
Sleep quality and stress level matter more than languages or practices - ognyankulev
https://twitter.com/hillelogram/status/1119709859979714560
======
mikekchar
I think this is true for the most part, although poor development practices
can eventually catch up to you (I once worked in a place with 5000 programmers
working on the same thing and whose productivity averaged 1 line of code per
day -- it can happen.. :-P ).

However, while many people will rightly complain about stress in the workplace
and long hours coding, I'd like to also point out that stress and lack of
sleep can come in a variety of packages. I've seen good programmers destroy
their careers because they thought there was no problem staying up drinking
all night on workdays. I've experienced (unfortunately) being in a bad
relationship and arguing with my SO all night until it was time to go to work.

Stress and sleepless nights will cost you in your career. It might cost you a
_lot_. It's not sexy to be the person that avoids drama in their life and
manages their sleep schedule well, but it can have pretty significant rewards.
If you think that in SV the difference between a top and middling performer
can easily be in the $100K per year area, it puts a pretty hefty price tag on
"Oh, I'm pretty sure I can catch up on my sleep on the weekend".

From the "hard to talk about, but I wish I knew this 20-30 years ago"
department :-(

~~~
pier25
> being in a bad relationship and arguing with my SO all night until it was
> time to go to work

If that ever happened to me I'd seriously consider my life choices in the
romantic department.

~~~
cududa
...you’ve never had an all night argument with your partner?

~~~
pier25
No, never.

I've been with my current SO for over 10 years (and married) and had a couple
long term relationships before that.

We've had arguments like any other couple, but never an all night argument.

------
Jach
The big picture is trivially true -- if you don't sleep, you die. Where's your
favorite language, now? Similarly if you don't eat -- yet few people would
make a rant about "food quality matters more than languages".

There's still a lot of nuance. What studies there are don't negate the
existence of variability either. Well, then what's the point of bringing up
the subject? Taken broadly sleep is important as life itself, but then it has
no place in an earnest discussion around improving productivity. Taken
narrowly, it's very context sensitive, so it's again rather useless in
discussing improving your own or even your team's productivity unless you're
already in the weeds of knowing individuals' detailed backgrounds.

There's a fun fact johnc's comment in that thread points out. We can all agree
if we want that if people aren't getting their 8 hours (or some number close
by), that has to happen first, and we can ignore whatever
nuance/variability/context objections one might have. But with 8 hours, there
are still over 100 other hours in the week. 80 if we're just talking M-F. What
are you going to do to fill those more productively? If switching languages
lets you do something in half the time as otherwise, why wouldn't you switch,
and rather than just taking half the day off, _continue working_ and do twice
as much as you would in the other language for the day?

Is the point that you shouldn't unnecessarily waste your waking life for some
company? Fine, but you shouldn't do that even if you're getting 10 hours every
night and are only asked to work 30 hours a week if those 30 hours are truly a
waste. On the other hand, you might be in a situation where 80+ hours this
week (hopefully not forced to be compressed to M-F or intrude on your sleep
requirements) spent on work is the most non-wasteful thing you can think to be
doing with your life at this time. Circumstances are different.

~~~
sridca
Given that your big picture conveniently ignores stress it is not "trivially
true" after all. :-P

~~~
Jach
I intentionally left out talking about stress, but I think it's also trivially
true at the big picture level, too much stress can kill you. X is true, Y is
true, X and Y is also true... But stress is a much more vague and hazy notion
than sleep when you get down to specifics, we have few rules of action to
agree on even in principle like "get your ~8 hours of sleep (even if that
involves napping) before you look at other potential boosters" and we have
contradictory notions about certain types or levels of stress actually being
better for you in the long run whereas chronic sleep deprivation seems to have
no long term benefits.

------
nreilly
The book ‘Why we Sleep’ has a lot of the detail on how sleep (or the lack of)
impacts you.

~~~
faitswulff
Surprisingly, the Joe Rogan interview covers most of the book and is pretty
funny:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig)

If you have a long commute, I can recommend it.

~~~
kuroguro
Great episode! The part about memory centers sort of reminds me of GANs.
Discriminate during day, generate during night.

------
2sk21
Definitely strikes a chard in me - I've completely stopped coding when I'm
tired as it has often led to disasters. I've just learned to live this
limitation but its not been too hard.

~~~
andai
I read here recently, "For a time, I worked 12 hour days. I'd spend the first
4 hours of the day fixing mistakes I made in the last 4 hours the previous
evening."

------
hackerbabz
I’ve been wondering about this WRT the 969 policy at companies in China.

Why did they not immediately see a drop in productivity when implemented?

Is China’s software industry making itself less competitive by not letting its
workers sleep enough?

~~~
someperson
The sibling replies neglect to mention that midday naps are very common in
China (across all age groups), with lunchtimes typically being 2 hours long.

It's really not that different to Google having nap pods.

