It's a bit distressing reading this and thinking of all the sleep debt I've had, especially in my late teens and early 20's when I had school and started a career. Especially my teenage years when I was still developing. I never thought it could be serious or permanent. Alas, all I can do is try to prioritize my sleep now. At least I have made significant improvements recently :)
I had the first same thought. But then also, media has always been alarmist/click-baity, and that's the way story is told. That's true whether its Fox News or New York Times. Doesn't make this story necessarily wrong, but maybe not as dire as the way story/headline is framed.
Oxygen is also a poisonous gas that is slowly oxidizing your body, but as far as we know, humans have been exposed to it constantly since prehistory. I'm sure the same could be said for sleep loss, whether because they are stressed about work, or stressed about falling out of the tree and being eaten by the lions below.
Try your best to get a good night's sleep, but don't let these kind of "recent studies show" articles distress you too much. There are all kinds of harms in our environment holding us back from hypothetical perfect health, and there always have been.
> There are all kinds of harms in our environment holding us back from hypothetical perfect health, and there always have been.
If "us" is mankind and its history, the "always have been" seems off. There are traditional harms, like the risk of being bitten by a tiger, but most of those harms are recent, something we are not yet genetically rewired for.
Of course, so get the best night’s sleep that you can, but don’t be distressed about the irreversible brain damage you suffered staying up late as a college student.
I'm amazed how many people just don't care about their sleep getting interrupted. I had a thing with my neighbors where I was complaining about them waking me up. They basically told me they don't care about getting woken up and I should just relax. Like yeah, maybe I could relax if you let me sleep. I was blown away theyre alright with constant sleep interruptions. I can't believe the qol stuff people just put up with.
People are different, and we still don't have a good understanding of how we're supposed to sleep. For instance the 8h of continuous sleep at night guideline is just that, a guideline, that won't fit many people's life of biological cycle.
Guidelines are needed to make policies and sweeping decisions at population level, but shouldn't be taken too seriously at individual levels.
Your neighbor was insensitive and should be more compassionate, but it doesn't mean their QOL is worse than yours (arguably they were in better shape than the sleep deprived you)
I have seven years of sleep tracking data and the biggest thing I've learned is that how little I can help in changing my sleep schedule or length. Sure I might sometimes manage to get to bed early, wake up early or sleep hours longer than usual, but if I actually listen to how I feel, it's really consistent and also not what school or nine-to-five work would require.
I mean it kinda makes sense as well, biologically, that there's a bell curve of both duration and falling asleep hour. It's dangerous and limiting for a group of people to be asleep all at the same time.
It's immensely frustrating when people push for their opinion of what a good sleep schedule looks like. We can unfortunately still see it in our school system and I can only hope that at some point our policies start following the research.
I realized at some point that a good portion of harm from sleep interruptions comes from being anxious about them, not the interruptions themselves.
I be have always been very sensitive about my sleep, but after getting a child (and suddenly getting lots of interruptions every night) I stopped caring and found out that a few interruptions a night isn't really that big of a deal if I don't let myself get agitated about it.
I had a incredibly stressful college experience where I suffered severe sleep deprivation on the regular due to undiagnosed ADHD. I worry that I have permanent brain damage from the experience.
I'd say unless you're experience seriously crippling problems I'd take some distance from the anxiety. Brains are much more resilient than thought. If you have tangible symptoms, consider asking your GP, better safe than sorry.
The human body and brain are resilient and what was, was. You can now focus (pun not intended) on not repeating such an experience and take good care now.
Go find and read some articles about neurogenisis to feel better? Seriously though, as a young adult I bought mephedrone analogs from RC vendors at one time and then later saw all the wild claims of brain damage and inability to sleep afterwards.. Relax, you are still you, and you're okay. It's not the end of the world.
And know that the brain has a massive potential for change and repair. It takes some pretty serious damage to see permanent issues. Most things will go away over time
It is very likely a safe assumption that all throughout history humans have had to endure some lack of sleep. The safest goal would be to avoid prolonged and large sleep debt, but losing sleep over losing sleep won't help.
