
Rethinking Sleep - sew
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/rethinking-sleep.html?src=twrhp
======
vidarh
I've adopted a biphasic sleep pattern of sorts by chance. It started by
occasionally falling asleep when putting my son to sleep, and when I'd wake up
I'd compensate by staying up longer.

After a while I realized it works very well for me to got to sleep for a
couple of hours around 8 when he goes to sleep, and then stay up for a few
hours before going back to sleep - I usually feel very mellow and relaxed when
waking up after my first sleep period, and then very energized after I've been
up for a little while. I get far more done this way than by trying to make
myself work on stuff at the tail end of a long day. In fact, I'm coming out of
my "mellow and relaxed" phase after my first sleep period right now, and is
about to start working on a project...

Sometimes I end up "exploiting it" by cutting my total number of hours of
sleep drastically, and feel little ill effect as long as I compensate with
sufficient rest the following evening.

Occasionally I'll combine this with a 30 minutes nap at lunch time. If not
I'll usually spend that time meditating instead.

~~~
janezhu
I did this for the first two years of college-- I'd often sleep for about 3-4
hours each night before class, and then sleep another chunk of time in the
afternoon. However, it had the opposite effect on me as it became more and
more difficult to go "back" to sleep in the afternoon unless I waited until
the evening. What ended up happening the last year or so is that I started
sleeping 5-6 hours per night without a nap, and then sleeping more on the
weekends. Surprisingly, this schedule (with morning coffee) got me through
classes much better than having a combined total of 8 hours per night. I
started researching sleep to build a sleep tracking app and the theory (there
are a number of books regarding this) is that your body can catch up on a
certain amount of sleep "debt" within a period of 1-2 weeks. The "debt" is not
a scientific measurement but within 14 days, your body has a general idea of
how much sleep/rest is missing, and if the debt is made up gradually instead
of all at once (and also by going to bed earlier rather than sleeping in), it
can actually decrease the effect of drowsiness from past nights.

Actually now that I started working I sleep 7 hours a night and wake up the
same time every morning and it's the first time in 6 years I don't need coffee
to get through the day.

Disclaimer-- I also referenced a product I built. The app is called SleepBot
and it's a very simple mechanism to help people track sleep and get an idea of
their sleep "debt" over short periods of time. As David mentioned, sleep has
been an untapped market but there's recently been an influx of sleep apps into
the market including tackers, sound machines, and alarms. I think what we're
seeing is an increased concern for sleep as more of us try to figure out how
to improve our health beyond diet and exercise.

~~~
vidarh
> . However, it had the opposite effect on me as it became more and more
> difficult to go "back" to sleep in the afternoon unless I waited until the
> evening.

8 here for me is 8pm. So I'll sleep 8pm until somewhere between 10 and 11.30pm
depending on how rough the day was, and then get up and stay up anywhere until
around 1.30am to 3.30am and go to bed and sleep until 6am.

I don't think I could deal with sleeping in the afternoon - it has to be when
it's reasonably dark out, and it definitively helps to have a rough enough
schedule and short enough total amount of sleep to be properly tired by the
time I go down for the first round.

I rarely sleep more than 6 hour total during the evening/night, but will often
catch up with a nap during the day on weekends.

------
philip1209
Single-page article:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/rethinking-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/rethinking-
sleep.html?src=twrhp&_r=0&pagewanted=all)

------
macchina
A. Roger Ekirch "Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-industrial Slumber in the British
Isle"
[http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/106.2/ah00034...](http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/106.2/ah000343.html)

This is the seminal article on segmented sleep. Pretty fascinating stuff.

And a shorter TED video:
<http://www.ted.com/talks/jessa_gamble_how_to_sleep.html>

~~~
willrobinson
That Ekirch article is great reading. Thank you.

------
dreamr
Strange (and boring... you've been warned) little anecdote.

Yesterday (like so many days, ha) I spent too much time typing out silly posts
for HN. Last night, I couldn't sleep well because of some noise outside and I
had this dream. One of those dreams where it is so vivid and the story line is
so clear, and there are "scenes" almost like a film where the "camera" zooms
in on some aspect, that you wake up remembering the details and go "WTF? What
does that _mean_?"

So I thought about some of the things I remebered for a little bit. Some of
these details made absolutely no sense. They served no purpose in the
storyline of the dream. And suddenly it hit me they were derived from _words_
I had used in HN posts. Not topics, but individual words. My brain had woven
them into the story. And it had done so with some pretty crafty storytelling.
I'm not sure I could have done it so well if I was awake.

As if you gave someone a list of random words and said, "Make up a story and
weave each of these words into the story."

I guess this is nothing unusual. Probably happens to people every night. But
it left me thinking about how just how "self-driving" the brain is. What the
heck is it doing when we go to sleep? It is running on its own software, to
use a computer analogy. And it's not exactly "open source" code. I would love
to see how that code works.

