[HN Gopher] Sleep is essential - researchers are trying to work ...
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Sleep is essential - researchers are trying to work out why
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 210 points
Date : 2025-04-10 13:07 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| sylware wrote:
| Extreme Sleep deprived people did hallucinate.
|
| Nature may give us some hints to improve "AI" reliability.
| parpfish wrote:
| It was a mistake to use the term "hallucinate" in AI. It's a
| decent metaphor but it's best to avoid terms prone to
| anthropomorphism.
| moate wrote:
| It was also a mistake calling it "AI".
| parpfish wrote:
| Should've just gone with calling it Al. Seems friendly and
| you'll mistake it for actual AI until you look closer
| bregma wrote:
| You can call it Betty.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Maybe only if you're their long last pal though.
| LPisGood wrote:
| It's less "hallucination" and more "confabulation"
| astrange wrote:
| It's "hallucination" because we got image generation before
| text generation, but yes this is a better term.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| It's less "confabulation" than "pattern-based statistical
| prediction"
| alan-crowe wrote:
| I've suggested Runge Spiking as an alternative, non-
| anthropomorphic metaphor
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43612517
| nottorp wrote:
| > best to avoid terms prone to anthropomorphism
|
| Like "understanding" and "thinking"?
|
| Or "will change everything"?
| shit_stabber wrote:
| Relevant to this, people with a genetic mutation that adversely
| affects sleep end up developing dementia and dying early:
|
| https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/25001-fatal-f...
| api wrote:
| I've wondered if anyone's ever looked at inducing long periods
| of sleep as an early dementia mitigation.
| airstrike wrote:
| I hereby volunteer for this study
| roman_soldier wrote:
| I already do that, I need 8 hours of sleep a day..and 10 at
| night.
| waterhouse wrote:
| If you look carefully, what happens there is prions screwing up
| your brain, and insomnia seems like more of a consequence than
| a cause.
|
| > The cause of death for people diagnosed with fatal familial
| insomnia is damage to the brain and nervous system. This
| damage, caused by prion proteins accumulating in the thalamus,
| creates symptoms of insomnia and mental deterioration.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I'm not a neuroscientist, but it's hard to understand why anyone
| thinks that this mandatory downtime for all animals is just for a
| special reason. Why wouldn't sleeping be a catch-all window for
| autonomous maintenance and overall survival? Always take the most
| likely reason.
| foobarian wrote:
| It seems that given the options of 1) staying awake and active
| as normal during the night and 2) using the night period to run
| various maintenance task but without awareness the second
| option apparently turned out to be the winner as far as
| evolution is concerned.
|
| What's interesting to me is how many animals beyond humans do
| it - so it's not purely tied to the human cognitive functions
| like higher order thinking etc.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Plenty of animals are nocturnal, diurnal, or sleep in non-24h
| windows. Evolution does whatever works.
| lizknope wrote:
| The way dolphins sleep with half of their brain asleep is
| fascinating to me.
|
| https://us.whales.org/whales-dolphins/how-do-dolphins-sleep/
| inerte wrote:
| Also some birds, even while flying.
| codedokode wrote:
| Actually makes sense - like CPU that deactivates extra cores
| to let them cool down.
| parpfish wrote:
| Isn't that the crux of the question? Figuring out what all the
| maintenance stuff our bodies need to do every night and how it
| works seems useful
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| And whether we can recreate it without sleep.
| absolutelastone wrote:
| Depends how you look at it, but fatal things should have a
| clear explanation for why they kill you. We can survive longer
| without food and that one is easy to explain.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Some people seem to need a lot less sleep than others with no
| deleterious health effects. It would be very interesting to find
| out why.
| lizknope wrote:
| I haven't used an alarm clock in 20 years and wake up within
| the same 5-10 minute window almost every day.
|
| I have a friend that will just sleep through multiple alarms.
| But he can also just fall asleep in 10 minutes on an airplane
| and I can't sleep at all on a plane. He also takes lots of naps
| and I never take a nap unless I'm sick.
|
| The worst feeling to me is waking up from some external noise.
| I just feel so groggy afterword. My body will feel better after
| 5 hours of sleep and I just wake up naturally compared to 5
| hours, go back to sleep for 2 hours, and get woken up during
| the wrong time (middle of REM cycle?) and then I feel tired for
| the whole day even though I got more sleep.
| morkalork wrote:
| Wasn't there supposed to be a smart watch out there you could
| set a window of time you wanted to wake up like "between 6:30
| and 7:00" where it would use the sleep tracking to pick the
| optimal time to wake you up like at the end of a REM cycle? I
| feel like I must have hallucinated this because I'm wearing a
| smart watch (fitbit) now and no such feature exists.
| esperent wrote:
| It's an app that uses data from your watch, the name is
| something like sleep cycle.
| rorytbyrne wrote:
| Apple Watch does this.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Not ootb-separate app needed?
