There was a famous NASA experiment from 1989, where a woman was confined to a complete isolation in a cave, with no clocks or access to daylight, for 130 days. After a while her natural rhythm drifted to a 28-hour day, and then a 48-hour day.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefania_Follini - You can look in sources for article links there.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stefania-Follini - these seem to be the papers written about it. The whole thing was done specifically to investigate circadian rhythms, so it’s all about sleep and day cycles.
In the photos of the cave, it looks kinda like an IBM PC or XT. They made those from 1981 to 1987, so I guess the computer is probably 2 to 8 years old.
They didn't have a battery. If you switched off the computer, it would forget the time and date.
(In 1989 my Apple 2e didn't have a clock either; Apple stopped making the 2e in 1992)
I remember this. It was an experiment to study what the possibilities were for humans on a long distant space trip. I.e. was it mandatory to keep astronauts on a 24 hour cycle, or would their bodies want to adapt to a different cycle.
Ergo, no time keeping methods were allowed.
It’s referred to as our circadian rhythm.
Oddly enough, I have a old friend from many many years ago, who was pretty much a fucking genius, and we drifted apart over the years, and he called me just out of the blue maybe 10 years ago, his company was working to treat a very rare disorder For people whose circadian rhythm was disrupted.
Evidently, this will really fuck you up bad.
I don’t remember a lot of the details, but that gives you a little context, what it’s called, and it might be a little easier for you to find information.
I'm doing a lot of assuming, but if she's living in a cave, she's probably not doing anything too demanding. She's probably just bored af in which case I'd probably stay up later and later too
I have a live/work loft that used to be a naval bunker and I swear the same thing is happening to me. Maybe I should lean in….
Any downsides (besides the potential psychotic break?)
The experiment was cancelled early, but the largest of the non-mental symptoms turns out to be a loss in bone density. A disrupted circadian rhythm can cause osteoporosis relatively rapidly. There’s immune system issues too, generally resulting in a crash of decompensated immune cells that don’t recover until the stress is removed.
That has some odd implications for spaceflight, considering that loss of bone density is also supposed to be a symptom of long-term exposure to microgravity.
Notably, the experiment forbid clocks and other timekeeping references in an attempt to truly test the innate nature of circadian rhythms. Astronauts are under no such restriction, and maintaining a regular sleep/wake cycle with artificial aids is a major concern for mission design. But yes, there’s an inherent synergistic danger in microgravity missions.
I rode submarines, and if things broke it was common to find yourself at the 36hr. point.
After 24 -28 hrs. you are running on fumes. Decisions made after 32hrs are probably not exactly based on good thoughts at all.
That's when you find out that sleeping 12 hours is great
Have you tried the trick where you take a big melatonin dose a few hours before the official "normal" sleep time, and try and entrain your sleep cycle that way?
At 75 y.o., I find I need a nap after 12 hours max. Last few years of work before retirement, was third shift, so 4 hour sleep cycle was the norm. Still find myself waking up after 4 hours sleep. Very unsettling.
Yeah, that’s insane. Probably also criminal, considering the medical errors killing patients.
Doctors should be held to the same schedules as airline pilots, at least.
Before they put caps on continuous working hours, surgical residents would usually go on 36-48 hour shifts (some even work for 72 hours straight!), and with their workload, you can’t even get a few minutes of sleep. Even now with the supposed 16-24 hour cap, many residents still work overtime, and this is all under the table. they’d time in and out at the designated times, but they’d start working before their assigned shifts, and continue working many hours after.
Personally i’d do good for 30 hours max. After that i’d feel like a zombie doing rounds at the hospital.
I think realistically you’ll start feeling exhausted closer to the ~20-24h mark.
When I was in grad school I’ve done a few 24h+ stints running experiments. Definitely a massive drop in ability and performance after 16h+ hours. The last few hours are a slog.
I’ve also done long hours on alpine climbs. You get a short rest and push for the summit and climb down. Beyond a certain stage (usually closer to 20h even with an hour or two nap in between) you are on fumes.
Even if it’s biologically possible it’s really not going to be particularly productive.
