[HN Gopher] Engineering Sleep
___________________________________________________________________
Engineering Sleep
Author : amin
Score : 327 points
Date : 2024-11-30 04:33 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (minjunes.ai)
(TXT) w3m dump (minjunes.ai)
| necovek wrote:
| How about -- instead of making sleep more "efficient" -- we
| engineer our lives to provide decent amount of sleep and _not_
| stress over having more and more of the waking hours to _do_
| stuff.
|
| After all, we live in the _age of abundance_.
|
| (Though I admit I might not be the best person to ask for this as
| I am on the lower end of how much sleep I need)
| yMEyUyNE1 wrote:
| How about engineering the society/civilization(?)/world so that
| "all can" work hard (8hrs), rest hard (8hrs), live hard (8hrs)
| and die hard when the eventuality arrives?
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Not sure why almostlit's reply is grey and dead (sorry I can't
| even ote to resurrect it).
| doganugurlu wrote:
| We could be sleeping less to do more fun stuff, no?
| djtango wrote:
| Don't know why you got downvoted for this. My whole life I
| have been shaving my sleep time to try to cram more of what I
| _want_ to do into my day. I used to wake up an extra couple
| of hours before school so I could squeeze in extra gaming
| time. On holiday I regularly sacrifice sleep to extreme
| levels to do more.
|
| This isn't some kind of box ticking behaviour with its roots
| originating from toxic hustle culture, simply the adverse
| effects of sleep deprivation don't outweigh my enjoyment of
| things. And when my sleep debt finally catches up with me, I
| sleep my heart's delight.
|
| From experience, I have friends who share in my world view
| and threshold for sacrificing sleep for pleasure and I have
| met people who think are mortified by this behaviour. My
| immediate family are all willing to sacrifice sleep on the
| drop of the hat notably - waking up at the crack of dawn to
| send/accompany someone to the airport is simply modus
| operandi. My wife is very keen to protect her sleep on the
| flipside and so when we travel together our decision
| frameworks need to accommodate both MOs
|
| Ironically sometimes I'm most protective of my sleep during
| the weekly grind (and also training for fitness) because then
| my performance matters. If my only short term downside is
| discomfort from fatigue, I'll regularly trade that for more
| "uptime"
| necovek wrote:
| I hear you, but the thing is, what do you achieve by
| "cramming" more "doing" in? Do you also switch to those
| nutrient rich powder meals to save an extra hour or two
| prepping and eating food too?
|
| Are not all of those things that could be optimized away an
| opportunity to let yourself feel, relax and simply _be_?
|
| The examples you bring up (like waking early to do
| something for someone you care about) has nothing to do
| with the topic of engineering for consistently reduced
| sleep, imho.
| necovek wrote:
| I never said we couldn't and I did not refer only to work:
| it's still the wrong goal in my mind.
|
| "Fun" is usually defined as something providing instant
| gratification (through hormonal response), though there is
| fun in retrospect too ("I was scared like shit, that was
| fun"). And while it's nothing to sneeze at and we should
| always have some, you can achieve the similar with different
| medications or narcotics (if the goal is "have more fun").
|
| But I wouldn't optimize for that: we can achieve plenty in
| our lives, including having plenty of fun, by just being
| ourselves.
|
| As in, get the sleep you need. Do the work you must and the
| work you enjoy. Have the fun you want.
|
| While our lifetimes are short, they are not that short. Even
| if we got 10% more of the waking hours, that won't be the
| thing that makes your life worthwhile or not. If you spent
| the other 90% making it worthwhile, that'll do.
|
| But if you must, go for it!
| awinter-py wrote:
| I read nancy kress / beggars in spain as a teenager and get such
| an eerie vibe from short sleeper research
|
| but also let's go, if a giraffe can sleep 2 hours so can I
| worksonmymach wrote:
| Why is it not a survival advantage? Probably because we didn't
| work 18 hour days, the extra wakeness would just be used for
| rest.
|
| Night shifts that anyone can do are still needed if you need
| tribal watchers, and normal 8hr sleeping people can wake upnand
| fight when needed.
|
| In terms of the gene, I am suprised how rare it is (90 families?)
| given I have met someone who needs only 4hr sleep.
|
| Another point is less sleep doesn't mean you can do 2 more hours
| work a day. That is another vector: how much work per day
| (physical, mental) can be done.
| hgomersall wrote:
| There's a plausible hypothesis that sleep is the thing that
| evolved precisely to stop us doing things for any more time
| than is strictly necessary. That is, sleeping is safe.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| Yes, but evolution didn't account for the need for those TPS
| reports to be ready by tomorrow morning and Bob over there is
| already 48 hours into his shift (don't worry he's on salary,
| the overtime is free).
| jlpom wrote:
| I don't think any serious biologists agree with it. There is
| a hard physiological need to repair cellular damage from
| metabolism, UV (this a big deal in unicellular species), etc.
| If this theory was correct, and it is possible to do it
| entirely while awake, there would be species (apex predators
| in particular) that would have evolved without the need for
| it, like everything that is not a hard requirement. But this
| is not the case.
| hgomersall wrote:
| There must far more to it than that. As soon as sleep is a
| thing, it can be optimised for different goals. Since
| animals have widely varying sleep requirements, there's
| clearly some evolutionary factor that influences sleep
| length.
|
| That is, though sleep might have physiological
| requirements, it doesn't mean that the amount of sleep is
| not influenced by non physiological effects.
|
| I'm constantly amazed by the ability of biologists to be
| amazed by the reach and ingenuity of evolution.
| toenail wrote:
| > Why is it not a survival advantage?
|
| Because you're more likely to hurt yourself while doing
| anything in the dark?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| The primary reason is that calories used to be a very
| valuable commodity to come by and predators expend a lot of
| them when they're hunting or exploring, which includes us
| humans. Also the reason cats nap a lot.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Only 90 medically identified families. The condition is
| probably far more likely than just those medically identified.
| And people typically do not mention abnormalities that
| positively affect them to their doctors.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why is it not a survival advantage?_
|
| "All organisms occupy a niche, and the better adapted to that
| niche, the more 'fit' and the more likely that organism will
| reproduce, passing on the characteristics that fit that
| particular niche. While we may simplistically think of each
| organism occupying a single niche, realistically nearly all
| occupy at least two. Daytime and nighttime are different and
| distinct niches, creating an evolutionary push and pull that
| would make a perfect 'fit' impossible. Evolutionarily, being
| forced to evolve into two separate niches at the same time
| forces an organism to develop structures and functions that fit
| neither fully" [1].
|
| We didn't evolve for a world with artificial lighting.
