
The Effect of Sleep on Happiness - Doncametic
https://www.trackinghappiness.com/effect-sleep-happiness/
======
1996
I sleep 10 to 11h per night. I may trim that to 6h one day but no more than
once per month and if there is an absolute emergency - but then I know my
productivity will be killed for at least 2 days.

OTOH, my inspiration will be higher: I will have more creative ideas on how to
combine stuff, but I will be too tired to do any of that. I will just take
notes.

With adequate sleep, I do not feel happier or sadder than anyone else. I feel
more productive however. Sunday I had never done any python because I
preferred perl, but for some specific task there was no option but a python
library (well, it was also possible in another language I don't like either)

So on Monday, I learned python, then asynchronous execution with asyncio, then
parallelizing with joblib. Tuesday, I coded.

Today I have a python3 daemon with error handling and other niceties ready to
be deployed to test. It seems robust enough to require minimal oversight by
systemd.

In any case, it will be deployed on all POPs and in production on Friday -
even if I must have a bad night. But that means I will not do much next day.
But that means I will have other creative ideas!

~~~
0172435968
>I sleep 10 to 11h per night.

Yeah that's called over-sleeping sir. It may be indicative of a health issue
you should get checked out. You might not want to be so quick to stake claim
to autonomous functions. It's not like you're willing yourself to sleep
longer; your body just isn't functioning normally.

~~~
mindB
You have evidence for that claim? No study I've seen seems to suggest there's
any problem with sleeping more up to something like 12 hrs/night I think.
National Sleep Foundation recommends 7-9 hours for adults, and I think I've
seen studies suggesting that's on the low side. When you also account for
natural variations within a population, a need for 10 hours of sleep doesn't
seem ridiculous.

~~~
evfanknitram
You do not seem to be talking of the same thing. He wrote:

> It may be indicative of a health issue

Now you write:

> No study I've seen seems to suggest there's any problem with sleeping more
> up to something like 12 hrs/night I think

So he said it may be an indication of an issue, and you write that it may not
be unhealthy to sleep a lot. Those are two different things.

As for your claim: A quick search returns many hits related to issues caused
by sleeping more than ~9 hours. I have not reviewed them (I spent 1 minute on
this) so can't say if the studies well performed. Example:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19473367](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19473367)
"Prolonged sleep duration (night-time sleep and daytime napping) may be
associated with an increased risk of dementia."

But saying that no study would even suggest there would be a problem seems
strange considering I found a bunch of them in a minute. Maybe you have done a
deeper review of the studies and concluded that they are invalid, or?

~~~
totalrobe
I think the key here is "associated". Sleep deprivation has also been
associated to dementia.

~~~
evfanknitram
Yes, the link I gave pointed that out. I just questioned that he hadn't found
a link since there are so many studies available. If there are associations
between sleeping lock and many illnesses then of course sleeping long could be
an indication of an issue.

------
kentosi
I like sleeping on time and waking up early(ish). I'm slowly shifting from a
night-owl into a morning person in my 30s. I love the productivity I feel and
knowing that I can do a bunch of things in the morning before work, then get
home in the evening and relax.

But my problem is that that I'm a single guy who needs to date and have a
social life. And try as I might, all such social constructs require you to
stay out late and drink a little. All of which eventually chips into the
sleep, and hence how productive you are the next day.

It's really annoying having to force myself to be social at the cost of only
being, say, 70% as productive the next day.

Is anyone else facing this conundrum, or can impart any hints?

~~~
keerthiko
I have the opposite problem. I'm an incurable night owl, despite having tried
to shift. I thought I too would grow out of it, but I'm moving into my 30s
next year and it's going stronger than ever. Such that the last time I tried
to fix my schedule and be up at 0800 (by going to bed at 0100) I fainted at my
desk and had to go nap, and return to staying up till 0400 and waking at
1130-1230. So it's hard for me to maintain any professional commitments before
noon, which kind of sucks. Luckily my cofounders are very understanding and
honestly kind of appreciate that I get a lot of work done between the end and
the start of their day after we sync up.

That said, the time from 0000-0330 is amazing. For the same reasons people
like to wake up really early (3+ hours before going to work), this time is
(human, coworker and outdoor capitalist) distraction free, I can't run boring
errands outside, so I can focus on creative work at home. It's great that it
can double up as late-night partying/dating/gaming/social time. But other than
maybe once-a-week for gaming, I use it for the others once a month or rarer.

There are some social costs however, besides the professional one mentioned
earlier. I'm a complete corpse when trying to make morning weekend plans
(breakfast/brunch, hikes, events). I get to be known as "that guy who only
gets up at noon". Which makes me wonder, is waking up at 0400 so much more
socially upstanding that going to bed at 0400 if I'm using my isolationist
time mostly the same way? Waking up early is associated with discipline and
diligence, staying up late is associated with childishness and immaturity and
lack of discipline.

