[torr]

I've having a particularly bad time right now (big and manifold responsibilities, not enough time) and only getting 3-5 hours / night on weeknights. This has been going on for months now (with some regular 7-8 hour sleeping nights once in a while).

Results I've found: Mornings really suck. I'm putting on weight. I also feel terribly unhealthy. I'm not as sharp as I am at full power (though this is subjective and very hard to discern). I can fall asleep in minutes if given a place to lay down. Also, I get sick much more often than usual (which was hardly at all). Subjective opinion: it feels like I'm prematurely aging myself.

Trying to "make up" the sleep on weekends doesn't work for me. Oversleeping just leads to bad headaches.

When I do get a solid 8 hours I feel like Superman the next day.

I'm hoping that I'm not doing any long-term damage to myself, but there's really no way out right now. :( The current job ends very soon (2 weeks!), and then I'll be able to resume normal sleeping habits (7-8 hrs/night).

[dkarl]

Ditto on putting on weight, ditto on the unpleasant effects of oversleeping to catch up, and ditto on not being sharp. The thing to keep in mind is that you're well beyond the point of diminishing returns. If you aren't achieving maximum output in somewhere between 6 and 10 working hours per day, then you're suffering from distractions -- something else is sucking up your productivity.

See my other post for my difficulty with undoing the habit of undersleeping. Even though I no longer experience any external pressure to undersleep, I still don't get enough sleep and suffer the consequences for it. It's hard to stop.

[johnyzee]

Pretty much my experiences too. I had a couple of years burning my candle at both ends and I felt like what you described.

Now, if I stay up late I invariably get bad eye inflammation - you can set a clock to it. It has been diagnosed by several doctors as an auto-immune reaction caused by the immune system failing.

Neglect sleep and your body will let you know, probably before your good sense should have.