

A lack of sleep can kill you - iapi
http://www.usmansheikh.com/random/a-lack-of-sleep-can-kill-you

======
suprgeek
Providing an India Centric view: Hard work is almost irrationally idolized
here. True Anecdote - I wanted to check out a Car on a Tuesday afternoon, the
first thing the Car salesman asked me are you on a holiday today from Work?
(it was inconceivable for him that I could take off at 3.30). I was at a talk
by a very senior Computer Professional and heard the following boast - "no one
in my company puts in less than 10 hours a day". The company he speaks about
has 20,000 employees in one location alone. After the talk a ton of people
congratulated him for inspiring them to drive their employees to work harder.
The stupidity in those comments just boggles the mind.

~~~
shrikant
From my experience in a couple of 'large Indian IT companies': it is a matter
being seen by your boss as 'being around'.

Out of an average of the 10 hours put in per day, I daresay only about 6-7 are
productive. The rest would be spent in coffee breaks, meal-time breaks, smoke
breaks, and sending around pictures of puppies, kittens and babies.

To be fair though, quite a fair number of these IT workers are expected to
work standard hours, and then put in at least a couple of hours face-time with
the client. The client is [more often than not] either European or American,
so there's no real way out.

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Jach
My own conclusion: exercise and diet are overrated, I'll still do sleep
experiments because I don't want to spend 1/3 of my life unconscious in bed.
Things like uberman, everyman, siestas, melatonin supplements, and modifinil
are all intriguing.

The writing of this entry bugs me. Generalizing from sample size of 1,
"confidential sources" (he won't even link to papers apparently already
published, all years ago!), and the sentence "For lack of space, I cannot
explain here the ideal sleep architecture."

Taking the last stat to be true (Sleeping for <=5 hours per night leads to 39%
increase in heart disease.) that's still only a change from something like
0.6% to 0.8%. (Initial percent from memory, so it may be off.)

~~~
shazow
You should have a look at this Reddit comment (and the rest of the threads
under the parent post):
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/co5t9/i_attempted_poly...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/co5t9/i_attempted_polyphasic_sleep_for_a_documentary_ama/)

" _I tried the biphasic thing for about 2 months, then attempted the "uberman"
thing for about 4 months. This was probably the biggest mistake of my life.
[...] I'm actually now seeing several doctors (neurologists, endocrinologists)
because I feel so "off" all the time. [...] This amount of masochistic, long-
term sleep deprivation can fuck with your hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal
axis._ "

There's several corroborating accounts in other comments under that post.

As I said in another comment here, everyone is different. Just be careful and
make sure to pay attention to your body and mind's needs, and be aware of the
risks.

~~~
driverdan
Correlation is not causation. While his sleep patterns could have caused the
problem it may have just happened at the same time.

~~~
kirubakaran
"Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows
suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."

<http://xkcd.com/552/>

~~~
Jach
Oh come on, give him a break. He didn't say "Correlation doesn't imply
causation", which of course is silly, but he said "Correlation is not
causation", which is spot on.

Anyway, I've never been able to successfully do the uberman for more than a
few weeks, though I did do the everyman successfully for a few months. As with
everything involving messing with the brain, which includes things as simple
as caffeine, the results could be disastrous in certain people. As far as I
know I'm not such a person. I worry about what things like drunk-inducing-
amounts of Alcohol or LSD would do to my brain, which is one of the reasons I
don't use such things, but I'd probably be fine afterwards.

~~~
kirubakaran
I am not saying that his/her statement is incorrect. I am saying that it takes
one mighty coincidence for that person to get those issues due to unrelated
causes exactly at the same time that person meddled with sleep.

Possible? Yes. Probable? I don't think so.

------
danieldk
The article does not address the correlation between the amount of stress
people endure and the amount of sleep they take.

People who pour their lives into work generally tend to have less sleep and be
more stressed. So, is it the sleep, the stress, or both that kill people?

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hackingOnAJet
Do people who deprive themselves of sleep truly maximize their potential?

I, for one, can feel a huge difference in my ability to focus on cognitive
challenges when I'm well-rested and I've engineered my environment in such a
way that eliminates distraction. Doing truly challenging work well requires
peak mental performance. It's hard to see how it's possible to do that if one
is actively sabotaging his or her physical and mental machineries.

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Shenglong
_If you are not getting enough sleep (7 hours)_

Why 7 hours? We're being preached the importance of REM sleep, and yet half
the REM sleep of the night typically comes between the 7th and 8th hour.