~~~
gnosis
"An uninterpreted dream is like an unopened letter."

Dreams often have many layers of meaning. You might want to try keeping a
long-term, detailed record of your dreams, and spending some time each day
trying to make sense of them and relating them to your life and to other
dreams. You might be surprised to find just how rich they are with meaning.

~~~
philwelch
You can read meaning into anything. For the most part though, dreams are just
synapses firing randomly. I wouldn't read too much into them, or at least not
take the interpretations too seriously.

~~~
dreamr
What's that movie with Eddie Murphy where he's an alien spaceship? It like
this team of little people (cells, proteins, DNA, whatever) trying to make
sense of all the stupid stuff you, the lumbering gene robot, got up to during
the day. All I gave them to work with was a bunch of words on a webpage.
Doesn't make for the most interesting or coherent storyline for a dream. One
can imagine them saying, "When is this guy going to get off that stupid
website and give us some real material to work with?" :)

------
david_shaw
Disclaimer: I'm going to reference a product I built.

The science of sleep is a strange thing. Sleep is ubiquitous (after all,
_everyone_ needs to sleep), and almost everyone I know complains of being
tired, or constantly groggy, or stressed due to the limited amount of sleep
that they get every night. I know this particularly well, because I suffer
from mild insomnia that keeps me awake far later than I should be. I try to
use this time well, to create projects, or to learn new things, or to read
books, but after a certain time in the night, one's brain starts to become
mostly useless -- knowledge isn't retained.

All of that is background for an experience I had in late 2010. As usual, I
had been sleeping badly -- getting about 4.5 hours of solid sleep per night
for several weeks -- and was feeling pretty terrible, as you might imagine.
That night, however, and for whatever reason, I slept beautifully for eight
hours... but when my alarm clock went off, I felt terrible. I felt _worse_
than I'd felt on four and a half hours' sleep. How was this possible?

It really bothered me, especially because I'd been so happy that I finally
slept a "normal" night's sleep. Did I have some _other_ sleep disorder, maybe
one that produced insomnia as just a symptom? I researched, and tried to
figure out what was really happening. I couldn't stand the grogginess I felt
every morning.

During my research, which lasted probably about a month, I realized that
something that made a _major_ impact on me was the stage of sleep during which
I woke up. Since sleep cycles last about 90 minutes, I felt better waking up
_between_ cycles (4.5 hours is about 3 complete cycles) than waking up in the
_middle_ of a sleep cycle (8 hours is 5.3 cycles). It turned out that this
phenomenon was called "sleep inertia."

For awhile, I'd try to time this myself. I'd take a piece of paper, and count
backwards from the time I needed to wake up in between cycles, then add on
some time to fall asleep. I started to notice _incredibly_ less grogginess in
the morning. My new technique was amazing.

I tried sharing it with some of my friends and colleagues whom I knew also had
problems getting up in the morning (who doesn't?), but it turns out that doing
even simple math (subtraction) was not an activity people wanted to do right
before bed. I'm not a math guy myself, so I couldn't really blame them. The
timing happened to work out that I was teaching myself jQuery at the time, so
I figured I'd create a little webapp for myself and my friends to use. That's
how <http://sleepyti.me> was born.

In November 2010, when Sleepyti.me first launched, I asked HN and later
Reddit's /r/programming for advice related to design and usability -- I am
_not_ a web design guy. That helped, but I ended up keeping the minimalist
design in place. This choice was partially because I think it looks nice and
clean, and partially because I'm not very good at design... at all. Anything
more complicated and it probably would have looked terrible, knowing my design
skills.

The site, much to my surprise, caught on very quickly. Social networks
(Twitter & StumbleUpon, mostly) as well as traditional media found it
effective and intriguing. I ended up giving several interviews about the site,
being featured in LifeHacker, and being overall _far_ more popular than I'd
ever imagined. For example, I received 300,912 visits to the site last week.

