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Science

Got Sleep? 74

Posted by michael from the no-paid-overtime dept.
Whispers_in_the_dark writes "ABC News is running a story about how the U.S. Military is striving to find methods to allow soldiers to skip sleep without the ill effects associated with that sort of activity. Probably would have useful applications for computer folk too..."
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Got Sleep? More

Got Sleep?

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  • Good old caffeine perhaps ? Lets hope they don't go back testing Speed on the soldiers like in WWII.
    --
    RedHat 7.3 apt repository [dyndns.org]
  • Various armies have messed about with amphetamine sulphate and benzedrine before - but I guess speed psychosis wouldn't do much for the number of friendly fire incidents ...

    Chris

  • Napcaps (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 ) <Cyno01@hotmail.com> on Thursday December 19, 2002 @09:30AM (#4922147) Homepage
    When is someone gonna get around to inventing good old Napcaps from sci-fi. AFAIK REM sleep, when the brain switches to alpha waves is the most benificil, so a device that stimulates alpha waves would offer more value out of less sleep.
  • I cant wait for them to figure this out and make a commercial version for the public... ...my EQ character would ROCK if I could play for a week without sleep! ;)
  • Don't allowing people to dream.
  • Sure, they make you jittery, paranoid, twitchy and aggressive, but you can't argue with the field tests in WWII.
    • Bomber pilots in particular work incredibly long hours to be active just a few minutes here and there -- those trans-polar missions over Afghanistan to Diego Garcia for example.

      Re the Gulf War [pbs.org].

      I think the military has been careful to play it down, but drug use is a significant factor on a wink-wink basis. The public doesn't want to think too hard about sleep -starved pilots flying planes that might be nuclear-armed.
  • And the results were NOT positive. Drove 'em crazy, it did. But, they were good soldiers.

  • Without drugs better? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by twilight30 ( 84644 ) on Thursday December 19, 2002 @10:19AM (#4922365) Homepage
    Methods already exist, without drugs.
    Note that it's not without sleep altogether -- anyone see Jacob's Ladder [imdb.com]? Of course, they don't mention what a cursory search would turn up:

    Polyphasic sleep [google.com]
    The 'Uberman Sleep Schedule' [google.com]

    Apparently Buckminster Fuller and Thomas Jefferson practiced variants of this, getting as little as three to four hours per 24-hour period.

  • Cool, but mostly useless? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Thursday December 19, 2002 @10:39AM (#4922490) Homepage
    Probably would have useful applications for computer folk too...

    Yeah, it would be good for soldier folk and computer folk. Too bad it's useless to everyone else.

    -

  • Random thoughts... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RyoSaeba ( 627522 ) on Thursday December 19, 2002 @10:43AM (#4922519) Journal
    ...from my tired ('cause of inactivity) brain:
    • doesn't the body itself need to rest sometimes ?
    • what about the mind ? isn't sleep first a period of imagination & brainstorming, then something to relax the mind too ? could they 'emulate' that using drugs / TRM / you name it ?
    • isn't the very act of getting ready to sleep something enjoyable ? lie in bed, read some, then Zz. Of course for military & such it's not the same, but 'ordinary' people may just like that too much to go without sleep. And it makes for a nice cut in the day, too !
    • use DNA techniques to alter genes, sure, just need to devise a way to change all (relevant) cells of an adult, or else wait for the next generation
    • what about muscular tiredness ? suppose your drug / medicine / TRM makes you able to avoid sleeping, could you still do active like crazy for many many hours without needing to pause ?

    just my 2 cents of euro...
    *goes back to sleep*
    • I seem to recall some talk about dream sleep being the method by which short term memory is moved into long-term memory (sort of like doing a nightly backup).

      What good is 8 more hours a day, if you forget all the moments of your life?

  • It looks like this might actually work according to these articles:

    1. Sleep Less, Live Longer [slashdot.org]
    2. Sleep Deprivation Increases Brain Activity

    So if our troops want to live longer and think better, they need to stop sleeping right now. If the sounds of enemy gunfire on the battlefields doesn't keep them awake, I'm not too sure how effective these drugs will be, though...

    Maybe they should read this little bit [everything2.com] about how to stay awake at work and hope for the best.

  • Pretend this works well, for a moment... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Thursday December 19, 2002 @10:51AM (#4922594) Homepage Journal
    Do we really want it to?
    Do you really want another 8 hours of your life to become that available?
    Who gets that time, you or your employer?

    For arguement, let's pretend for a moment that the sleep you miss is taken directly off of your lifetime. Use a drug and skip sleep for a year, take 1/3 year off of your life.