Does anyone know how this reasoning applies to people taking multiple short
naps? I had a friend who did this for a semester. What about hyposomniacs? Are
they more efficient or is something missing? I have a friend who naturally
cannot sleep more than 5 hours a night - he wakes up naturally after 5.

 _edit: I wrote apples instead of applies..._

------
click170
Wasn't there some poor kid who passed away of heart failure somewhere in Asia
from gaming 24-7, and they blamed it on lack of sleep?

I was under the impression that the lethality of sleep deprivation was not
something that was widely questioned..

On a related note, BBC Horizon has an interesting documentary on sleep and
your body clock called The Secret Life Of Your Body Clock.

~~~
pyre
I realize that "The Secret Life Of X" is one of their title patterns, but in
this case it just sounds awkward.

------
tluyben2
I don't believe running marathons is considered healthy. Actually any kind of
intensive (I don't know the English term for it) sports would be considered
not good for longevity most research says. I've seen (semi) prof runners,
rowers and a badminton player in my own circles die of heart attacks and
cancer (long) before their time, while people who never did much of anything
sporty (and smoke + drink) are currently over 90 (yes, I personally know _far_
more sport/health people dying before 60, and 50, than I know people who live
unhealthy; no-one unhealthy died before 80, while in the 'healthy' category,
I've had a lot of deaths). This all doesn't prove anything, neither does this
article, but the lack of sleep would've been more interesting if the guy would
be 'normal', aka, not running marathons, but play the weekly rounds of squash
and golf.

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mattwdelong
This does not surprise me, nor does "lack of x will kill you" and the same
goes for "too much of x will harm you". Just do things in moderation, or do
what you feel you need. Our bodies seem to be pretty smart and often work
themselves out - so just listen to it. If you feel tired, go to sleep. If
you're hungry, then eat.

For biologists and doctors, it might be fun/interesting to study but for the
rest of us I think we should just use common sense and listen to our bodies. I
personally abhor these "fads".

------
kunley
This reminds me of one of my favourites:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Terrors_(Star_Trek:_The_N...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Terrors_\(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation\))
(spoiler there)

But seriously, TNG writers managed to capture so many important ideas in sf-
fashioned stories... Nice hack.

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rubyrescue
this article is good but i'm not 100% sure marathoning is healthy as it
implies...

~~~
treetrouble
They also never address whether he had a congenital heart problem

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kragen
No sources cited; also, the facts the author claims the sources provided
(chronic sleep deprivation <5 hours/night increases heart disease risk by 39%)
are very far from justifying the conclusion he came to (that Ranjan Das's
fatal heart attack was almost certainly due to his chronic sleep deprivation
<5 hours/night). Justifying that conclusion would require that the relative
risk be something like 10:1, not 1.39:1.

In short, while a lack of sleep can kill you, this article is superstitious
nonsense that insults the intelligence of its readers.

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ekm2
Why didnt the article cite any sources?Just saying "paper published in 2006"
is not very convincing

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seagaia
Sort of related: has there been any evidence as to why sleep deprivation kills
you? A friend and I were hypothesizing about it once, although neither of us
are particularly knowledgeable about biology so it was a bunch of probably
wild guesses.

~~~
kiiski
From the article:

"Complete and partial lack of sleep increased the blood concentrations of High
sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-cRP), the strongest predictor of heart
attacks. Even after getting adequate sleep later, the levels stayed high!

Just one night of sleep loss increases very toxic substances in body such as
Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive
protein (cRP). They increase risks of many medical conditions, including
cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Paper published in 2004."

~~~
seagaia
So this issue has gotten to the "it just happens and we're not sure why?" The
below comment (same depth level) is kind of the intuition I had, your post
gives some reasons why, but I wonder if anyone knows the ground causes, or if
that's as low level of abstraction possible at this point.