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7120898/
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The night niche doesn't require artificial lighting though.
|
| Moonlight can be enough to have a decent understanding of
| one's surroundings, and then there's more than vision to
| navigate and be active. We wouldn't need a full species level
| evolution to be good at night life.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Moonlight can be enough to have a decent understanding
| of one 's surroundings, and then there's more than vision
| to navigate and be active_
|
| Decent for us. Great for our predators and prey.
|
| > _We wouldn 't need a full species level evolution to be
| good at night life._
|
| The point of the article, which granted is a hypothesis, is
| that the adaptations it would take to be good at night
| would make us no more than good during the day. Nature has
| clearly selected against jack of all trades species.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| On the day/night balance, I was looking at cats as an
| example of a species that sleeps in smaller chunks and
| splits activity all around night and day.
|
| Reading the article I thought there should be more weight
| given to behaviors different from sleep to adapt to the
| other niche, and also that being perfectly adapted to a
| niche doesn't sound like a benefit in the first place. My
| understanding is that most species have an evolution
| process slow enough that they never completely fit a
| niche but also have enough versatility to move around.
|
| I'm thinking dogs, bears, crows, racoons, migratory birds
| etc. where adaptation happens, but not to a degree they
| can't move out from their niche.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I was looking at cats as an example of a species that
| sleeps in smaller chunks and splits activity all around
| night and day_
|
| Cats are crepuscular. The niche hypothesis predicts
| they'd sleep most of the day and night.
|
| > _not to a degree they can 't move out from their niche_
|
| No animal I know of _can 't_ survive outside its time
| niche.
| nosefurhairdo wrote:
| For the afficionados, there's an excellent paper titled "The
| neurobiological basis of narcolepsy" published in Nature Reviews
| Neuroscience which examines the relationship between orexin and
| sleep as it relates to narcolepsy patients:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6492289/
|
| In narcolepsy type 1 (NT1), patients have severely diminished
| orexin levels. This appears to cause them to inappropriately
| enter REM sleep.
|
| OP notes that the mutation lowering the sleep requirement causes
| an increase in orexin. I wonder whether the increased orexin
| could be inhibiting REM and perhaps facilitating a more restful
| architecture of sleep. Alternatively, perhaps elevated orexin
| levels during the day cause wakefulness such that you just don't
| need as much sleep, regardless of how efficient the sleep is.
|
| It would be interesting to compare sleep tracking data of people
| with and without this mutation to see if there are significant
| differences in time spent in different sleep stages.
| jlpom wrote:
| > Alternatively, perhaps elevated orexin levels during the day
| cause wakefulness such that you just don't need as much sleep,
| regardless of how efficient the sleep is.
|
| As noted elsewhere ITT, there is a strong biological need for
| sleep, and its main role is very likely to reduce reactive
| oxygen species (though the amount needed vary by genetics)
| Orexin levels increase the noradrenaline ones, which is one of
| the few antioxidants able to reach neurons (along with
| melatonin) and by this way also increase slow wave sleep,
| making it more efficient. So yes, this could be a way they
| would need less sleep.
| almostlit wrote:
| If there was in fact a safe pathway to only needing 2 hours of
| sleep I would 100% use it and consider it a zero to one
| innovation. Although I think it would also come with a lot of
| pushback. One of my favourite questions to ask people is "if
| there was a way that allowed you to not sleep and be completely
| fine, would you take it?". Surprisingly (or maybe not) most
| people will answer no and say they like sleep to much.
|
| I think most people aren't trying to squeeze the maximum amount
| of time efficiency from their day. They don't like sleep because
| they need it, they like sleep because its synonymous to relaxing.
| So less sleep means less relaxing.
| esperent wrote:
| I like sleep for several reasons, I like to cuddle with my
| spouse, I like a set amount of time where I don't have to think
| or worry about anything, and I love dreaming.
|
| Of these, only dreaming strictly needs sleep, however, I think
| the healing that occurs in deep sleep should be added as a
| need.
|
| And according to my smartwatch, I spend around 2 hours dreaming
| and 1 hour in deep sleep each night, although this varies quite
| a bit night to night. I don't think trying to reduce these is a
| good idea.
|
| That means light sleep is the candidate for reduction. However,
| I have researched this before and the most consistent answer I
| get is that we don't really know what the 5 hours spent in
| light sleep is for. It seems unlikely that it's just for
| conserving energy, the body rarely does things for only one
| reason.
|
| So my bet is that we might find a way to reduce light sleep by
| around 2 hours a night, which is what this article is
| suggesting. But it's unlikely that we'll go much further
| without causing problems. And even if someone does discover a
| way, there's no way I'd try it without at least a few decades
| of evidence that it doesn't cause Alzheimer's or some other old
| age disease.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Count me in with you - I'd definitely say "yes" to less sleep.
| But, if it were a general invention, I don't think it would
| work as well as you say. Beyond the usual economics issue[0],
| for me the value of not sleeping is entirely conditioned on
| _everyone else sleeping_.
|
| It's not that I don't like to sleep. It's that I also like me-
| time, autonomy, lack of other people's demands or expectations,
| and the only time to get that is when most people are sleeping,
| so the house is quiet and I can be sure no one will randomly
| want something from me[2]. Relaxation, unwinding, deep
| thinking, self-actualization are all competing with sleep for
| that limited amount of time. Everyone else not sleeping would
| cut into that for me.
|
| --
|
| [0] - Any generally available trick or change that allows
| someone to get ahead economically, quickly becomes a
| _requirement_. See e.g. working longer, coffee, cars, double-
| income households, increasingly also stimulant meds. It 's a
| textbook Red Queen's Race[1]. "Less sleep" would be so profound
| a win that it would turn from "hack" into global standard
| pretty much in an instant.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race
|
| [2] - Because of strong societal expectations of behavior, such
| as not calling or bothering people past 20:00-22:00.
| tokinonagare wrote:
| You may take it and be happy, but what is more likely to happen
| is workplaces enforcing 18/h workday (because hey, people don't
| need to sleep much anymore) so most are forced to take it and
| work more for not much salary raise. I bet such evolution would
| lead to a even hardcore exploitation of humans and I don't want
| to live in such a world.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| I wonder if this would give full energy/mental capacity with 4
| hours sleep after drinking alcohol
| almost_usual wrote:
| Alcohol suppresses REM sleep, I'd imagine folks with FNSS would
| get the same quantity of sleep with much worse quality.
| colordrops wrote:
| My first reaction is to wonder what the downside of such a gene
| is. Perhaps there is no downside for the individuals that have
| it, but these individuals serve a particular purpose to the
| greater civilization and lack other capabilities that benefit
| humanity as a whole. If there is a trade-off perhaps it is not at
| the individual level.
|
| Maybe it's similar to the idea that we can just eradicate
| mosquitos with no negative effects. Is that really true?