| coderc wrote:
| I'm wearing a fitbit (charge 6) now, and I still have this
| feature. It's called "Smart wake"
| https://gadgetsandwearables.com/2021/07/09/fitbit-smart-
| wake...
| morkalork wrote:
| A-ha that answers my question
|
| >while the new Inspire 2 gives insights into sleep
| stages, the Smart Wake feature is absent. We're not sure
| why this is. Hopefully it will come via a software
| update.
| Izkata wrote:
| There's an Android app called "Sleep" that does this
| without the watch. You put your phone on the corner of your
| bed and it figures out how awake you are with the
| accelerometer.
|
| Quick edit, I guess the name changed slightly: https://play
| .google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid...
| david-gpu wrote:
| Your friend could benefit from a sleep study. I'm not saying
| they have sleep apnea or UARS, but people with those
| disorders often have those symptoms.
| mikeweiss wrote:
| Yes, I'm one of the people that needs a solid 7-8 of sleep or
| else I easily become agitated, and anxiety and OCD kick in
| quickly ... Would love for this to not be the case, if there
| was a way for me to need less sleep I would be very interested
| devinprater wrote:
| Really? I thought I was the only one. Everyone around me seem
| to do fine with a good 3-5 hours of sleep. Before I lost
| weight, even if I had a good 7 hours of sleep, I'd still fall
| asleep at work. Now, even if I do get sleepy, a little moving
| around fixes things.
| hersko wrote:
| 3-5 hours a night??
| tking8924 wrote:
| One thing to note, I have ADHD and have similar issues
| getting sleepy when understimulated no matter how much
| sleep I get at night. Getting up and moving around for
| stimulation helps.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| My wife needs 8-9 hours, whereas I can get by just fine with
| 5-6. She is a very light sleeper who will wake up 3-4 times
| every night; I can sleep through almost any noise, and never
| get up in the middle of the night. My son takes after me -- he
| seems to need significantly less sleep than other kids his age,
| but he's an extraordinarily deep sleeper.
|
| Anecdotal, but I think that sleep depth might have something to
| do with it.
| jader201 wrote:
| I used to get by fine with 5-6 hours, too, until I started
| getting 7-8 and realized how much better I feel.
| bkandel wrote:
| I think this is pretty common! More sleep makes everything
| better -- attention, immune system (getting colds less
| often), mood, etc.
| randomopining wrote:
| I feel like a different person sometimes. And going to
| bed even 1hr earlier makes it generally much higher
| quality.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| I have spent months at a time getting 7-8 (amid years of
| 5-6). I never notice any difference and am actually
| surprised my body can do 7-8 to no purpose.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| From the perspective of evolution there's a purpose...
| burn fewer calories in the dark when there's nothing else
| to do.
|
| The question is whether it still matters in the modern
| era.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Anecdotal also but I sometimes sleep alone in my office (have
| a futon) where it is very quiet. I usually feel fully rested
| after 6 hours in there versus 8 hours in bed with wife, dog
| and the cat occasionally coming through.
|
| I wish culturally it was standard for houses to have
| something like `sleep` rooms that are optimized for that
| purpose.
| fooster wrote:
| They're called a bedroom.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| Obviously he means a room for one person to sleep. It's
| called a bedroom too but he knows that and so do you.
| roman_soldier wrote:
| That's called a divorce
| marcuschong wrote:
| I stopped sleeping with my wife in the same bedroom some
| years ago and it was great for our sleep quality.
|
| It's very funny how people conflate that with other aspects
| of couples relationships.
| shlant wrote:
| > with no deleterious health effects
|
| Is that actually the case? do we have long term data on these
| people? or are we just going off of "I feel fine on 5 hours of
| sleep" stories? Or are you only referring to day to day health
| effects?
| magneticnorth wrote:
| It's a fairly well studied phenomenon known as short sleeper
| syndrome.
|
| https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gene-
| id...
|
| There are no known health problems caused by this syndrome,
| according to a Cleveland Clinic overview page:
| https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/short-
| sleeper...
| NoTeslaThrow wrote:
| > There are no known health problems caused by this
| syndrome
|
| Presumably they mean there's no evidence of this syndrome
| causing health issues (presumably the "known" part is
| redundant). Trying to position a causal hypothesis as a
| matter-of-fact-finding is crazy.
|
| EDIT: that article is insanely poorly written and even
| worse cited. How are these websites giving super-sketchy
| medical advice even legal. There's no author to hold
| accountable, no way to remediate the quality of the
| article, no sources cited, and it's making statements that
| wouldn't hold up in a court of law.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| I don't understand what you are objecting to. What would
| the causal hypothesis be, "this syndrome causes no
| diseases"? It's just an ordinary claim that if the
| syndrome is harmful, it's not as immediately apparent as
| something like sniffing glue. It's saying "this is
| harmless" can't be ruled out.