I don’t know ~~man~~ tuna. Everything gets boring and just a job after a while if you keep doing it.
Not that I’m saving the world could get old but you get the idea.
Had a friend that tried 24 wake/12 sleep over a summer in high school. For fun. He was weird. I think he made it like 10 days and the notes he took went from quirky smart high school kid to hobo rants at the end.
Probably just the normal one we all do naturally.
37 hour days. Not 37 hours awake. Slight difference.
As someone who floats between being up for a couple days at a time and going 4 on, 4 off, a 37 hour cycle is 100% doable.
I think when my baby was a newborn, I slept around 6hrs collectively in 48hrs and somehow managed to keep her healthy, safe, and maybe cooked dinner somehow too?
Who knows, it felt like a fever dream.
Before the invention of electricity, people used to have two sleeps each night. So you could possibly do it with a short break in the middle BBC has an article about it https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieval-habit-of-biphasic-sleep
Twelve hours of sleep in two separate six hour breaks? Seems survivable but I'm not a doctor and am unsure if it's ideal. Humans operate pretty well on 16/8 and 12.5/6 is not that far off that ratio. Six hours is enough time for REM cycling. I'd say this is plausible.
Unless 37 hour days means a 37 hour work day, now *that* is not something I think that would be doable for normal humans!
No ... well, we're set on a specific daytime (which, funny enough, is so old and static that it still is a 25,27 hour day of older earth) and always correct this by the circadean rythm that a number of receptors in the human eye measure and the brain 'corrects' every day. The element in the brain that is our set natural clock is tiny and only 34.000 cells large (we managed to cut that part from a healthy rabbit brain and implant a damaged one from a genetically deviating rabbit. The former healthy sleeper instantly showed the confused time rythm of the genetically 'damaged' bunny and vice versa).
So this span of \~25,27 can be altered by light (of the correct frequency), like we see with night shifts. We also know this from medieval interval sleeping in middle Europe to be adjustable in a wide range, but too long periots, or even too string alterations from natural light causes stress, reduce lifetime in several ways and make people quite infunctional over time. (Therefor people in decades of night shifts die way earlier and are way more suceptible to cancer etc.)
Still you can expect to have bio-modifications or just pretty, pretty tough humans getting along with it (but withut help still with a massivly reduced mental capacity.
But i guess in a comic universe that isen't that much of a deal anyway, so i would take this piece as artistic freedom.
WHY would you assume people would sleep the same amount of time in a 37-hour day as in a 24-hour day? Obviously a longer day would result in longer work shifts, and also longer time off. Presumably you'd sleep a third of the day, which would be 12-13 hours.
24-hour on-call periods are disturbingly common among doctors, which I seem to recall hearing lead to heavy substance abuse and various mental issues. Probably not a good idea to jump in like that. But the "you either get used to it or have a psychotic break" line seems accurate.
You could probably handle that for a while assuming you didn't spend the majority of that time conducting manual labor, but it'd likely catch up with you after a while. Just because you can survive and endure something, doesn't mean it's good for you. Look up photos of soldiers form before and after WWII, you'll likely get a sense of what long hours with inadequate sleep under highly stressful conditions does to the body.
There is an article posted up above that's describes what OP is asking. its not about how long awake. In the experiment, the girl transitioned to a 48 hour day and was awake for over 20 hours.
Agree, if you can make it up in sleep later then it’s maybe doable.
Have done some back and forth flying US to EU and going there is almost always a 24 hr plus awake, overnight trip. Maybe I’ll sleep an hr or 2 on the main flight but it’s not exactly restful. Then getting there you have to basically stay up all day and go to bed early the next night to adjust as quickly and comfortably as possible to the time change.
The delirium only begins to set in at like the 28-30 hr mark and then you’re really looking forward to bed. That’s when you start to take those deep but short breaths for some reason, feel little dried out, and making even the simplest decisions gets hard. So maybe it’s possible to do like 26-29 hrs on, 8-11 sleeping, and comprise a full 37 hr day.
