QotD: the importance of sleep

I am a gold medalist in the macho Sleepless Working Olympics. I once worked a 60-hour shift without sleep. (Yes, that's 2.5 days without any shuteye.) One stormy February, I put in 468 hours, almost 120 hours a week for four weeks straight, sleeping an average of less than 4 hours a night. I have enjoyed all the exciting side effects of prolonged sleep deprivation, like uncontrollable "microsleep" which once almost caused me to walk into the path of a cab, or the hallucinations that set in after 48 hours or so — not fun hallucinations, either, just long conversations with co-workers who turned out to have left the building hours or even days before. I was essentially dreaming with my eyes open.

So I know whereof I speak when I think about interns training on gruelling regimens. And you know what I learned on all those sleepless nights?

Well, actually, not much. It turns out that adequate sleep is crucial to memory formation. But I did manage to process and retain one fact: when you have not had enough sleep, you. are. stupid.

Megan McArdle, "Let them sleep!", Asymmetrical Information, 2009-06-12