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| I wonder it I have this...
|
| Both my parents go to bed around 1am and wake up at 7am, and so
| did all of my grandparents. My kids on weekends go to bed around
| 1-2am as well but do sleep in, and my average is about 4-5 hours
| a night...
|
| As for me, I've had sleep issues all my life and found the only
| way to fall asleep within 20 minutes is to stay up until
| exhaustion. But lately I've been gaining back my time and pushing
| even further - once every one or two weeks I'll skip a night of
| sleeping, staying up around 36 hours straight. I've been doing
| this for a few months now and have zero side effects so far. In
| fact I end up sleeping over 10 hours the next day without waking
| up in the middle (which /never/ happens otherwise).
| lloeki wrote:
| Sleep starting late + driving to exhaustion + occasional night
| skipping then catchup sounds almost like DSPD:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder
|
| That one sleeps 4-5h per night also sounds like one
| light/deep/REM sleep cycle, of which there would typically be
| two in an idealised 8h-ish "night".
|
| There are hypotheses out there that a single 8h block of sleep
| is a myth - possibly socially induced by industrialisation and
| 3x8 shifts - and that waking up in the middle of these 8h is a
| normal thing.
|
| "waking up" here may mean anything from near-consciousness
| sleep to actually waking up and possibly do shit for an hour
| then going back to bed; or even for some, splitting sleep in
| two 4-hour blocks spread around the 24h day.
|
| In parent's post it _may_ be that one 4h block is done, then
| social pressure (work /child schedules) pushes one to continue
| with this one-block schedule.
|
| It may even look appealing as triggering sleep through
| exhaustion superficially appears to help with sleep in the
| short term. Long term it gets exhausting but this perceptually
| becomes the new normal, especially when the symptoms of this
| kind of sleep deprivation aren't that obviously tied to sleep
| habits, the naively expected ones being masked by external
| pressure (schedule), habit bias (normalisation of deviance
| through repetition), exogenic (alcohol, caffeine, nicotine) or
| endogenic (adrenalin, cortisol, dopamine).
|
| The main problem is then that by the time symptoms are
| impacting the situation is deeply anchored; worse, because the
| root cause is non-obvious it is often misdiagnosed.
|
| Don't ask me how I know.
|
| Also, not a physician, just saying: take care.
| pella wrote:
| A Gut Bacteria" is also a rather interesting approach to solving
| sleep problems. Does anyone have experience related to this?
|
| _" The company ( FitBiomics ) has already commercialized two
| products. Their flagship offering, V*Nella, helps metabolize
| lactic acid and reduce fatigue, while Nella targets sleep health
| - a crucial market considering that 100 million Americans suffer
| from insomnia. "Within 10 to 14 days of daily consumption,
| consumers feel the difference," Scheiman notes. "They have less
| daily fatigue interfering with their daily life, more energy, and
| some people are tracking cardiovascular benefits on their
| wearables. We hear really cool anecdotal feedback like, 'Hey, I
| no longer have to take a nap in the middle of the day, or I no
| longer need coffee in the middle of the day.'"_
|
| https://archive.md/XOmx5#selection-827.0-839.405
| rkallos wrote:
| I experienced a similar change (more energy and steadier energy
| levels throughout the day) after switching to a plant-based
| diet, which has been shown to change one's gut microbiome over
| a few weeks.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| I'm not really convinced that removing the need for sleep would
| result in me being more productive primarily because I'm not an
| always-on computer.
|
| The average day for me has huge differences in terms of my
| productivity at any given moment. I need downtime anyway, if I
| didn't sleep I believe that I'd end up vegging out in some way
| because I'm not doing 24 hours of flashcards.
|
| The discussions on here also always seem to centre around a very
| stereotypical "I am a vat for my brain" way of thinking.
| Realistically whilst sleeping other things are going on, muscles
| are recovering, digestive processes are going on, other forms of
| growing, etc, it's not just the brain.
|
| There are also things like circadian rhythm, sunshine, etc. I
| woke up early today and had a few hours of darkness, I can feel
| my mood and brainpower improving as the sun rises.
|
| We are not bots, this stuff is analogue.
| mlyle wrote:
| Yah, but if you needed 2 hours less of sleep, there'd still be
| myriad advantages.
|
| Times when it's not possible to get enough sleep: you'd be less
| sleep-deprived.
|
| And, if it's truly without negative side effects: maybe you get
| 20 minutes more useful time per day _and_ increase your ratio
| of conscious relaxation to useful time. I 'd call that a pretty
| big win.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| It's interesting but I feel as if the discussion is a bit
| flawed because it feels very binary, i.e. sleep 8 hours =
| have 16 hours non sleep, sleep 6 hours = have 18 hours non
| sleep, and we assume that each hour is the same regardless,
| but it won't be.
|
| It feels a bit like - well could I engineer myself to require
| 1500 calories a day instead of 2000. Maybe. But as a result
| there would definitely be some downside, maybe I'd be less
| physically strong, or have less endurance, or have a bit less
| processing power, or have to rest more, etc. If we straight
| up designed a more efficient body, then I'd rather keep
| eating 2k and be "more powerful", or maybe I'd go to 4k!
|
| Maybe I can sleep for 2 fewer hours and retain the same or
| more productivity. Or maybe I could sleep for the full amount
| of hours but be more well rested and as a result be more
| productive in the awake time. That sort of thing.
| mlyle wrote:
| Yah -- note that I didn't posit that things would be the
| same at the margin (120 minutes more conscious time without
| other downsides yields only 16% of "useful" time and
| assumes the rest goes to minimally useful relaxation and
| recreation).
|
| > There is no free lunch.
|
| Selective pressure and evolution are pretty good at
| optimizing... but not perfect. What they optimized for,
| also, is not quality of life in the modern world. It's
| likely there are a whole lot of free lunches available, or
| at least big wins with relatively low opportunity costs.
|
| It's certainly not great to discard potential improvements
| because of an assumption that what we have must be optimum.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| Sorry, I edited my post a bit so what you've quoted isn't
| there any more but I agree fully with what you're saying.
|
| I guess what would be cool is being able to play with the
| sliders. People already do this in other ways, for
| example people at the extreme end of bodybuilding or
| strongman are almost certainlhy explicitly shortening
| their lifespans for a shorter term benefit, calorie
| restriction looks like it lets you go the other way, etc.
|
| Maybe you could even fiddle and have 16 hours of sleep
| and overclock your brain for the other 8 being super-
| intelligent, lol.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| It might make sense to just drop the term optimization
| when discussing natural selection.
|
| It's not like "Natural Selection" was given an ecological
| niche and optimized from scratch the being for that
| niche. That mental model implies there's not much to be
| done and any changes would produce a less useful product.
|
| A more apt term would be "Refactored" or even "Patched".
|
| It's more like a giant ugly legacy software system was
| added to, and the result was just enough to keep going in
| the new system.
|
| I like that analogy better because it implies: 1. There
| is room for optimization, and 2. Any minor change is
| likely to break things far away due to the continuous re-
| patching and legacy cruft. Both of which seem correct.
| iterateoften wrote:
| > "Natural Selection" was given an ecological niche and
| optimized from scratch the being for that niche
|
| I think you are conflating natural selection the process
| with organisms that are a result of natural selection.
|
| Natural selection isn't a process that is intentionally
| made by anyone, but a way we describe a simplified model
| slew of complex processes.
|
| Also conflated is what you are optimizing for. The only
| thing natural selection optimizes for is survival. That's
| it. Nothing else matters expect which individuals survive
| long enough to pass their genes to the next generation.