I't all just a trade-off. I suppose one can train for schedule flexibility,
but I love my late nights.

~~~
jpmoyn
I think there is some moral notion ingrained in me that staying up late is
just a bad thing, and being up early is a good thing. It feels so satisfying
waking up really early and having a peaceful morning alone, before the hustle
and bustle of the day begins. I see the parallel you draw to late night, but
it just seems less wholesome to me for some reason.

~~~
keerthiko
Yup, I hope you and others who share your way introspect as to why it seems
that way, other than just because that's the social conditioning we receive.

Here are some (strawman?) arguments that support your view, but are they
actually justified/true/not-true-for-staying-up-instead?

\- it takes effort to build a habit of waking up early, therefore it's good

\- the hardest workers i know wake up early, it must be integral to why
they're productive

\- college kids stay up late, and college kids lack discipline

\- being out when the sun is up is healthy for you, so sleeping through
sunlight is bad for you

I feel like if businesses operated from 12pm-12am instead of 9am-9pm, all
these would be flipped in favor of staying up late =/

~~~
rootusrootus
Those are some good arguments, though from my perspective it seems like it
could be simpler.

For one, just like you can't get up early, some of us can't sleep in. Takes no
effort for me to build up a habit of waking up early, my body just likes to
wake up at 4:30AM. I go to bed relatively early because I'm going to be awake
at 4:30AM either way so I might as well try to make a full night of sleep
happen.

Other than that, I think there might be a bit of moral judgement going on, but
I think it's just that the business day starts at 8:00AM and sleeping past
that looks like lazy or luxury. One thing I like about working in tech is that
there is less judgement there -- hell, if anything, I get more flack for
waking up at the crack of dawn than my coworkers who get into the office at
10:30AM or 11:00. I'm not the only guy who gets into the office early but on
my team I'm in the minority.

------
amorphous
I can't tell if sleeping well makes me happier, but I can confirm that not
sleeping enough makes me unhappy. I need my eight hours, even one hour less
and my mood becomes more fragile. Reduce it significantly less (let's say <5
hours) and the world turns dark on me.

This has always been like that, but more with age. That made having kids a
real challenge. Luckily, my SO is not as nearly dependent on sleep as I am.

~~~
hoschicz
I'm seventeen and need 10 hours of sleep to run at full capacity the next day.
But with school I have to wake up at 7 and going to sleep at 21 is impossible,
so I feel like a zombie very often and am only productive in the afternoon.

I have always hoped this could get better with age. Are you saying this will
get worse?

~~~
rmcpherson
It does get better with age in that your circadian rhythm will shift as you
get older. It's a crime that we force adolescents to wake up far earlier than
they are biologically wired to just so their parents can get to their jobs.
According to Matthew Walker (Berkeley professor and sleep researcher), waking
up at 7 is equivalent to an adult waking up at 5. Highly recommend his book on
sleep. It's incredible, the best non-fiction I've read in the last couple
years. [https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-
Dreams/dp/1501...](https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-
Dreams/dp/1501144316)

~~~
flocial
Indeed, this book is well worth anyone's read. Many insights on sleep and
productivity (the effect of alcohol on sleep quality was particularly
shocking).

------
techbio
Stopped reading after I saw the chart drew lines to extrapolate from extremes
relatively close to the mean hours of sleep, and accounted not for such things
as degrees of standard deviation, rather (mis)leading to the conclusion that
these happiness results were dependent entirely on the one measured variable
and not that other factors would contribute to outliers. Your anecdotal
evidence, and analysis, are flawed, though I lack the terminology to
adequately improve them. Will someone please translate my hunch to appropriate
statistical tools? I would like to replicate this data collection in my own
life and learn something of value from it. My comment may find itself below a
vast wall of anecdotal text, however, I’m hopeful, HN.

~~~
doomjunky
"Anecdotal evidence" is now part of my vocabulary.

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

------
sametmax
Some HN comments recently recommanded the book "why we sleep".

After having read it, I can't prevent my self from doing the same. It
definitly changed my views on the topic, and while it has a bit of a
melodramatic tone, it is a well written entertaining piece that feeds you with
data backed evidences with ease.

~~~
Tomte
I‘ve just bought it on that recommendation, but have only read the table of
contents, yet.

I was a bit disappointed that he does not discuss some common sleep disorders,
only others that I haven‘t recently been diagnosed with.

~~~
heurist
In the book he says he chose the most prevalent to avoid meandering too much.
His discussion of those disorders and the more general discussion of what is
happening in the body when we sleep have helped me pinpoint some issues I have
been having, even though I don't have a sleep disorder. I highly recommend it.

------
fencepost
This kind of tracking (and the app) sound interesting, but seem to presuppose
that you're sleeping alone.

It's also kind of a shame that they don't have integration with Garmin
(depending on device) and Fitbit - many of the devices from both of those
companies track heartrate, movement and sleep without the need to leave your
phone on the bed but there's not much integration there. It looks like Garmin
has a lot of that raw data available to download, but it's per-day individual
downloads of .fit files ([https://forums.garmin.com/forum/into-
sports/running/forerunn...](https://forums.garmin.com/forum/into-
sports/running/forerunner-920xt-aa/112758-is-there-a-fit-file-viewer-or-a-
published-file-format))

One thing worth noting for people considering one of the fitness trackers:
Garmin's software doesn't recognize multiple sleep periods, so if you nap then
go do something it either ignores one sleep period or just treats it as one
long sleep period (with a big "awake" period in the middle). The vivosmart 3
at least does also track sleep phases.

