> The weird thing is that it doesn't feel like I can't keep going... it's just that I sort of somehow don't keep going. I find my mind wandering more easily Th

> The weird thing is that it doesn't feel like I can't keep going... it's just that I sort of somehow don't keep going. I find my mind wandering more easily That's exactly what I experience if I have a few too many days where my sleep is interrupted or I sleep badly. I already give myself very little leeway there, where I usually have about 5.5 to 6.5 hours before I need to wake up (I fall asleep very quickly), so it's a fairly good gauge of time). If something wakes me earlier than expected, it affects me the next day. I find that coffee makes this harder to determine, as I'll still feel alert that next day, just as if I had better sleep, but I'll be less productive overall in all the ways you mentioned. I can still think coherently, but I appear to be able to do so about the same thing for a much shorter period before being distracted with something else. > As I have come to understand this impact, it has given me greater empathy for addicts. My brain doesn't feel like a tired muscle, or like I'm doing anything wrong in the moment. That's a very astute observation. I've noticed before that more sleep makes me more productive, yet there's always that allure to staying up a bit later and reading a little bit more in the book I'm reading (which is almost always the problem), or watching a little bit more, etc. Like an addiction (I assume), the path from non-problematic behavior to problematic behavior is somewhat gradual, and noticing the problem is somewhat impaired by the negative effects of the problem itself. I don't set out to sleep very little, it just gradually gets worse where I'm skimping on sleep more and more often, until it's fairly consistent, and then I eventually notice and break out of it. Then the cycle repeats, but I generally spend far more time with little sleep than adequate sleep overall.