| As a result niches develop and as each generation
| survives compared to their peers their survival
| strategies are optimized.
|
| Optimization perfectly describes what is happening to the
| survivability and reproduction of certain genes.
|
| You appear to be working backwards. That there was a
| niche and evolution somehow crafted an organism to fit
| that niche. That is misleading. Genes replicate, and in a
| certain context some genes survived and replicated better
| than in some other context. So genes evolved in that new
| context creating a niche.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| You're right about the mechanism of course, but the
| language and mental model I see over and over is that it
| a bespoke optimization that ignores the fact that it was
| incremental changes, and that some adaptations are no
| longer beneficial because they were created for an
| environment that no longer exists.
|
| I'd like to deprecate that mental model.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Unless there's some huge evolutionary inefficiency that can
| be artificially hacked. But it's a big if. If there was it
| would be possible to get some benefits without significant
| or no downsides.
| Kiro wrote:
| > I woke up early today and had a few hours of darkness, I can
| feel my mood and brainpower improving as the sun rises
|
| I can't relate at all. Where I live the days are consumed by
| darkness in the winter and I see no effect on my mood or
| brainpower.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| You don't? I'm also in an area with mostly darkness in the
| winter and I have to say I do feel depressed, and I wish it
| was always summer. I think it's the worst aspects about my
| location. Otherwise I think it's great.
|
| From the name I assume you are from Finland, which I am not,
| but supposedly Finnish people are the happiest in the World -
| which I'm not sure if it's actually true. The joke is that
| every Finnish person after seeing the study wonders why they
| are the only unhappy one.
| trallnag wrote:
| If sunlight improves your mood, add more lights to your place?
| Around my desk where I spend a lot of my time I have lights
| with a combined power of 150 watts and it's noticeable
| XorNot wrote:
| Productivity is irrelevant: when you have young children, any
| given amount of time where you can be awake and functional is
| incredibly valuable - particularly if it works outside the
| hours your children sleep.
|
| Like I'll settle for "tired but no accruing sleep debt".
| naming_the_user wrote:
| Are we assuming then that you're not treating the children?
| Because otherwise they just sleep less as well and now you're
| back to square one.
|
| I suppose you can full dystopia it, go the other way, make
| them need 12-16 hours a sleep a day whilst you only need 4 ;)
| XorNot wrote:
| I mean I also don't give my son caffeine (because he's 2)
| so this seems like a reasonable assumption.
|
| Teenagers stay up too late anyway so I'd say this sort of
| thing would be a good way to hopefully reduce the effects
| of sleep deprivation.
| rekado wrote:
| Teenagers have to get up too early. Teenagers experience
| a shift in their circadian rhythm and also require more
| sleep than before puberty. School schedules do not
| account for this shift.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Not treating the children will only level the playing
| field. My two daughters, 5yo and 3.5yo, both sleep from "as
| late as they can get away with" to "about an hour earlier
| than parents would like to wake up".
|
| Also, whoever came up with the idea of nap hour in
| kindergartens has a special circle of hell reserved for
| them.
| clumsysmurf wrote:
| Recently this came up on sleep deprivation :
|
| "preemptive administration of low-dose aspirin during sleep
| restriction reduced pro-inflammatory responses. Specifically,
| aspirin reduced interleukin-6 expression and COX-1/COX-2 double
| positive cells in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated monocytes, as
| well as C-reactive protein serum levels."
|
| "aspirin-induced reduction of inflammatory pathway activity in
| sleep-restricted participants was paralleled by decreased wake
| after sleep onset and increased sleep efficiency during recovery
| sleep"
|
| But, bleeding and strokes :(
|
| https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06-dose-aspirin-inflamma...
| killjoywashere wrote:
| > The UCSF group hypothesizes that this elevated level of orexin
| expression partially explains reduced sleep
|
| So, one possible line of investigation would be a table of
| mammals, their sleep cycles, their orexin levels, and the numbers
| of copies of orexin and it's regulators in their genomes. For
| example: compared to humans, elephants have a lower cancer risk.
| Turns out they have significantly more copies of p53, a tumor
| supressor gene (1).
|
| Perhaps a similar, somewhat parallel construct exists: elephants
| sleep 3-4 hours a night. Maybe they have more orexin? Maybe they
| have different copy numbers or mutations of the relevant genes in
| the pathway?
|
| (1) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5061548/
| abhaynayar wrote:
| Love the writing-style. Quite "to-the-point", without any fluff,
| and with a nice flow and purpose.
| lokimedes wrote:
| As above, so below. These lines of thinking sees sleep as a
| hygiene factor for maintaining bio stasis. We also process
| experiences and "simulate" effects of potential actions in the
| waking state. These "software-level" sleep activities seems less
| quantifiable in terms of sleep-time efficiency. If I get an
| evolutionary advantage from better consolidated experiences
| through longer dream sessions, how would that compare with more
| "face-time" with lions and famines in my waking state? There is a
| nasty "all things being equal" fallacy hidden in this line of
| thinking.
| sinuhe69 wrote:
| My question is, if sleeping less (with FNSS) offers so much
| advantage, why haven't we all evolved to sleep less with FNSS? If
| a mutation offers a distinct advantage, natural selection will
| force us to adopt it sooner or later.
| dinoqqq wrote:
| There is a theory that sleeping more hours was not a
| determining factor in survival [1]. Homo sapiens mitigated
| sleeping on the ground as a risk by sleeping in groups.
|
| > However, too much deep sleep is dangerous. REM is the stage
| of sleep in which we experience dreams, so our muscles become
| paralyzed to avoid acting out these dreams. In his "social
| sleep hypothesis," Samson suggests that our ancestors mitigated
| the risk of deep sleep by sleeping in large groups with at
| least one person on guard.
|
| > "Human camps are like a snail's shell. They can pick it up
| and move it around with them," Samson says. Our ancestral
| hunter-gatherers might have slept in groups of 15 to 20 around
| a campfire, taking turns staying awake and watching over the
| others.
|
| [1] https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-strange-
| sl...
| m0llusk wrote:
| Humans already sleep far less than other mammals, so that seems
| to be the case. It also might be evidence that attempting to
| get by with less has costs. Sleep debt has a range of troubling
| symptoms including psychosis, so risks involved in
| experimentation are significant.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I've always wanted to reduce my sleep requirement. These days I
| naturally sleep for 8 hours. It's not completely wasted; my brain
| often figures out difficult problems while I sleep. But if I
| could do something relaxing like playing a game or socialising
| instead that would be great.
|
| I did try polyphasic sleep when I was younger but it didn't work
| out. Having my sleeping patterns so far off the standard made me
| really unhappy.
| rramadass wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42281618
| exmadscientist wrote:
| Hey, discussion of orexin receptor stuff! As someone with
| clinically-diagnosed insomnia, I've been lucky enough
| to/unfortunate enough to have to try the orexin receptor
| antagonist sleep aids for a while. As recent, on-patent drugs,
| they are very, _very_ expensive ($360 /month was the number
| marked on the receipt slip, not that that means much in the US; I
| certainly wasn't paying that)... and they work. They really,
| really do work. I was prescribed them because I tried _every
| single other class of_ sleep aid on the market and they were
| mostly ineffective, had massive side effects, or were benzos
| (temazepam: best sleep of my life, but better not use it for
| longer than a month!).
|
| This stuff? Orexin receptor antagonists? They work. Holy crap, do
| they ever work. Sleep quality better than the Z-drugs, great
| tolerability, no massive disruption going off them... when these
| things go off-patent they're going to be massive. Sleep quality
| was not perfect (maybe 80% of "normal"? I don't know) but that is
| absolutely minor compared to the alternative.
|
| (And for the record, I'm off them now due to other stuff clearing
| up such that I don't need this level of sleep assistance anymore.
| Not because I can't afford them.)
|
| I guess that's a long-winded way to say that if you're going to
| do questionably-advised sleep biohacking, orexin receptors are
| probably the place to start.