~~~
Tharkun
YMMV but my vivosmart 3 is useless at sleep tracking. I read in bed, and my
heart rate goes down while i'm doing this and the thing invariably thinks i'm
sleeping, messing up the stats.

~~~
fencepost
There's only so much that can be done with a motion sensor and heart rate
data. Personally I try to burn the candle enough that if I'm in bed I should
really be sleeping. I can read on a couch with a cat.

If you are going to be reading in bed and want better sleep detection, try
using the hand with the watch for page turning, or if it's a device and you
just tap to turn pages try holding it with your watch hand. Just that motion
may be enough for it.

------
wpietri
This is really interesting. I may have to start tracking on my own. But I'd do
it a bit differently.

One is that I don't think happiness is exactly the thing I'd track. I'd also
want to track sleep cycle, not just sleep amount. My experience is that too
little sleep or a disrupted sleep schedule has a negative effect on my mood
stability. If I sleep enough and at roughly the same time every day, I'm more
emotionally resilient.

One sleep hack I recommend to everybody is to try to avoid waking up to an
alarm. I now adjust my wake time mostly by adjusting my bedtime. This
certainly makes my mornings better, but it also means I fret less about
getting the right number of hours, in that I trust my body to generally self-
regulate on the right amount of sleep.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
_One sleep hack I recommend to everybody is to try to avoid waking up to an
alarm. I now adjust my wake time mostly by adjusting my bedtime. This
certainly makes my mornings better, but it also means I fret less about
getting the right number of hours, in that I trust my body to generally self-
regulate on the right amount of sleep._

Not everyone has the luxury nor the natural sleep cycle to be able to do this,
though, not at times society expects us to be awake.

I've had luck getting good sleep waking about 8 or 9 with an alarm, but if I
do not use the alarm, I oversleep. It doesn't matter what "healthy sleep
habits" I use. Anything before 8 or 9 is impossible without an alarm, even
with healthy sleep habits and reasonable bedtime - when I can get to sleep
early enough to do such a thing.

I can train myself to wake around 10 or 11 _most_ , but not all days, and the
alarm is really more of a backup than anything. I can usually trust myself to
wake by noon on my own, though.

You see, I am naturally a night owl. It isn't age: I've been like this since I
was young and I'm nearly 40. As in, I chose sleep over santa presents. But
additionally, my sleep needs change through the month, corresponding with a
female hormone cycle. of course, that same cycle makes it harder to sleep
earlier in the evening during times I need more sleep.

~~~
wpietri
I was also naturally a night owl, but that switched for me once I a) automated
my lighting so there was a consistent day-night cycle in my bedroom, and b) I
took up running, so that I get a fair bit of regular cardio. No idea if that
will work for you, but it may be worth a try. I also dropped regular caffeine
as a habit, and spent a while paying down sleep debt.

I will also use a sleep-cycle sensitive alarm on the rare occasions I need to
be up unusually early, which I think helps minimize the disruptive effects of
an alarm.

If you can't you can't, of course. But I definitely recommend it if you can.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I've tried nearly everything, largely because I am generally afraid of losing
a job due to being tardy.

I used to drink little to no caffeine (didn't do coffee, nor soda, etc). I now
drink coffee regularly with no effect, still no soda. I've tried getting
regular exercise, though running is actually painful. I still run into the
same issue: A couple nights of going to bed at a decent time, then by the 3rd
night I am awake 2 hours later. There is no point in lying in bed when I can't
sleep, though I've tried that too.

Consistent day-night cycle helps very little - I'm too far north. Winter days
are 4.5 hours long, and midsummer you can read outside at night. I didn't
always live up north, but it didnt help much then. The sun coming up is a non-
issue for my sleeping. I do find that dimming the front room lights a while
before sleeping helps to an extent, but not enough to wake at 6-7am and get
enough sleep during the week. The main concern is that sometimes I simply
won't wake to the alarm. At all. Or phone calls... I slept through 17 phone
calls once. Physical shaking helps.

Part of my issue is that the actual quality of my sleep suffers with early
wakings, even when I can get drowsy early. I generally require between 7 and 9
hours sleep per night to feel well-rested: 6 hours is too little, but doable
for one night. But even that changes: Sleeping from 12am to 6am produces
poorer quality sleep than 2am to 8am. I've often considered simply going to
the doctor. I've quit jobs that started too early as well, and try not to take
jobs that have early wakings too often.

