Sleep Deprivation Hinders Thinking, Memory

More info on the problems of sleep deprevation. Now that I am starting to recover, I recognize this as symptoms that I suffered from:

Sleep Deprivation Hinders Thinking, Memory: "If you think you're getting enough sleep on fewer than six hours a night, you're probably experiencing the latest documented effect of sleep deprivation: the inability to realize just how tired you really are.

Even missing out on the recommend eight hours of nightly sleep for two weeks -- a fate regularly experienced by millions of Americans -- can accumulate to a 'sleep debt' equal to total sleep deprivation of two full nights, finds a new study. Average only four hours a night in that time and your brain reacts as though you haven't slept at all for three consecutive nights.

'And the most worrisome part of this is these people don't realize how sleep-deprived they really are,' lead researcher Hans P.A. Van Dongen, PhD, assistant professor of sleep and chronobiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, tells WebMD. 'When people are put through chronic sleep deprivation, there is an initial response where they say, 'OK, this is not optimal but I'll manage.' But after a few days of this, things are much worse than they realize.'"