Brian,

Interesting post. Very informative =)

Since I'm big on sleep deprivation and its major side effects (I've gone 5 days without sleep, naps, or any type of replenishing energy) I'll give the skinny on other stuff.

I think the meditation to replenish energy thing is very cool indeed, but I'm guessing you should still sleep until you're no longer tired - this will vary in between people, so it's good to go by feeling, no more, no less. It's like eating - eat until you're not hungry, no more, no less, and you'll be fine. Overeat or undernourishing is bad. I guess meditation would be like snacking on higher calorie foods (assuming good nutrition) because you can put off meals.

I'll mention what happens if you don't get enough sleep and it accumulates.

Last semester, I sleep deprived myself A LOT. Not for any good reason like studying (if you could even call that significant reasoning) but for no reason at all (read: sleep disorder). The most I'd get was 3 hours of sleep, and this would keep for weeks.

Finally, I started noticing things. I draw comics for a publication, and I started noticing my comics had a drastic difference in quality. Not just in the drawing skill, but in humor. The last comic I did almost made no sense at all, like my brain was the only one that could understand it because it was that jumbled up.

I also noticed that I wasn't reacting very much to anything. It was like I was repressing every emotion - jokes on TV or generally happy things didn't stir me. This sounds like depression, but it wasn't, because sadenning things didn't affect me either. I didn't even show anger anymore. I started mistaking this for some strange "enlightenment" and I was dead wrong.

My will power was incredibly weak. It was like my Basic Self rebelled and took over my Conscious and Higher Self. I followed every desire of mine (except sleep) and I wasn't even enjoying it anymore.

I failed two classes, and showed no emotion. I figured, "oh well." I should've realized something was wrong.

My mind and body had not received any rest for over 100 hours. I walked into my class, and my teacher said that despite my good grades, I would fail because of my poor attendance. I nodded, told her it was okay, I understood, and if you were there, you would have thought all she told me was the date or something. I showed that little care.

She told me if I liked I could stay (take the class for "fun") but I said no and got into my car.

As I exited the parking lot, I went nuts.

I broke out into tears, then starting laughing. These weren't little baby tears and giggling: this was all out "I just got shot in the chest" crying and screaming and "This is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life" laughing. The hard laughing scared me, and I would cry and scream in fear. The crying and screaming seemed ridiculous to me so I would laugh.

All this time I was driving down the road. I didn't turn, I didn't pull over, nothing. I just kept going straight. The road I was on eventually emptied onto a highway, so I got onto it.

This laughing/screaming/driving straight lasted for almost an hour. I eventually pulled over to the side of the road because I was completely exhausted from all of it.

Not getting enough replenishing energy can drive you insane. I'm not kidding. I got one report on this weird brainwaves thing and it's actually true: you'll go insane (again, this doesn't cover meditation, so I would just sleep until you're no longer tired). Major accidents happen because of fatigue. Chernobyl was actually one of them.

To go back to theerapun, sleep until you're no longer tired, and yes, you're sickness can be because of not getting enough sleep. I heard of one DJ who died because he was trying to break some endurance record for longest continous play or something stupid like that. His body actually lost the ability to regulate his body tempurature after something like a week and a half and he just dropped dead. The coroner said that, as strange as it sounds, because it was a body temperature thing, it was actually hypothermia.

Basics:
Napping is FINE unless it interferes with your sleeping schedule.
Some people need more sleep. People with low blood pressure have problems getting out of bed in the morning, too.
Meditation sounds like a good idea to save time sleeping. But make sure you sleep until you feel rested.

Sorry for the long post. Thanks for the info, Brian!

-Ramon http://razor.ramon.com

[This message has been edited by razordu30 (edited March 12, 2002).]