------
Ensorceled
I've been using "Sleep Cycle" since 2014 and learned a ton about myself in the
process.

Most importantly, I learned that I need almost 8 hours sleep to feel my best
and that I'm just subpar on the days when I don't get that much. Less ability
to focus, less emotional control, less desire to exercise, less ability to
resist temptation. Less happiness.

For me, it's optimal if I set the sleep cycle alarm for 8 hours and 15 minutes
from time I lay down. If that all works out, I'm set up for a much more
productive and happier day.

~~~
orev
Sleep Cycle is amazing, and I also had a watch in the 00s that did the same
thing. The concept of the alarm timing with your cycle is so revolutionary
that I’m really surprised it has not caught on anywhere else. It should be a
fundamental feature of all smart watches, but it’s nowhere to be seen. I don’t
really care to just track sleep if such tracking does nothing but let you see
some pretty charts.

~~~
closeparen
Most people need to be somewhere at a specific time in the morning; a variable
alarm clock doesn’t make much sense unless they also leave a huge buffer. But
for childless tech workers who can roll into the office any time before 11am
standup... absolutely.

~~~
orev
A 30 minute window really isn’t that big of a deal. You just set the end time
to when you need to be up, and then if it goes off before that, then you wake
up refreshed with a little extra time. Your choice is really whether you want
to get up refreshed, possibly a little early, or wake up abruptly in the wrong
cycle and be groggy all morning. Either way, the solution to getting more
sleep is to go to bed earlier if you have a fixed time to wake up.

------
graeme
Anecdotally I've noticed I'm much less productive when I sleep too little. I
try to get eight hours.

But, I've been having trouble sleeping in recently. I want to sleep more, but
can't. I'm not sure what causes it - I used to have the problem of staying up
late then sleeping till 11-12ish naturally. (I never use an alarm)

I have two observations:

1\. A couple months ago I started going to my balcony for morning sunlight
upon waking. I had read morning light resets sleep cycles 2\. I notice I need
to pee when I wake up, and have trouble falling asleep again after. It's
summer in Canada, so some light gets in around 5 am or so

I'm wondering if I reset my cycle, and now I "wake up" if there's morning
light present, whereas I didn't before.

Anyone have this experience? I never had trouble sleeping in before, so this
confuses me.

~~~
curun1r
I can't speak for you, but I know that for me, inability to sleep is always
the product of some unresolved worry or other preoccupation. Dealing with that
(in my case, that means spending time meditating) solves the problem of waking
up feeling unrested. However that doesn't necessarily mean sleeping more,
since I find that during periods of consistent meditation I generally need a
couple hours less sleep to feel fully rested.

YMMV, but ask yourself whether there's anything that might be preoccupying
your subconscious that might be triggering your sleep issues.

~~~
graeme
Oddly enough, I'm significantly more relaxed than I used to be when I slept
more. (Maybe I need it less as a result, and so my body seeks it less
urgently.)

I do think I'd be better rested with more though. I'll give meditation a shot,
it can't hurt.

------
Philomath
To me what really matters is not how many hours of sleep I get but how
difficult it is for me to wake up. I've found that there is a direct relation
between this and my happiness.

In periods where I am very productive, I have a reason to wake up, I know what
I want and need to do. Then I'm very happy, life has a purpose. It doesn't
matter how many hours I sleep.

In the other hand, when I amb lost and don't know what I should be doing that
day, I have a very hard time waking up.

~~~
phito
Makes sense, if you wake up properly, it's easier to get productivity momentum
going

------
gxs
Sleep is one of those things that you don't really notice when it gets better.

You feel good, you feel more energetic, you feel all the benefits that are
well known, but you don't notice.

You only notice it when you go back to shitty sleep and realize how much
better off you are when you are sleeping the appropriate number of hours.

I've struggled with sleep for years. I won't go into my long journey but it
suffices to say that after all the supplements, different cpap machines,
"sleep hack", etc., the only thing that actually worked was discipline. Go to
bed early, wake up early, same time, everyday.

------
slfnflctd
Am I the only one who felt like that was a _lot_ of charts, data and
extrapolation for a sample size of 1? In my study I did on myself, I found it
easier to fall asleep after drinking heavily and consuming large amounts of
greasy food. [My usual anecdote here is actually that I appear to sleep better
& more when I get a lot of exercise.]

My point is, there is tremendous variation in 'natural' sleep patterns - and
related behaviors - across the population. I need a larger study if I'm going
to digest this much information.

~~~
Timpy
Maybe I wasn't reading closely enough, but I don't think this was supposed to
be a persuasive argument as to why everyone should change their sleep habits
to match the author's. I read it as an interesting exploration of some data
collected one person collected on their every day life.

------
dbatten
I'm getting a Google Drive permission error on several (but not all) charts...
not sure if that's a problem on your end or theirs, but you might want to look
into it.

Thanks for this! Very interesting stuff.

