

Can people get by on four hours' sleep? - mitmads
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22084671

======
incision
Better question, does being awake 20 as opposed to 16 hours per day result in
getting 25% more accomplished?

I tend to put proud claims of little sleep in the same category as those of
"working" long hours. We've all met people who are at work for long hours, but
whether they are actually working, much less producing is another story.

~~~
acuozzo
> Better question, does being awake 20 as opposed to 16 hours per day result
> in getting 25% more accomplished?

In some cases, it does. My hobby, digital film preservation, requires work
that's long, tedious, and relatively-unskilled.

I often clean dirt/dust using temporal fixes in PFClean and having an active
well-rested mind doesn't help with this __at_all__, so sleeping an extra four
hours won't improve my productivity.

~~~
btilly
One of the downsides of being tired is that you become more distractible. Even
work that's long, tedious, and relatively-unskilled doesn't get done if you
started doing another random task.

------
aashaykumar92
"There's no correct amount of sleep, says Prof Kevin Morgan, of Loughborough
University's sleep research centre. The only rule is to sleep long enough to
feel refreshed when you wake up."

^That answers the question quite well I believe. Yes, people CAN, but it is
uncommon. And anything that is uncommon usually takes a considerable amount of
practice. Ms. Thatcher most likely made it a concerted goal to train her self
to be fully functional on just 4 hours of sleep over the weekdays. It is
stated that she most likely slept longer on weekends, indicating that she was
aware of her sleep schedule on weekdays vs. weekends.

Things like sleep are studied so much that it is a subject overly-saturated
with studies, and that too, conflicting ones. This, more than anything, shows
that one's need for sleep can be controlled by him/her. I had a friend in
college, he was a junior when I was a freshman. He slept through most of his
morning classes and would always tweet that he was napping in the evening. He
had amazing grades, though, and good enough interview skills to land him a job
as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and he would be working in their
most demanding team. In fact, his boss to-be even emailed him saying something
like "Make sleep an option, not a requirement". Mike (my friend) took it
literally.

From the day he got that email in March, he chose to sleep 7 minutes less
every 3 days with no naps. By the end of April, he was sleeping about 5.5
hours a night. For the next month, he got even crazier and took off minutes
from his sleep on a daily basis. He succeeded and by the time he was at GS, he
needed 2hrs 52minutes of sleep per night and was productive the rest. How do I
know he was productive? Because after his internship, he was given a
personalized offer letter...from the CEO. He had worked on more deals than not
only all interns across the world, but more than 98% of current employees.

Training our body is something we can do and just like anything, if you work
hard at it, you'll more than likely be successful at some point.

~~~
Atropos
I don't believe you can "train" to require less sleep, the people for whom it
is possible are probably neurophysiologically different. Your example would
contradict it, but I think you made it up, some statements will sound strange
to anyone familiar with the industry. You certainly wouldn't mind linking
Mike's linkedin profile?

~~~
aashaykumar92
I do mind; I am not going to jeopardize a friends security to a stranger. I
think you are perfectly capable of looking up a 'Michael' who went to the
University of Michigan and works at Goldman Sachs now. My story is not a lie.
It is a bit exaggerated perhaps but it is from my memory that I wrote this--I
did not quote anyone directly. I know he did get an offer letter directly from
Mr. Blankfein stating that he had worked on more deals than any intern on
record.

------
Irregardless
Yes, as they said, roughly 1% of the population has this "gift". Although they
failed to mention that it's most likely genetic:
[http://www.npr.org/2011/04/16/135450214/eight-is-too-much-
fo...](http://www.npr.org/2011/04/16/135450214/eight-is-too-much-for-short-
sleepers)

------
davidroberts
There was a time a few years ago when I was playing online poker or working on
personal projects every evening until about midnight or a little later, then
waking up before 5 am to work. Both the work and the poker were fascinating. I
had no problems staying awake while doing them, and I did well at both. I
didn't even feel tired most of the time.

There were some bad effects though. If my immediate task wasn't engaging (a
boring task or speech for example), I had to work really hard to stay awake.
My typical daily cycle of alert and productive in the morning, and dull and
sleepy in the afternoon became much deeper. I felt more creative and congenial
during the high points and much more lethargic during the valleys.

After a few months, I began to realize another downside. Although I was able
to function well tactically on moment-by-moment tasks that required constant
attention, my ability to make good strategic decisions really began to suffer.
It was as though the effort to deeply think things through long-term went
totally down the drain. This began to scare me after a while.

Everything changed when I took a new job in a distant city and simultaneously
decided to stop playing poker for a while. I lived by myself in a tiny room in
the suburbs and rode my bike to work seven miles each way. The new
environment, exercise and huge lessening of daily commitments caused me to
take things a lot slower. I began reading a lot, reflecting about things, and
started sleeping around seven hours a night.

I became less manic, definitely healthier, and more peaceful and
introspective. I didn't instantly fall asleep when I was bored, but slept very
soundly at night. Of course a lot of that could be the result of a simpler,
more active life. But I think the increased sleep had a major influence too.