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| >(And for the record, I'm off them now due to other stuff
| clearing up such that I don't need this level of sleep
| assistance anymore. Not because I can't afford them.)
|
| If it was available over the counter for, say, $50/month -- do
| you think you would be taking it just for the improved sleep
| quality?
|
| Also, what was the specific name of the drug you had such a
| good experience with?
| smallnix wrote:
| Afaiu exmadscientist said their sleep quality improved in the
| context of their condition, but still worse than a healthy
| person's sleep:
|
| > Sleep quality was not perfect (maybe 80% of "normal"? I
| don't know)
| exmadscientist wrote:
| Yes, it was noticably lower quality than "good normal
| sleep" (80%?). Better than I got on eszopiclone (60%?) or
| zolpidem (40%??), worse than trazodone (90+%, but woke up
| every day like I'd been hit in the head with a frying pan)
| or temazepam (150%! amazing! but tolerance within a month
| and then addiction soon after if one is stupid enough to
| push back on a benzo, so no good).
| zkelvin wrote:
| How long have you been taking them? I've heard that an almost
| universal side effect is terrifying night paralysis on
| occasion. Have you experienced that yet?
| thelastparadise wrote:
| Yeah, this is is true. I've been taking for 3 months now
| --best consistent sleep of my life, but definitely
| occasionally the most terrifying sleep paralysis I've ever
| experienced, or even heard of.
|
| I know it sounds ridiculous, but ~1-2 nights of absolute
| terror per week is totally worth it compared to how it used
| to be (getting maybe ~1 good night of sleep every couple
| weeks.)
| cj wrote:
| Is it intended to be used daily or do you get the "only use
| very sparingly" advice typical of prescription sleep aids?
| currymj wrote:
| website marketing materials for Quviviq make a big deal
| that it should be used daily for best results.
| gavinray wrote:
| I've been prescribed both available Orexin antagonists
| (Daridorexant and Suvorexant) for insomnia.
|
| They work very well for me and I've noticed no side effects.
|
| I've been taking them about 2-3 years now.
|
| FWIW, I found Dayvigo to work better than Quviviq but they
| both do the job.
| exmadscientist wrote:
| I did not experience night paralysis while using lemborexant.
|
| I can think of a few reasons I might have avoided it, but who
| knows for sure. I wasn't on it that long (about a year? not
| going to look it up), I as a general rule do not remember my
| dreams unless I'm interrupted, the underlying cause of my
| total insomnia was pharmalogical, I've always had some level
| of sleep disorder, I've been on every other sort of sleep
| aid, I used it with melatonin... who really knows.
| jlpom wrote:
| For me they significantly increase REM, it seems at the cost of
| slow wave sleep. (this is logical as orexin agonism prevent REM
| sleep)
| rsyring wrote:
| > As recent, on-patent drugs, they are very, very expensive
| ($360/month...
|
| Expensive is always relative to one's income. But, to put that
| number into perspective relative to another medication given
| for a good night's sleep:
|
| I'm the parent of a narcoleptic. The meds to get a good night's
| sleep, Xyrem, are in the $15k / month range. The recently
| approved generics are 1/2 that.
| raducu wrote:
| > Xyrem, are in the $15k.
|
| Xyrem is basically GHB? A 500 ml bottle of GBL used to be
| what, 50 euros?
|
| I know the medication is pharmeceutical grade, but are these
| people insane?
| juliusgeo wrote:
| Xyrem is just the brand name for GHB. The company that
| currently owns the rights (Jazz Pharmaceuticals) pled
| guilty to felony misbranding in 2011, and in 2013 raised
| the price by 841%. More recently, in 2017, they sued
| multiple other companies attempting to produce generics,
| before settling on an exclusive licensing agreement with
| one of them. Ironically the headline on their website is
| "Improving Patients' Lives", but I imagine they aren't
| reducing the price because Xyrem makes up 74% of total
| sales [1]. The entire thing reeks of PE--tons of
| acquisitions.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_Pharmaceuticals
| renewiltord wrote:
| Is it really possible? Taking 16 waking hours to 20 waking hours
| would make my 40 remaining years into 50 remaining year
| equivalent. I will attend to this.
| rramadass wrote:
| No, don't. Sleep is fundamental to everything else and hence
| messing with it is never advisable. Some resources;
|
| 1) Neuroscience of Sleep -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_sleep
|
| 2) Sleep Epigenetics -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_epigenetics
|
| 3) Sleep deprivation -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation
|
| 4) Familial natural short sleep -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_natural_short_sleep
| benreesman wrote:
| I'll admit I didn't read TFA.
|
| Some combination of the title and the submission domain triggered
| my tick even more than usual around the use of "AI".
|
| It's extremely unlikely that I'll regard any artifact as
| artificially intelligent if the broader context fails a pretty
| low bar for intelligence of any kind.
| benreesman wrote:
| Please tell me Foubners Fund is a gigaparsec from this before I
| become the Unabomber.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| The article is very real and human written and highly
| intelligent regardless of its merits.
|
| So a bit of a false positive for your mental model.
| stared wrote:
| > Familial Natural Short Sleep (FNSS), a benign mutation that
| allows them to sleep 1-2 hours less than the recommended 7-9
| hours, without experiencing the negative effects of sleep
| deprivation.
|
| Sleep deprivation is one concern, but there's a more subtle
| impact on cognitive functions (working memory, creativity, deep
| focus), overall health (particularly the endocrine and immune
| systems), and long-term health outcomes (such as an increased
| risk of dementia).
|
| When I was younger, I was fascinated by various optimized sleep
| schedules. However, I noticed a stark contrast: many of my math
| friends consistently slept 9-10 hours a day. They needed that--
| not just to function in daily life but to achieve the deep focus
| required for their work. Living on less sleep might not affect
| immediate action (and in some cases, it might even seem to
| enhance focus on doing), but it can impair deeper, more complex
| thinking.