~~~
Doncametic
Ah shit, that should not happen and I think that's on Google's end. Just in
case, what device and browser are you on?

Thanks for letting me know and the nice words!

~~~
arendtio
I have the same issue: Linux Desktop + Firefox 60

Chromium seems to display all charts without any problems (same computer).

Btw. it looks like once a chart has been loaded successfully, it is cached so
that you have to clear/disable the browser cache in order to see the issue
again.

------
jumpinalake
Those of you who are getting lots of sleep and also consume caffeine during
the day you probably don’t realize that if you cut caffeine you would require
much less sleep. Try it sometime for at least a month.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
> Try it sometime for at least a month.

I choose life.

------
misterbowfinger
Their "methodology" of tracking happiness

[https://www.trackinghappiness.com/about/method/](https://www.trackinghappiness.com/about/method/)

Not knocking on the idea of sleeping more & general well-being, but "tracking
happiness" seems so wildly out of touch with reality that it's hard for me to
buy into this analysis.

~~~
Ensorceled
Tracking happiness is simply about being mindful of your own emotional state.

I'm genuinely interested to hear about why you think that's "wildly out of
touch with reality"?

~~~
nwatson
Lifestyles, philosophies, religions can optimize for happiness or truth ...
pick one. The HT theorem.

~~~
PhaseLockk
Or you could optimize for happiness-truth product. This would lead you to
lifestyles, philosophies, and religions which remove any negative correlation
between happiness and truth (which I would argue have no inherent, unavoidable
relationship with each other).

------
onemoresoop
I noticed that when I rush the waking up process I get more energy I have
happier mood throughout the day. The more quick the transition from waking up
to being caught up in an activity(and that could even be the commute) the more
energy I have throughout the day. Any lingering in bed affects the whole day
negatively. Does anybody else experience this?

~~~
JackMinello
Yes, if I wake up too early it's better form to start the day than staying in
bed another hour

------
rb808
> I fall asleep quite easily. It usually doesn't take me more than 30 minutes.

I generally fall asleep within a minute or two of head hitting the pillow.
What should be normal?

~~~
DonaldPShimoda
I envy people like you.

Through a lot of my teen years, it could take me up to an hour to fall asleep.
Once I got to college and I was able to adjust my sleep schedule a bit (no
longer had to be at school by 7:30am), I could do it in 30 minutes. Now
(mid-20s) I can do it in as little as 10-15 sometimes, if I'm lucky. More
often I think it's 15-20.

I dunno what it is exactly. I feel like my brain just constantly wants to be
thinking about things, like solving problems from my day or imagining fanciful
scenarios or planning upcoming events. What do you think about when you lie
down? Or are you able to just switch it off and not think about anything?

~~~
DoreenMichele
I used to have very serious sleep issues. They are vastly better. A few
thoughts:

In order to readily get to sleep, you need to be both physically and mentally
tired. This is part of why reading in bed or doing crossword puzzles is so
popular -- it helps make you mentally tired.

If you have any kind of health issues, working on that will improve sleep
issues.

A food and health journal can be an enormously useful tool for teasing out
details peculiar to you.

Exercise moves lymph. If you have been sedentary a long time, it would be wise
to ramp up gradually. There can be a lot of fallout if you suddenly start
working out hard.

If you allergies or respiratory problems, switching to hypoallergenic bedding
products, like buckwheat pillows, all cotton sheets, etc can make a big
difference for some people. It can also help to generally keep you sleep area
very clean, dust free etc.

Co Q 10 in the morning about 12 to 14 hours before you want to sleep at night
can help your circadian clock. It wakes you up and encourages the body to
produce melatonin about 12vto 14 later. Most sources say 12 hours, but my
firsthand experience suggests 12 to 14 hours.

------
brink
I can say from personal experience I've noticed that when I don't get enough
sleep, the next day I'm noticeably more prone to stress, sentences are more
difficult to construct, and my memory worsens.

Proper sleep is a very high priority for me these days.

~~~
121789
Your last two symptoms definitely resonate with me, with the addition of loss
of self control, which I definitely notice while eating.

The first symptom (more prone to stress) seems to have a tipping point with
me. If I get between 4-8 hours it is certainly true, but below that I feel
considerably less stress, more creativity, and an increase in humor. I'm not
sure why.

------
toss1
Interesting project; not entirely surprising that sleep deficit increases
possibility of low happiness, but doesn't force it.

Definitely correlates with my happiness levels being much more all over the
map in the last 6mths of running an involuntary sleep deficit due to a
shoulder injury that impairs sleep (&worse the week after the surgery).

I've also noticed a definite thinking deficit as this wears on, and am
thinking of doing a tracking project.