~~~
aswanson
Google has nap pods? Wow...that remindsof mats they used to have for us in
preschool. Sheesh.

~~~
aoeusnth1
Stigmatizing naps is so boneheaded, petty and backwards that I'm surprised to
see anyone on this site so casually write something like this. Literally read
anything on the subject, please?

[https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/napping](https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/napping)

~~~
aswanson
Read deeper into the post, Im not stigmatizing naps. Im big on sleep. Love it
so much & think it's fundamental to physical and mental health. Its so
important that if you need it at a place of employment, maybe that place of
employment needs to do a better job of load-balancing.

------
ryanmarsh
This is why I recommend every developer read Deep Work by Cal Newport and Why
We Sleep by Matthew Walker.

Deep Work in particular made a bigger impact on my programming than any thing
else in ~25 years, including languages frameworks and tools.

What I’m saying is, good sleep and the principles from Deep Work made more of
an impact on my productivity than switching from Java Spring, to Ruby on
Rails, or to functional JS and Serverless. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

~~~
CrestonePeak
Just bought Deep Work because you mentioned it; Newport's So Good They Can't
Ignore You was refreshing.

------
avichalp
Yes, this comes up often. I think it is difficult to be disciplined about it.
To catch yourself when you are not well rested and act accordingly.

------
Shorel
If you are going to write that much, please use a better platform than
Twitter.

~~~
myth_buster
> Twitter is my stream of consciousness thoughts, blog
> ([http://hillelwayne.com](http://hillelwayne.com) ) is my heavily edited and
> revised thoughts

[https://twitter.com/hillelogram/status/1119765732127072256](https://twitter.com/hillelogram/status/1119765732127072256)

~~~
wrs
That explanation actually kind of makes it worse.

------
smartbit
My favorite talk on Sleep by William Dement
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8)
September 23, 2008 Google Tech Talk

Very entertaining.

------
mnm1
Of course. This is the least controversial opinion out there and it borders on
fact. Anyone who claims otherwise is an idiot or an exploiter. There's simply
no substitute for sleep in any discipline or in life in general. It simply
doesn't exist as far as we know. People who short themselves on sleep are self
harming, often out of stupidity. I've been there as have many because it's
part of our stupid work culture, but once one wises up, there's no going back.
Sleep quality and stress levels matter more than anything. Period.

------
InclinedPlane
Additionally, a low stress non-crunch environment is better at retaining
talent, which is significant on the short term but even more so on the long
term (in a whole host of ways). Keeping people around longer means more
retention of experience, less disruption to the corporate culture over time,
more predictability in execution on projects, a more stable work environment
(and less stress) for everyone else, etc, etc.

------
mettamage
Duh.

Then again, this is not repeated enough! Moreover, I have the idea that
companies don’t know, they should.

------
jaequery
I had chronic insomnia for several years. But then I’ve stopped coding right
before sleeping at least 1-3 hours in advance and now I can finally sleep. Who
would’ve thought.

~~~
BareNakedCoder
I am just finding that out now. I read something that it could be due to the
blue light from LED screens, TVs, phones, etc. I hope to end my insomnia too.

~~~
jonah
Blue light before bed has been clearly shown to affect circadian rhythms and
sleep. Some references here to get you started:

[https://justgetflux.com/research.html](https://justgetflux.com/research.html)

------
joshmanders
I've felt this for a while, been actively monitoring my sleep for over a year
and try to hit at average 7.5hr of sleep nightly. (This is what I found works
best for me).

I've found it helps with my mood, and my stress and also productivity. I've
also found that it is possible to have the same effect of not enough sleep, by
getting too much sleep.

~~~
davnicwil
Do you find any variance in the 7.5 hour 'sweet spot' with the seasons
(assuming you have them) or with your activities?

~~~
joshmanders
Not much, no.

------
badsavage
I sleep well since i use Clojure

~~~
nerder92
This is gold.

------
hyperpallium
Related: determination matters more than intelligence

Maybe tools don't matter much either, but... essays on twitter?

------
propogandist
What's with this trend of multi-tweet posts being seen as noteworthy articles
on HN?

~~~
joshmanders
Probably because the quality of the content mattered more than the platform it
was posted it.

------
choto
Sure, but languages and practices contribute significantly to sleep quality
and stress level.

------
scarejunba
Yeah, man, but I'm doing well. I'm awake at 0730 San Francisco time after
sleeping more than 8 hrs before, I eat a balanced breakfast, time my lunch and
dinner appropriately, deadlift a respectable-though-not-special 350 lbs, run a
6 min mile, make about half a mil a year, have friends I love dearly and who
love me, and everyone I know closely has a good life.

Some dumbass downing Red Bull to type `console.log("got here")` for the
fiftieth time in the last 36 hrs without sleep isn't on my level.

All these things aren't things for Mr. Red Bull. They're for me trying to
close the gap in productivity to Carmack.

Or rather that's all true for my friends. I can only deadlift 345.