| NoTeslaThrow wrote:
| > There are no known health problems caused by this
| syndrome
|
| This is a causal hypothesis framed as a statement. The
| rhetorics indicate an authoritative statement of fact
| regarding what the syndrome does cause, which is
| fundamentally an impossible conclusion to draw
| empirically.
|
| The only hedge in the sentence is "known", which is
| tautological.
|
| Of course, it's impossible to eliminate all variables,
| making authoritative claims about lack of causal relation
| impossible. But at least they could make the effort to
| frame this uncertainty in reasonable terms.
|
| > What would the causal hypothesis be, "this syndrome
| causes no diseases"?
|
| EDIT: but c'mon, just read the article. It's extremely
| bold in its claims with no evidence. "If you have short
| sleeper syndrome, you don't need as much sleep as others.
| You can expect this to continue throughout your life."
| "Natural short sleepers don't experience the same health
| risks as people who don't get enough sleep." etc. I don't
| see any semantic difference between this and "this
| syndrome causes no known diseases". (or "SSS doesn't pose
| any known health risks." as the actual quotation states.)
| trollbridge wrote:
| There's been research on it, although not as much as I wish.
| I'm one of those people who simply needs more sleep than the
| average, as does my dad... meanwhile, my mother chugs away
| just fine on 5 hours or so, and is in better health than
| either of we men are.
|
| People who accomplish a great deal are often one of these
| "short sleepers" who can subsist on 5 or even 4 hours of
| sleep a night; think top-of-their-field salesmen, CEOs, and
| so on. They simply have more time to get things done, and
| don't have the problem longer sleepers do that getting 4-5
| hours on a regular basis would start to affect their
| performance in every area of life, not to mention their
| health.
| qntmfred wrote:
| my dad typically gets 3-4 hours sleep a night. when he was a
| kid he fractured his skull riding his bike and has a hard time
| getting comfortable laying on a pillow for very long. despite
| that he's been able to maintain a high performance lifestyle
| for most of his life. i've also been very interested to know
| how he's been able to do it.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| I sleep 5-6 hours a night. I also seem to be bi-phasic...on the
| weekends if I wake up after 5 hours, hang around for an hour
| and successfully go back to sleep, the second cycle is the
| sleep of the dead. Like, I don't move. Wake up with limbs
| fallen asleep, a deep divot in the memory foam...and a lot more
| rested.
|
| (as an aside: have CPAP, apnea is not a factor.)
| dodongobongo wrote:
| iirc, biphasic sleep is the "usual way" people sleep without
| the advent of electricity, yes? "the waking hour", and all
| that.
|
| I wonder if there was an increase in dementia-related
| disorders once lightbulbs kept people up longer.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| > iirc, biphasic sleep is the "usual way" people sleep
| without the advent of electricity, yes? "the waking hour",
| and all that.
|
| I honestly believe that this is not "natural", but rather
| an adaptation to the absurdly long European winter nights.
| Note that we didn't evolve there, so it seems unlikely that
| bi-phasic sleep is the most primal way.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| Some of us have partially evolved for that environment.
| My ancestors eyes turned blue to see in the dim light and
| their hair and skin changed from Ethiopian Black to pale
| and blonde af.
|
| Seems reasonable to expect some degree of genetic drift
| in sleep regulation as well, but I know of no data on
| this.
| absolutelastone wrote:
| A bigger pupil would work better for dim light vision.
| Light through the iris would sacrifice daylight vision.
| The light skin on the other hand does have an obvious
| benefit in that climate for Vitamin D.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Everything is an adaptation to something. The one 8 hours
| sleep a night is also an adaptation for the life style we
| adapted for in the last 100+ plus years.
| delichon wrote:
| A CPAP had a severe negative effect on my sleep even after
| two years of getting used to it. I had severe apnea measured
| in a sleep study, but even so I've done better without it.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| It helps for me...of course if I dropped 40 lbs, it
| probably wouldn't be needed...but then there's the whole
| GLP-1/Weight thing.
| Spellman wrote:
| There are a very small minority that seem to have a genetic
| component requiring less sleep for them (4-6hr).
|
| https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2018/03/410051/scientists-discover...
| warp wrote:
| A subsequent study has not found any link between the
| ADRB1/DEC2/other gene mutations and various sleep conditions:
|
| - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9499244/
|
| I am incapable of sleeping more than about 5.5 hours (unless
| I'm severely sleep deprived). So to me it seems likely that
| FNSS (familial natural short sleep) is a thing, but more
| research is needed I guess.
| holri wrote:
| I have just read this book and found it very interesting and
| helpful:
|
| https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Why-We-Sleep/Matthew-...
| netrap wrote:
| I've seen this book talked about a lot. However, I also have
| heard that there is some big holes in the research. Take a look
| online.
| waterhouse wrote:
| The citation is "Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" Is Riddled
| with Scientific and Factual Errors":
| https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
| kpennell wrote:
| fwiw, I found the 'the sleep fix' much more helpful
| api wrote:
| Whatever sleep does, it's something nature has had a tough time
| optimizing out despite the _extreme_ vulnerability it creates and
| the sacrifice of a little under half an organism 's waking time.