|
| Some suggest that one of sleep's key roles is to help the brain
| regenerate. Chronic sleep deprivation, in turn, is linked to a
| higher risk of dementia. For anecdotal evidence: Churchill and
| Thatcher, known for boasting about sleeping only 4-5 hours a
| night, experienced significant cognitive decline later in life.
| djtango wrote:
| This is true, I was neighbours with one of the top
| mathematicians in my uni and he slept what felt like an
| excessive amount everyday.
|
| I definitely underperformed academically due to sleep
| deprivation and I probably benefited greatly during my revision
| period because I had a very strong sleep routine.
|
| That said, I entered my final exam having only slept probably
| less than two hours and that was 100% the right call because
| the extra cramming was necessary and drove the needle
| significantly.
| vacuity wrote:
| Sleep deprivation affects many different things, some of
| which are salvageable with stimulants like caffeine, and
| certain functions are fairly unaffected. Exams that can be
| solved mostly with rote memorization are less impacted by
| sleep deprivation than exams that require spontaneous
| creativity. In any case, glad to know it went well for you!
| consf wrote:
| It's funny how we sometimes don't notice the toll until
| after we've recovered
| Aurornis wrote:
| > When I was younger, I was fascinated by various optimized
| sleep schedules.
|
| I was also fascinated with alternate sleep schedules when I was
| younger. Some of the books and biohackers of the time made them
| sound like magical ways to get more hours out of the day.
|
| Then every single experience report I found that was not coming
| from someone trying to sell me a book or get me to subscribe to
| their newsletter, YouTube, or other social media was extremely
| negative. Nobody who tried these had continued them very long.
| After going back to regular sleep schedules they felt
| significantly better. A common report was that they didn't
| realize how badly sleep deprived they were until they stopped
| the alternate sleep schedule and went back to normal sleep.
|
| A lot of the sleep biohacking reports follow a similar trend:
| People who try alternate methods of minimizing sleep don't
| realize the negative effects until they quit. This is also true
| for people who rely on stimulants (caffeine or stronger) which
| mask feelings of sleep deprivation but can't actually reverse
| the negative effects of sleep deprivation.
| consf wrote:
| I thought that it could be a superpower of productivity...
| euroderf wrote:
| > I noticed a stark contrast: many of my math friends
| consistently slept 9-10 hours a day.
|
| I'm curious, in order to reach this duration, did they need to
| do some kind of exercise at some point in the day, to gain
| physical fatigue ? Or could they sleep this long whilst being
| (I exaggerate here) couch potatoes ?
| mettamage wrote:
| Being able to just sleep 10 hours every day seems like an
| unfair advantage.
| consf wrote:
| But maybe they have to sacrifice time for other things
| maleldil wrote:
| Why would it be an advantage? Aren't you "losing time"?
|
| I need 10 hours every day, so even if I go to bed at 10pm,
| I'd wake up at 8am, which is "late" for most people.
|
| I'd love to be able to wake up at 6am, but just can't. It
| doesn't feel like an advantage.
| cortesoft wrote:
| > I'd love to be able to wake up at 6am, but just can't.
|
| What does "just can't" mean, exactly? Just curious,
| because I felt that way, too, until I had a newborn and
| was forced to wake up with less sleep and discovered it
| was physically possible. Still felt awful all day, but it
| was possible.
| maleldil wrote:
| I meant that I can't sleep 8 hours and feel rested. If
| I'm forced to sleep less than I need, I'd be sleepy and
| tired all day. Taking a nap helps but isn't always
| possible, and is even less time efficient.
| consf wrote:
| I went through a phase where I thought I could optimize my
| sleep, too. But over time, I realized I wasn't actually as
| sharp or productive as I felt in the moment.
| blueblimp wrote:
| > many of my math friends consistently slept 9-10 hours a day.
|
| Anecdotally, I've noticed an association between long sleeping
| and math ability in particular, so this doesn't surprise me. I
| wonder if it's been studied scientifically.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I remember reading that Thatcher used to nap regularly
| throughout the day. She probably got more sleep than was stated
| at the time.
| kator wrote:
| This article makes me want to get a DNA test. In my family, it's
| very common to sleep in the six-hour range. I personally sleep
| from 10 pm to 4:25 am every day, often waking up around 4:15 am
| before my watch vibrates to wake me.
|
| If I sleep eight hours, I feel groggy, jet-lagged, and generally
| have a day where I'm slogging through molasses to get from one
| task to the next.
|
| My wife has raised concerns about my sleep pattern, so I started
| using sleep-tracking tools like Fitbit and, more recently, an
| Apple Watch. She tracks her sleep too, and the big difference
| we've noticed is that I fall asleep within about two minutes, and
| my "sleep efficiency" using these tools is 98%. If I'm traveling
| and feel a bit jet-lagged, I can take a 20-minute nap (often
| without an alarm) and wake up feeling refreshed. She also seems
| to wake up a lot, most nights I "sleep like a log" and I only
| wakeup in the morning.
|
| My mother has the same pattern but stays up later and sleeps
| about six hours into the morning. I used to do this too, but
| around age 23, I switched to an earlier bedtime and a consistent
| daily routine. When I became a "morning person," I found I could
| code like crazy in the morning before "starting" my day, and this
| rewarding experience reinforced the habit.
|
| I've tested this pattern in many ways, including not using an
| alarm (I still wake up around the same time for weeks at a time)
| and using a "light clock" I built with a Raspberry Pi to slowly
| brighten the room. Again, I wake up after roughly 6 hours and 20
| minutes. Now, I use my Apple Watch to vibrate as a gentle
| reminder to start the day. On weekends, I keep the same schedule
| and use the extra time to read or hack away at side projects,
| often coding until the late afternoon when my wife protests
| enough that I need to stop and hang out or do my honey-do's.
|
| About 10 years ago, during my annual checkup, my wife asked my
| doctor about this sleep pattern. The doctor asked me several
| questions, seemingly looking for signs of sleep deficit or
| dysfunction. In the end, he said I could do a sleep study but
| concluded, "If it works, don't break it."
|
| As for productivity, I've found I can code effectively from 4:30
| am to 8:30 am, then shower and work from 9 am to 6 pm without
| much trouble. I also practice intermittent fasting, typically
| eating only at 6 pm, with a protein shake around noon. This habit
| happened by accident--I realized breakfast slowed me down, and
| eating lots of carbs impaired my cognitive function and ability
| to code or handle complex tasks in the morning.
|
| Before you ask, I generally don't use caffeine or other
| stimulants. Occasionally, I'll have one cup of coffee around 9 am
| as a social habit, but I recently stopped that again and actually
| feel better. I'll most likely drop it again for a while until it
| sneaks back in again.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Kind of tangential, but some time ago now passed famous sleep
| researcher William Dement gave a presentation at Google TechTalks
| about healthy sleep and optimal performance that is a good
| overall review of what we know about sleep:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8
| k__ wrote:
| Cool!
|
| Next solve going to the toilet and we're all set.
| cmiller1 wrote:
| They talk about the people achieving full mental capacity with
| less sleep, but are there any studies on physical recovery in
| people with FNSS? Do they also experience improved rate of
| exercise recovery and muscle growth during sleep?
| yapyap wrote:
| This paper totally ignores the human aspect of sleeping, there is
| a habit to it.
|
| If we were able to be awake 20 hours a day we may still be
| miserable because of factors like the sun being down for ane even
| longer time while we're awake.
|
| I feel like this is one of those inane pursuits for productivity
| where that doesn't fit at all, at least not for the thinking
| jobs. Maybe in a dystopia big companies like amazon would use
| inventions like this to be able to let their employees work 20
| hour work days or something.
|
| Of course this shouldn't discredit the linked article of being
| interesting or anything, just sharing my thoughts on the endless
| pursuit of productivity.
| xandrius wrote:
| Many people spend a lot of time awake during the darker hours
| and not everyone is miserable. I actually enjoy both, so if I
| could operate 20h a day without any harm or loss, it would be a
| net win for sure (and I also love sleeping).
