I just went 3 days without sleep to see what i-banking felt like...honestly I don't believe ANY of you! (My hourly breakdown)
No, this is not a joke. So we've all heard from multiple sources that the typical first-year analyst's day goes from 6AM through 3AM, leaving about 3 hours of sleep in-between. Many of you still even had chances to work out.
So I tried to emulate the exact mental and physical strain to see what it felt like (and if I could take it). Don't worry -- this is my winter break.
Background: I'm 21 YRO, around the age of most first-year analysts. I'm a pretty healthy guy.
I started 3 days ago:
Saturday 6AM - Wake up
Saturday 11PM - Not tired at all yet. Dig up next semester's "Intro to Stochastic Models" textbook and start cramming the first 3 chapters.
Saturday 3AM - Starting to feel drowsy, not to mention incredibly BORED and exhausted from doing textbook review questions non-stop for 4 hours. I grab some redbull, took a shower.
Saturday 7AM - First 24 hours awake. In order to emulate the physical strain as well, I grab my coat and walked (not drive) 20 minutes to McDonalds for breakfast then walked 20 minutes back.
Saturday 12PM - Ate lunch. That did it. The extra load of food must've knocked me out because I don't even remember falling asleep.
Saturday 3PM - Woke up (my stereo was still blasting). Got 3 hours of sleep. Back to "work."
Saturday 11PM - Had some drinks with friends. (to emulate drinking and partying on no-sleep)
Sunday 2AM - left the bar early. I was about to pass out, not from alcohol, but I was so godammn tired!!
- Went home. Set alarm for 5AM. Passed out asleep -
Sunday 5AM - Took cold shower. Took out stochastic models textbook again.
Sunday 10PM - Sat at desk all day and I've worked through 50% of the book by now. (completely new material). ENORMOUS headache. Drank 2 cans of Rockstar energy. By now it took me 10 minutes just to read a new paragraph. My eyes could barely open and I couldn't even multiply 346x17 by hand without getting it wrong! I could barely comprehend what I was reading, even after switching over to my USA Today paper.
Monday 2AM - My entire body is now FREEZING despite my thermostat set at 82F. I'm getting bad chest pains. My left hand felt numb. I set my alarm for 6AM and passed out.
Monday 6AM - Took me 40 minutes of hitting snooze to finally get up. I have a MASSIVE HEADACHE the size of texas, mild chest pains, and am about to throw up. I took a shower, ate breakfast, and came onto WSO to let you guys know that this is IMPOSSIBLE!
By the time I hit 36 hours of no sleep, either I passed out without me knowing it, or my comprehension and mental abilities shrunk to the size of an acorn. There is no way in hell a first-year analyst won't be making 100000000 errors on his excel spreadsheets at this comprehension level. Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets bad chest pains doing this. I'm a really healthy/athletic guy too.
Also, wasn't there some research done a while back that continuous sleep-loss can lead to sudden death? I don't see any analysts collapsing.
So in conclusion, I DO NOT believe that the typical analyst works from 6AM to 3AM day after day, and STILL have time and energy to hit the gym and go clubbing. It's biologically INFEASIBLE unless you want an irregular heartbeat somewhere along the way.
Prove me wrong, please. ps: I just got notes for half the textbook already for NEXT SEMESTER. So some good came out of this :D
Mod Note (Andy): Throwback Thursday - this originally went up January 2010.
it's easier if you're getting paid an exorbitant sum of money
First of all, thanks for sharing your rather mundane story. Second, most analysts do not work 6AM-3AM , those hours are exceptions, not the rule. Generally speaking, its about 9AM-2AM..on average. "biologically infeasible"? Its definetely feasible, strongly unrecommended, however. Yes IB sucks, and that's why no one does it for over 5 years.
1- You need to go make some friends
2- 36 hours without sleep is not as brutal as you describe, you're obviously a huge poontang
Let me tell you a story ....
