How much can you sleep?
From: "KJ"
Lets say the average person sleeps 8 hours a day,
and is awake for 16. And we know that if you are awake for an
extended period of time, you will sleep in a little longer than
usual. Say if I stayed awake for 32 hours, (twice as much as
normal), would I then sleep for 16 hours straight? Could I
hypothetically stay awake for a couple weeks then sleep for a week
or two? Is there a world record or something for the longest sleep,
not including comas and the like?
TB attempted with this:
The longest time someone has gone without
sleep is eleven (11) days or if you believe: 54 Years 4 Months 24
Days and counting... by Ahmmad Mohannan. An adult needs 6 to 8 hours
sleep a night. If someone is awake for several days then usually a
good night's sleep will do to make it up. Studies with rats has
shown that rats who normally live 2 to 3 years only live 5 weeks on
average, and rats deprived of all sleep stages live only about 3
weeks.. We need sleep to recharge our batteries. All sorts of
benefits come from sleep, both psychologically and physically.
Todd thought up this:
It is said everyone should get 8 hours
of sleep every night. That would make you awake 16 hours a day. The
only problem is if you miss sleep it just adds up. That doesn't mean
if you get 6 one night you will get 10 the next. You would most
likely end up taking a few midday naps later in the week. Personally
the longest I have said awake without sleeping is about 27 hours. I
ended up getting less than 8 hours when I did get to sleep. All week
I was tired and by the weekend I had a 101 fever. So I ended up
sleeping/napping the weekend. So basically missing lots of sleep
will make you very tired and very susceptible to sickness. I think
it is impossible to remain awake for a week (without any drugs or
the works). After 24 hours without sleep the body becomes very weak
and attempts to sleep every chance it gets. I don't know of any
records for sleep but the one for a coma is almost 44 years.
kat mumbled something to this effect:
No, the longest time somebody have
actually stayed awake without going to sleep or nodding off is 10
whole days
Bill responded with this:
Theoretically, I think that you could
sleep that long, if that's how long you were to hypothetically stay
up. I think that the average person sleeps 33.3% of his/her life
away, not counting comas.
Andrew pointed this out:
Yes Rupulstillskin did it in grims
fairy tales. And if you try to stay up two week you will beat his
record. Who is to say that death is not a state of sleep. If that is
the case then I guess the first human to die holds the record.
Dave proposed this answer:
Sleep and how much, I think the answer
to this question could go every which way as different people have
different sleep needs.
Take me for instance, I've got to many things to do sleep gets in my
way. 5 or six hours is ok. Now my brother and his family on the
other hand are the sleep family. I've never seen one group of people
sleep for such extended periods of time. By the time they get up its
time to go to bed and they do! I think they hold the world record
for sleep.
Mr Obvious finished up with:
Your theory would only be correct if the amount of
time awake were directly proportional to the time awake. This is a
given with machines, but human functions are rarely permanently
proportional.
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