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elb0w
Url broken for me

~~~
mbrzuzy
Here is google's cached version.

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy&...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy&hl=en&biw=1680&bih=955&source=hp&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.usmansheikh.com%2Frandom%2Fa-
lack-of-sleep-can-kill-
you&pbx=1&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.usmansheikh.com%2Frandom%2Fa-lack-of-
sleep-can-kill-
you&aq=f&aqi=g5&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=29l1965l0l2919l8l4l0l0l0l0l227l684l0.3.1l4l0)

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kahawe
The weird thing is that in our understanding of business culture, it is widely
accepted if not applauded to be putting in crazy hours and telling of heroic
acts of not-sleeping-enough to work and stay fit. At the same time, drinking
at work or showing up drunk to work is definitely frowned upon and is reason
enough to get fired.

Now here is the thing: studies have shown that sleeping less than 5 hours WILL
have negative effects on your body and mind and on your ability to do any
job... and frequently or constantly sleeping less than 5 hours even more so,
it can even cause hallucinations. And severe lack of sleep can be directly
compared to the negative effects of alcohol on your ability to do any work.

But we are applauding the one and frowning upon the other...?

How ridiculous is that, really? Someone with as many responsibilities as a CEO
for SAP India openly admitting to only sleeping 4 or 5 hours daily should be
treated like someone who just openly confessed downing a glass of vodka for
breakfast and lunch each day. And I strongly doubt his "ability" to pull that
off... I would imagine someone so competitive and successful and career-
focused with that little sleep would not refrain from relying on a little
chemical "help". And even if he was still productive enough, just imagine how
much better he could have performed if he actually got 6 to 9 hours each
night?

This is really nothing but grossly negligent IMHO.

~~~
shazow
While I agree with everything you say in general and I'm a confident advocate
of "you should get more sleep!", I find it hard to condemn people for specific
cases.

I need 8.5 hours of sleep per night to function properly, and the effects are
very noticeable if I get reduced sleep for more than a couple of days in a
row.

At the same time, I know several people who sleep 3~6 hours per night and I
will not convince them otherwise: One suffers from insomnia for as long as he
can remember and has effectively adapted his life around it, and another
genuinely feels rested and is unable to sleep more.

We're all different with different needs, and we need to take that into
account. But unfortunately most people don't pay attention to their needs and
walk around like zombies five days a week, or worse.

~~~
kahawe
I can honestly hardly believe the 3- to less-than-6 hours figure if it
constantly is less than 4 or 5 per day... studies indicate that this, by and
large, is where it WILL start having impacts but of course there could be
exceptions and maybe there is a kernel-hacker gene!

~~~
bh42222
There is indeed a genetic difference, a very few people are able to sleep less
with no negative side effects:
[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/artic...](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6795361.ece)

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djchung
"Sleeping well helps keep you alive longer. Among humans, death from all
causes is lowest among adults who get seven to eight hours of sleep nightly,
and significantly higher among those who sleep less than seven or more than
nine hours."

<http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/07/deep-into-sleep.html>

Sleep itself probably doesn't make us live longer, but it could be a good
measure of how we are living our lives - amount of stress, anxiety, etc.

~~~
T-hawk
That last bit is important; don't confuse the correlation and causation.
Sleeping more than nine hours a day won't kill you, it just correlates with
other conditions related to death, like obesity or terminal illness or old
age.

------
Hisoka
The problem for me, as someone who working on a side project, while also
holding a full-time job is that I get so sleepy and tired while I'm at work,
and when I return back home I get so energized and don't feel like sleeping.
It's like even if I sleep 5 hours that previous night, I just stop being tired
when I get home to work on my own stuff

~~~
watmough
Yes, and those of us who look after children during the day, and write code
from 10pm - 3am, then get up a few hours later to do it all again...

~~~
Splines
Reminds me of when Homer takes a second job at the Kwik-E-Mart to pay for
Lisa's pony.

 _I'll work from midnight to eight, come home, sleep for five minutes, eat
breakfast, sleep six more minutes, shower, then I have ten minutes to bask in
Lisa's love, then I'm off to the power plant fresh as a daisy._

~~~
watmough
I'm totally not complaining at all. Bringing up a young child from a few weeks
old when mom went back to work is quite a big deal for a guy in the US, and
just a huge privilege that I've been lucky to experience. My daughter
'reading' and babbling and turning pages of books in her playpen is something
to behold in a 1 year old.

But 'the fact of the matter is' there's just no way to work for the 10-14
hours you and the child are awake together, at least not on computer
programming.

So I've adapted to working in short 1 - 5 hour long bursts either during nap
time (short) or after bed-time (long). Using git and GitX has really helped me
out with focusing on just one or two aspects and getting those to commit-able
state in the time available, versus my usual touch every file and have my svn
revision open for weeks.

I'm building my first commercial Cocoa app right now, and it just crossed into
being developer-useful, for me personally, and will be more widely useful once
the UI is all hooked up.

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Tharkun
Oh great. Yet another "foo can kill you" thread. Honestly people .. this is
starting to sound like /.

