
How Little Sleep Can You Get Away With? - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sleep-t.html?hp
======
pstack
I'd settle for even being able to sleep at regular intervals. I have a habit
of staying up until I'm tired and waking up when I can't sleep anymore. As a
result, I may stay up all day for several days and then stay up all night for
several days. Or for several days, I may sleep twice during 24hrs, in
completely random periods. I just don't do well with the concept of "well,
it's 10pm, so that means it's time to get into bed".

~~~
radu_floricica
Long live melatonin. Gave me a lot more control over my sleep schedule. Plus,
the "positive side effects" section on the wikipedia entry is several pages
long...

~~~
bennesvig
Melatonin is great. Dream Water has the similar effect too.

~~~
spydertennis
Dream Water and Night Food are chock full of melatonin.

------
ianl
During my first year of university while I was running a start up our of dorm
room (modest success) and doing a full course load I was running on four hours
of sleep a night and an hour afternoon's nap just before supper.

That experience taught me something very important, sleep is crucial. When you
are tired you get tunnel vision and all you want to do is complete your task.
The long term effects of this on your start up is that you loose the edge to
be innovative while trying to solve problems.

~~~
sliverstorm
The worst part is you only want to complete the task, so that you can sleep.

~~~
FrojoS
No, the worst part is, that you wake up and find you only produced crap.

------
BlazingFrog
I envy all of you people who "choose" how many hours of sleep they will have
(or not have). After you have kids, especially if their sleep pattern is very
inconsistent for no apparent reason, you just take whatever you can get.
Unfortunately, you may not be ready to sleep at 10pm that night that your
child will decide to wake up at 1am ready to go about her day... Don't pay
attention to me. Just another rant from a sleep-deprived parent... ;)

~~~
guygurari
We had a lot of sleep-related problems with our kid. We recently sought
professional help and started a program that gives children good sleep habits.
We are three weeks in, and the results so far are nothing short of amazing. To
put it simply, the kid is sleeping much better, and we got our lives back.

One thing we learned the hard way is that following a method from a book is
not enough -- you need a professional to guide you through this. There are
many pitfalls you don't know about that will lead to failure, and you wont
even realize what it is you're doing wrong. Good luck!

~~~
wizard_2
Can you explain in a bit more depth?

~~~
edoloughlin
"you need a professional to guide you through this" - I think that's probably
enough depth?

~~~
w1ntermute
No, it's not. He's asking for more detail than that. Otherwise, he wouldn't
have responded to a comment saying "you need a professional to guide you
through this" with "Can you explain in a bit more depth?".

------
patrickk
How little sleep one can survive on is something I would like to not to
explore. I've struggled with insomnia for over a decade now, and if you are
fortunate to consistently get a solid nights sleep and wake up refreshed, then
you should appreciate the energy you have.

I would much rather sleep well, have less hours in the day to work with and
operate at 80-100% mental capacity rather than get less sleep, drink gallons
of coffee or other stimulants and struggle with being able to think clearly.

Ironically enough, it's exam season now and I may have found a solution -
forcing myself to go to bed at midnight, and up at 8-9am (no matter how bad I
feel) and taking one caffeine tablet in the morning and one at at lunch, I now
have something like regular alertness for the first time consistently in
years. It's only a few days into this phase however so who knows how it will
pan out. Many a false dawn (pun intended) was had before with solving
insomnia!

~~~
TheSOB88
Ever try not exposing yourself to light at night? That's _any_ light -
overhead lights, computer screens, lamp poles. Your body produces melatonin
based on that kind of input, and anything with significant blue light in it
apparently stops you from producing it.

~~~
patrickk
Believe me I've tried everything over the years. From what I've read about
insomnia, it's incredibly subjective; things that work for one person won't
help at all for others. Some people can get their "sleep hygiene" (stuff you
are supposed to do in order to sleep well) all wrong, and still sleep like a
log, e.g. drink plenty coffee late in the evening, noisy environment, lack of
exercise, eating heavily close to bedtime etc. If I do any of these things I'm
almost guaranteed to have an awful night's sleep.

Recently I've bought a Kindle DX (used along with a relatively dim overhead
freestanding lamp[1]), and I read that till I feel really sleepy. This
satisfies my craving for reading instead of staring at a computer screen. The
lack of a backlit screen shining into your retinas really helps!

[1]
[http://p.mdcd.net/product_images/full/2b3c568350aa9759eaa00a...](http://p.mdcd.net/product_images/full/2b3c568350aa9759eaa00ae3eead90ad66dba9bd.jpg)

~~~
salemh
I am a lifelong insomniac recently (the last 7 years or so) transitioned into
parasomnia (inability to stay asleep).