I don't allow donations, and I haven't released an official mobile app yet,
but the single banner page on the site has done very well for me -- I've
earned $1500-$2000 per month since early 2011. It's not a startup by any
means, but it's certainly a nice way to bring in some extra income from a side
project.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that the article is right: the science
of sleep is strange, and at times counter-intuitive... but in my opinion, it's
also an untapped market. After all, we all just want a good night's sleep,
don't we?

~~~
peterjmag
When you first posted about sleepyti.me here on HN, I was enduring a long
phase where I was having a particularly hard time falling asleep at night. I
would often lie in bed for two or three hours before I finally drifted off.
Compounding the issue was my tendency to constantly measure and analyze how
long I'd been trying and how much sleep I would (not) get if I fell asleep
"now", always comparing those figures with factoids from articles I'd read
about how much sleep we need, sleep cycles, etc. Then I came across this line
on sleepyti.me's results page:

"The average adult human takes fourteen minutes to fall asleep, so plan
accordingly!"

Now, instead of measuring my sleeplessness by the hour or by the sleep cycle,
I started measuring by multiples of fourteen: "Okay, it's only been 28 minutes
since I got in bed. That's only two times the average." "Now I'm at ten times
the average. This is ridiculous." I started harboring a grudge towards all
those "average" people who could fall asleep so quickly. I wondered if I was
enough of a statistical outlier to skew the average up to fifteen or even
sixteen minutes. I even began to begrudge _you_ for including that seemingly
innocent statistic on a website intended to help people sleep better. I had no
idea who you were, but I hated you for lodging that figure in my subconscious.
These were the racing, irrational thoughts of my addled, sleep-deprived brain.

At the same time, in part because of that bit of trivia on your site, I
started realizing that I had a real problem. My lack of sleep was affecting my
concentration, my work, my relationships, pointing inevitably towards a long
downward spiral that I desperately wanted to avoid. I began to critically
examine my sleeping patterns, my sleeping environment, what I did every night
and every morning, my diet—my whole life, in fact. Over the course of the next
few months, I experimented with every variable I could think of.

I'm proud to say that today, I'm sleeping better than ever. I'm able to fall
asleep much more easily, and my overall mood and outlook has improved
considerably. It's by no means perfect though—it's very much an ongoing,
concerted effort. For those of you enduring a similar struggle for sleep, here
are a few of the things that made the biggest difference for me:

\- Don't get hung up on numbers. Stop counting the minutes that you're not
sleeping. Easier said than done for many of us, I know, but it's huge. Place
digital alarm clocks and the like out of sight from your bed, and resist the
urge to check the time on your phone.

\- If you're on the computer late at night, use f.lux to automatically adjust
the color temperature of your screen. The bright light of your LCD screen can
mess with your body's natural rhythms, and f.lux helps to counter that. It
took me a little while to get used to it, but once I did, I noticed a marked
decrease in the "racing mind" syndrome when I used my computer right before
bed. Here's the link: <http://stereopsis.com/flux/>

\- Avoid caffeine after lunchtime. (This one will vary widely for different
people, but since I'm a caffeine lightweight, it's pretty early in the day.
Find your own cutoff.) Also try different caffeinated drinks. For instance, if
I drink coffee at any time of the day, I'll likely have trouble sleeping that
night, so I drink black tea almost exclusively.

\- Don't go to bed on an empty stomach. I can't fall asleep if I'm hungry.

\- Read! I started reading in bed every single night about a year and a half
ago, and it's my favorite way to shut my brain off at the end of the day. Of
course, certain books are better to fall asleep to—the best ones will keep you
interested without being so engaging that you can't put it down. (I made the
mistake of starting the Hunger Games at about 1:00am a couple of weeks ago,
and I ended up reading the entire thing that night. I only got two hours of
sleep before work the next morning.) Find what works for you.

\- If I'm still having trouble falling asleep after reading, I will often
"replay" the last couple chapters of whatever I read in reverse. See if you
can remember everything that just happened and work your way back to where you
started that night. I read about this trick somewhere on the web (amongst a
bunch of other tips that didn't help), and it seems to work wonders for me. If
you don't read at night, try recounting your day (even the boring stuff)
backwards instead.

\- Don't beat yourself up if you still struggle to sleep. It's okay, and it
_will_ get better. (On that note, please consider seeing a doctor if your
sleeplessness persists!)

Finally, to David: Thank you for building sleepyti.me. It serves a simple but
significant purpose, and it does so elegantly. And while it fed my irrational,
sleep-deprived hatred of non-insomniacs for a little while, it also became a
catalyst for real change in my life.