|
| That should tell us it's something incredibly important that's
| hard to do any other way.
|
| Edit: on the other hand... if Earth had two suns and rarely had
| periods of darkness, you wonder if maybe there would have been
| more evolutionary pressure to find another way.
| danenania wrote:
| Sleep is vulnerable, but it also keeps you curled up and hidden
| somewhere rather than out in the open walking around and taking
| risks.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Alternately, sleep is the optimal ultra-high-efficiency
| survival state and wakefulness only exists to give creatures
| enough time to get their affairs in order so that they can
| safely return to dormancy.
|
| It's easy to think of sleep as a compromise to be defeated
| because we're culturally preoccupied with the achievements and
| pleasures of wakefulness, but that's really just us claiming
| personal preference for one narrow part of a holistic system
| that's just doing its own survival and propagation thing.
|
| Consider trees, mushrooms, cicadas, snakes, or cats. Chilling
| out in low power mode as much is possible is maybe not a error
| to be fixed so much as it is an outcome of efficient design.
| gpm wrote:
| Consider hibernation. Evolution went to great trouble there
| to maximize the duration that some animals can sleep for -
| and it's pretty clearly solely designed to save power.
|
| Which doesn't mean that's the only thing sleep is good for,
| evolution doesn't believe in separating concerns, but it's
| definitely a thing it does.
| throwaway7893 wrote:
| I think one of our goals is to reduce entropy in the
| Universe, and being awake lets us do 100x more of that than
| if we were in low power mode
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| What kind of sleep are you having that is more entropic
| than your waking?
| throwaway7893 wrote:
| Entropy increases in the universe by default, so sleeping
| allows that to happen more than in the waking state
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| I enjoy this flipped perspective.
|
| The default and optimal state of a life form is waiting and
| efficiently using resources.
|
| Moving around, socializing and reproducing, killing and
| eating, are all energy expenditures or necessary to be able
| to prolong the sleep-life. Annoyances, from the POV of the
| sleep-being.
| debug-desperado wrote:
| "Hurry up and idle" for CPU design ended up being great for
| power efficiency. Nature came to the same conclusion for
| biological organisms a long time ago.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| I wonder if we looked at really basic life forms like bacteria,
| would we find things akin to sleep at that level? What about
| next up in sophistication?
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| Seems likely like the need for sleep then selects for many
| social/group behaviors. "Solo self-found" is not really an
| option unless you're really good at hiding or have some other
| tricks
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Most animals sleep alone, that's simple reality.
| matthest wrote:
| Yeah. Nature is the ultimate form of science. At any moment,
| it's incorporating an infinite amount of science, most of which
| we likely haven't discovered yet, and may not discover for
| millions of years - if ever.
|
| Nature developed over millions of years of trial and error.
| amadeoeoeo wrote:
| That is like saying God is the ultimate form of religion
| codedokode wrote:
| > if Earth had two suns and rarely had periods of darkness, you
| wonder if maybe there would have been more evolutionary
| pressure to find another way.
|
| Cats sleep during the day without any issues. So the amount of
| light seems to not matter.
|
| By the way I wonder do their ear sleep or not because they
| still wake up easily if there is some suspicious sound.
| EncomLab wrote:
| The generations in my family are full of people who had
| dementia/Alzheimer's/auto-immune disorders. They all had anxiety,
| and they all had sleep disorders - I'm certain there is a
| connection among it all.
|
| I joined a Stanford study and had a spinal tap sample submitted
| for testing - in theory I am "unlikely" to develop anything for
| the next 20 years - but that only gets me to my late 60's :(
| genter wrote:
| Same, except we also have digestive issues. I'm really hoping a
| paleo diet and good probiotics will save me. It's already
| helped me a lot. I'll let you know in 40 years if it prevents
| me from getting Alzheimer's.
| 0xEF wrote:
| [x] Anxiety
|
| [x] Sleep apnea
|
| [x] Digestive issues
|
| [x] Former psychonaut
|
| [x] Highly stressed pretty much always due to work
|
| I can only hope that whatever brand of dementia I end up with
| is something akin to Mr Toad's Wild Ride, or whatever. I'd be
| happy just to go out either laughing or well-rested.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > something akin to Mr Toad's Wild Ride
|
| You know the plot of that ride, right?
| dumbfounder wrote:
| If you remember to do so.
| iknowSFR wrote:
| If you're supplementing probiotics, there is some research
| about inulin to talk through with your doctor. There's a
| chance that inulin is carcinogenic even at lower doses. A
| lower dosage might be 4g and a typical probiotic is 200g.
|
| Reasons to be wary of this research, including:
|
| -The rodent-to-human study element
|
| -causation v correlation
|
| -sample size
|
| Reasons to take this research seriously:
|
| -Probiotic supplements are relatively new and long term
| effects aren't understood.
|
| -The "health as a business" realities that are very much at
| work here.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277257232.
| ..
|
| https://news.gsu.edu/2018/10/18/adding-refined-fiber-to-
| proc...