    Is your employer in a position to demand that you shorten your life in order to meet a schedule?
    What's appropriate compensation?

    I might not mind not needing to sleep, if the time gained were mine. But somehow I don't think things would work out that way.
    • Considering that this is intended for military use, I imagine that there would be a desire to stay awake, even if it does take a little time off your life. Since the alternative might just be dying right then and there.
      I agree that in the civilian sector it might not be such a great thing. I actually enjoy sleeping, sure there are times I fight it for one reason or another, but on the whole, I like the feeling of lying down and slowly drifting off. But, were I a soldier, hiding in a foxhole in the middle of a war zone, you sure as hell can bet that I would be doing everything I could to keep my eyes open.

      • I absolutely agree. If I were in a foxhole, I'd want this.

        The problem would be keeping it out of the civil sector. As a society, we have a hard time, "Just saying No!"
        • I absolutely agree. If I were in a foxhole, I'd want this.

          Well, if you're in a foxhole, you won't need it. Combat is way too stressful for people to just suddenly fall asleep. The real problem on the battlefield is the prolonged stress which causes lapses in judgement and concentration.

          The other angle here you should think about is that most people in the military aren't 100% combat oriented. Like civilian life, the military needs a LOT of services that are not directly combat related in order to function. Examples: transportation (air, land, and sea), food/water supply, quartermastering. Those are the people who really feel the staff shortages and these are the people they'll drug first in order to get more work per day out of a single person. I personally feel sorry for the poor bastard who is forced to go on a sleepless regimen with the help of drugs just to cover a personnel shortage.

          Make no mistake about it: this isn't just designed to give us a combat edge; it's designed to help keep the military functional and efficient in the presence of limited funding. But let's not talk about all the medical bills we as taxpayers are going to be paying to compensate the individuals we brain damage in the name of efficiency.

          Criminy people.. start reading between the lines, will ya?!
  • In the Finnish Army, if one reports to the base hospital and complains about being tired, they hand out a bag of pills which have 100mg of caffeine each. Came out pretty handy during watch duty.

    Sure, caffeine does make it harder to fall asleep but it certainly doesn't make me any more alert. :)

    • This doesn't make any sense to me -- why not just DRINK COFFEE, like the rest of the military?

      I never drank coffee until I joined the Army, and after that I found out why everyone in the military (that I know) regularly drinks coffee -- because the peace-time military ain't exactly exciting. I've rarely heard of anyone overdosing on coffee (I heard on the radio yesterday a woman OD'd on coffee and died after drinking over 400 cups in a day, but that's extreme), and I've never heard of anyone for whom coffee did not wake them up.

      The only disadvantage on watch duty is you have to take a piss more often, but isn't that worth avoiding drug side-effects? I have taken caffeine pills before, and they work, but there are side-effects compared to just drinking coffee.
      • As a warning, caffeine does have it's drawbacks: you get withdrawel symptoms. If you stop drinking coffee after heavy usage over time, you can get headaches.

  • So... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 9Numbernine9 ( 633974 )
    ... Is anybody else as worried about an approaching time when we don't need those 8 hours of sleep a night, and can just pop a refreshing pill instead? True, it would be nice to have those extra 8 hours a day for other stuff, but it's going to make for quite a change in society if we're suddenly awake all the time! I'm imaging 16 hour work days...
  • ... as well as read more articles [modafinil.org] about it.

  • They might consider ProVigil (Score:3, Informative)

    by vudufixit ( 581911 ) on Thursday December 19, 2002 @12:24PM (#4923283)
    Here is a story on ProVigil, a new drug Cephalon is testing.

    http://www.you.com.au/news/1377.htm

    Its primary usage is to treat problems arising from a lack of sleep, or drowsiness, provided they arise from a clinical problem and/or the treatment prescribed for it. However, it can also potentially be used to maintain an alert state for a long time, without the jitteriness of caffeine, or drowsiness of plain ol' sleep deprivation.

    I wrote to them a while back, asking to try
    some, citing the desire to have a "really
    productive day."

    They wrote back promptly, essentially saying
    that such a usage would essentially be
    misusage of their product.

    • Re:They might consider ProVigil (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Be careful with Modafinil. It can induce mania or paranoia. I took it regularly for a month or so but stopped after the third time I went manic.