21st birthday (on the Saturday). - Woke up Friday 7am. Was during an internship, so arrived at work at 8.30am. - Worked until 6pm. - Got home (from client site) at 9pm. - Went to a house party, got there at 11pm. - Up all night, drinking and fooling around with this one girl - Went back to her place at 4am - Stayed up all night. - Went home at 10am - Straight into birthday celebrations with the family and close friends. - Finished at 6pm - Went out for pre-evening drinks. - Got to the club at 11pm - Left at 4am - Went back to another girls' place - Stayed up all night - Got home at 11am - Went to see my girlfriend (I was a cheating ass ... sue me, I was 21) - Had lunch with her and spent the afternoon early/evening - Got home at 7pm - Back on the train (back to client site) had to do some work for the Monday morning. - Got back to the hotel at 11pm - Finally slept at 1am on the Monday
I was awake for 66 straight hours. I'm not gonna lie, towards the end, I was hearing stuff and felt like I was starting to lose my mind. I wouldn't ever do it again (I came close in Rio over Carnaval - 50 straight hours of partying), but I'm glad I did it. 36 hours is nothing to brag about.
wow cool story bro
For the OP,
You can't simulate and model life. Life is dynamic and even though you were studying stochastics, your thought process is very linear...dare I say, robotic.
Reality and the pressures of situations determine your body's reaction, not some "plan". No matter how motivated you are there's no way your body can be stimulated to meet the pressures of a deadline, paying the bills, having three crying kids at home, etc...
In addition, all that Red Bull, Rockstar, Crack Rock shit is only going to fuck you up more. The combo of sleep deprivation and all that caffeine is a perfect recipe for a heart attack. Take a multi vitamin, eat real food, step outside of the box (go for a walk, play a video game, some shit to break the mental monotony) and most importantly, respect life and don't be an everything planning robot.
You're a kid, you're motivated, that's plenty for now. Take it easy and if you really need to prove to yourself that you can cut the long hours. Build up to it slowly like anything else, start with 24 and then work your way up. If you're in it for the right reasons, you'll have no problem doing the time when the situation calls for it.
Good luck.
Over the course of my two years, I only pulled back-to-back all-nighters twice, and I worked harder than probably any analyst in my class. I typically worked 9am to 2am when I was busy, with a random all-nighter thrown in every week or so to meet a deadline. On weekends you can typically get a full night sleep (~7 hrs) unless your associate is in the office with you, which sucks.
Your experiment lacks in a few ways. Something I think almost no one understands is how your body rapidly becomes accustomed to your lifestyle. When I was busy for an extended period of time, a 4am night wouldn't phase me. I'd still be at the top of my game. However, if you come back from xmas break and immediately have to pull an all-nighter, you'll be toast easily because your body resets. I had to pull an all-nighters the Sunday after Christmas last year and it absolutely sucked. I had a ton of sleep, but because I hadn't worked much for a couple of days, I was dying come 3am.
Another key thing that is lacking is what your motivation is for staying up late. The key difference between staying up all night studying for finals and staying up all night working, is when studying for finals, you can call it quits whenever you want. If you get exhausted, you can give up and go to bed and just wing the test the next day. Your grades may suffer, but no one is standing over you expecting you to do it. In banking, you've got an entire team standing over you (not physically), pressuring you to make sure you get it done, and get it done flawlessly. You can't just "go-to-bed" and take the lower grade, and not having that choice makes a difference.
In general, people need three things to "function": Sleep, Nutrition, and Exercise. Number one is just not going to happen, and you have little control over that other than by improving your efficiency -- but still, don't count on sleep. Nutrition and exercise, however, you can and MUST control.
Nutrition: Eat cereal at work like everyone else, but try to get in some fruits and veggies to. Also, opt for salad for lunch and don't go nuts on seamless with a bunch of junk. If you want to go hardcore, try to prepare shakes and salads in advance, and take some supplements.
Consistent exercise might be a stretch at first, but you try waking up a few minutes earlier to get in a quick workout. Also, people are usually receptive to you taking 45 around dinner time to get in a workout a few times a week.
In my experience there are two types of analysts. Those who "function" by chugging redbull and munching on junk all night, and those who maintain their energy through decent diet and rather frequent exercise.