Sleep deprivation seems to help me concentrate

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Has anyone heard of this before? Normally, I can't concentrate on a single thing for more than ten (okay, five) minutes at a time. Even now, as I'm posting on wrongplanet, my mind is already starting to wander towards the next two things I will be doing (or maybe I'll go back to the work that I just cut out of to post this...hrmm). Anyway, since I work in an office with pretty severe ups and downs in terms of deadlines and work volume, I have had to stay overnight and work through to the morning on occasion.

Now here's where it gets weird: if I stay awake, and don't nap at my desk or anything, my concentration is like a frickin' LASER BEAM the next day. I feel like the Terminator! I blow through work like it's going out of style, I keep up with other people's conversations easily and speak forcefully and confidently, and just generally feel like a million bucks (except for the slight delirium, natch). One time after an all-nighter at the office I met a friend on the train and we were having a conversation about some subject, and I felt like I was hooked up to a fire hose of information - it just kept coming out. I have a tendency to "professor" a bit under normal situations anyway, but this was really one step above normal.

Anybody heard of/experienced/know anything about the brain chemistry involved with this? I would like to find some way to be able to replicate the improved concentrtation without having to stay awake every other night.

Thanks!

Hehe, yeah, I get that too, one time I got 100% in one of my exams after barely sleeping! It was bizarre. I can replicate the effect by drinking either energy drink or alcohol but it's not healthy to do that on a long term basis

im going through one of my sleep every other day periods atm. This afternoon after no sleep i happen to feel really sharp, but other times ill just be lethargic and completely useless.

I think its recognised that sleeping less does have a tendancy to push you towards hypomania, whereas oversleeping is depressive. Obviously hypomania isnt compatable with sleeping (and vice-versa in some cases) but i think it may work as both cause & effect, iyswim.

As for brain chemistry, there was a thread in the last week or so suggesting a link between the stress hormone cortisol & autism. I think it was suggesting ASD people have low cortisol levels? IIRC a lack of sleep increases cortisol, so that might be a key factor.

I know that the less I sleep, the more neurotypical I become. If I'm really fatigued (which has been pretty much all the time lately) it is VERY hard to get the geek going on a target...

I also get very single-item focused, which also isn't normal to me...

That's so true. Being tired switches off all the neurosis

Hmm. The thing about cortisol and stress hormones is interesting. It reminds me that I tend to focus well when I'm pissed off at somebody as well. In fact, I don't know how many times I've told my wife this, but when I'm really angry at somebody I find that I speak much better Japanese, especially the extra-diplomatic polite forms. I always chalked it up to polite Japanese having been developed to avoid honest disclosure of information from the start - being a court language, it's main impetus and function was to hide the fact that you are secretly arranging for the assassination of the person you are currently convincing is your best friend - but perhaps it has more to do with me.

I did a check online but found that most, if not all, supplements easily available suppress cortisol instead of increasing it. So I had an extra coffee at lunch instead. I think I might be focusing better, but I also get migraines if I drink too much coffee, so this is obviously not a long-term solution anyway.

This last night and the night before I started something new - setting one of my alarms to wake me up at 4 in the morning to meditate for twenty minutes. I've always wanted to be able to meditate regularly, but never had the time. I'm hoping that I get lucky and find that by disrupting my usual sleep pattern, I can skew myself a little more toward the hypomanic side. We'll see. The best thing about being your own test subject is you don't have to sign any consent forms.

yes, i feel this too (except for the japanese part) well sometimes, being fired up can help me elucidate my thoughts and find just the right words whereas usually ill struggle and be very aware of the gulf between my thoughts and what i feel able to communicate effectively.

IRL theres been occasions where ive become either Too involved or too little and gotten flustered. I think that is the presence of different emotional states though. But with imaginary dialogues or online debates here its definately a big help. Maybe the focused 'switched-on' is as much a predatory sensation, as much as being pissed off? IIRC its a state where im in a more base-level (r-complex/reptilian?) mindset operating purely from the intellect, where the higher 'mammalian' emotional states (empathy, charity, concern for loved ones etc) are temporarily absent. I suppose thats a useful function in so much as it stops me getting flustered and able to go on the offensive to protect such interests.

Another point about anger which i may as well throw in. People dont realise it works like an addictive drug, a stimulant (imagine dropping off to sleep whilst pissed off) I think many 'anger management' types have become reliant on anger or related emotions like bitterness, envy etc as a source of energy eg. if your system is out of balance and not functioning properly youll can feel run down, lethargic or just lacking in vitality. Whats really needed is to let go and take the time needed to recouperate, but subconciously a surge of destructive emotions will seem very seductive as they will suddenly fill you with purpose and drive.



the down-side is that you cant sue yourself if it all goes horribly wrong

good luck with the mediatation, im a little wary of sleep deprivation as i hear its really bad for you and IIRC a major player in heart disease etc. But ive read somewhere that someone advocated getting up extra-early for 'me time' beofre the trials and stress of teh working day started and that he felt the beneficial effects of having some time to relax and unwind more than made up for the lost sleep. thats purely anecdotal though.

Danger! Danger! Danger

By depriving yourself of sleep, you may be inducing a state of hypomania. In that state, it is a lot easier to work and concentrate. The problem is that it can lead to a major affective disorder, like bipolar disorder. This happened to a friend of mine, who had a psychotic breakdown and developed mania. This phenomenon is called "kindling".

The underlying cause may be child abuse or a family history of mood disorders. Please stop this until you have a consultation with a psychiatrist and his clearance before you attempt it again.

I agree....RedSands, you sound like you are describing an early stage of hypomania...

