I'm sure I've done the kind of intensive exercise you have in mind, at a period of high mental concentration such as college (I can't specifically remember as this is dragging on for over a decade now). I'm not the most active person in the world, but I've never been very physically lazy for an extended period - I've never been overweight, but I hardly could be considered athletic.
I remember being extremely pissed off with one particular doctor who was like: "this is all down to a lack of exercise". My response was something along the lines of: why aren't all fat people insomniacs so? (She wasn't a sleep specialist).
Adapt? My friend, I don't know how you cope! Some of the embarrassing effects include 'deafness' i.e. my brain switching off for a few seconds, so I literally don't 'hear' what people say (obviously disastrous for a work setting), difficulty in remembering a non-trivial set of instructions (I've become especially careful to write important stuff down immediately), stabbing pain in my eyes when working in front of a screen for an extended period....etc.
On that note, I'm going to gracefully bow out and toss and turn in bed for a few hours as it's 11:15 in western Europe currently and I've work in 10 hours time ;-)
Heh! Well, there was the time that I fell asleep -- complete with snoring -- while looking into a microscope at an electronics job.
Oh wait. That wasn't just one time.
On a more serious note: I also experienced a totally remarkable car wreck years ago, as a result of not sleeping. I fell asleep at the wheel, woke up in the center divider of northern highway 101, steered the car out, hit the concrete bumper with my front driver's tire while trying to shoot for an exit, went ass-backwards into a large drainage ditch, cartwheeled the car (!), flipped it, and finally rolled it up against a couple of massive redwoods. Somehow, I not only survived, but was almost completely unscathed.
It is a fucking miracle I didn't kill myself or hit anyone else on the road, and ever since then, I've taken my sleepiness a little more seriously.
And, a lot of overweight people don't sleep well, either for similar or unrelated reasons. But, either way, human bodies can be remarkably different machines.
Fuck me that's insane. To think something as seemingly innocuous as not sleeping can put your life in danger to such a degree. When I'm driving, I do feel my eyes getting heavy sometimes but I'm often stressed so the adrenaline keeps the ZZZ's at bay.
My father actually fell asleep at the wheel of the car years ago, crashed into a wall and went into a coma for three weeks. A huge number of accidents can be put down to fatigue apparently.
A US Army study showed that soldiers that missed sleep due to combat or whatever for a few nights actually performed worse at tasks than someone who was drunk.
You're absolutely right - the human body is an amazingly resilient machine. We pump ourselves full of crap we never evolved to eat (processed carbs, sugar and salt laden-shit), deprive ourselves of sleep and generally abuse our bodies to an incredible degree, but our bodies can repair themselves far better tha any machine humans will ever make!
I remember being extremely pissed off with one particular doctor who was like: "this is all down to a lack of exercise". My response was something along the lines of: why aren't all fat people insomniacs so? (She wasn't a sleep specialist).
Adapt? My friend, I don't know how you cope! Some of the embarrassing effects include 'deafness' i.e. my brain switching off for a few seconds, so I literally don't 'hear' what people say (obviously disastrous for a work setting), difficulty in remembering a non-trivial set of instructions (I've become especially careful to write important stuff down immediately), stabbing pain in my eyes when working in front of a screen for an extended period....etc.
On that note, I'm going to gracefully bow out and toss and turn in bed for a few hours as it's 11:15 in western Europe currently and I've work in 10 hours time ;-)