If it looks like someone is only going to get X amount of sleep one
night, for what values of X does it become more beneficial to stay up
all night versus going to sleep.

Possible meanings of ?more beneficial? are:

Maximal alertness the following day
Maximal energy the following day.
Maximal concentration the following day.


I?ve noticed that if I stay up all night at some point the next day I
tend to get a ?second wind? that carries me through the day?a wind
that will not occur if I go to sleep even for a short amount of time
the night before.

If age is a factor in your response, let?s aim for 22.

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Request for Question Clarification by omnivorous-ga on 18 Feb 2004 08:41 PST

Dejas --

Extensive studies of the impact of sleep have been done by the FAA on
pilots.  They show that even small amounts of rest (40 minutes) have a
highly dramatic impact on error rates and effectiveness.  My question
is: do you treat these as relevant in answering your question?

The studies are referenced here:
http://human-factors.arc.nasa.gov/zteam/fcp/FCP.pubs.html

The most-significant shows that crew members with rest periods fell
asleep so quickly that they would have been considered
"pathologically" sleepy in test conditions.  And that the error rates
of no-rest groups with significantly higher -- enough higher to be
considered a safety danger.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

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Clarification of Question by dejas-ga on 23 Feb 2004 01:52 PST

what do you mean by error rates and effectiveness?  Also, it seems all
the posts are contradictory...

Hello Dejas,

After taking a second to consider your question, the answer became apparent.

It is scientifically proven (by loughborough university) that any more
than 20 mintes sleep, is infact beneficial to none.  However, I am a
great believer (from my own experiences and of others) that the 4 hour
block claim is more appropriate.

The average body cycle works in 4 hour segmonts, therefore sleeping
for 4 hours exactly would be better than sleeping for 7 hours (becuase
the cody hasn't finished the second 4 hour cycle).  So 8 Hours would
be better than 10 or 11 hours.  So really, unless you can get yourself
4 hours sleep, don't bother.  You may try a power nap (for 20 mins)
which will provide you with additional alterntness and conenctration
for another 1 hour.  Also, you may be interested in owing that
ctaching a sleep in your nornmal day will give the the equivelant of
two times that amount at night.  So a 4 hour nap in the day time will
give you the same recovery as an 8 hour sleep.  This is becuase when
our are awake, the previosly mentioned 4 hour cycle, can be completed
in 2 hours becuase yor body and systems are runnig much faster (not
hybernating).

Hope this helps.

Tuneman?©®

I have not observed the 4 hour block nor 2 hour block in myself, so
perhaps dejas and I are atypical, pilots are atypical or the studies
were flawed. For me the more sleep the better up to about 9 hours,
independent of the length of the blocks. If I get 6 or 7 hours sleep,
I hardly miss it, but the second day goes poorly, reguardless of the
amount of sleep the second night. Now that I'm old = 71, I find radom
naps, typically an hour, during the day, make up for a 6 or 7 hours at
night. My arheritus typically causes me to regret sleaping more than 7
hours. but I did last night and still wanted two naps already today.
When I was younger I rarely took naps during the day. My wife has not
observed the 4 hour or 2 hour blocks either. My guess is hardly two
humans are alike and other factors confuse attempts to study sleep
scientifically.  Neil