I would rather be stuck permanently in a state of mild hypomania. Durng that time I am never more sharp minded. I have no problem focusing or concentrating, I can easily make decisions. I'm extremely motivated and creative. I know exactly what to say and when to say it. I can be more assertive, and I can easily get a point across. My house is clean, my bills are paid, I'm on top of everything at work, and I can even put a cute outfit together. I imagine I get to experience a brief period of what it's like to be neurotypical.

I would love to stay like that...but I can't. The more manic I become the more manic I want to be. It's like a drug, an extremely addictive one. You may be able to induce hypomania by depriving yourself of sleep, but the more hypomanic you become the less you will need sleep, and the less you sleep the more manic you will become. Ironically...the less you sleep the better you feel.....

Your perception changes. Food tastes better, colors are brighter. Sex is more way fun. You might even be inclined to cheat on your wife. You might start drinking excessively or doing drugs....you might drive your car excessively fast and recklessly. You might get a great idea to buy a new car, or a boat...or just a bunch of stupid crap you don't need. Or have a great idea to buy a bunch of stocks, or quit your job and start your own business.

But then before you know it...ideas are coming to you so fast you can't write one down before the next one comes at you. You develop several trains of thought at once, and you have a lot of noisy chatter in your head that makes very hard to accomplish much of anything. You become distracted by everyone around you and at the same time by everything that's going through your mind. Your speech becomes rapid and pressured...you just can't stop talking...and eventually you may stop making sense when you speak, which is very frustrating...You might become extremely irritable, belligerant, even violent.

By now you can't remember the last time you slept...five days ago, maybe a week ago. You don't even know what day it is. Eventually reality begins to collapse. Your surroundings look different, distorted, wrong. You could be standing in your living room and not know were you are. You might look at your wife's face and it looks so distorted that you can't even recognize her. You might even start to hallucinate. You're simply terrified.

Mania is not something to be played around with. One manic episode can ruin your career, your finances, your marriage. Subsequent manic episodes, even hypomanic ones, can cause lesions on the brain, that show up as white spots on an MRI.

I can't say I haven't used hypomania to my advantage in my performance in school and in my career, or intentionally induced it because I wanted to do well at school or work. But as I did cycled through hypomania, mania, and depression, I realized that every year I'd get hypomanic, the hypomanic period was shorter and the manic one was longer and more severe. It was getting worse....

A better way to replicate the effect of sleep deprivation you are describing might be with medication, but leave that to a psychiatrist (and do mention the reaction you have to sleep deprivation). I've found the use of a stimulant to be very effective in mimicking that hypomanic laser beam focus, but I also take a mood stabilizer to prevent the stimulant from inducing mania.

Severe lack of sleep seems to shut down some higher functioning (i.e. the bit that causes the psychological problems), leaving you to work gloriously on automaton.

So it's not just me. I don't think much at all when I'm unmedicated, uncaffeinated, and well-rested. I'm just a zombie.

I spent my last two years of Undergrad sleep deprived because I had to work (several jobs) and go to school and study for the grad school exam and volunteer and apply to grad schools and still have time for my obsession, which at the time was debating and researching politics online. I almost never slept six hours, much less eight.

And I was angry. Angry all the time. This unjust world, politics of the rich, society, all the things I was rampaging through life determined to try to fix, since no one else seemed to care. I didn't drink or do drugs, I just recklessly failed to make certain my grad school living accomodations wouldn't involve sharing a room with someone. I might as well have been shooting heroin for how well that turned out.

When I finally figured out it's all just people being people, and there's no great arbiter in the sky coming to sort it out or demand that we fix this mess (ducks to avoid the disapproval of the religious folks out there), that rich, poor, and in between, people are generally rotten and not worth bothering with, I stopped being quite so angry.

But now I'm a total burnout. Oh, I sleep regularly, eat regular meals, don't do drugs or drink, fine fine. But motivated? Heh. Thinking clearly? Yeah, right. Which is worse? Really, being like this, even if it's more 'stable' is horrible. I can't function, and all those times I wired myself up to talk to people, to go to class, to share living space, to try to be 'normal', I literaly can't imagine even taking one class now, much less a full courseload. I miss the old me, sleep deprived and twitchy though I may have been. I miss the Adderall, coffee, soda, no time to eat, sleep, or rest me. This me is getting on my nerves.

omg, yeah!

I have to be honest with you, I have dealt with those kind of situations in the school year. Whenever I had semesters where I had lack of sleep a couple of days before tests or finals, i literally got like A's on my Tests, no joke and my semesters were good when i became a workaholic and deprived of sleep as well, plus i got cranky the next day, but as the say, no pain, no gain.
But when I had normal sleeping semesters in school, I was getting horrible grades on my report card and managing my time/study habits improperly. Sometimes in order to get good results in life you have to suffer painfully.

I have noticed my proficiency in the French language goes down when I am well-rested.

Just a quick progress report -

I set my alarm for 4 am every morning. Actually three alarms: 3:58 (the one I shut off automatically), 4:00 (the one that I'm awake enough to register because the previous one woke me up halfway) and 4:20 (tells me when I can go back to sleep).

So far, I have been making some delirious rationale for not getting up and going back to sleep about half of the time. But the other half I have been waking up and meditating until the 4:20 alarm and then going back to bed.

Seems to work out nice. I have noticed more even moods and better concentration. Was a bit sleepy the first week, but good now.

Thanks to everybody who expressed concern, but I think I'll be alright.

Red

I'm glad to hear you're doing better. It seems like the key here is the meditation. It has lots of beneficial effects. And you don't have to pay some self-anointed guru to give Sanskrit nonsense to repeat.