
Why Broken Sleep Is a Golden Time for Creativity - benbreen
http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/why-broken-sleep-is-a-golden-time-for-creativity/
======
gwern
Kind of a tenuous argument. Yes, some famous people do it now - but you could
as well argue from, say, the Paris Review interviews that because so many
great writers write first thing in the morning, you want block sleep so you
don't get up late. It may also be natural, but lots of things are natural and
don't cause greater creativity. And one may be able to cite personal
anecdotes, but the causation could very easily be the other way: someone gets
up _because_ they have a burning idea, not because they got up and then also
had a breakthrough. I think it would be much more compelling if they could
point to even basic experimental verification; for example, showing greater
solution rates to 'insight problems' in a segmented condition.

------
julianpye
Ideally, when I wake up at 5am and my head is racing with ideas, I head to my
whiteboard in my home office. I write and sketch it all down and three hours
later I fall asleep again, waking up at 10 refreshed. Most of such work has
really been my best, with proposals that were refined and made it straight to
top-management. In some interviews when the question came 'what do you need to
work effectively' I have tentatively asked about this - no early meetings,
etc... but there was always pushback. My last company, a standalone Vodafone
Group R&D lab allowed all of us researchers these luxuries, but was later
consolidated and streamlined.

Is there any company that allows people to work this way? What are the best
flexibilities that people have encountered? I'd be curious to know....

~~~
zellyn
Yes. On my team, we have (a) one person who drops their kids off at school,
comes in late, leaves early to pick them up again, and works in the
evening/night (b) one person who comes in before everyone else and leaves
before four (c) several people who come in towards lunchtime and leave late
(d) a couple of us who take the shuttles and have a thoroughly normal
(8:30-5:30) schedule, and (e) one person whose sleep schedule drifts
unpredictably, unmoored from normal daylight rhythms.

In other words, nobody cares as long as you're getting stuff done.

Also, in other words, you should come work here, at YouTube :-)

~~~
tracker1
e) totally sounds like me...

I'm working on a very tight deadline for the next couple months, so most of my
time and thoughts are dedicated to the project I am working on...

I'm spending less time simply vegging and more actually thinking about what I
am working on... as I'm now transitioning from the planning to development
phase, my thoughts start to race when I come across an issue to resolve.

This week, I was up until 4-6a a couple days, and a few others crashed when I
got home at 5-7p, then up again around 3-4a. Just this morning, I'd woken up
around 2a to work through a problem then back to sleep about an hour and a
half later...

I'd done a bunch of reading about MVI (Model-View-Intent) as an alternative to
the React.js workflow and had some ideas on how to work around a) reusable
models, and b) injection and dependency declaration with a system similar to
React/Flux's... though it's too late to apply this to the project I'm on, it
was an interesting thought exercise.

When left to "just work" instead of being expected to be "in the office" 9-6
it's harder.. usually I'm not "really" awake until after lunch... then I can
get some work done, usually pretty productive (staying late a lot till 7-8 or
so), and go home to do it again... still not nearly as much as when I'm left
to sleep/work as needed/ready.

------
johnloeber
I used to have a pretty irregular sleep pattern, and one thing I definitely
noticed was the feeling of euphoria that comes with sleep-deprivation. If I
stayed up deep into the night, I would feel _great_ : energetic and ready to
get things done. Such a state was also creatively useful: I did a lot of
pretty good work in the deep of night. Somewhat paradoxically, I found it
easier to focus at that hour.

However, these benefits were only the case for light or mild sleep
deprivation. If I was more sleep-deprived, e.g. 4 hours a night for a few
days, then the pendulum would swing the other way and I would feel pretty
useless and slow.

I should also note that the sleep-deprived, energetic creative state was only
useful for projects that I could do in a single push. If I could do some
project from start to finish in a single creative burst, then an all-nighter
wouldn't be a terrible way of getting it done. There would be few
distractions, it'd be easy to get "flow" going, and I suspect that the
euphoric, sleep-deprived state marginally reduce inhibitions, which can lead
to better work.