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Probiotics usually refers to bacteria, inulin and other
| indigestible starches are usually referred to as
| prebiotics.
| astura wrote:
| This is a strange comment, inulin is not a probiotic, it's
| a soluble dietary fiber. It's at best considered a
| prebiotic. Probiotics are microorganisms.
| SaintGhurka wrote:
| Strange or not, it's correct.
|
| Culturelle contains inulin. That's the brand that takes
| up most of the space at my local CVS and Walgreens. Also
| the CVS-brand knockoff contains inulin.
| astura wrote:
| ...in miniscule amounts. Culturelle has 200mg inulin.
|
| From the case study in the GP
|
| >The only noted lifestyle change between colonoscopies
| was the initiation of 4 grams of agave inulin powder
| daily in his morning beverage for the last 2 years of
| that seven-year period.
| Natsu wrote:
| From what I've found, being overweight negatively affects
| sleep. As far as I can tell, the extra weight simply makes it
| hard to breathe at night, leading to apnea. This can then cause
| depression and anxiety, depression because you wake up tired
| and feeling awful every single day and anxiety because you may
| wake up with night terrors after suffocating in your sleep.
|
| At least it's easy to get a home sleep apnea test and an
| APAP/CPAP these days.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Easy to get, hard to get used to for many. It's common for
| doctors to offer little to no support after prescribing the
| machine.
| anktor wrote:
| How would support look like in this situation? Honest
| question I simply don't know
| koolba wrote:
| At the extreme end of concierge medicine I could see the
| doctor getting into bed with you.
| vkou wrote:
| It needs extensive calibration, if you don't want it to
| either be ineffective, or wake up in the morning, with
| your stomach pumped full of air, like a balloon.
|
| The latter is quite painful.
| ethersteeds wrote:
| I think it would be a good case for handing off from the
| prescribing doctor to some kind of home health aid /
| respiratory therapist who can make house calls and help
| make adjustments at the home.
| gosub100 wrote:
| > anxiety because you may wake up with night terrors after
| suffocating in your sleep.
|
| I have SA and a history of "mild" nightmares going back
| decades. Nothing terrifying, but very uncomfortable such as
| snakes hiding everywhere, and recently other animals such as
| tigers. I can't prove it, but I believe these are
| subconscious efforts by your brain to scare you into
| breathing.
| esafak wrote:
| So you can concentrate your energy on maintenance tasks, like
| memory consolidation and physical restoration, during the down
| time during which it is cold and dark -- when you can't
| effectively hunt and stay warm. If you did not do that, you would
| have to constantly allocate some energy towards these tasks, at
| the expense of more urgent ones. And the higher up you are in the
| food chain, the less risky it is to rest.
| sparsely wrote:
| Which maintenance tasks, why does it require us to be
| unconscious, why can't we apply constant energy towards them?
| Lots of interesting questions to answer
| cut3 wrote:
| Mental and physical body process refactoring is my guess
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| Cant run inference on the model while it's in a new
| training run.
| euroderf wrote:
| Quiet, so as not to attract predators.
| esafak wrote:
| Like memory consolidation and physical restoration. My lay
| understanding is that we are unconscious because we turn our
| sensors off during deep sleep, and direct energy away from
| the prefrontal cortex, where reasoning and consciousness
| reside, to the limbic system, which processes memories and
| feelings, so that learning can take place.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| There's this one guy in Vietnam who literally doesn't sleep ever.
|
| https://www.news18.com/amp/buzz/meet-80-year-old-vietnamese-...
|
| Google it. There's a lot about him. It's like the one thing that
| makes zero sense in all this research about sleep.
| privacyking wrote:
| He might have some mutation that means all this housekeeping
| happens all the time I guess.
| aantix wrote:
| When I take a supplement with sulforaphane, I feel like I need
| less sleep.
|
| I feel refreshed in the morning. Strange.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| We have no understanding of medicine.
| matthest wrote:
| Yeah, if you think about it in the grand scheme of things, this
| is true.
|
| Our science is fairly reductionist. Nature is incorporating
| vast amounts of science, most of which we probably don't even
| know about yet.
| proee wrote:
| Running improved my sleep quality dramatically. Now the problem
| is, that if I take a day off running, my sleeping suffers.
| Curious if people that do weight lifting (which I'm considering)
| get great sleeps? Maybe I can alternate between cardio and weight
| lifting each day?
| seper8 wrote:
| For me it really depends on when - if i go run after 8PM i
| definitely sleep worse.
| mter wrote:
| Any physically tiring activity makes me sleep better. From
| lifting to running to walking long distances.
|
| You should alternate cardio and weight lifting for general
| health, not just for sleep. The weight training helps with
| muscle/bone loss as you age
| jwilber wrote:
| Anecdotally, I get dramatically better sleep after good cardio.
