[CQ-Contest] Re: Sleep Deprivation

[spa]

I'm sitting here doing obstetrical anesthesia (epidurals) at 2 AM local
and avoiding sugar or caffeine as I want to sleep when morning comes and
a new shift comes in.  Also, post-MI and a couple of stents the past
year at age 62 am sort of advised to avoid that stuff:  the manditory
off periods are a blessing.

Here's my spin on the graph:

I'm assuming that the study started in the morning.  Performance
improved for both the control group and the (to be) caffeine group for
about 14 hours.  Maybe a training effect or that people do that.  At 14
hours, guessing 10 PM performance took a dive as would be expected and
then recovered when the new cycle came around again and then really
tanked the next night.  The caffeine group got a very good response to
treatment as we sort of expected.  No rocket science here.  Would have
been neat to see what happened the next cycle.  As an aside, one of my
colleagues mentioned that the SnoreX stuff  you  see advertised on TV
has the advertised effect for about 2 hours and then the patients become
much, much worse to the point of apnea.  I have no data on that, but
reportedly the work was done at the Duke Sleep Lab.

For the best kick, get off all caffeine for a while, even decaffeinated
tea or coffee has about 1/3 the normal dose.  Careful when you get back
on as sleep deprivation and caffeine can cause heart palpatations and we
often give it when doing ElectroShock Therapy to lower the seizure
threshold.

As I recall, the German Army in WW2 used methamphetamine as a stimulant
(available on any back alley!) for such situations.  Not recommended!

N0UU


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