I've also "tried" everything and also feel the same when I get 2-3 days of
very solid sleep in. A different person :) Strangely, I have had VERY good
experiences with GABA, ZMA (both supplements, GNC etc.)Holy Basil extract
(herbal pill). This combo really helps me fall and stay asleep more on Average
versus most of anything else (including melatonin).

It helps as an assistant, not a knock-out Ambien like sleep aid, which I can't
use if I want to be alert for work :)

------
pamelafox
I often get told that I don't sleep enough (more like 6 than 8, if that), but
for me, my dreams get stranger the longer I sleep, and my day is happier if I
can wake up without strange dreams lingering in my head. For example, last
night I slept about 8 hours (probably due to wine the night before), and my
final dream involved me trying to evade certain death in a circus. I'd prefer
to start off my day on cheerier notes. :)

I don't use an alarm as I believe in waking up when your body wants you to,
after its natural cycles end. Or at least, thats what usually works for me.

~~~
astrange
You can get a sleep cycle alarm which will take care of that. Sleep Cycle for
iOS works, with the possible problem that you need a power cord long enough to
put the device on your bed.

~~~
eneveu
I saw a documentary about sleep a few years ago. The main idea was that a
sleep cycle lasts approximately 90 minutes, and you feel better rested when
you avoid waking up in the middle of a cycle.

Since then, I always set my alarm clock to sleep a multiple of 90 minutes: 6h,
7h30min, 9h... (6 hours more often than not, but I might change this, having
read this article...)

I used to dream all the time. I haven't dreamt since I started doing this. I
guess I still have dreams, but I never remember them. I think you only
remember dreams when you are woken up in the middle of REM sleep (in the
middle of a cycle).

A nice benefit of my current sleep pattern, is that I fall asleep very fast,
instead of waiting in bed for up to 1 hour like I used to. I hope it's not
because I'm sleep deprived, though...

------
udoprog
Loved this article. I would love to see a simliar test around polyphasic sleep
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep>).

I've actually tried the Uberman sleep schedule for three weeks. This is where
you sleep 20 minutes for each 4 hours, totalling in a whopping 2 hours sleep
each day.

The time gain was insane, and the transition period aswell (between day 3-5 I
actually hallucinated due to sleep deprevation). But around 1.5 weeks
something strange happened. The 20 minute period that you are allowed to sleep
seemed like hours each time, and I would wake up like clockwork on the 20
minute mark.

The whole routine is not just a sleep routine, it affects your entire
lifestyle. No stimulants, including sugar, high degrees of fat, caffeine. No
sedatives, alcohol, drugs (!). And the fact that you are awake during the
night when the whole world seems dead is one of the hardest social aspects to
handle. What do you do with 6 extra hours each day?

Of course there's the aspect of finding somewhere to sleep every 4 hours (was
at school at the time), and if you ever missed out, you would have hell to
pay.

I eventually buckled on a skiing trip with an open bar, had a nice weekend and
decided to going back to normal sleeping patterns. Partly because it was not
socially acceptable to sleep 2 hours a day (my father threatened to beat some
sense into me). But also that there was very little foundation that this kind
of sleep pattern was even safe. A couple of million years of evolution had
other idea's of when and how long it is necessary to sleep.

Other than that, the foundations that I gathered up from this was that when
changing your sleeping pattern. The body frantically tries to adapt. By
sleeping extremely short periods the body would effectively increase the
amount of REM sleep (and yes, I dreamed a lot during these sleeping periods),
however, it has not been proven that you don't need the other types of sleep.

This is probably a lot of rumours, and a lot of wishful thinking. I personally
wish there was some solid backing behind this kind of reasoning (more time
awake is awesome!), There are a lot of buzz out there (check google and
youtube), but I've been unable to find anything reasonably solid.

~~~
rednum
Isn't polyphasic considered a hoax? Piotr Wozniak, though his site looks
rather shitty, seems to know what he is talking about:
<http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic2010.htm> Specifically this
paragraph sums the thing up:

    
    
      I received some 500 pieces of mail and got in personal
      touch with many polyphasic adepts. Of those attempts that
      I was given a chance to monitor, all were unsuccessful.   
      Some of the critics of the original article claimed that 
      they do sleep polyphasically, but I received no data that 
      could serve as the basis for verification.
    

Also I recall reading quite many stories about people who tried polyphasic and
they are similar to yours - ie. after 2-3 weeks they stop for some random
reason - which really sounds to me like "I can't make it, but I won't admit
even to myself so I say I stopped for reason X". Also some actually stop
earlier and admit they were constantly deprivated.