Rather than just going by subjective 'feel like I'm (not) thinking well', does
anyone know of a good site that has a deep library of correlated mind test
questions such that one could take repeated tests but not encounter repeat
questions?

~~~
andai
Working memory is a decent proxy for overall brain function, and
straightforward to test, eg. with a Dual N-Back game like
[http://brainscale.net/dual-n-back](http://brainscale.net/dual-n-back)

You need to have a baseline score to compare with. Your score will improve
pretty quick in the beginning and then start to level out.

I also like typing speed tests, to test the effects of exhaustion, sleep
deprivation and various states of mind. (In some cases, the speed is actually
increased, but typically at the cost of accuracy.)

For typing speed I use [https://typeracer.com](https://typeracer.com) which
has some excellent book and movie quotes to type.

~~~
toss1
cool, thanks!

another one, w/ a somewhat different angle I'd found was a straight mental
math trainer, discovered from another commenter here on HN:
[http://www.mental-math-trainer.com/](http://www.mental-math-trainer.com/)

------
mansilladev
Averaging about 4.5h of sleep per night (down at around 2A up at 6:30A without
fail — #noSnooze). I’m in my 40s, and was the kid that l watched David
Letterman at 1AM in junior high, and an avid coffee drinker by early high
school. Every time I read an article/study on sleep I get inspired to tack on
a few hours to reap said benefits, but never follow through.

Based on what I’ve read, I’m writing waking hour checks that science says I
can’t cash. And apparently, after this study, will do so unhappily.

------
Tom_2
So,

I slept great the first 25 years of my life, but I've had a ton of sleep
problems as a start-up founder over the years. They developed over 10+ years
building a $200MM plus company from the ground up. I was traveling all over
the world, in different time zones and working 7 days a week. I would
recommend treating sleep really seriously and not 'breaking' your ability to
sleep.

I have learned ways to get some sleep again, but basically haven't been able
to 'fix these issues' for the past 15 years. I have learned to manage the
sleeplessness - and am finally back up to 7 hours or so a night on average
most weeks (8 is my sweet spot). During this entire time I thought I was
healthy, but sleep and lack thereof concerns me. I have read a ton on the
subject, tried everything (CBT / Behavioral therapy, Hypnosis, Chinese
Medicine, Acupuncture, Sleeping pills, Herbal remedies, etc). Haven't tried
Cannibis.

I am currently working with 4 leading sleep researchers with decades each in
helping people sleep. We're building a personal 'sleep assistant' to use
modified CBT program in an automated fashion. We are in second trial this
summer. First trial showed 45 minute average sleep improvement (in people
sleeping < 7 hours a night to start). Most people do better with 7-8 hours /
night even if they think they don't need it. I need it, but need help 'calming
down' my mind enough to get it.

If you're interested in taking part in any alpha studies (after this current
research round of 200 people) or learning more or getting on mailing list,
email me at tom.talytica@gmail.com.

Having two daughters was rough on my sleep, but we also did co-sleeping (Asian
wife who breastfed).

------
Shank
This is a really cool process, but the author stops just short of completing
the analysis.

> It's impossible to determine any correlation at all based on this graph. I
> know my happiness is influenced by a lot of factors, but so far I cannot
> tell if sleep is one of them.

Yeah, this is true. You can't just look at a graph and say that the job is
done. This is the entire point for the statistics field. You need to do an
actual statistical test for correlation -- not just plot a graph. Obvious
trends are definitely visible in graphs, but more subtle correlations are
often obscured and not visible.

I'd be much more interested to see what statistical analysis on the data looks
like, rather than just a graph at the end. With a huge focus on methods, I'm
flabbergasted that some form of regression wasn't tried at all. It's probably
worth chopping out obvious problem areas, like relationship stress, though.
(You could also just add categorical traits to the model, though, and let
relationship stress act as a factor on happiness directly.)

\----

A tangent: it's pretty well known that sleep deprivation can actually improve
symptoms in people who are depressed -- especially at extremes. I don't know
if this has anything to do with a large scale analysis like this, though.

~~~
1996
It would still be fun to do a simple OLs multilinear regression.

OP: start with a multiple regression, then do a PCA, to see which factors may
have commonalities.

If you don't know how, upload your data somewhere. Me or anyone else here
could do that in 5 min. The conclusions would certainly be more interesting
than the wall of text - even if it covers just 1 person, you have many
datapoints!

------
gascan
On this subject, if you're interested in these kinds of studies on happiness-
I've been slowly working my way through the book "The Nature Fix".
Tangentially pertinent.

[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/nature-fix-
brain...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/nature-fix-brain-happy-
florence-williams/)

~~~
andai
I'm getting my nature fix right now. I found visiting the park once a day does
wonders for my sense of well being.

------
barking
I'd be interested in people's views on the influence of sleep on aging. I've
never been a great sleeper, possibly have sleep apnoea as well. 5 or 6 broken
hours a night is normal for me and I feel that I am aging more quickly than
average.

~~~
degenerate
Sleep is when the brain 'repairs' itself, so you definitely need it. Do you
snore? You may be waking up often due to lack of oxygen. I recommend you do a
sleep study.

