was going to school. At either 6-7AM, I'd be up and at 'em. Now, especially now that I'm done with school, I love sleeping. I could sleep all day! I love taking nanna naps, I think they're fantastic.

Most days I get about six hours sleep. My boyfriend never goes to bed until like 3 in the morning because he's a spaz, so I try to stay up until about midnight or so with him to chat. When I work with early starts, I'd always buy a can of Red Bull (which, admittedly, I do love), but I've weaned myself off them lately in an attempt to be healthier (also because I get really paranoid about spending money/the effect on my teeth it could have).

One time I stayed up for two days straight, surviving off a couple of Red Bulls and about, oh, six No-Doz. It was my first time taking them ever, and I hadn't eaten in hours, and the effect was quite horrible. I do believe I dry-reached alot and was shaking from how much caffeine I'd had.