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Staying up aaaall night

02:11 / 28.12.02

It's a cliche of the fourth decade that one used to be able to stay up all night dancing, carousing, quaffing, wassailling (and other antiquated synonyms for drunken celebration), return home at sunrise and throw oneself bodily into the day at hand.

After thirty, so goes the legend, that stops entirely. One can stay up late or drink - but not both. Tonight, I've been drinking (champagne, red wine, vodka & cranberry - a remarkably sensible succession of beverages for me) and still have a glass by my elbow as I type. Despite having risen early for work today (after relatively little sleep), I'm not remotely tired and the temptation to - hey! - just stay awake is strong. If I was twenty-two, I'd manage it no problem; at thirty-two, I'm likely to be knackered by early afternoonj. That's my perception, anyway.

Do we become less able to tolerate the effects of a) alcohol and b) sleep deprivation, as we become older? If so, why? And should I give in to the ill-advised temptation to just sit here by the keyboard all night...?

04:31 / 28.12.02

I think its more we get more out of shape as we get older, and its harder to keep the energy up to do it like we used to. I keep myself in shape so I can still do it, but I can deal with it much less often. So, there does seem to be an energy drop there, and I'm only just approaching 30 myself. I also find I'm just much less interested in not sleeping as I get older. I'm psyching myself out of partying, mostly. That's the real killer, isn't it? Convincing yourself that you're too old to have fun.

I say go for it, Ganesh. Look the Reaper in the eye and say "sod off you buzzkiller". Just to prove that you can still do it

The Return Of Rothkoid

05:35 / 28.12.02

Whyfore so ill-advised? You're forgetting that the only ritual that's common to all Youngish Things is the invocation to the great god Too Fucking Far, which is "I'll never [insert whatever it was you did to excess, resulting in headache and loss of pants, here] ever again".

Surely it's about time for another one of those? Let it go. Keep up! Keep drinking! Think of the Sweet Suite evenings! Fuck knows I still can't approach anything with passionfruit in it...

07:34 / 28.12.02

I bet he was asleep at his keyboard by 4.15am, the big gay Moby-loving pansy wuss D00D SUX etc.

But this is a very interesting point you raise, doctor. Staying up all night is entirely physically possible in your 30s, but I think God placed a "fun off-switch" in our bodies that tries to kick in after midnight when you've gone 30. In days of yore we would be grandparents or equivalent now, fit for only consulting on puzzling questions of archaic lore, such as the average brake horse power of a standard Ford Cortina, or how many girls there were in the Tomorrow People.

As a side issue to this, I have found that getting older means I am loathe to spend the day in bed after a heavy night. I need to get up with the lark to get a full day in. Probably some realisation of impending mortality or something.

07:40 / 28.12.02

or how many girls there were in the Tomorrow People

5, I believe, if you are just counting the telepaths.

*hides head in shame*

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:47 / 28.12.02

Hmmm. I, too, at the ripe old age of 31, am finding rock'n'roll excess a little beyond me.

Hangovers I would once have chucked out the window with the help of a couple of paracetamol and a glass of water can now kick the shit out of me.

The only solution is to stay drunk.

I've also been discovering the wonders of sleep in recent years- when I was a child, I used to HATE sleeping- I always thought I'd miss out on something really cool. Now it's my favourite pastime. My theory is that we have a certain amount of sleep that we should get OVER OUR ENTIRE LIFETIME. Now I'm catching up. (Except I'm not, cos I'm dumb enough to both work nights and live on a busy street).

wembley can change in 28 days

08:10 / 28.12.02

I'm not sure it has much to do with being in shape - at 25 I'm in better shape (way better) than I was when I was 21, and yet at 21 I could pull four all-nighters in a week and know that by the middle of the weekend I'd be fresh as a daisy again. Now it's just excruciating. I also get more hangovers per drinking session. Does it really get worse?!?

11:18 / 28.12.02

I am going to remove his batteries or he'll go the way of Princess Margaret.

And the girls were entirely secondary in The Tomorrow People. Who cares how many there were? Tsk.

12:02 / 28.12.02

Ganesh: Do we become less able to tolerate the effects of a) alcohol and b) sleep deprivation, as we become older? If so, why?

The maturation at age 27-28 means our cells won't be as elastic in dealing with whatever duration we subject to it.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:09 / 28.12.02

The tragic thing is I'm only 26 and can't stay up all night now, although I think that's as much that I can't sleep longer than bare minimum and can't avoid waking up at 7:00 am regardless. Any suggestions for how to sleep longer (that don't involve snide references to 'dole scum' BiP) gratefully received.

12:17 / 28.12.02

I've never been able to do it.

I'm 20 and really, at uni, I have to stop working by about 11pm, because I'm never productive after about then. I wrote essays until 2am in my first year, and the last two hours were shit - I wrote at half the speed, needed endless cups of tea, and the break in my brain-pattern was all too obvious.

I can do 4am usually no problem when I'm socialising etc. And have, occasionally, done straight-through-the-night, but I hate going to sleep amidst dawn and birdsong. I just can't. Friends at college pull all-nighters in the library no problem, and whinge about it endlessly a day later... I usually find that going to sleep and doing the work when I'm awake gets it done with less hassle, and with a better certainty of finishing.