~~~
barking
I should do that all right. I snore and I've been told that I basically stop
breathing at times which is as unpleasant as the snoring for the person
listening!

~~~
outworlder
> I snore and I've been told that I basically stop breathing at times which is
> as unpleasant as the snoring for the person listening

Snoring is fine. Forget about the inconvenience it causes on others. It's when
you STOP snoring that you should be concerned. I have sleep apnea and I know
what it is like.

Go get yourself checked ASAP. You do NOT want to suffer long term side effects
of sleep apnea, and not all of them are reversible.

------
tenpaiyomi
Interesting read. I suffer from psychosomatic insomnia so am no stranger to
that constant fatigue and drag of lack of sleep. One thing I have noted is
that, on the days that I actually _do_ get a considerable amount of sleep and
feel rested, I am overall happier, more motivated, and just in a better mood
overall.

Likewise, on the really rough days where I don't get much to no sleep, I'm
irritable and all but useless at work and around the house. I've come to
manage these days over the years, but I do note that things still bubble up
and I am easily agitated.

Interestingly enough, medicine to help me sleep does not result in a better
mood, only that natural sleep.

------
vesak
When I wrote Mastering Rust, I did most of the work during the only available
productive hours of the day: 20-05. Amazing legal narcotics i.e. coffee helped
quite a lot.

I wasn't miserable, but that's mostly due to the excitement of progressing.

~~~
chrisco255
Why is late night programming / writing so darn productive? No distractions?

~~~
vesak
Well, I have theories. One, it breaks habits. You may have teached yourself
over the years to procrastinate during the day, but not during the night.

Two, you know it's painful enough that you'd rather not waste the time doing
something stupid and worthless.

Three, it lowers your mental state enough that you'll just drudge on like a
robot.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
For me its about anxiety, and that ability to drudge on.

Certain parts of my brain fatigue and completely turn off. After an all-
nighter my emotional resilience is off the charts the next day.

I think a little slower, but so much more calmly, and logically.

At my startup my co-founders actually requested I pull all-nighters before
pitching VC's because the effect was so profound. Public speaking is so easy
when you stop caring and treat everything like an item on a checklist instead
of a potential catastrophe.

------
jxy
If my own anecdotal experience says anything, I can easily slash two to three
hours of sleep, when I run four to five miles in the morning.

During snowy winter weeks I am mostly sedentary, I need eight to nine hours to
feel refreshed, and I need coffee to stay awake after lunch.

When weather is good and I run four to five miles in the morning everyday, I
only need to sleep from midnight to 6 AM. I wake up at that time automatically
without alarm.

I feel 40 minutes of running can equal two hours of extra sleep. Perhaps
running increases blood flow and also helps clean up trashes in the brain, as
what people claim sleeping does to your brain.

And yes, I feel so happy after running.

~~~
inanutshellus
Note that "During snowy winter weeks" it's also the darkest part of the year,
which also has a known correlation to (un)happiness.

So it may be "just" the light or it could be both your lifestyle change and
the lack of light siphoning happiness.

------
olivermarks
Surely there is not enough sleep because you are buzzing after a great
experience and/or anticipation of events tomorrow, and then there is anxiety
and bad sleep patterns because of stress?

Spending too long in bed due to feeling lethargic and not wanting to get up
doesn't result in happiness.

I am a big fan of 8 hours of good sleep a night, and definitely need it to be
on top of things, and on some occasions to ward off depression and fuzzy
thinking...

------
palerdot
Tangential and shameless plug: I created my own offline app[1] for a very
simplistic tracking of my sleep habits. It helped me to be more disciplined in
getting the right amount of sleep (atleast for most of the days). Any
feedbacks on this is appreciated.

[1] - [https://sleepeasyapp.com](https://sleepeasyapp.com)

------
nosleeptill
I'm both an insomniac and I have delayed sleep syndrome. When my parents
brought me home from the hospital I was only sleeping 2-3 hours a day. I was a
planned baby, but with two teenagers, and parents who were nearing 40 having a
baby that didn't sleep, almost destroyed the family, so I'm told. When I did
sleep it was usually from 7am to 9am. If you have children let that sink in
for a minute.

My insomnia was awful from 14 to 19, I was operating with on average 3 or 4
days of no sleep, a couple of days of 2-3 hours of sleep a day, and back to 3
-4 days of no sleep, wash rinse repeat. I had lots of 6,7,8 days of no sleep
and once went 10 days. For me, then, I was just awake, I didn't force
anything, I was just not sleepy, and I couldn't force myself to sleep.

During my junior and senor year of college I started smoking pot, and I
started sleeping on a regular basis, going to bed about 1-1:30 and getting 6/7
hours of sleep. I'm not really sure if I was happier, or more productive, I
was definitely more relaxed, it was probably the pot not the sleep. Of course
once I graduated and started getting drug tested I needed to give up smoking
pot. I hope soon my state will legalize and maybe I can find a strain that
helps.