~~~
dkersten
That doesn't really make it a hoax though: yes, everybody gave up after a
while, but like OP, it may well just be social pressure. All polyphasic sleep
accounts I read ended up with something along the lines of "its too hard to
fit social events around such a strict schedule". If you're awake during the
night when nobody else is and you have to nap when everybody else is awake,
and you CANNOT miss a nap, then of course people are eventually going to cave
in and go back to a more normal schedule so that they mesh with their friends
schedules better.

I think to make the ubermann cycle work, you need 1) to have a job that allows
such a schedule 2) not have kids 3) have a bunch of your friends do it too so
that your schedule isn't too different from the people you interact with the
most.

IMHO, its unlikely that people will will meet all three of those points
though. The "solution" would perhaps be a less severe and strict schedule. For
example, I tried a 28-hour day schedule (the one from xkcd.. am I crazy trying
a sleep cycle I saw in a comic?) and it worked really well: stay up 20 hours
then sleep for 8, repeat. Monday to thursday fit around my uni schedule (at
the time) perfectly, Friday (which I had off) through Sunday I was basically
awake at night and asleep during the day. I ended up with 6 28 hour days.
Worked really well! ...until the day I had an appointment in the middle of my
"I'm supposed to be asleep" time on a Friday, got knocked off course and
didn't bother going back to it.

~~~
scott_s
You must have read different accounts than I have. Yes, they all say that it's
difficult to deal with the schedule mismatch. But then they also say that it's
also difficult because they are soul-crushingly _tired_ all the time.

See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1464142> and
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=652650>

~~~
dkersten
Well, the Steve Pavlina account you linked backs up what I said. If you skip
to the end:

" _First off, let me say that I didn’t decide to stop for health reasons. To
my recollection I didn’t get sick even once while sleeping polyphasically, not
even a cold. My energy and alertness were excellent once I made it through the
adaptation period. A lot of people asked me about weight training and exercise
— I didn’t have any problems there either. My recovery after workouts was just
fine. Perhaps the post-workout nap had a positive effect._ "

and

" _The #1 reason I decided to call it quits is simply that the rest of the
world is monophasic. If most of the world was polyphasic, I probably would
have stuck with it. Obviously when you go polyphasic, you fall out of sync
with the way other people live. ..._ "

See also [http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2006/11/01/an-attack-
on-p...](http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/2006/11/01/an-attack-on-
polyphasic-sleep/)

I haven't read a huge amount of accounts, but I've read one or two others
besides Steve Pavlinas and they seemed to match up. I am no expert though and
certainly don't want to claim that its a good idea, just because I've read
three or four accounts online that said so. Especially since I cannot prove
for sure that they are true.

" _they are soul-crushingly tired all the time_ "

I have only heard people who haven't tried it say this. But I won't argue the
case, because I haven't tried it either.

~~~
scott_s
_I have only heard people who haven't tried it say this._

I've read some reports from people who are tired all the time because they
haven't "adjusted" - and the punchline is they never will. I think Pavlina's
and others are in denial; while the social aspect is obviously negative, it
gives them a convenient excuse. If there the only downside was not having a
schedule that worked with the rest of society, there would be someone,
somewhere who would not have done it, but would _being doing it_. But there
isn't, because that's not how sleep, for us, works.

~~~
dkersten
Sure. We would expect more people doing it if it worked. That guy on reddit
who tried it recently suddenly stopped posting after 5 days, so that doesn't
help my argument either :)

I don't know though. I certainly appreciate what you're saying, I guess I want
to believe you're wrong, but I have no evidence either way. Maybe I should try
it myself to see if it works haha.

------
IanMikutel
"P.V.T. is tedious but simple if you’ve been sleeping well. It measures the
sustained attention that is vital for pilots, truck drivers, astronauts.
Attention is also key for focusing during long meetings; for reading a
paragraph just once."