Also, re: partying: dancing wears me out. I physically find acitvely partying all night quite hard. Need food, energy, etc. A kebab shop inside a nightclub... that's an idea...

12:42 / 28.12.02

Well, the neurochemical Ovaltine kicked in around 5am.

Interesting that some people have 'rise at 7am' switches. I don't, sadly, and would, in the absence of alarms, likely sleep around the clock in five-hour bursts punctuated by judicious bouts of peeing, drinking Diet Coke and eating shortbread. It'd be an interested experiment, actually...

And yeah, there were five.

Tryphena Absent

16:21 / 28.12.02

Unfortunately I have a stay awake as long as possible switch in my head that lets me go to sleep at 7am and wake at 4pm. I'm hoping this will sort itself out and leave me alone by the time I reach my thirties. As for partying, I get bored, once I'm bored I stay that way and so I'm often lame now and go home early to play on the internet and eat biscuits.

In response to Paleface I work after 11pm generally and that's probably why my sleep patterns are so screwed and a kebab shop in a nightclub would never work.

17:54 / 28.12.02

I've never had the magical ability to stay up all night and be fine the next day. Ever. Damn you all.

I once attempted a 24 hour ferry plus train from Brittany to Edinburgh involving lots of drinking on the overnight ferry and then a hellish attempt at the tube in London and a nightmarish trek up to Scotland the next day. At one point I remember waking up in the carriage with drool on my chin. Lovely.

So no, I generally go to bed early or stay in bed late.

Goodness Gracious Meme

18:17 / 28.12.02

Unfortunately I have a stay awake as long as possible switch in my head that lets me go to sleep at 7am and wake at 4pm

Yeah, me too. Thought I had it beat for a while, but the past few weeks it's come back with a vengance.

Need sunlight....

Mind you, suspect it's connected to what you do with your life in your 20s and 30s... i'm much *more* of a late bird now than I was in my early 20s,but then I was working then, and I'm not now...

wembley can change in 28 days

18:23 / 28.12.02

Interesting that some people have 'rise at 7am' switches.

I have an 8-hour switch, it seems. If I go to bed at 2, with no alarm I wake up at 10 on the dot. If I go to bed at 10:37, I'm up at 6:37. It's been happening for about a year now, and it's very weird.

18:57 / 28.12.02

I'm usually awake by about 5am. Unless I've been awake since 2am. It's getting to be quite a habit. Even when I have a g/f I'm up and about very, very early. I must be doing something wrong....

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:52 / 28.12.02

My sleep patters are all fucked up, largely cos of stress. But I find that I just can't make myself go to sleep until really late, even though I have to be up and out by 8am.

I'm sure it'll kill me eventually. But at least it means I have quality interaction time with you folks.

04:23 / 29.12.02

I used to pull friday through sunday partying on a regular basis, with the aid of more chemicals than God ever intended to pass through the human body. Then I got to finding just how wrecked an immune system can get from doing that too much. So, no more than one night at a time for me, and no more than a handful of those a year anymore at that. Though at least I'm doing it now with more an emphasis on B vitimans, herbal cocktails, and food than methamphetimines, which in and of itself is probably a telling sign of age right there.

18:35 / 30.12.02

Rothkoid, can't you employ new, less stressed people to pat you to sleep?

18:50 / 30.12.02

Many sympathies, Rothky, with your sleep woes.

I was always quite fond of sleep after a long night, but a decade ago it was more of a luxury than a necessity. Then again, I quite like a bit of solitude and no matter how many drugs I take I tend to want to go to bed after a while.

Also, the emotional ditch the next day seems to be getting deeper though my ability to cope with it increases. I can't help feeling that this is a bad thing.

19:46 / 30.12.02

Actually, I think I've always been a bit of a pussy. I pulled a few all-nighters and one weekender at university, usually with drugs, and a few since then (a "couldn't get home so just came in to work" event, Tenerife plane-club-sunrise-beerforbreakfast-*thud*, somewhere in West London where I vomited in a drain) but I've always felt so like death afterwards that it wasn't worth it.

Do occasionally have insomniac fits where I stay awake longer and longer until I realise the sun's coming up, but I have to call in sick then, because there's no way I can get by without at least four hours. Even that is horribly punishing. At least six and preferably eight is required.

God, if you'd seen me on Christmas Day, after a quantity of red wine, four hours sleep at the most and being woken up by a seven year old wanting to open presents... not pretty. I was trying to take pictures, and I looked at them recently; the phrase that comes to mind is "use a tripod next time".

Brigade du jour

19:50 / 30.12.02

I work nights so find it quite easy to stay up all night, cos basically if I don't, I don't get paid. Phew. Anyway, it's cured my formerly chronic insomnia so it's not all bad.

20:18 / 30.12.02

Actually, I think I've always been a bit of a pussy - fridge

I think we are all aware of that, especially since you admitted to moving to the states due to a bad hangover...

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:55 / 30.12.02

Ganesh: if only! You see what sleep deprivation does to my otherwise sub-level (no, not sub-standard) spelling! For shame.

23:59 / 30.12.02

moving to the states due to a bad hangover...

thing is, what am I going to do next time I have one - go to the moon?

03:41 / 31.12.02

If you can't hack the States, there's always Canada...