    • I take Provigil (Score:4, Informative)

      by jafuser ( 112236 ) on Thursday December 19, 2002 @07:42PM (#4926813)
      I take Provigil for EDS (Excessive Daytime Sleepyness), which it has been a remakable help for me. I haven't tried taking it at night or using it other than how it is perscribed, but if it can keep me awake through the afternoon without having to crawl under my desk and sleep, then I'd imagine it's pretty effective to avoid sleeping at night as well. The nice thing about Provigil is it doesn't seem to have a down side following the alertness.. It's just like you put off the drowsyness for a few hours, so I'm usually feeling at 7:00pm what I normally feel at about 2:00pm, not more tired (or in a sleep debt) as you'd expect with normal stimulants. The bad thing is the stuff is about $350 a bottle; over $10 per pill! But it's either take it and work full salary time at a nice office, or stop taking it and probably get fired for sleeping at work. =D
  • GIMMIE GIMMIE! I need it! I've been at work since last night, all through the wee hours listening to talk radio with Art Bell, and I'm getting the shakes here at 11:00 a.m. I'm still have to put in a full days work today and I'm starting to hallucinate!

    WTF, what is a cow doing in my cubicle?!

    Seriously, this would be a great benefit to use computer nerds/programmers/technicians!
  • While the article mentions research on humans who exist on little sleep and manage to function normally, they are also looking at the animal kingdom. I think this can only go so far, as the animals they are looking at are missing something humans have: consciousness. Your mind, your consciousness is a very delicate thing and messing around with something as basic as sleeping is a very dangerous thing.

    Psychologists and neurologists still aren't sure what happens during sleep, but sleep deprivation is generally very bad for people - which is why it's used as a torture. I've been trying to find the name of the man who set the record for going without sleep - he was a radio DJ who decided to set the record as a sponsored charity event. After about five days without sleep he ended up with a personality disorder.

    About two hours of delta wave 'deep sleep' and some more REM dream sleep seems to be necessary for people to stay sane and able to concentrate while they're awake. If you deprive rats of dream sleep for a couple of days (letting them have delta sleep as normal) then let them have uninterrupted sleep, they tend to 'catch up' with far more REM sleep than normal, which would generally indicate REM sleep is doing more than just playing pretty movies to our minds while we wait for it to get light outside.

    Whether you can knock a few hours off a 7-8 hour sleep schedule and take naps during the day and lead a normal life is one thing, stopping sleep for days or weeks at a time is quite another. Only very long term studies will be able to show whether people get side effects from whatever drug they come up with, so even if they come up with something for military use, it'll probably be best to avoid it if it becomes commercially available. It's all very well to think it's great because you can code all night, but really, do you want to take years off your life or damage your personality for a bit of short-term gain now?

    Paul
    • Recent scientific studies (
      • http://nswc.gateway.ge/v1n201/1/nssleeplern.htm l
      , for example) suggest that sleep is also essential to learning. Apparently, skills and information learned during the day are incorporated into the neural system during nightly sleep. Sleep deprivation over long periods would probably inhibit (to some degree) the ability to learn new informnation or skills :/

  • You mean I could become a railgun god in a reasonable amount of time? I mean, hey, I'd love to that extra 8 hours a day to practice with!

  • hmmmm... (Score:2, Funny)

    by mhandlon ( 464241 )
    A more recently developed stimulant, modafinil (sold under the name Provigil), was approved by the Federal Drug Administration in 1999 and has been shown to keep people awake and alert for two days straight.

    I wonder if I combine this with viagra and extacy if I could fuck for days and still feel good about doing it?
  • Nancy Kress wrote an interesting trilogy about a group of genetically engineered "sleepless" people. The first book was called "Beggars in Spain." She touched on some neat points like just how hard would it be to raise a baby that never fell asleep and how could you compete in school against people who could study all night long, every night.

    The existence of such a drug or genetic manipulation could create a major gap between the ones who have and the ones who have not. Not just a military gap, but educational and economic as well. Imagine a country where suddenly the workers can all work a double shift and still get paid minimum wage. You would double the size of your workforce without needing to train anyone. The workers would double their incomes. How could you compete against that?

    Is sleep an evolutionary dead end that would get swept away by the rise of a sleepless culture? Like they say, only the fittest survive.

  • Oh so usefull. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TheGeneration ( 228855 )
    Yes, that's right... as computer folk we don't deserve sleep, or time to ones self, or anything that resembles an enjoyable life.

