Five hours a night is no way to live.
You know those people - maybe you’re one of them. Our campus is full of folks who regularly get six or less hours of sleep per night.
Until recently I never knew how they did it. But an article about two sleep studies, one published here at Penn in 2003, helped shed some light.
Basically, when people consistently forgo hours of sleep every night, eventually they stop feeling tired. Sound familiar? The downside: they still display the concentration, reaction time, and memory impairments you would expect from sleepy people.
In short, you can zombify yourself, but it’s not good for you.
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