I can't say how true that is when you're doing a ton of email all day or
research, and its more a function of the sum total of small delays in re-
reading that build up over the course of an entire day. Contrasted with a day
when your mind is so clear that you require no re-reading, it feels like you
are so much more productive.

Additional sleep links:

1\. Sleep: How to hack your brain (<http://www.dustincurtis.com/sleep.html>)

2\. The 4-Hour Body: Engineering better sleep ([http://techcocktail.com/book-
preview-the-4-hour-body-enginee...](http://techcocktail.com/book-preview-
the-4-hour-body-engineering-better-sleep-2010-12))

~~~
scott_s
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1464142>

------
Spyro7
I wonder how long it takes to recover from the decreased performance.

When I was in high school, I could pull an all nighter with ease to take care
of an assignment (or to finish a Legend of Zelda game in one straight playing
session).

Now, in grad school, I needed to pull an all nighter recently and found that I
just couldn't do it anymore. I hadn't pulled an all nighter in years and it
just seemed to be vastly harder than it used to be.

It is too bad the study didn't attempt to see how much sleep was necessary to
recover. Would have been nice to know how long the residual effects from
decreased sleep lasts. It is now a full week since the end of my semester and
I still feel abnormally tired.

------
JohnAllen
I can tell if I've slept less than 8 hours; I can barely function with
anything less than 7; add 30-60 minutes if I've exercised intensely the
previous day.

The report makes it seem like even if people don't realize it, their
performance suffers. I've always been jealous of those that could seemingly
sleep for however much time was convenient but not anymore!

------
thebooktocome
I've completely stopped going without sleep this since the last semester
ended. Of course, we'll see if we last through the next semester...

The thing I've noticed is that I have way more free time than I thought I did,
because I wasn't explicitly thinking about things in terms of "hmm, I have
five hours before bed, I should probably do X".

Also, melatonin supplements are my friend. :)

~~~
kunjaan
"I've completely stopped going without sleep this since the last semester
ended"

That is a lie.

~~~
jrockway
You are misunderstanding the sentence. He means that he no longer skips
sleeping.

There is no reason to assume he is lying about this.

------
sinker
Interesting article, but the results don't reflect the performance of those
who have adapted to alternative sleep schedules in the long term. The article
states that subjects were to maintain their sleep schedule for two weeks. I
reckon that any sudden shift in sleep schedules would have a good chance of
causing fatigue. A more interesting experiment would be to see how those with
alternative sleep schedules that have practiced them in the long term compare
to those with 8 a day schedules.

------
torstesu
It would have been really interesting to see if power naps had any effect on
the performance of the subjects that were deprived of sleep.

My personal experience is that 15 minutes in the horizontal position improves
my awareness and performance. An additional hack is to drink an espresso the
moment before you take your power nap - the effect of the caffeine will kick
in in about 15 minutes after consumption.

~~~
petercooper
Or the "siesta" style of sleep generally. That is, the pattern of having a nap
in the day and a shorter nighttime sleep.

~~~
michaelcampbell
I've tried a bi-phasic sleep cycle (2 short sleep cycles; 3-4 hours a "day"
each time, with a 3-6 hour wake cycle in between) for a few weeks. It worked
well enough for me, but with a 10 year old at home, I just couldn't make the
timing work out.

I'm one that needs at least 8 hours a night; 9 is better.

------
jarin
Strangely enough, I've found that since I increased my caffeine intake (to
around 900-1200mg/day via energy drinks) I've been sleeping great. I usually
go to sleep around 10pm, wake up naturally around 3am, and take a 1 hour nap
around 3 pm. I've been drinking a lot of water as well, and I've had no
problems focusing on work. I think the nap is the key though.

~~~
anonymoushn
How has 900-1200mg/day worked out for you? I considered it a lot when I was
doing 500-600mg/day.

~~~
jarin
Pretty good, it's basically a max of 4 Engage energy drinks, or 2 of them and
a mix of Nos or Monster. I don't feel jittery at all, but I do get a headache
if I don't get any caffeine within a few hours of waking up.

I used to get a little heart weirdness (a weird beat once in a while), but
I've cut down smoking to 1 or 2 cigarettes per day and started drinking more
water and the heart weirdness has stopped happening.

~~~
BlazingFrog
At what point is the physical need for an artificial substance considered an
addiction? Not criticizing, just honestly wondering.

~~~
jarin
Probably when it causes withdrawal symptoms?

~~~
rs
As in the headache ? Isn't that a sign of withdrawal symptoms ?