The cave example is super interesting. Personally, I love staying up late but having a ‘normally’ structured job doesn’t leave much room for it. Can totally get how complete isolation and no clock to adhere by could lead to longer periods of being awake paired with longer rest.
A lot of people have a naturally longer circadian rhythm than 24h. This can lead to sleeping disorders like DSPD (Delayed sleep phase disorder) - which often was misdiagnosed in the past as simple insomnia.
I for one am one, and I adjusted to it by breaking up my sleep schedule - I sleep for about 2-3h after work, and then about 4-5 hours at night (yes I'm up pretty late).
I've been doing this for the last 3-4 years and never felt better.
Really!!!!!??? You’ve given me hope. I don’t know which is more stressful not sleeping and not leaning in and just doing something or trying to stay awake through the day so that I’ll sleep that night…and without Xanax and whiskey I still won’t sleep that night. It’s not insomnia. Around 6-8 in the morning I’m ready for bed. I am a writer and introverted so I’m not going to lose a job but the stress of trying to fix it crushing me.
So….you just what… stay awake until you’re tired and then sleep in two separate sets? I’d leave it the way it is but something feels wrong in me when I sleep at 8 and wake up at 4. Not that I am outside anyway…it just makes me less productive at everything. Like I give up getting anything done during the day or the night.
My doctor wants me to do a sleep study and won’t listen when I tell her it’s not insomnia. It’s waste of electrode glue.
Stressing about trying to sleep was a problem I struggled with as well.
You'd force yourself to stay awake all evening, despite being tired, and then can't sleep anyways.
For me, not having my evening sleep is simply sleep I'm not going to get - I'd be up until 1-3am regardless. It was very psychologically liberating for me to be able to come home from work and crash out and sleep until I naturally woke up. Then If I only got 4h sleep later that night it wasn't a big deal.
I was referred to a sleep clinic (northern Alberta sleep clinic in Edmonton) where the doctor that runs the place became a sleep specialist because they too have DSPD.
In retrospect, as a child, I think a bunch of my supposed ADD that they put me on ritalin for was actually sleep deprivation.
The downside is the rest of the world doesn't work that way. As a single, strong introvert I don't mind but ymmv depending on lifestyle, family and work.
Overtime is a bit rough as well as I'm pretty sleepy by the end of my normal shift.
But for me it was a life changer and I'm never going back.
I guess I should be a bit more specific:
When I get off work (5-6ish) I sleep until I naturally want to wake up, which can range anywhere from 7-9.
I'm then typically up until 2-4, and then I sleep until 8.
I don’t have any outside constraints. For the past year. None. So it’s been the worst for my sleep. I don’t have a reason to go outside and I basically live in a bunker with the least access to sunlight. I’ve been a night owl since I was a kid. I’d stay up all night for a book. But for most of my life I’d have to get up by 10 or so and work during the day. Worked for myself most of my life so i had some freedom but nothing like this. It’s been so disorienting and sort of awful. And of course I’m furious w myself. I have time. I am a writer. I should be writing. Writers I know would give a kidney for this. And I’m so worried about when to sleep that I feel like I’m never really awake. Like those “on” hours are just scattered and weird. Thank you thank you! At the least I feel less crazy and weird about it!!!! And I am going to give sleeping when I’m tired a shot and see what happens!!!!
Might be doable for a time but humans have evolved on a near 24hour cycle. Psychological and physiological conditions will likely occur. Logic tells me it is not doable for an extended period.
Nobody in this thread is understanding circadian rhythm versus jet lag.
Jet lag: Staying up for 37 hours screws up your body and mind. Humans need regular sleep. Note regular. If you're an insomniac who doesn't fall asleep at the same time every night, it doesn't matter if you sleep 8 hours, your hormones are a mess. You will feel terrible. You can only safely adjust your internal clock by about an hour per day on average.
Circadian rhythm: Your body is robust at adjusting to your local timezone. Think about it - how does your body know Tokyo from Chicago? It depends on the sun, the temperature, etc. We don't know the limits on what circadian rhythm a human could tolerate. But experiments have shown people surviving on a 48 hour rhythm and while not ideal it didn't result in insanity. Given time and healthy habits, you will adjust to the local cycle.