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| The article is neutral on the impacts of needing less sleep.
| It's not proposing an increase in productivity or how to use
| more waking hours.
|
| Its main raison d'etre is we're all sleep deprived so
| engineering less sleep may provide health and wellness
| benefits.
| jevogel wrote:
| If you're required to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week,
| gaining an extra hour or two per day could go toward leisure or
| recreation or exercise. Or maybe you're already sleeping only
| 6.25 hours a night, but it is having negative health and mood
| effects, and eliminating those negatives could improve quality
| of life without detracting from waking time.
| muzster wrote:
| not all hours sleep/awake hours are equal - for example, I may be
| more work productive late at night, a better listener/learner in
| the mornings and better sleeper post meals, in the bath tub,
| travelling (my kids used to love falling asleep in the car).
|
| Wonder if we could engineer multiple sleep intervals through out
| the single day (e.g. power napping, siesta's). There is plenty of
| dead time for me during the day that could be swapped out for
| sleep.. the question is at what cost to the body & mind?
|
| Just a thought.
| baq wrote:
| I'm not convinced we need to engineer sleep in the general
| population. Once shorter sleep times are available to everyone,
| they'll be expected and then simply assumed just as cars are
| right now in most of the US.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| It is very important to ensure that society _does not work this
| way_.
| quotemstr wrote:
| Your argument works just as well for eyeglasses. Was inventing
| eyeglasses a mistake?
| baq wrote:
| You're confusing glasses with sight and besides the analogy
| would be not vs glasses, but vs some kind of cyber eye
| implant.
| dooglius wrote:
| There is a good reason why this would be selected against by
| evolution: being awake increases metabolic rate--how many
| calories you use every day. Humans have only had abundant food
| availability for a short time, not long enough for evolution to
| adapt.
| wslh wrote:
| COVID affected my sleep, but I wouldn't classify it as "long
| COVID" Does anyone have interesting insights or resources about
| this? I've found a references, but HN is one of the best
| resources to ask for this.
|
| It seems to improve over time, and I don't have any trouble
| napping during the day. However, my main issue is fragmented
| sleep: I wake up a few times at night but can fall back asleep
| easily. I used to sleep continuously, so I'm curious about what
| part of the brain this could be affecting and how can this be
| changed. I tried melatonin [1] in different dosages, from extra
| low to relatively high.
|
| I'm fairly certain COVID was the cause since the symptoms
| coincided with the infection. Of course, statistically speaking,
| it could be a coincidence involving other factors, but I'm not
| planning to dive into a PhD analysis of it, yet!
|
| [1] https://gwern.net/melatonin
| bsamuels wrote:
| had the same thing coincide with covid, but much harder to fall
| asleep once disrupted. Melatonin only seems to last for an hour
| or so, so I would take one to go back to sleep after a
| disruption
| wslh wrote:
| Thank you very much for the tip. I will try it out for a
| month, and let you know how it works.
| righthand wrote:
| > Getting a bad night of sleep now and then is annoying, but not
| a health risk. However, chronic poor sleep may increase the
| likelihood of developing dementia, heart disease, type 2
| diabetes, obesity and even cancers of the breast, colon, ovaries
| and prostate. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-
| preventi...
|
| Is it entirely possible that yes you can get 2 hours less sleep,
| but you're at higher risk of developing dementia, heart disease,
| type 2 diabetes, etc.? I don't see anything discussing long term
| effects of less sleep in comparison in TFA.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| There's a whole section in TFA called "too good to be true?"
| Which calls this out but says we don't have enough data to know
| righthand wrote:
| > Instead, the risks are concentrated in medium to long term
| health of individuals who undergo therapy. As of now, we
| simply don't have enough data to profile risk factors. More
| experiments are needed to know if "FNSS for all" is too good
| to be true.
|
| > Which calls this out but says we don't have enough data to
| know
|
| I don't know if that is true, that section to me reads as we
| don't know if there are long term effects with FNSS therapy
| because they haven't been study yet, specifically to the
| therapy. Not necessarily how FNSS or FNSS therapy is related
| to other sleep health studies.
| londons_explore wrote:
| It's notable that almost every animal sleeps in some way, even
| organisms that are away from sunlight (ie. creatures that live
| underground).
|
| If you sleep 30% of the time, that's 30% of the time you aren't
| eating, mating, etc. Also, during sleep you are more vulnerable
| to predators. One would expect evolution to get rid of sleep in
| creatures who don't rely on sunlight cycles.
|
| So, there must be some _really_ good evolutionary reason for
| sleep.
| jlpom wrote:
| Repairing cellular damage (mitochondrial and main DNA) from
| oxidation thanks to slower metabolism is the main reason. On a
| side note taking vitamin E (an antioxidant that passes the
| blood-brain barrier) seems to have slightly reduced the need
| for sleep for me.
| ajsisbckjx wrote:
| > So, there must be some really good evolutionary reason for
| sleep.
|
| Is this how evolution works? Might it be that animals sleeping
| is good on the macro level but bad for the animal?
| jampekka wrote:
| I don't know why this is downvoted. It's entirely feasible
| that weaknesses in a species (or its individuals) may be
| beneficial for the ecosystem and hence survival of the
| species in the long term.
|
| E.g. rabbit population being culled by predators may prevent
| the rabbits from eating their feed plants to extinction.
| dahart wrote:
| Parent is suggesting that sleeping must be good on the macro
| level. That does imply that it must also be good for the
| animal, right? In order to statistically benefit the
| population, the benefits to any given animal must
| statistically outweigh the costs. It can't be all bad for all
| animals and still be good for the whole.
|
| But sleep can be partially bad for some animals, they can be
| more prone to becoming prey while sleeping (though Google
| tells me sleep also prevents nighttime activity where
| predators have the advantage). There are definitely
| evolutionary adaptations around sleep to make it safer,
| sleeping in trees, sleep patterns & duration, hypnic jerk,
| etc.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _during sleep you are more vulnerable to predators_
|
| Marine mammals sleep unihemispherally [1]. Land mammals can
| burrow, _et cetera_ , which explains why predation and injury
| risk _decrease_ during sleep. (Counterfactual: "large animals
| that are not at risk for predation, such as big cats and bears,
| can sleep for long periods, often in unprotected sites and
| appear to sleep deeply" ( _Id._ ).
