
A Good Night’s Sleep Is Tied to Interruptions, Not Just Hours - prostoalex
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-good-nights-sleep-is-tied-to-interruptions-not-just-hours-1448907227?mod=e2fb
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hal9000xp
I suffered insomnia for years (5+ years for sure). I had very poor sleep
hygiene. I went sleep at 2 am, and woke up at 11 am. I felt tired at work and
I drank coffee everyday. I was coffee-maniac, and coffee effectively destroyed
quality of my sleep.

So you see that I spent about 9 hours in bed and I had very bad sleep quality.

A few months ago, I started learn a lot of stuff about sleep. Most of what I
read on the internet was useless.

But I found in academic sources (i.e. inside ".edu" and ".gov" domains) two
very important concepts (they tightly connected to each other):

1\. Sleep effectiveness;

2\. Sleep restriction;

You can get idea about them here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_restriction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_restriction)

I started to follow very strict sleep schedule.

1\. I go to bed in the interval between 21:15 - 21:50

2\. I wake up in the interval between 06:00 - 06:03

Note that my wake up time is strictly fixed.

Now I spend even less time in bed (21:50 - 06:00), but I feel much, much, much
better. As my fitbit shows me, I have much less interruptions during the
night.

~~~
guard-of-terra
What if some social event wants you to be awake after nine? I would end up
sacrificing all my social life if I go your route.

~~~
hal9000xp
That's a good question. My social life is mostly daily (e.g. rock climbing
etc). I don't drink alcohol, I don't go to bars/nightclubs.

But sometimes I have to brake my sleep schedule.

For example, two weeks ago I had to fly to another country for a job
interview. Unfortunately, I had no better flights, so I had to go to the
airport at late evening.

I finally got home (from airport) at 3 am.

I felt very tired during next 4 days.

My sleep schedule was:

Day 1: 3:30 am - 8:30 am

Day 2,3,4: 21:30 - 06:00 (applied sleep restriction!)

If I didn't apply sleep restriction in the following days I would mess up my
sleep at lest next two weeks.

In my case, one night with broken sleep schedule costs me 4 days.

I think it's possible to brake your sleep schedule once in 3 weeks but if you
do it frequently it would be bad for your sleep hygiene.

So frequent alcohol and night-life is not compatible with healthy life style
(at least for me, it's 100% truth).

So it's probably question of priorities.

~~~
aluhut
This sounds to me like a huge disadvantage.

I have what I thought of a terrible sleep hygiene too but after several years
of watching collegues adapting "new ways to sleep", I realized it's not that
bad at all.

So me (and my girlfriend) usually stay up long. Midnight to 1am is normal for
a weekday. 1-2am is the time when we say: we should have been in bed already
but it happens more often then I thought. We get up at 7:30 on 3 of 5 days and
6:30 on the others.

Obviously this shouldn't be enough sleep and it isn't. We both get tired
sometimes somewhere around 6-7pm where we sometimes take a nap (usually on the
6:30-days) of max 1h. Sometimes we break it up early.

On Friday we stay up as long as we can and sleep as long as we can and want on
Saturday. Same goes for Sunday where we stay up to ~2am until the late NFL
game is finished.

It works pretty good I must say. I don't drink coffee or take any pills,
energy drinks, whatever. I can sleep pretty good on the train or plane for
some bonus hours and fall asleep instantly when I get into bed. I can even go
to sleep early or sleep through a whole day if I'm sick and I think there is
nothing better to do (but being sick is very rare for me. I was sick one day
some weeks ago. Slept through it almost completely. Got up just to eat and
pee).

I would never want to miss the flexibility even if it's unhealthy or whatever.

~~~
spuz
Some people obviously need better sleep hygiene than others. It's not a
question of social life vs health. Both those things are factors that affect
quality of life in general. If your body simply couldn't cope with poor sleep
you would change your opinion on the relative importance of your sleep vs your
waking life.

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paublyrne
What seems to affect me the most is the time I go to sleep. If I do get to
sleep before 11 I generally feel very refreshed. Sleeping the same number (I
assume, ignoring interruptions I don't remember) of hours but beginning 12, or
later, end up with me feeling groggy for the morning.

The older I get, the earlier I am starting to feel tired, and the earlier I
want to wake. I have friends who are very much the opposite, so we are
definitely not all wired the same.

~~~
shadeless
Funny, my grandmother used to say that one hour of sleep before midnight is
worth two hours after midnight. I'm not sure if it's placebo but I found it to
be true for me.

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Nav_Panel
I was hoping this article would be about smaller "microinterruptions" as
opposed to 20 minute "active interruptions". I recently moved to NYC and I
feel that my quality of sleep has decreased compared to when I lived
elsewhere. I'm certain it has to do with noise-related interruptions
throughout the night.

I was woken up briefly twice tonight, once by my flatmates returning home and
talking to each other and again by the heating pipes clanging as I live in a
prewar and the steam boiler turns on at 5 every morning. I also imagine the
train noise from the Metro North/other outside vehicle noise has an effect I'm
not aware of.

If anyone has studies about optimizing sleep quality given these kinds of
conditions, I would be very interested to read about it.

