Putting Sleep To Bed

Over a decade ago, in blissful ignorance aged about 10, I asked my mum the following question – ‘Why do we have to sleep? We only live once and we spend half of it asleep!’ An obvious philosopher from early on, I found the idea we spend half of our ‘short’ lives asleep preposterous. Maybe they wouldn’t be so ‘short’ were we not snoring our way through half of it! The thought has bugged me to this day where I often find myself imagining all the things I could get done and how much time I could save did I not need to waste so much time under the duvet! All the parties I could go to, dancing ‘til dawn, just before nipping off for a croissant (never a kebab – this is dreamworld remember?) and off to my 9am lecture!

Now, I am not for one minute doubting the merits of a lovely Saturday lie in, but imagine a world where you could not only survive, but excel on an hour or two of sleep a night. This is the latest offer that the pharmaceutical world has given us. Just by popping a simple pill users can bypass sleep altogether or survive on as little as an hour a night whilst enhancing their concentration and focus. All this without the jitters and eventual crash that can follow a Starbucks binge. The drug is called Modafinil and before you get your shoes on to head to Boots – Modafinil is illegal without a prescription and unregulated. So why and how are hundreds of students, including English student Joel, turning to this new ‘wonder drug’?

Modafinil was first manufactured In France in the 1990s. Modafinil is a central-nervous-system stimulant used in the treatment of narcolepsy and occasionally in the treatment of depression. Of course, when correctly prescribed and administered by a qualified doctor, the drugs can be safe and beneficial. However, it seems increasingly students like Joel are taking the role of doctor and self prescribing.

‘There’s been a lot of talk of people at Oxford and Cambridge doing it, so I thought if they can do it – why can’t I?’

‘I bought it off the internet no problem. It’s about £1 a hit. Very good value! Considering you get 4 to 6 hours out of a small dose – I guess with a bigger dose you get longer than that. It’s incredibly easy to buy – all you need is a credit card and that’s about it. It comes through the post. They shipped it out from India I think – where the rules are more relaxed.’ Joel told me.

It seems now everything can be solved by a pill. You get a headache, you take a pill, you’re too fat, you take a pill, you can’t sleep, you take a pill. So why not take a pill so you don’t have to sleep at all?  Modafinil remains illegal in the UK without a prescription. Yet people, like Joel, continue to use the drug unregulated. Joel explained his decision to me -

‘I’d heard a lot of people saying they felt really clever on it – but I didn’t find this was the case. It was more no need to go and do something else – I had complete focus on the task in hand with no distractions. There were certain parts of it where I felt over stimulated and just wanted to take a little break. My heart rate felt like it was going a little too high. But nothing too scary. The only negative I really see about it is a tiny bit of agitation. But that happens on lots of drugs, with Modafinil it wasn’t as pronounced. I would probably take it again. It’s becoming more and more popular as people find out about it – it’s becoming more wide spread. I think it’s definitely better than any alternatives. Like, I know some people are prescribed Ritalin and then that gets sold on – I think that has a much more negative effect whereas this seemed more gentle. The potential for abuse on it is pretty low – it’s not something you could go out on. The only problem I can think of is that, if people take it for long periods of time, they can become slightly dependant on it. People say it’s unethical but I just compare it to the fact that some people go to state school and others to private school. The fact your spending money to gain an advantage; I think that’s deeply engrained in the system now anyway.’

Joel experienced little side effects; however, with many unsure of the correct dosage, horror stories have predictably emerged. Some users claim to have passed out after using the drug for extended time and also report uncontrollable nose bleeds. Bizarre side effects include flatulence and pee that can only be described as smelling particularly unsavoury. To me, these physical side effects suggest Modafinil cannot be doing great things to your insides. However, as Joel mentioned, Modafinil is unlikely to be abused. It promotes no ’high’ or mood enhancement. But this doesn’t stop users from using it for extended periods at a time and upping the recommended dosage as they please. It seems that this self administration is where the problems lie.

Whilst the makers insist the drug is to aid sleep disorders such as narcolepsy, its popularity as a ‘lifestyle’ drug is irretrievably rising. The French government indicated that the Foreign Legion used Modafinil during certain covert operations. The United States military have reportedly investigated Modafinil for use by its soldiers, who often have to be awake and alert for 72 hours at a time. That’s like staying awake from Monday until Thursday. One study on helicopter pilots suggested that 600 mg of Modafinil given in three doses can be used to keep pilots alert with only 8 hours of sleep in an 88 hour period.

But surely sleep is undeniably natural. Removing it in part or fully is surely liberating us from nature. ‘Liberating’ may be too positive a word. This idea of ‘sleep at our convenience’, that we can override our body clock, is deeply unsettling to me. I recently returned from New York to experience the inevitable hell that is ‘jet lag’, my body clock had never felt so in charge! To dabble with something so innate to us cannot be good for us, health-wise, in the long term. Surely this drug cannot be providing us with a long term solution, giving us the goods that sleep provides. There must be some sort of ‘sleep debt’ that users will eventually have to pay off. Maybe I just don’t understand science. New classes of sleeping pills are on the horizons that claim to deliver what feels like 8 hours sleep in half the time. However, the part I find disturbing is the word ‘feel’ – so a pill can mimic the real thing. It doesn’t make it synonymous, just like supermarket brand cola is never going to be Coke.

Yet, when I posed my concern to Joel, he claimed users do not have to pay back any "sleep debt". Whilst normally if you stayed awake for 48 hours straight you would have to sleep for about 16 hours to catch up. Joe said

 ‘Modafinil somehow allowed me to catch up with only 8 hours or so.’

The instinctive response being, ‘But how?’ this is the part I find most disconcerting about Modfinil – the answer is no one really knows! The drug company that produces Modfinil thinks it understands the drug, but is shifty when it comes to details. Like other stimulant drugs, Modafinil prevents nerve cells from reabsorbing the excitatory neurotransmitter dopamine once they release it into the brain. The difference being it does this without producing the addictive highs and painful crashes associated with most stimulants. But the workings of it remain a mystery. Does this not worry Joel?

‘That’s always a worry. I do worry it could have effects I’m unaware of – as with anything. At the end of the day it’s a risk I think is worth taking. Just because of the ease at which it helped me with my work. I think the trade off seems way worth it I think with any kind of drug like this or one taking for recreational use there’s always going to be more hype about it than is possibly the case.’