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4948738/
|
| [2]
| https://www.semel.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/publications/...
| carlosjobim wrote:
| You've got it backwards, the awake part of life is the
| sacrifice all living beings have to make to support the primary
| function of dreaming.
| gavmor wrote:
| This is a fun thought experiment, but our working definition
| of life is something along the lines of heritable
| metabolizing, which dreaming doesn't so obviously serve.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| I don't think this is necessarily true. Is there some really
| important reason many animals have brains in their head (versus
| elsewhere in their body), or is it that many species happen to
| be derived from some ancestor who had that trait.
|
| Another way to ask this would be how much of a benefit would be
| not sleeping? It's difficult to preserve food, but I guess
| there is no limit on how much energy you can expend pursuing a
| mate.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| The Taylorism (and eugenics) people would have a field day with
| this.
|
| Are there any good sci fi stories or novels on reducing or
| eliminating sleep through better chemistry?
|
| Given the impetus of the article is we're all chronically sleep
| deprived, I wonder what kind of (Swiftian?) political solution
| there might be to collectively improving sleep health.
|
| Certainly the current commercial solution is drugs and lots of
| them.
| mbb70 wrote:
| "Beggars in Spain" is exactly this and worth the read. There is
| a book and a short story but as usual, the short story packs
| more punch.
| ranprieur wrote:
| > it's not a desire but a necessity.
|
| Speak for yourself. I love sleep and wish I could sleep more.
| Sometimes I think the only purpose of being awake is to get food
| and shelter for more sleep.
| codr7 wrote:
| Same, but waking up is very painful, I just want to go back to
| wherever.
| thepuppet33r wrote:
| I did a lot of sleep hacking in college, trying to sleep as
| little as possible so that I could spend time with friends, play
| video games, and (ostensibly) study.
|
| Now that I'm working a job where I do overnight deployments,
| often work 12-14 hours days, and have a couple of kids who don't
| sleep well, I hate my past self for not sleeping while he could.
| You never know when circumstances will drive you into unplanned
| sleep deprivation. Doing it to yourself for low-to-mid-level time
| gains isn't worth it.
| mettamage wrote:
| This is one of the bigger failures of modern society. This
| information should've been pervasive but back then it wasn't.
| It arguably still isn't, perhaps for the highly educated.
|
| Back when I studied (15 years ago), if I knew that I'd have the
| short-term memory issues that I do now, I'd never have done
| what I did just in order to study longer.
| pedalpete wrote:
| I work in the sleep space, particularly enhancing slow-wave sleep
| - the synchronous firing of neurons which define deep sleep, the
| most restorative and vital component of sleep.
|
| Only focusing on the amount of time asleep is a significantly
| limited viewpoint, but I believe this will change in the coming
| years as we gather more knowledge of sleep and access to EEG data
| about our brain activity during sleep increases.
|
| Only measuring sleep time is like measuring the health of a
| persons diet is by measuring how much time they spent eating, but
| of course, looking at macronutrients, calories, is the right way
| of doing it.
|
| I'll be writing more about this in the coming months, but my
| current thinking is that the concept of "can we sleep less" isn't
| the correct approach, and can be dangerous. At
| AffectableSleep.com - we increase the efficiency of deep sleep,
| and much of the research (https://affectablesleep.com/research)
| focuses on enhancing deep sleep in sleep deprived individuals
| (I'll post more research soon). This doesn't mean we should be
| sleeping less. A lack of quality sleep is already an epidemic in
| society, and massively underreported because the focus of the
| sleep industry has been the amount of time asleep, not the
| restorative functions of sleep.
|
| Our goal isn't to help you sleep less, and we will need to be
| very clear in our marketing, but rather to ensure the sleep you
| get is as restorative as possible.
|
| Of course, like any technology, some people will use it for
| negative purposes, which I believe would be to just "get by" on
| less sleep, rather than optimize your health through better
| sleep.
|
| You can find out more at https://affectablesleep.com
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| Your /research link doesn't work.
|
| It seems your company produces a deep sleep headband. I'm
| interested in these sorts of products because I want more deep
| sleep (for myself, and for family) while lifestyle factors
| (mostly kids) make that very difficult.
|
| The last product I tried was the Philips deep sleep headband
| (which, unfortunately, never appeared in Netherlands, I had to
| import it from the US even though Philips is a Dutch company).
|
| The main problem I had was that the headband is not compatible
| with ear plugs. Without ear plus, I get woken up very easily,
| either by outside traffic or by people in the household going
| to the toilet. The sound insulation in my house is terrible,
| and it cannot be improved short of tearing down all the walls
| and rebuilding them. So now I use a pair of really good ear
| plugs, _and_ I also put a noise cancelling head phone over that
| to block out extra sounds.
|
| Would it be possible to combine a deep sleep headband with a
| good ear plug? Or better: would it be possible to combine with
| that, _and_ also noise cancelling headphones?
| pedalpete wrote:
| Our headband uses bone conduction speaker within the headband
| which sits in the middle of your forehead. Absolutely ear
| plugs are compatible. Wearing headphones _should_ be fine,
| there is nothing in, covering, or near your ears.
|
| Sorry for the wrong link, the page is "science" not
| "research", I'll create a redirect, I often type that wrong.
| https://www.affectablesleep.com/science
|
| I'd be keen to hear about your experience with the Philips
| product. We've spoken to some of their researchers, but I've
| never met a consumer who had one. We've spoken with many
| people who had the Dreem headband which had similar
| technology in some markets (not the US).
|
| You can reach me at pete[at] you know the domain - if you're
| willing to share your experience.
|
| Thanks
| ein0p wrote:
| Yeah, optimize yourself to make every available dollar for your
| corporate / government masters. Or just sleep 8+ hours a night
| like you're supposed to according to decades of published
| research. Which way western man/woman?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| The best advice I ever received, and will give again. It has
| really served me well.
|
| In the words of John Lennon, let it be.
|
| Sleep when you're tired, work and play when you're not. The
| constrination and worrying about it, how much time you have for
| what, etc. is the single biggest driver for the stress and loss
| of sleep. Let go of that, let if flow, it will.
| klysm wrote:
| Doesn't work for me, my natural cycle would have me not aligned
| with the sun and the rest of the world operates aligned with
| the sun
| iancmceachern wrote:
| You are not getting what I'm laying down.
|
| I'm not saying this at all.
|
| Have an alarm clock, have a schedule. But don't stress about
| it or "optimize" it. Just do it.
| joshdavham wrote:
| > What if they could keep sleeping less, but with no
| consequences?
|
| This is a super interesting question!
|
| I think one ironic possibility is that people would still sleep
| deprive themselves, but with even fewer hours of sleep.
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