From: houle@nmt.edu (Paul Houle)
Subject: Re: Sleep
Organization: New Mexico Tech
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 00:02:11 GMT

In article <C1GvBC.6yK@acsu.buffalo.edu> v064mcqs@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (NEIL GANDLER) writes:
>
>  I am a college student at the university at Buffalo. I am an electrical
>engineering major. I get between 6-8 hours a night sleep during the week
>and roughly 10 hours on the weekend. But it seems that even if I get the
>8 hours on weekdays that I find it hard to stay awake in class and pay
>attention. Even coffee doesnt help too much and if I start drinking
>it on a regular basic its not too effective. Does anybody have any
>advice on this or recommendations on natural stimilants that I could
>take in the morning instead of caffeine?

	Ephedrine is a fairly effective stimulant,  which can be bought in
25 mg pills by mail order or OTC in some states.  One can also make an
ephedrine-containing tea with a herbal product called either "Mormon tea" or
"Ma Huang",  although my experience is that I need to use an awful lot to
make tea that is strong enough to generate any real stimulant effects.  Some
people also claim that 1g-2g of phenylalanine a day also can increase
alertness,  but I haven't tried this because a bottle of it at the health
food store in town costs about $20 and I don't know if I would actually
finish the damn thing.

	Overall,  I don't reccomend traditional kinds of stimulants,  be they
natural or synthetic.  My own experience and observations regarding caffine,
ephedrine,  amphetamines and the like is that they only provide a few extra
hours of high performance when used occasionally.  If they are used to prolong
wakefulness to the 24+ hour range,  performance tends to deterioriate.  If
they are used chronically,  the same thing happens,  with risk of dependence.
I'm pretty seriously dependent on caffine,  which is a problem because I
find that it raises the noise floor on my visual perceptual system and then
I can't see what I describe as "auras" (synthesthetic perception of
bodymind structure) very well.

	So far as falling asleep in class goes,  I wouldn't be all that
worried about it unless you are failing (or getting bad grades) in those
classes.  Some people learn mostly from the book.  I personally go into
a sleeplike (maybe a little Stage I sleep) state that is similar to some
descriptions of an "alpha" state in classes where little or no visual 
information is being written on the blackboard.  Yes,  this might alienate
some professors,  but I think I do absorb quite a bit of information in this
state,  and I get more from reading and doing the homework -- and I have a
3.8 GPA,  so I personally don't see any reason to change this behavior.
I can even open my eyes and participate and then relax again.  So,  as long
as your sleeping in class doesn't lead to bad grades,  I wouldn't worry
about it.  The only time in my college career when I fell into really deep
sleep inappropriately was the time I was getting way too little sleep and
fell asleep in a chair in front of a computer at work and woke up feeling
awful (and my biological clocks reset) about an hour later.

	BTW,  my sleep cycle is about the same as yours,  typically 6.5-9 hours
a night during the week,  and 10+ on weekends,  except for when my girlfriend
sleeps over.