    Makes sense.
  • In my experience, I've developed a reliable system for extended functional wakefulness. It requires chemical, physical, and environmental stimuli:
    (caffein + nicotine) + (physical activity of some kind - active mental activity) + (Hard driving music (Prodigy, APB, etc.))
    and strategically timed power naps of approximately 20 minutes duration each per 8 hours wakefulness whereby self-hypnosis is used to induce a very relaxed state (I like to call this the recharge period, and it's absolutely critical) which is also useful for combating the halucinations which become most annoying around the 4th day of extended wakefulness (reminding myself that I really DID NOT see a flock of pteradactyls flying by is also helpful) but after about 6 days productivity is pretty close to nil, which requires a hard sleep period of about 18-24 hours duration after which I feel quite refreshed and am ready for the next extended wakefulness period.
    • (caffein + nicotine) + (physical activity of some kind - active mental activity) + (Hard driving music (Prodigy, APB, etc.)) and strategically timed power naps of approximately 20 minutes duration each per 8 hours wakefulness whereby self-hypnosis is used to induce a very relaxed state (I like to call this the recharge period, and it's absolutely critical) which is also useful for combating the halucinations which become most annoying around the 4th day of extended wakefulness (reminding myself that I really DID NOT see a flock of pteradactyls flying by is also helpful) but after about 6 days productivity is pretty close to nil, which requires a hard sleep period of about 18-24 hours duration after which I feel quite refreshed and am ready for the next extended wakefulness period.

      Grammar?
      Did you write this post after the 6 days of 'productivity'? ;)

      -T

    • This is the human body we're talking about. Not everyone will react the same way to any reliable system. For me, my prescription of 10mg adderall doses works just fine and three of these pills can keep me up for days of coding (ignoring psychosis dangers). But for some people, 10mg or even 20mg is not enough. And sometimes, 10mg starts to lose its effect.

      Take into consideration the equilibrium effect. The whole reason these stimulants, or stimuli, stimulate the human body is the same reason why aerobic conditioning tires you out. These catalysts work because they are non-native to the body. But eventually the human body conditions itself so that the effects from these stimuli decrease in measure. Hence, the effects from coffee, amphetamines, running, swimming, smoking, etc. will decrease over time if consistantly applied in the same doses, again under the false assumption that the harmful side-effects like psychosis from amphetamines or stress fractures from running remain constant. I know there is research on this somewhere, but I also speak from experience.

      And then you have to consider the long term effect of sleep deprivation. I can tell you that by the end of a college semester, after drinking gallons of coffee and swallowing bottles of amphetamines, your mind starts to become irritable and irrational which some studies attribute to the lack of REM. There's a lot of other effects described here [qmc.com.au] and here [wa.gov]

      If any of you are getting ideas that the human body can adapt to sleep deprivation (in general) or that there exists a reliable method to stay awake (in general), you're wrong. And even if the body could adapt to sleep deprivation, it would only be effective for a limited amount of time. Could this time frame be cost effective with regard to the "wake-up drugs" and work scheduling? I'm sure this is a question that could be answered with linear programming and the predictive behaviors, although, I'm not sure as to the health risks involved. If the REAL problem is trying to become more productive, then I believe the solution lies not with sleep deprivation, but time management. Its not that the workers aren't working hard enough, its that they aren't being managed smart enough. If we managed things more like how a *nux kernel manages the process table and also imposed higher standards on the education of management, then I believe we could find far batter improvements in productivity. Of course, this is not the be-all-end-all list of improvements -- milege will vary.
  • A few years ago a researcher simply noticed that there are no animals which never sleep. Some use partial sleep, such as dolphins and ducks (ducks seem to sleep one half of the brain at a time -- they usually sleep with one eye open). Never having to sleep would obviously be a tremendous evolutionary advantage, yet no advanced animals do it.

    So probably sleep is due to a very simple requirement. The theory is that brains simply use more energy than the blood can deliver to them. Sleep is needed to store energy for the next day's use.

    When the brain starts running out of energy, those cells which run out of power start malfunctioning. That's why hallucinations, usually starting with flickers in the field of vision, are common (the periphery of the eye is wired to detect movement, so bad signals often get interpreted as motion, which the rest of the brain ascribes due to small things which ran out of sight before they could be examined in detail, thus the impression is of insects or spiders). Totally running out of energy is a bad thing, so the occasional death due to sleep deprivation is not surprising.

    Sugared caffeine seems like a reasonable way to stay awake longer, although a more precise mixture of nutrients would work better. However, sleep is necessary unless somehow a lot more nutrition can be delivered than now is.

    It does seem that advanced brains are doing some maintenance during sleep. As others have noted, the obvious example is that sleep has some effects on long-term memory -- although sleep does not force storage of all memories, such as trauma victims who won't remember details of an event when they next sleep.

  • Does anyone remember an episode of the X-Files base on this? Yeah, so of course in the show the soldiers go crazy and kill people or some-such. It's funny how much fictional content from books and films seems to be emulated by the U.S. military lately... X-Files, Orwell, The Axis of Evil, etc... And we even have our own Dr. Evil! [Osama bin Laden(TM)].
  • Amphetamines, Caffeine and Seratonin

    Don't know how they would distribute Seratonin though.

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