~~~
durandal1
One thing I want to emphasize here is f.lux. It works. In fact it works
brilliantly – it has had a profound effect on my sleep quality of the last
year.

~~~
donaldc
I personally have found that f.lux is insufficient. It does significantly tone
down the amount of blue that my laptop screen puts out, but even when set to
the most red-shifted setting possible, my laptop screen still puts out enough
blue light to keep me from getting sleepy.

------
dawernik
Sleep still seems incredibly mis-understood relative to other essentials in
life - like nutrition. If i think about the events in my life that wrecked
sleep they were 1) kids 2) stress at work 3) chronic illness 4) family anxiety
and they all occurred or accelerated in the back half of life. I imagine this
will impact my long term health as much as nutrition. Yet few have effectively
studied it like they have eating habits.

------
nazgulnarsil
I'm extremely pissed I went the first 27 years of my life without knowing
this. It completely changed my life.

When you wake up you are dehydrated. Immediately have a sip of pickle brine
and a cup of water. The electrolytes (salt and potassium) help you absorb the
water quickly. You will feel MUCH better. Coconut juice is another possibility
if you find pickles gross.

This is also helpful for hangovers.

------
nowarninglabel
Anecdotally, adopting this pattern of sleep has helped with my workaholism and
overall satisfaction. Before I was going to sleep somewhere in the range of
1:30am - 4:30am, depending on when I finished a project, and woke up between
9am - 10am. Now, I take a nap on most days, fall asleep around 11, wake up
around 2:30am and do a little thinking and/or reading or most useful: note-
taking. Then, I go back to sleep and wake up with the sunrise. It's really
done wonders for how I feel during the day. It may not be for everyone, but it
works for me, but I also have a work environment that is supportive of naps
which makes it a lot easier.

~~~
espyb
I currently have a sleep schedule similar to your previous schedule... work
until I'm done with projects, usually Midnight to 2:00 am, sleep until 9 or 10
am. However I've noticed recently that I wake up nearly every night around 5
am, regardless of when I go to bed, and then I lay in bed irritated that I
can't get back to sleep until around 7:30 am, then I doze off and wake up
again around 10 am. So based upon your comments, and the article, I'll try
getting up when I wake around 5 am and doing something productive, and then go
back to bed around 7:30 am and get a few more hours of sleep. I don't know
why, but I would have never considered doing that, I guess because I'm always
irritated that I can't sleep in the middle of the night. My work environment
would allow me to nap during the day, but I find it uncomfortable to sleep
during the day.

------
danparsonson
I read an interesting book a few years ago written by a guy exploring the
different states our brain goes through during a twenty-four period; this
included experimenting with polyphasic sleep. He spends (IIRC) a month living
in a cabin in the wilderness, sleeping according to the rising and setting of
the sun; after a week or so his body reset itself to a two-phase sleep cycle
as described in the nytimes piece.

Overall a very enjoyable read: [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-Trip-Fantastic-
Through-Hours/dp...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-Trip-Fantastic-Through-
Hours/dp/1851686517/)

------
sixQuarks
I get up at least 3-4 times each night, I'm assuming in between my sleep
cycles. I'm completely awake for a few minutes before falling back to sleep.

I don't have any problems during the day and don't feel tired. I always
thought we needed 8 continuous hours, but some research I've read says it's
okay to actually get up in between, as long as you get 8 hours total.

------
Apocryphon
If companies, especially tech firms and startups, have become much more
conscious and amenable to the need to allow their employees to work out,
perhaps they can also start allowing a naptime break of twenty to forty
minutes. It doesn't have to be "just a crazy Google benefit."

------
tsm
So if you're used to sleeping for eight hours at a time...should you set your
alarm for four hours, wake up, do something sedate for a while, and then go
back to bed? Should it be more like 4.5 so that (in theory) it happens at the
end of a 1.5-hour sleep cycle?

~~~
awolf
I don't think you should set an alarm ever if you can help it.

If the theory is that bi-phasic sleep is ideal and natural for us, you should
fall into that pattern naturally. All you need to do is go to sleep around the
time that the sun goes down. It's just that "easy".

~~~
guga31bb
> _All you need to do is go to sleep around the time that the sun goes down.
> It's just that "easy"._

What about in December when the sun sets around 16:30? Surely people aren't
getting in bed then?

------
akldfgj
Nice PR hit for Goog!

> Employees at Google, for instance, are offered the chance to nap at work
> because the company believes it may increase productivity.

What percentage of employee-days at Google actually involve a nap? 1%? 0.01%?
Is it any higher than the traditional comic practice of "curl up under your
desk"?

~~~
arantius
> What percentage of employee-days at Google actually involve a nap? 1%?
> 0.01%? Is it any higher than the traditional comic practice of "curl up
> under your desk"?

Complete anecdata but: I've seen people curled up on couches in the middle of
the day plenty of times. I think the point is that, at Google, you won't be
frowned upon for this. (Whereas it may be much more likely at other
companies.) Not that you're mandated to nap after lunch or anything.

------
nholland
I've heard of a few strategies around sleep... one is 'amount', one is
'waking', and one is 'quality'. Things like sleep apnea effect the quality,
the <http://sleepyti.me> site helps with waking, and I'm still curious about
the amount.

------
krrrh
CBC ideas did an excellent series on sleep which went into depth on biphasic
sleep research.

<http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/4578034>

------
Too
This topic was on HN a few months ago with pretty long and interesting
discussion. Anyone got the link?

(Probably not exactly the same article since this one was written yesterday)