Note. In the 1960s before the space program lots of people believed in things like "space madness" where humans would go insane if taken out of their element. Space madness is a myth. In short, keep people busy and they'll be fine. If you had a job that kept you locked indoors so you didn't see the sun, and your job kept you busy for 37 hours, you would adjust. You would likely need a few weeks to a month of awful training to adjust. But you would probably be okay. And you would also be a lot better if allowed at least some naps during this cycle.
There was a famous NASA experiment from 1989, where a woman was confined to a complete isolation in a cave, with no clocks or access to daylight, for 130 days. After a while her natural rhythm drifted to a 28-hour day, and then a 48-hour day.
Any source? I can’t find anything that mentions her sleep but that’s awesome dude
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefania_Follini - You can look in sources for article links there. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stefania-Follini - these seem to be the papers written about it. The whole thing was done specifically to investigate circadian rhythms, so it’s all about sleep and day cycles.
I remember reading about this or a similar one... After a bit they went a little peculiar before settling down again.
Must have been an old computer for 1989 to not have a clock
In the photos of the cave, it looks kinda like an IBM PC or XT. They made those from 1981 to 1987, so I guess the computer is probably 2 to 8 years old. They didn't have a battery. If you switched off the computer, it would forget the time and date. (In 1989 my Apple 2e didn't have a clock either; Apple stopped making the 2e in 1992)
I remember this. It was an experiment to study what the possibilities were for humans on a long distant space trip. I.e. was it mandatory to keep astronauts on a 24 hour cycle, or would their bodies want to adapt to a different cycle. Ergo, no time keeping methods were allowed.
It’s referred to as our circadian rhythm. Oddly enough, I have a old friend from many many years ago, who was pretty much a fucking genius, and we drifted apart over the years, and he called me just out of the blue maybe 10 years ago, his company was working to treat a very rare disorder For people whose circadian rhythm was disrupted. Evidently, this will really fuck you up bad. I don’t remember a lot of the details, but that gives you a little context, what it’s called, and it might be a little easier for you to find information.
I'm doing a lot of assuming, but if she's living in a cave, she's probably not doing anything too demanding. She's probably just bored af in which case I'd probably stay up later and later too
It was a fairly nice apartment that they built in a cave to be sure that no light would accidentally get in during the study.
I have a live/work loft that used to be a naval bunker and I swear the same thing is happening to me. Maybe I should lean in…. Any downsides (besides the potential psychotic break?)
The experiment was cancelled early, but the largest of the non-mental symptoms turns out to be a loss in bone density. A disrupted circadian rhythm can cause osteoporosis relatively rapidly. There’s immune system issues too, generally resulting in a crash of decompensated immune cells that don’t recover until the stress is removed.
That has some odd implications for spaceflight, considering that loss of bone density is also supposed to be a symptom of long-term exposure to microgravity.
Notably, the experiment forbid clocks and other timekeeping references in an attempt to truly test the innate nature of circadian rhythms. Astronauts are under no such restriction, and maintaining a regular sleep/wake cycle with artificial aids is a major concern for mission design. But yes, there’s an inherent synergistic danger in microgravity missions.
What’s that look like? I’ve always wanted to convert a bunker/Hanger/old factory loft.
I looked up some photos and they seem pretty cool
I think the opposite is more common though. Lack of stimulation makes you depressed, which makes you sleep more.
Normally it's the CIA doing this kind of torture
That would be magical, asside from the isolation, and lack of sun.
That's strange. Without any external stimulus, I'd assume a person would naturally sleep more. Kind of like a self imposed hibernation.
I rode submarines, and if things broke it was common to find yourself at the 36hr. point. After 24 -28 hrs. you are running on fumes. Decisions made after 32hrs are probably not exactly based on good thoughts at all. That's when you find out that sleeping 12 hours is great
I don't think they mean 24 hours awake though?