~~~
ragnarok451
I used white noise to great effect in a similar situation. It takes some
getting used to, but you'll quickly get used to it and it will drown out any
interrupting noise. Specifically,
[https://simplynoise.com/](https://simplynoise.com/) worked well.

~~~
Nav_Panel
This (or rainymood as suggested by the other reply) seems to be a decent
option. Did you use a pair of speakers near your bed? Or did you buy a pair of
headphones/earbuds designed for sleeping? Also what sort of volume level did
you use?

~~~
ragnarok451
I used speakers near my bed, since I can't stand wearing earbuds while
sleeping. Usually I just set the volume to the quietest it could be while
still drowning out other random noises. Surprisingly, there were times when it
had to be set pretty loud to drown out conversation, and it still worked well.

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djhn
There are people claiming all sorts of things here without much proof. The
amount of actual sleep can be as low as 3-4 hours for 8-9 hours spent in bed,
and there is no way of knowing how much you sleep without some sort of
investigation using a reliable device.

To really know what's happening with your sleep, you need polysomnography. An
actual sleep study.

The second best option are some of the consumer-grade ballistocardiography
devices - the "under mattress" alternative to wearables.

I have been tracking my sleep and fixing problems with it using the Beddit
device. As a gadget and product, I rate it 2 or 3 out of 5 - I'd love it to be
more polished. But considering its potentially life changing value and its
technical merits, a highly recommended purchase.

Even just the resting heart rate reading and HRV data are worth the price.

My 2 months of data are so far fairly inconclusive and pending deeper
statistical analysis. There are many variables at play, so recognizing and
documenting them takes time and effort and is error prone. The most confident
recommendations are not drinking alcohol, earplugs (fairly noisy environment),
and melatonin. Even with these, I have been unable to consistently get more
than an average of 5 hours (±1) of actual total sleep during 7-9 hours of time
spent in bed. The time spent awake isn't something I experience or remember.
This hasn't been noticeable to me despite long days and an active athletic
lifestyle including goal-oriented recreational endurance and strength
training.

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sixQuarks
This experiment is ridiculous. Of course you're going to be tired if someone
jolts you awake every hour on the hour.

What would be way more interesting is to study people who wake up naturally
multiple times per night to toss and turn. I do this at least 5-10 times per
night due to muscle aches and pains. I fall back asleep very quickly. I've
been doing this for years, but do remember rare times when I've slept through
the night and felt so fresh in the morning.

~~~
Majestic121
You might want to check about why you have muscle aches and pains so bad that
it wakes you up multiple times a night.

That is definitely not "waking up naturally"

~~~
sixQuarks
I know, I'm working on range of motion and flexibility exercises right now.
It's gotten to the point where it effects my day-to-day, so now I'm focusing
on it.

------
emerongi
I've had a problem with sleep for about 2 years. My mind is always racing and
"doing work" even during the night and I end up being conscious (but "asleep")
for a good part of the night. I've kind of trained myself to do this, because
I was lazy in high school and just figured out solutions to my homework right
before going to sleep (so I could quickly write them down on the bus to school
during the morning).

Now I'm in university and it's killing me. Reading before bed helped ease my
mind for a while, meditation helped for a while, but now I'm still in the same
position. I wake up frequently because of this weird "habit" and my mind never
gets to rest. What should I do?

~~~
te_chris
That sounds at least somewhat like anxiety - not trying to judge, just trying
to help. I'd suggest reaching out to your university health people and
describing your symptoms, they'll be able to help you.

~~~
sageabilly
Yeah seconding this. When my anxiety was really bad I had exactly what you
described- being asleep but still thinking.

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treenyc
The traditional chinese medicine doctor has a saying. Every hour you sleep
before 12 midnight counts twice as much.

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digital_ins
That sorta explains why people who sleep late also tend to feel groggy. The
"early worms" tend to be a noisy bunch in the mornings (I currently have
construction work start in the condo above mine every morning from 9am
onwards)

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meric
_Those in the disrupted group were awakened each hour for 20 minutes for seven
of the eight hours._

Does that mean the disrupted group received 140 minutes less sleep than the
control group?