| Weightlifting doesn't seem to have much of an effect.
| burningChrome wrote:
| I play hockey frequently and have the same issue. When we go on
| vacation, I sleep worse, need to sleep later and longer to feel
| better. I know that even moderate cardio regulates circadian
| rhythm and helps with body temperature regulation. Your body's
| temperature increases during exercise, when you stop and your
| body temp comes back down, neurologically it tells the body
| you're now ready for sleep. Exercise also helps regulate
| melatonin production which affects your sleeping cycles.
|
| When I play in really hard, grueling sessions, taking CBD also
| helps reduce the inflammation in my body and helps me sleep
| deeper. I also stretch for at least 30-40 mins when I get done
| which also helps.
|
| So it makes sense, once you stop or change your body's cycle,
| it can affect a lot of other areas of your day-to-day schedule.
| bitcoin_anon wrote:
| I will add creatine as a supplement to improve sleep in the
| face of hard exercise.
| 121789 wrote:
| yes, I alternate and it works fine. in my experience
| running/heavy cardio sleep > yoga sleep > weight lifting sleep
| >> no exercise sleep. if that makes sense
| matthest wrote:
| Walking. Walk 3 miles a day. It gives you a drastically
| different set of benefits from running, and you can walk all
| day without worry of overtraining.
|
| Running is great too. But be careful of doing it too much.
| Overtraining can break down your immune system and make you
| more susceptible to disease.
| qwerpy wrote:
| I wonder if it only works for a dedicated walking time (e.g.
| walk for 3 miles nonstop) or also for bursts of short walking
| during the day. I consistently get 3-5 miles of walking per
| day due to chasing kids around, taking short breaks during
| work, and doing chores, but rarely actually have a 30+ min
| sustained walk.
| matthest wrote:
| Benefits to both I think.
|
| A sustained walk maximizes digestion and subconscious
| problem-solving benefits. Short bursts, especially w/ kids
| involved, maximizes spiritual fulfillment.
|
| Both are probably great for metabolic health.
| 0xEF wrote:
| I tried weight lifting/strength training for about a year and
| never really noticed an improvement in sleep quality. However,
| it was still a net positive in the strength/overall daily
| energy department.
|
| I used to bike a lot, stopped after a leg/back injury (not from
| biking), but I picked up an eBike about 3 years ago and
| absolutely love it. The pedal assist takes enough stress off my
| leg that I can keep it on the lowest setting and ride for
| hours, which feels really, really good and does actually help
| with sleep that night. This, of course, is weather/season
| dependent but I relish the times when I can just hop on after
| work and go somewhere.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Definitely - anything that physically tires me out enough helps
| a lot. I would say weight lifting actually might help more for
| personal insomnia.
|
| I mostly do distance running though - shorter interval training
| or sprints kills me and probably also is better for sleep. Or
| I'm just less used to it
| raydev wrote:
| I used to run long distance. I'd have to go for 15+km in a
| single session to get any noticeable impact on sleep and it
| wasn't huge.
|
| Weightlifting on the other hand... a solid hour of going heavy
| will put me out like a baby every time.
|
| I'm very curious why. Am I just built for long distance running
| and NOT for building muscle?
| SubmarineClub wrote:
| I bodybuild, and when I'm lifting hard -- especially peaking
| volume at the end of a mesocycle -- my body CRAVES sleep. I'll
| fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow and sleep 8 to 9
| hours basically straight through.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Likely it also because your other body parts needs repairing, not
| just the brain and the brain tells you by being sleepy.
| Evolutionarily, why we don't go on for 24hrs maybe because we
| have night time.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| Tangentially related, but very important to me and hopefully
| helpful to others here: I have sleep apnea. So do most of the men
| in my family. Though I am overweight, I haven't always been, but
| I have always had the condition, as have they. For those who
| don't know, sleep apnea is a condition where you stop breathing
| in your sleep, wake up slightly to fix that and start breathing
| again, and then fall back asleep. It sounds like choking in your
| sleep. In my case, I was doing this more than 70 times an hour -
| often multiple times a minute! My blood oxygen was as low as 67%
| - a threshold that would have me on a ventilator, were it
| happening in a hospital.
|
| Until I got my apnea treated, I never slept well. I had not had a
| really good night's sleep in years, and I hadn't had a great
| night's sleep as an adult probably ever. In school - decades ago
| - I fell asleep in class regularly and napped every day. Despite
| this, I have been successful, but I can't help but wonder who I'd
| be if I hadn't had that problem. What's worse, because you do not
| actually sleep, whatever happens during sleep that repairs your
| body doesn't really happen. Sleep apnea massively increases your
| risk for heart disease, stroke, and many other serious
| conditions.