------
tmd
I have always suspected that I need more sleep than other people. When I tried
to live without alarm clock I slept for 9-10 hours every night. It seems to be
an enormous waste of time so I usually schedule an alarm after 8 hours.

It never occurred to me that one can measure whether the amount of sleep
received is right. I just downloaded PEBL (<http://pebl.sourceforge.net/>), an
open source software that includes the P.V.T. test (mentioned in the article)
in its battery -- an you can adjust lots of test parameters simply by editing
ppbt.pbl. Seems to be working fine (though the test itself is boring and
tedious). I'll measure few times a day and try whether 8 vs 10 hours makes a
difference in my case.

------
knodi
I try to sleep little over 8 hour and less then 9 hours, although it doesn't
always happen. As the last hour of my sleep I almost always experience lucid
dreams and they make my day so much better.

------
credo
The report is interesting and it isn't surprising that partial sleep
deprivation results in a cognitive deficit.

I'd be more interested in understanding the long-term effects of insufficient
sleep.

Is the cognitive deficit a temporary problem that goes away after a few days
(or more of) sufficient sleep OR will sustained lack of sleep (over a long
period) result in a long-term problem that persists even after the subject
begins to sleep sufficiently.

~~~
ajkessler
Shorter lifespan: <http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2002/02_08_Kripke.html>

Grey hair: [http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/foas-
nla02230...](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/foas-
nla022309.php)

~~~
mgkimsal
weird. I've had _some_ gray (at least, some I and others could notice) since I
was 18 (and quite a lot all these years later). One of my brothers is 15 and
has some gray. It's not really saying _why_ the hydrogen peroxide builds up
though. :/

------
coreymaass
I highly reocmmend Jmes Maas' book Power Sleep. He's a Cornell professor who's
studied sleep for decades. This book opened my eyes to just how important
enough sleep is. [http://www.amazon.com/Power-Sleep-Revolutionary-Prepares-
Per...](http://www.amazon.com/Power-Sleep-Revolutionary-Prepares-
Performance/dp/0060977604)

------
ajkessler
I don't buy the seemingly arbitrary distinction that 8 hours is a good night's
sleep. I know people who require 9+ hours per night (ie they appear sleep
deprived if they get less than 9 for a few consecutive nights). I know one
person who requires about 4 per night (not a forced four where you end up
looking 10 years older than you really are after a few years).

I do like the idea of testing where your sweet spot is, though. I've never
done anything like the PVT, but I've found (through Steve Pavlina's advice)
that if you wake up at the same time each day, every day, and simply fall
asleep when you're tired at the end of the day, you discover pretty quickly
where that sweet spot is. More here: [http://www.ajkesslerblog.com/how-to-get-
back-9-weeks-of-your...](http://www.ajkesslerblog.com/how-to-get-back-9-weeks-
of-your-life/)

~~~
bcl
Read the article more closely. _Most_ need 8. There are some who need less,
some who need more. The graph might even look like a bell curve ;)

~~~
kaiwetzel
I was a little disappointed by the article in this regard. While it's
mentioned that "There is a small portion of the population — he estimates it
at around 5 percent or even less — who, for what researchers think may be
genetic reasons, can maintain their performance with five or fewer hours of
sleep. (There is also a small percentage who require 9 or 10 hours.)" it would
be very interesting to know if there is a larger than 5% group that does just
fine with 6 or 7 hours of sleep.

Assuming your assumption about the distribution of "needing x hours of sleep
to do well" is correct and if we assume that 5% need only 5 hours or less and
the mean is at 8 hours (the article is even unclear about what those 8 hours
represent so it's a wild guess at best), how large is the percentage of people
needing 7.5 hours or less? (Roughly 40% if it's a normal distribution). So
what the article says about "most of us" is technically correct the
interesting answers for the many of us that presumably need between 5 and 8
hours of sleep is left out.

Does it make a difference in what sleep phase people are woken up (after the n
hours of sleep their group gets)? I wish more money would be available for
this area of research so longer and more detailed studies could be done. And
better handouts for journalists.

------
asimjalis
I've noticed a difference based on when I wake up. If I wake up early in the
morning when it's still dark I find I am quite alert even on a few hours of
sleep. If I wake up later I need the eight hours.

------
herf
I wonder if f.lux should have a P.V.T. test built in!

------
code_duck
I wonder when they'll stop forcing active duty military to make do with 4
hours a night.

