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Doing a sleep deprivation lab?
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Doing a sleep deprivation lab?
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videoman1994
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Doing a sleep deprivation lab?
«
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30/05/2011 04:46:26 »
Hello science community. I recently have decided that I wish to conduct a lab on what happens when you are deprived of sleep. The reason I decided to do this is because on my ACT package(I got a 22, my reading was a 19, science 23, math 25, english 22) it said that I should consider doing an experiment to give me a better understanding? So I naturally thought of sleep, because many things like insomnia and the such are present in the world.
How I will do it:
I will most likely only do this once, but I may try to do it 3 times over the summer as according to the scientific method the more times you repeat it, the more accurate your data.
Also this will be done with my cousin, as I have read some pieces of how people tend to lose their mind while deprived of sleep(much like when someone is high, for a more literal meaning)
1.) I will record in a composition notebook every 2-3hours of all my observations. I will also be blogging and vlogging during some of it.
2.) I will attempt to stay awake as long as I possibly can, using various guides to help me along the way.
Goals/Data Management:
I am looking to do a week straight, 7 days(24 hours) in total: 168 hours. When I have finished my experiment I will first off go to sleep, then I will go on to make a final report on the results, create data for what happened during the 7 days, give links to all my blogs and vlogs(if I don't link it before hand), and give a conclusion of what happened, contrary to what I think will happen.
Definitions:
"Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles.[1] It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, but it is more easily reversible than hibernation or coma." -Wikipedia.com
Really all I am asking is, am I going at this right? and or, do you have any tips/advice I could use? All in all, what could I do to make it better?
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imatfaal
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Doing a sleep deprivation lab?
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Reply #1 on:
30/05/2011 09:46:23 »
Videoman - its out of my knowledge, but first off talk to a Doctor regarding safety - this might sound over the top cautious; but
i) never take risks with your own health
ii) all researchers need to fulfil ethical and safety requirements (you get extra credit for understanding and completing this in my opinion) even if outwardly there is no problem
iii) no decent experimenter would attempt an experiment without an idea of the consequences
Secondly as you will be self-experimenting you must layout your methods, data gathering techniques, and processing before-hand. Video and audio recording will be useful. Arrange in advance for some tests etc - perhaps a games console driving simulation, a game of tennis with the same partner, a set of similarly rates sudokus - you get the idea
Thirdly - do your research review in advance - google is your friend and find and talk to some people with sleep disorders
Good luck - and I mean it about the Doctor :-)
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CliffordK
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Doing a sleep deprivation lab?
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Reply #2 on:
30/05/2011 10:27:39 »
I'd second the idea that you should discuss with parents/doctors/psych professors/etc.
You will need some guidelines.
In particular... Coffee/Tea/Caffeine. I'd encourage trying the experiment 100% without using any caffeine. If you've been drinking significant amounts of caffeinated beverages, wean yourself off of them for a few weeks, or a month or so before doing the experiment.
Plan to have at least 2 non-sleep deprived companions (so they can take shifts).
A week sounds awfully ambitious. 72, or 96 hrs?
You should plan on doing some tests.
Perhaps do some timed/graded math quizzes. Also writing.
DO NOT PLAN TO DRIVE ANYWHERE.
Games of skill with your observer.
Some kind of a reaction time test. Do you have a driving simulator game that would give you some kind of a score? Not the same as some standardized psych tests, but video games might not be a bad way to test attention and reaction times. Or, look on the internet for other reaction time tests.
imatfaal's suggestions about doing research on other sleep deprivation studies before taking this on is a good idea, as well as trying to decide ahead of time what kind of conclusions you might expect to find.
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grizelda
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Doing a sleep deprivation lab?
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Reply #3 on:
18/07/2011 22:10:45 »
I once stayed awake for four or five days for reasons I won't get into [
]. I have a picture of the shape I was in near the end. It'll be a long time before I look that bad again. You can expect paranoia, hallucinations, and emotional agony before you give up and get some sleep, which you can't do without.
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techmind
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Doing a sleep deprivation lab?
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Reply #4 on:
20/07/2011 23:18:40 »
I'm no expert on sleep, but I thought I'd heard that if you really go without for more than 4-5 days you can risk permanent changes to your brain/psychological state. I would strongly advise you not to proceed beyond about 3 days without a very serious chat with some doctors/real experts.
Ditto CliffordK's comments: don't attempt to drive or use any dangerous machinery until you're fully sleep-recovered.
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rachel_fusion
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Re: Doing a sleep deprivation lab?
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Reply #5 on:
22/11/2013 17:41:33 »
Getting adequate sleep is extremely important. Here is an article from the Huffington Post that explains how just one extra hour of sleep can benefit you. newbielink:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/03/one-extra-more-hour-sleep-benefits_n_4182623.html
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alancalverd
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Re: Doing a sleep deprivation lab?
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Reply #6 on:
23/11/2013 13:06:58 »
Plenty of good information is available from the autobiographies of victims of "enhanced interrogation", from the Spanish Inquisition to Guantanamo. The great thing about sleep deprivation is that it's hard to prove and leaves no marks. And check out safety bulletins from civilian maritime, aviation and road transport authorities - a great deal is known about voluntary-sleep-deprived human performance of critical tasks.
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cheryl j
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Re: Doing a sleep deprivation lab?
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24/11/2013 15:36:52 »
In your research stage, instead of just looking up experiments related to sleep, you could look up other types of easy to do experiments related to, for example, perception, language processing, memory, risk taking/aversion, and see if they have ever been done under sleep deprived conditions.
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