I started playing poker again, and I found that I was consistently doing
better than before. I started reacquainting myself with math, and could think
much more deeply about it.

I wonder how this applies to Thatcher? She obviously had a very engaging job,
and she seemed able to keep up with the details of her work. But if she had
slept more, would she had been less radical, perhaps more conciliatory? Would
that have dulled her edge and reduced her achievements or helped her bring
more people on board and be less polarizing? Would she had made better long-
term decisions? Did the extra hours of wakefulness really help her get more
done or was she just trading weekday hours awake for weekend hours asleep?

In my own life, I've decided to keep to a longer sleep schedule for now. I'm
always tempted to go back to the exciting mania the previous schedule, but for
me, the benefits are uncertain and the costs are pretty scary.

------
noinsight
I have a hard time believing that anyone can sleep for just 4 hours a night
and be completely attentive for the whole day.

These days I almost regularly sleep only 4-5 hours a night and I "can take it"
but sometimes during the day I practically almost pass out from the tiredness
- that passes shortly though and just closing my eyes for a bit helps a lot.
And I yawn a lot but then again I do that even if I sleep for 10 hours or what
have you.

------
mindcrime
I _wish_ I could get by on four hours of sleep a night. But my body just
doesn't cooperate. If I get less than ~7 hours of sleep over a period of a
couple of days, I start to feel absolutely miserable and can't sustain it. I
seem to function best on 8 hours, but I can survive on 7. I can do less than 7
for a couple of days in a row, but not consistently for long periods of time.

It's depressing, because I would love to use those hours for something more
productive than sleep, but what can ya do? I think I should just start taking
a nootropic of some sort to make up for it...

Good thing there's no PED test for entrepreneurs...

~~~
alex_doom
I feel like as I get older my body is rebelling. In my 20's I used to sleep 5
hour and wake up feeling great. Now I can't even wake up to an alarm if I
haven't slept 7hrs.

~~~
lmm
Anecdotally there seems to be an inversion as people get older - those who
stayed up all night in their youth find themselves needing more, while those
who used to get the full 8 hours start waking up after less. (I must admit
this makes no sense)

------
joshguthrie
Related blog post: "How I went through burnout because I lacked sleep."

~~~
mitmads
Link please

~~~
iand
It was a joke, suggesting that getting by on 4 hours of sleep a night can lead
to burnout

~~~
mitmads
Didn't get enough sleep in the night, so the joke escaped me :-)

------
steven2012
I was living on 4-6 hrs sleep a day for many years, and felt fine, until
finally a couple of years ago, it caught up to me. I literally couldn't think
straight, I had terrible headaches, I couldn't learn anything new. At one
point, I couldn't remember what I did that afternoon, my mind was a blank. The
straw that broke the camel's back was when I couldn't remember which
toothbrush was mine. I went to the doctor, and she suspected I had a brain
tumor, but thankfully the MRI was negative.

I decided maybe I should sleep more, and in the middle of the work day, I left
at 2pm, and went home and slept 17 hrs straight. Now, I can't stay up later
than 1030pm, and if I get less than 7 hrs sleep I feel horrible.

------
woodchuck64
Before we admire Thatcher's sleep minimalism too much, let's not forget the
onset of dementia in her 70s
(<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7579352.stm>).

~~~
gwern
Dementia in one's 70s... Surely that hardly ever happens to normal women who
sleep 8 hours a night...

~~~
woodchuck64
I'd say roughly the normal rate for dementia is about 6 in 100 at around age
70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky 6 and
you don't think sleep disorder is a possible risk?

~~~
gwern
> Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky 6 and you
> don't think sleep disorder is a possible risk?

As far as I know, the underlying causes of dementia are not very well
understood. Besides the fact that 6% is not very rare, there's an issue of the
Texas sharpshooter fallacy
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy>): taking whatever
problem exists and claiming that may be linked to whatever one disapprove of.

"She has Parkinson's, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some
unusual things going on with those unlucky X..."

"She has Huntington's, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some
unusual things going on with those unlucky X..."

"She has Alzheimer's, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some
unusual things going on with those unlucky X..."

"She has MLS, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual
things going on with those unlucky X..."

"She has brain cancer, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some
unusual things going on with those unlucky X..."

"She had a crippling stroke, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are
some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..."

You see my point. There are an awful lot of things that can go wrong with a
brain over time, the rate at which things go wrong goes up with time (we call
it "aging"), and sooner or later something will go wrong (and you will "die").
It is inevitable that some short sleepers will suffer awful brain problems.
Just like everyone else.