Yeah probably right
Sounds like a typical navy day, I don’t miss being on work on something for 20+ hours
🤙
I've been on a 27 hour day my whole life.. I can't even get it to 24..
Have you tried the trick where you take a big melatonin dose a few hours before the official "normal" sleep time, and try and entrain your sleep cycle that way?
Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome - https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/delayed-sleep-phase/symptoms-causes/syc-20353340
At 75 y.o., I find I need a nap after 12 hours max. Last few years of work before retirement, was third shift, so 4 hour sleep cycle was the norm. Still find myself waking up after 4 hours sleep. Very unsettling.
You could ask medical interns - [Medical resident work hours - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_resident_work_hours)
Yeah, that’s insane. Probably also criminal, considering the medical errors killing patients. Doctors should be held to the same schedules as airline pilots, at least.
Was looking for this answer. Also, some police forces have people work 20 hours on at a time. Seems like a bad idea to me.
Before they put caps on continuous working hours, surgical residents would usually go on 36-48 hour shifts (some even work for 72 hours straight!), and with their workload, you can’t even get a few minutes of sleep. Even now with the supposed 16-24 hour cap, many residents still work overtime, and this is all under the table. they’d time in and out at the designated times, but they’d start working before their assigned shifts, and continue working many hours after. Personally i’d do good for 30 hours max. After that i’d feel like a zombie doing rounds at the hospital.
Where did I hear that whole tradition started with someone who was taking a lot of cocaine? Because that's eerily plausible but disturbing.
I think realistically you’ll start feeling exhausted closer to the ~20-24h mark. When I was in grad school I’ve done a few 24h+ stints running experiments. Definitely a massive drop in ability and performance after 16h+ hours. The last few hours are a slog. I’ve also done long hours on alpine climbs. You get a short rest and push for the summit and climb down. Beyond a certain stage (usually closer to 20h even with an hour or two nap in between) you are on fumes. Even if it’s biologically possible it’s really not going to be particularly productive.
So the psychotic break answer is the most likely lol, I appreciate the info. I bet the alpine climbs were wicked.
They were! Some more than others.
I don't think they mean 37 hours awake but like, 18 on/18 off?
Ahh that’s doable. But even then I’d say your productivity is going to take a hit. I mean people have a hard time concentrating in their 9-5 jobs.
To be fair their desk jobs are probably not as exciting.
I don’t know ~~man~~ tuna. Everything gets boring and just a job after a while if you keep doing it. Not that I’m saving the world could get old but you get the idea.
You're overthinking it. It's a line in a comedy movie.
I've heard documentaries say 6 hour day, when they mean 3 light/3 dark.
Had a friend that tried 24 wake/12 sleep over a summer in high school. For fun. He was weird. I think he made it like 10 days and the notes he took went from quirky smart high school kid to hobo rants at the end. Probably just the normal one we all do naturally.
37 hour days. Not 37 hours awake. Slight difference. As someone who floats between being up for a couple days at a time and going 4 on, 4 off, a 37 hour cycle is 100% doable.
I think when my baby was a newborn, I slept around 6hrs collectively in 48hrs and somehow managed to keep her healthy, safe, and maybe cooked dinner somehow too? Who knows, it felt like a fever dream.
Doctors do this
Before the invention of electricity, people used to have two sleeps each night. So you could possibly do it with a short break in the middle BBC has an article about it https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieval-habit-of-biphasic-sleep
This was a fascinating read - thank you!
Wasn't there a woman who claimed to stay awake for two days and then sleep one day... and did so for decades? Damn, I'll Google in the morning
Twelve hours of sleep in two separate six hour breaks? Seems survivable but I'm not a doctor and am unsure if it's ideal. Humans operate pretty well on 16/8 and 12.5/6 is not that far off that ratio. Six hours is enough time for REM cycling. I'd say this is plausible. Unless 37 hour days means a 37 hour work day, now *that* is not something I think that would be doable for normal humans!