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stevoski
Really, this article seems to say, "a bad night's sleep is not good for the
next day." Most of us have figured that out by adulthood, no?

~~~
lultimouomo
> Getting up in middle of the night multiple times to soothe a crying baby or
> go to the bathroom impacts your mood and cognitive abilities the next day,
> new research has found.

Thanks, new research, we totally owe you one!

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Magi604
This article sums up basically what I learned through my own experiences.

For myself I've found that an uninterrupted chunk of sleep > a long sleep with
waking periods caused by interruptions (bathroom breaks, police sirens, etc.).

It is for this reason that a year ago I adopted the usage of ear plugs when I
go to sleep, and now I cannot sleep without them. I found a good brand of ear
plugs that are comfortable and dampen ambient sounds (traffic, footsteps), but
don't completely block out all sounds so I can hear my phone or the alarm
clock.

Another thing I've found is that usually when I can recall having a dream, I
feel like I was able to achieve a deep level of sleep, and consequently I feel
more refreshed that morning. I often don't remember details about the dream,
and I even quickly forget what the dream was even about (or even if it was a
nightmare) but the important thing is that my mind went into that dream state.

I would value a 4 hour chunk of deep sleep more than 8 hours of sleep broken
up by some interruptions.

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11thEarlOfMar
I kinda figured this out in high school. I slept irregular hours throughout
the week, in bed around 10:00 PM weeknights, but staying up until 1:00 - 2:00
AM on weekends and sleeping until 9:00 - 10:00. I had headaches 2-3 days week.

Then I got a job that required a 7:00 AM start on the weekends, and the late
nights stopped. So did the headaches.

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rogeryu
I get up about two to three times a night. I'm not sure why, as there are
multiple explanations. I go to the toilet, drink some water, and go back to
bed. That takes about two minutes.

In this research, people were forced to wake up every hour and then stay up
for 20 minutes. Then I would feel totally different - I have no doubt. After
twenty minutes, probably in bright light, I would be awake and that would
disrupt the sleep cycle totally. This might be the case when you have a small
kid, but how often does this happen (in the real world) with these
frequencies?

With me this is not the case. It feels natural. I don't put the light on - I
can find my way without it. It takes two or three minutes, and that's it. Back
in bed I fall asleep right away.

This research is presented here as if this would influence my mood? I don't
know. I guess I can sleep better, but this is not the explanation that works
for me.

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Lawtonfogle
This isn't surprising at all if you see how REM sleep works. In short, you get
more REM sleep in every subsequent cycle (each ~90 minutes), but a significant
break between sleep cycles starts over the process. So getting 9 straight
hours of sleep means you get significantly more sleep than getting 6 1.5
blocks.

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daralthus
In conclusion, earplugs are the best investment you can get.

~~~
PakG1
I'd imagine if I lived in a dangerous neighborhood, I'd want to avoid
earplugs. Same if I had a newborn baby. I suppose in various cases,
interruptions are preferable to a good night's sleep.

~~~
ajuc
Maybe there's a market for selective electronic earplugs for parents?

~~~
mkagenius
Don't think all those things right now, just go to sleep ;)

~~~
ajuc
It's 13:29 here :)

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vtllr_
Not sure about the "polyphasic sleep disorder"? What about people doing that
since ages?

I think you need to find your own best sleep cycle and follow it.

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anindyabd
Not getting enough good quality sleep with a newborn baby in the house is a
real problem. But what is the solution, though? Hiring a full-time stay-at-
home nanny seems the only way both parents can get enough sleep for the first
several months, but there are many reasons why one wouldn't want to do that.
Does anyone have any advice?

~~~
olau
If you're the father, sleep on the couch (or buy another bed). Then when
you're more refreshed, you can try and help out the mother (I'm assuming
breast feeding here).

If you're the mother, try really hard to get some kind of daily cycle induced
in the baby. So minimize breastfeeding, chatting, other activity at night.

YMMV. Also you need to accept that you're going to be lacking some amount of
sleep for years.

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Absentinsomniac
This is pretty bad news for those who can't stay asleep. Sometimes I'll try to
sleep for, say, 3 hours, then my alarm will wake me up and I'll decide to
sleep longer. I guess I'll have to stop doing that. Kind of seems like it's
pretty difficult not to negatively impact cognition in one way or another.

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davidw
I think anyone with small-ish children can easily confirm this.

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guard-of-terra
I wonder why small children are so restless they disrupt their parents' normal
operation. There should be a clear evolutionary disadvantage in that.

You might need attention, but attention has two sides and as a baby you don't
want to get angry adults' attention, especially in more primitive societies.

~~~
saint_fiasco
If you don't pester your parents but your siblings do, they may get more
attention and resources than you.

Besides, the parents having strict daily schedules is a recent phenomenon. I
bet hunter-gatherers don't care if they wake up three hours late because the
baby was restless last night.

~~~
kaybe
Depends on the climate. In some climates you really really want to be up at
sunrise so you can do stuff before it becomes too hot. But then again, the
night is long when you don't have artificial light.

~~~
saint_fiasco
You can also ask your sister, mother, aunt, grandmother or older child to look
after the kid while you go gather food.

Before agriculture, it wasn't hard to find someone with free time willing to
look after the children.

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dsfsdfd
20 minutes every hour - this effect is really not very surprising. I mean good
they've done the research to confirm - but it's totally obvious.

~~~
j10sanders
Agreed! This is clearly a terrible night's sleep, can't imagine anyone
doubting that.