I saw another example yesterday in a discussion of famous drug chemist &
inventor Shulgin; apparently, upon getting cancer at age 80 and asking for
help, his friends had to deny to people that it was related to any of the
drugs he took! I was like, "are you serious? A large minority or a majority of
the entire population will have cancer at some point in their lifetime, many
will not even make it to their 80s at all much less only develop cancer at
that advanced age, and people seriously think that this might be more than-
microscopically-small evidence that some of the drugs cause cancer, when if
anything it may be evidence against?"

~~~
woodchuck64
Points well taken. While my comment falls short of claiming that dementia is
linked to lack of sleep, I was primed by the following research in the media
recently: "Sleep duration and all-cause mortality":
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20469800> "Disturbances to the sleep-wake
cycle predict future diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease. ":
[http://www.abstractsonline.com/Plan/ViewAbstract.aspx?sKey=f...](http://www.abstractsonline.com/Plan/ViewAbstract.aspx?sKey=fd313178-35c6-4098-9231-19b31db40132&cKey=6c052583-7bb1-46d4-82db-
cc98608e4e30&mKey={70007181-01C9-4DE9-A0A2-EEBFA14CD9F1})

The first, a survey, seems to show that too little sleep increases all-cause
mortality (i.e. that "aging" you mention), the second suggests that sleep
disturbances (unknown, admittedly how that relates to sleep duration) may be
linked (cause or effect unknown) with Alzheimer's.

~~~
gwern
Eh. Correlations are notoriously weak, and the causation could just as
plausibly be reversed (sleep is, after all, a brain activity); this may just
be picking up conditions causing sleep abnormalities, which would explain in
your first link why they also found an association with too much sleep as well
("Long duration of sleep was also associated with a greater risk of death").

~~~
woodchuck64
A 2009 article that hints the causation could be due to sleep, at least in
mice: <http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5955/1005> (see also
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_amyloid#Circadian_rhythm_o...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_amyloid#Circadian_rhythm_of_amyloid_beta)).

------
realguess
I think this is trade-off. Sleep less every day, you borrow your future time
to use it now, you might end up live a shorter life.

------
gaoshan
I try to put myself in the position to sleep as long as my body needs and I
find that I am still groggy after 10 hours (and 7, 8 and 9). Using the Sleep
Cycle app I regularly record 10 hours in bed but even getting a 90%+ "sleep
quality" score has no impact on how groggy I feel each morning. I doubt my
body "needs" more than 10 hours a day and even if I do it isn't feasible for
me, or most people. Leads me to suspect that the issue is rather more complex
than just the number of hours slept.

~~~
wahnfrieden
You may want to look into whether you have sleep apnea, by doing a sleep
study.

~~~
gaoshan
I did that, actually. They diagnosed me with "mild sleep apnea" but I got the
feeling that was sort of the default diagnosis. Maybe I was wrong... hmmm.

~~~
WalterSear
I got that feeling as well. They seemed more interested in selling CPAP
machines than anything useful.

~~~
gaoshan
Exactly what I was thinking. Those machines are usually handled on a monthly
installment so they are recurring and lucrative sources of income. I tried one
but it was like trying to sleep with the creature from Alien perched on your
face all night.

------
GotAnyMegadeth
I wish I didn't have to sleep, sometimes I feel like it, but most of the time
I have to stop doing what I want to do because my brain switches off...

------
corin_
Is there any research (or even opinion pieces) on the difference between
spreading sleep evenly over days or catching-up at certain times?

I normally aim for a couple of nights a week of full sleep (no alarm clock),
and the past week and a half I pushed this - 3-4 hours a night for 9 nights
(with an exception of 7 hours once in the middle), which left me needing two
really long nights the last couple of days.

But is it any better or worse this way? For example the difference between 6
hours a night over the whole week (42 hours total) or 4 hours a night for five
days then 11 hours a night for the other two?

------
6cxs2hd6
You can "get by" with a variety behaviors that have negative health impacts.

In the case of sleep, attentiveness isn't the only measure. Sleep deprivation
weakens your immune system, lowers testosterone production, and so on.

I don't see how being a "functional insomniac" is any more admirable than
being a functional alcoholic?

------
mitmads
"The only rule is to sleep long enough to feel refreshed when you wake up."
Totally agree with this. I guess for me it's 6.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
You can _get by_ on four hours, sure. Be as productive as you would be with
eight? Probably not.

------
C1D
I currently sleep at 12 PM(Sometimes 1AM) and wake-up at 5AM, and as long as I
get my morning breakfast I don't feel any fatigue; thou, on the weekends I
need about 12 Hours of sleep, i'ts not that I'm tired but more that I enjoy
sleeping ^_^.

------
damoncali
Anyone who's been through military boot camp will tell you that you can "get
by" on 4 hours of sleep. But there is a reason that Drill Instructors exert
baby-sitter like control over their recruits.

------
joering2
This is something new I recently learnt about myself. The body tends to fit to
whatever conditions you force it into. Of course there is limit and it can
shut itself down, but I think sleeping less won't do it.

I too thought I need more sleep, or 7 hours at least. Then I had couple late
nights when my sleep was in 5 hours bracket and it felt weird how good I feel,
how wired I am during the day. So, I suggest you at least try sleep less (6 or
5) and see how you feel daily. Do it for one week at least to make sure you
give your body space to get used to it and adjust.