I did a couple of sleep studies two which lasted 5 days and for one I went
sleepless for the study, they said I never once displayed any indication that
my body wanted to sleep during those 5 days. They wanted to study me but
sitting in a room hooked up to machines for days on end was not my idea of
fun, since I didn't sleep they wanted to know what was going on with me during
my constant "up" times and they wanted to see if they could understand what
triggered my sleep when it did happen.

As I got into my 30's my insomnia became less of an issue, but the delayed
sleep issue went back to when I was a baby, my body wanted to sleep from 7am
until 9/10am, putting a real kink in my life. While I didn't technically have
insomnia, I usually wasn't getting any sleep during the work week, luckily I
was wired for not sleeping much so it wasn't a career killer, it was tough on
my wife and children, and still is.

As I got into my late 40's my delayed sleep time move to back to about 4am,
and my sleeping needs have increased, I now usually get 3-4 hours of sleep a
day. So far things have remained the same into my mid 50's.

If I want to I can still go a few day without sleep, I've worked on big
projects and it can be wonderful to just knock out 72 hours of work in 3 days.
When I get "sleepy" it's more like my body suggesting that it would
accommodate sleeping if I so choose, if I ignore the offer the opportunity
passes and I'm just awake. From talking to others the feeling of sleep comes
over them and they have no choice but to succumb

As a side note I don't take drugs prescription or otherwise, nor do I drink

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
Holy shit, that is incredible.

Did you make an alt account just for this comment? Do you feel embarrassed by
your lack of sleep for some reason?

~~~
nosleeptill
I'm a reader of this forum, I've never really felt the need to comment on
anything else.

Anyone who knows me could identify me from this post, there aren't a lot of
people who have my relationship with sleep. I've met people who have insomnia,
and they fall apart during day two of no sleep, it wears them out. Me, I'm
just awake, I don't start slowing down because I'm awake for 72 or 96 hours. I
worked 5 days straight with no break, everyone else worked in shifts,I was
always observed there wasn't a period where I could sneak off and have a nap.
It freaked everyone out that I was exactly the same on day 5 as I was on day
1, and they were all beat down because they were doing long hours with reduced
sleep.

------
buckminster
On the graphs a positive sleep deprivation number is actually a surfeit of
sleep. This seems backwards. Nice article otherwise.

~~~
goo
Thanks for clarifying that here -- it took some close reading to understand
that. With an otherwise nicely detailed account, the mislabelling of the axes
is jarring. I would definitely expect a positive number to correlate to more
sleep deprivation, if the axis is labelled "Sleep Deprivation" or any variant
thereof.

------
TimJRobinson
Tangentially related: I'm looking for an app that will ask me how happy /
tired / productive I'm feeling randomly throughout the day, and allow me to
export this data, so that I can correlate this with my sleep and diet.

------
anotheryou
the graph reads to me like usually it doesn't matter at all, but sometimes
slight sleep deprevation makes a bad day worse. those few than are the overall
worst days

------
yani
Many factors influence our mood. Yes, sleep is one of them. So is our diet,
social life, work life. The key is to try and balance everything.

------
agumonkey
Anybody using a physical approach ? that a person is a pendulum and keeping
rhythms in check is the best way to save energy and avoir wear ?

------
vienno
Very interesting project. Just a minor detail.

> However, I have always recovered from those periods by catching up on sleep.

This is actually a common misconception. In reality, it is not possible to
"catch up" on missed sleeping hours.

Source: [https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-news/you-cant-catch-
sleep](https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-news/you-cant-catch-sleep)

~~~
daveFNbuck
That mentions (without citation) one study about a very extreme and weird
version of catching up on sleep. I doubt this person was talking about
sleeping an extra 10 hours in one night to make up for 28 hours of missed
sleep over 2 weeks.

~~~
vienno
I can't seem to recall where I first read this, but I am confident I've read
it in multiple articles and books (I have a keen interest in this topic due to
serious personal sleep issues).

But I seem to stand corrected[1]. Thanks for your comment.

1\. [http://time.com/5288704/can-you-catch-up-on-
sleep/](http://time.com/5288704/can-you-catch-up-on-sleep/)

------
ChristianGeek
TLDR: Author has no idea if there’s a correlation based on personal data.

------
tpinto
so THIS is what's been keeping you awake lately...

------
qop
There is no reason to sleep more than 8-9.5hrs. If you are sleeping more than
this, see a doctor and see what kind of hormones are not balanced.

It's probably not as bad as undersleeping to oversleep, but it's not how your
body is supposed to work.

~~~
tzar
More than 8, or more than 9.5? Which is it?

~~~
qop
It's a range depending on other aspects.

Or do you think the human body ticks down 480 minutes exactly?