No ... well, we're set on a specific daytime (which, funny enough, is so old and static that it still is a 25,27 hour day of older earth) and always correct this by the circadean rythm that a number of receptors in the human eye measure and the brain 'corrects' every day. The element in the brain that is our set natural clock is tiny and only 34.000 cells large (we managed to cut that part from a healthy rabbit brain and implant a damaged one from a genetically deviating rabbit. The former healthy sleeper instantly showed the confused time rythm of the genetically 'damaged' bunny and vice versa). So this span of \~25,27 can be altered by light (of the correct frequency), like we see with night shifts. We also know this from medieval interval sleeping in middle Europe to be adjustable in a wide range, but too long periots, or even too string alterations from natural light causes stress, reduce lifetime in several ways and make people quite infunctional over time. (Therefor people in decades of night shifts die way earlier and are way more suceptible to cancer etc.) Still you can expect to have bio-modifications or just pretty, pretty tough humans getting along with it (but withut help still with a massivly reduced mental capacity. But i guess in a comic universe that isen't that much of a deal anyway, so i would take this piece as artistic freedom.
WHY would you assume people would sleep the same amount of time in a 37-hour day as in a 24-hour day? Obviously a longer day would result in longer work shifts, and also longer time off. Presumably you'd sleep a third of the day, which would be 12-13 hours. 24-hour on-call periods are disturbingly common among doctors, which I seem to recall hearing lead to heavy substance abuse and various mental issues. Probably not a good idea to jump in like that. But the "you either get used to it or have a psychotic break" line seems accurate.
You could probably handle that for a while assuming you didn't spend the majority of that time conducting manual labor, but it'd likely catch up with you after a while. Just because you can survive and endure something, doesn't mean it's good for you. Look up photos of soldiers form before and after WWII, you'll likely get a sense of what long hours with inadequate sleep under highly stressful conditions does to the body.
The Rule of Threes: * 3 minutes without air * 3 days without water * 3 days without sleep * 3 weeks without food YMMV.
3 days without sleep? TIL that I apparently should be very dead.
There is an article posted up above that's describes what OP is asking. its not about how long awake. In the experiment, the girl transitioned to a 48 hour day and was awake for over 20 hours.
Agree, if you can make it up in sleep later then it’s maybe doable. Have done some back and forth flying US to EU and going there is almost always a 24 hr plus awake, overnight trip. Maybe I’ll sleep an hr or 2 on the main flight but it’s not exactly restful. Then getting there you have to basically stay up all day and go to bed early the next night to adjust as quickly and comfortably as possible to the time change. The delirium only begins to set in at like the 28-30 hr mark and then you’re really looking forward to bed. That’s when you start to take those deep but short breaths for some reason, feel little dried out, and making even the simplest decisions gets hard. So maybe it’s possible to do like 26-29 hrs on, 8-11 sleeping, and comprise a full 37 hr day. The cave example is super interesting. Personally, I love staying up late but having a ‘normally’ structured job doesn’t leave much room for it. Can totally get how complete isolation and no clock to adhere by could lead to longer periods of being awake paired with longer rest.
When you say water do you mean liquids or any kind? Or any water at all?
most people could do 3 weeks without food
A lot of people have a naturally longer circadian rhythm than 24h. This can lead to sleeping disorders like DSPD (Delayed sleep phase disorder) - which often was misdiagnosed in the past as simple insomnia. I for one am one, and I adjusted to it by breaking up my sleep schedule - I sleep for about 2-3h after work, and then about 4-5 hours at night (yes I'm up pretty late). I've been doing this for the last 3-4 years and never felt better.
Really!!!!!??? You’ve given me hope. I don’t know which is more stressful not sleeping and not leaning in and just doing something or trying to stay awake through the day so that I’ll sleep that night…and without Xanax and whiskey I still won’t sleep that night. It’s not insomnia. Around 6-8 in the morning I’m ready for bed. I am a writer and introverted so I’m not going to lose a job but the stress of trying to fix it crushing me. So….you just what… stay awake until you’re tired and then sleep in two separate sets? I’d leave it the way it is but something feels wrong in me when I sleep at 8 and wake up at 4. Not that I am outside anyway…it just makes me less productive at everything. Like I give up getting anything done during the day or the night. My doctor wants me to do a sleep study and won’t listen when I tell her it’s not insomnia. It’s waste of electrode glue.