|
| Sleep apnea is treated with CPAP - continuous positive airway
| pressure - from a machine that sits on your bedside. You wear a
| mask like Bane and it forces air into your throat and opens it,
| making it easier to breathe. CPAP is not a cure, because it
| doesn't fix the underlying anatomical issue, but properly
| calibrated it results in complete remission. I now sleep
| normally. From a sleep perspective, I feel amazing, better than I
| have in years. For the first time in my life, I can rely on
| feeling good in the morning if I get enough hours of sleep in.
| Even four hours on the CPAP is better than eight or nine hours
| without it. (Also, over time, your brain becomes conditioned that
| CPAP = sleep, and you zonk out within minutes of putting it on.)
|
| It is costly and time consuming, yes, and CPAP machines are a
| huge lifestyle adjustment. But good lord, is it worth it. I have
| never felt or slept better. In the years since my diagnosis I
| have not slept a single night without my CPAP and I don't think I
| ever will again, unless some magical cure comes out.
|
| If you have struggled with insomnia, snoring, or feeling wakeful
| after sleep, I beg you to get a sleep study and look into whether
| apnea, or another similar condition, could be the cause.
| lxgr wrote:
| Do you know if fitness trackers with integrated pulse oximeters
| can detect sleep apnea?
|
| My Apple Watch has an oximeter (I bought it before that feature
| was pulled in the US), and there's a "sleep apnea
| notifications" section in the "Health" app, but I'm not sure if
| the absence of notifications implies an absence of a problem.
|
| Would sleep apnea always be visible as a lower blood oxygen
| level when sleeping, or can there be negative effects even
| without that?
| ivraatiems wrote:
| I'm not a doctor, can't give medical advice. This is my
| understanding:
|
| > Would sleep apnea always be visible as a lower blood oxygen
| level when sleeping, or can there be negative effects even
| without that?
|
| It would not always be visible, no, if your AHI was low
| enough. It is still damaging even if your blood oxygen is
| okay, because you are waking up to keep it that way. You're
| not getting enough sleep as a result.
|
| You might try the recording trick I mentioned below to listen
| for sounds of it, but if you're unsure at all, I'd consider
| seeing a sleep doc.
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| Lower blood ox could just be you sleeping on your arm. Among
| other things.
|
| If you're concerned with Sleep apnea testing is _very_ easy
| these days. You goto a sleep specialist, they give you a
| little kit you take home, you put it on for one night, they
| look at the data. Done! It 's not like even a decade or so
| ago where it's "goto sleep lab", most of it's done at home
| now for the initial investigation.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| While the Oura ring won't alert the user to sleep apnea, one
| person with an Oura ring looked at the accumulated data from
| their Oura ring and could see the signs of sleep apnea -
| https://www.tomsguide.com/features/my-oura-ring-helped-me-
| di...
|
| Ringconn, similar to Oura without the compulsory
| subscription, claims to be able to detect sleep apnea with
| 90.7% accuracy. see
| https://ringconn.com/blogs/news/understanding-sleep-apnea-
| an...
| dehrmann wrote:
| Newer Apple Watches are able to detect signs consistent with
| sleep apnea (which is legally distinct from actually
| diagnosing it).
| torial wrote:
| RingConn Gen 2 has built-in Apnea monitoring -- so far I am
| loving it. It provides a picture of my sleep apnea when I'm
| not using the CPAP (because the CPAP can be uncomfortable
| after a while).
| swah wrote:
| Is there any chance that Apple Watch or wife would not notice a
| severe apnea condition?
| ivraatiems wrote:
| No idea about Apple Watch, but wife, definitely. My wife
| noticed it. (She's also a doctor, but anyone can identify the
| sound of choking and gasping, which is what it sounds like.)
|
| I can't give medical advice, but: Record yourself on your
| phone overnight and listen back. If you hear loud snoring
| with gaps or pauses in between, and especially any sort of
| choking, gasping, or coughing sound, and you don't remember
| doing it... definitely look into it further.
| instagib wrote:
| No and yes for wife or a video recording. Get a sleep study
| for 100%.
|
| My suggestion is an elevated sleep position by increasing
| your head position with two stacked pillows or raising the
| head of the bed. It mechanically helps sleep apnea. It got me
| from a high Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) score to a very low
| one with the cpap.
|
| The Apple Watch has not shown an ability to identify sleep
| disturbances or sleep apnea when it should according to my
| cpap AHI score and when napping/sleeping without a cpap.
|
| Blood oxygen measurements are basically useless from my
| research unless you need oxygen because you are so sick you
| cannot walk short distances. Everyone seems to have a
| different % they function well at asleep or awake. I have
| also used a much more accurate and faster reading device than
| the Apple Watch.
| vkou wrote:
| A severe condition is very noticeable. The sleeping person
| stops breathing for up to a minute or two, and then does a
| sudden _gasp_ for air.
|
| And this repeats all night long.
| vkou wrote:
| So, it's not all sunshine and flowers. It sounds like your
| calibration process was successful, but when its not, you end
| up with a range of problems, including the ever-fun one of 'my
| stomach has been pumped full of air overnight and I feel like a
| balloon ready to burst' - _every single morning_.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| CPAP is a very American solution, pay money and treat the
| symptom with minimal effort but not the underlying cause.