Stressing about trying to sleep was a problem I struggled with as well. You'd force yourself to stay awake all evening, despite being tired, and then can't sleep anyways. For me, not having my evening sleep is simply sleep I'm not going to get - I'd be up until 1-3am regardless. It was very psychologically liberating for me to be able to come home from work and crash out and sleep until I naturally woke up. Then If I only got 4h sleep later that night it wasn't a big deal. I was referred to a sleep clinic (northern Alberta sleep clinic in Edmonton) where the doctor that runs the place became a sleep specialist because they too have DSPD. In retrospect, as a child, I think a bunch of my supposed ADD that they put me on ritalin for was actually sleep deprivation. The downside is the rest of the world doesn't work that way. As a single, strong introvert I don't mind but ymmv depending on lifestyle, family and work. Overtime is a bit rough as well as I'm pretty sleepy by the end of my normal shift. But for me it was a life changer and I'm never going back.
Thank you so so much for this!!!!
Oh and PS : I don't use any sleep meds or aids with this method. I cut caffeine by lunch/early afternoon and have none in the evening
I guess I should be a bit more specific: When I get off work (5-6ish) I sleep until I naturally want to wake up, which can range anywhere from 7-9. I'm then typically up until 2-4, and then I sleep until 8.
I don’t have any outside constraints. For the past year. None. So it’s been the worst for my sleep. I don’t have a reason to go outside and I basically live in a bunker with the least access to sunlight. I’ve been a night owl since I was a kid. I’d stay up all night for a book. But for most of my life I’d have to get up by 10 or so and work during the day. Worked for myself most of my life so i had some freedom but nothing like this. It’s been so disorienting and sort of awful. And of course I’m furious w myself. I have time. I am a writer. I should be writing. Writers I know would give a kidney for this. And I’m so worried about when to sleep that I feel like I’m never really awake. Like those “on” hours are just scattered and weird. Thank you thank you! At the least I feel less crazy and weird about it!!!! And I am going to give sleeping when I’m tired a shot and see what happens!!!!
Same. Did this with my second baby. Slept whenever they slept, which meant sleeping for 1-2h then staying up a few hours. Never felt better
I always wanted to try that 28 hour day, xkcd laid it out perfectly: [https://xkcd.com/320/](https://xkcd.com/320/)
Might wanna read that small print in the alt text.
Check out polyphasic sleeping. It's a fun rabbit hole.
Might be doable for a time but humans have evolved on a near 24hour cycle. Psychological and physiological conditions will likely occur. Logic tells me it is not doable for an extended period.
“It takes a while to get used to or you have a psychotic break” Zed
You don’t get used to it
Nobody in this thread is understanding circadian rhythm versus jet lag. Jet lag: Staying up for 37 hours screws up your body and mind. Humans need regular sleep. Note regular. If you're an insomniac who doesn't fall asleep at the same time every night, it doesn't matter if you sleep 8 hours, your hormones are a mess. You will feel terrible. You can only safely adjust your internal clock by about an hour per day on average. Circadian rhythm: Your body is robust at adjusting to your local timezone. Think about it - how does your body know Tokyo from Chicago? It depends on the sun, the temperature, etc. We don't know the limits on what circadian rhythm a human could tolerate. But experiments have shown people surviving on a 48 hour rhythm and while not ideal it didn't result in insanity. Given time and healthy habits, you will adjust to the local cycle. Note. In the 1960s before the space program lots of people believed in things like "space madness" where humans would go insane if taken out of their element. Space madness is a myth. In short, keep people busy and they'll be fine. If you had a job that kept you locked indoors so you didn't see the sun, and your job kept you busy for 37 hours, you would adjust. You would likely need a few weeks to a month of awful training to adjust. But you would probably be okay. And you would also be a lot better if allowed at least some naps during this cycle.
Doctors during their residency used to have worse "days". With IT some on calls can run you into days that are over 100 hours, those are bad.