|
| The vast majority of cases of sleep apnea can be cured with
| weight loss, exercise, nasal breathing exercises..
| ivraatiems wrote:
| That is simply not true. Anecdotally, three people in my
| family including myself have sleep apnea. I am the only
| overweight one. The others are a normal or even low BMI.
| Also, I had sleep apnea when I wasn't overweight.
|
| Studies show that non-overweight or obese people with sleep
| apnea are extremely common and make up between 20 and 40% of
| all apnea sufferers:
|
| 1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5181619/
|
| 2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41440-024-01669-9
|
| 3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9130173/#:~:text=
| Ap...
|
| 4. https://ejo.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43163-024-0
| 06...
|
| 5. https://home.liebertpub.com/publications/respiratory-
| care/68...
|
| "Nasal breathing exercises" cannot overcome physiology and
| cannot help you if you are sleeping and have no conscious
| control over your muscles. Apnea is caused by physiology and
| while it can be made worse by weight, weight loss alone does
| not fix it. It may bring some people's apneas down to an
| acceptable level, but that is not the case for all or even
| most patients.
|
| Your advice is roughly the same as telling people to skip
| their flu or COVID shots and hope their diet and exercise
| keeps them from getting sick. It's not that diet and exercise
| are _bad_ for you, but they aren 't the same as an exact
| treatment for the problem you have.
| ein0p wrote:
| FWIW I had moderate sleep apnea (nowhere near as bad as what
| you're describing) and I "cured" it by forcing myself to
| breathe through my nose at least 90% of the time, including
| when sleeping. Some people tape their mouth shut, but I can't
| do that - I have a beard. Breathing through the nose seems to
| have fixed the permanently runny nose as well, I don't know
| why. I know it's all individual and what worked for me might
| not work for everyone, but IMO it's worth a try. The downside
| is, until the corresponding musculature regains strength you
| will feel like you're out of air. It'll take 3-4 weeks to fully
| adjust. It'll pass, don't worry.
| r00fus wrote:
| My hypopnea (pre-apnea) is getting resolved as I have lost a
| lot of weight by following a program using GLP-1 meds. I also
| no longer have knee discomfort when hiking or doing long climbs
| on my bike (used to wear a sleeve beforehand to do that). Not
| to mention, I just look and feel better.
|
| CPAP is a life-saver for sure, but treating your underlying
| causes of apnea can often help as well.
| mentos wrote:
| I saw this post where Andrej Karpathy asks if hyperbaric oxygen
| therapy might work like exercise by boosting oxygen to tissues, I
| wonder if sleep has any correlation.
|
| https://x.com/karpathy/status/1903586665832321271?s=46
| leonidasv wrote:
| The periods of my life I was the most productive and learned the
| most were when those when I managed to sleep >=8 hours every
| single night, in a dark, silent environment. I still manage to
| sleep >=7 hours most nights, but I feel like it's getting harder
| to keep a baseline of 8 hours for every night. Don't know if my
| sleep needs changed over time due to aging, or if it's just a
| consequence of having more responsibilities.
| amai wrote:
| "In a 2023 study, researchers in Brazil found that fruit flies
| that were sleep deprived showed overexpression mostly of genes
| that affected metabolism, glucose, triglyceride and levels of the
| hormone dopamine"
|
| "After just one day of restricting sleep in mice, Rogulja could
| see fats in the animals' intestines that weren't entering
| circulation. After five days, their guts were filled with fat
| although their bodies were starved of nutrients."
|
| This is interesting. People with Autism and ADHD often have gut
| issues and problems with dopamine etc. Maybe these deceases are
| caused by constant sleep deprivation.
| pedalpete wrote:
| We work in the neurotech/sleeptech space, specifically with the
| stimulation which was VERY poorly described in this article where
| they discuss "pink noise".
|
| They point to one small study in 7 participants, but slow-wave
| enhancement (increasing slow-wave delta power) has over a decade
| of research, including 4 recent papers in older adults looking at
| Alzheimer's both as a preventative measure and as management of
| symptoms (we can't say treatment yet, that's still many studies
| away).
|
| We provide our technology to researchers, and are preparing our
| consumer product.
|
| You can find more on our website, as well as links to a few of
| the more relevant studies at https://affectablesleep.com
|
| How I describe the technology is that slow-wave activity is the
| synchronous firing of neurons, the hallmark and defining feature
| of deep sleep. We can't create slow-waves, but we can increase
| the electrical activity, increase the synchronous firing of
| neurons, which is like giving the glymphatic system an extra
| boost of power. This enhances the restorative function of the
| brain, without altering sleep time.
|
| I should be completing our whitepaper which provides a more in
| depth look at the technology, the state of sleep, and a large
| chronological list of how the research has progressed over the
| last decade.
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