On the other hand, it's not that great for tackling a section of a larger
project, which I think are better crafted slowly during the day, over the
course of a few days.

~~~
kirsebaer
Sleep deprivation increases dopamine, it's almost like taking amphetamine
(Adderall).
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080819213033.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080819213033.htm)

~~~
niels_olson
Sleep deprivation causes dramatic deficits in the ability to attend to task,
working memory, and mood stability. It is the exact opposite of adderall. More
like coming off adderrall.

~~~
dbtc
Maybe both in succession?

------
kabdib
I'm regularly up at 4AM.

At that time, I need to make a decision: Do I produce, or do I consume?

If I produce, I write English or code. I can get in a couple hours of this
before I need to wake up the rest of the house, and it's great.

If I consume, I watch a movie or surf or something, and I don't feel all that
great in the end. Where did that time go? Doing reading is better, especially
if I'm gronking down technical stuff that I've been meaning to read for a
while.

In any event, early morning "alone and quiet" time is pretty neat.

~~~
hobo_mark
I've started to use one of those sleep tracking apps several weeks ago and I
noticed that I invariably wake up around 4 as well, however only for what
looks like around half an hour and without me having any recollection about it
the next morning.

I wonder if anyone else observed the same, in other words if this is "normal".

------
aaron695
It totally blows my mind people still fall for this bullshit split sleep meme
made up by an historian.

So we take medical advice from historians now?

I do know in the world of science that shift workers get a lot of cancer.
Which is not split sleep exactly but close enough for me to not be forcing
myself against nature to split sleep.

Some creative people work all hours and some bodies are weird but don't buy
into this is 'common and natural thing' meme.

~~~
mytochar
How is shift working similar to split sleep? One is working arbitrary
schedules, the other could be seen as "I go to bed at 8pm with the sun, and
happen to wake up every night at like midnight to work for a few hours and
then pass out again". They're entirely different shapes.

Yes, it's reasonable to say we shouldn't take medical advice from historians;
but, finding your most creative times of the day isn't really a medical thing,
it's a "what works for me" or "what I've noticed about myself" sort of
perspective.

How do we measure creativity anyway?

~~~
aaron695
Shift work is not necessarily about differing sleep cycles there evidence it's
about working at night and lighting.

But other than that I don't disagree. My beef is about broken sleep existing.

1.5 billion people currently live without electricity and so did their parents
and their parents parents.

But broken sleeps evidence is a historian basically cold reading 200 year old
fiction books. And even people like gwern are not saying, this is BS where is
the evidence broken sleep is a thing?

It might be great for creativity, so is LSD, go for it, I definitely want a
more creative world.

I'm just saying know where you stand and quit on the BS that everyone used to
do it, unless you have real proof.

------
earlz
I really wonder what this says about children who wake up in the middle of the
night, and the effect on parents. If you follow through with "everyone did
segmented sleep", then at least the parents of children might be somewhat
mismatched. Children wake up earlier, or take longer to wind back down to
sleep. Is that still segmented sleep in the same vein? Maybe it was at one
time natural for everyone to wake up at the same time basically, because they
were so close together.

Either way, the explicit no children "rule" for experimenting with segmented
sleep is an interesting thing to think about.

Of course, 9-5 jobs make it practically impossible anyway, which are assumed
to go along with children in many cases

------
bitL
I noticed when I push myself a bit deeper into the night (I normally go
sleeping at ~10pm), then at around midnight when I am already tired I have the
best ideas for composing electronic music. If I stay awake, I often continue
until 2-3am with an outline of a song and while very very tired, I often
finish something surprisingly good and balanced so that I just need to
refine/add "candy" around to finish the song. Basically I trade enhanced
creativity for discomfort and feeling awful the next day, and it works
surprisingly well.

~~~
cJ0th
fellow electronic music producer here. For me it's not so much about being
tired. It's rather that late in the evening I finally managed to mentally
"recover" from work.

------
elwell
Reminds me of Psalm 63:6 -

    
    
      On my bed I remember you;
      I think of you through the watches of the night.

~~~
johnnymonster
Interesting find

------
japhyr
This is a wonderful reflection on the joys and productivity of getting up when
you wake up, and running with your naturally wakeful energy while it lasts.

My job is the only thing keeping me on a set schedule. When I retire, or if I
make a move to freelancing full-time, I'm really curious to see what becomes
of my schedule. I'll stay grounded in time somehow, but I'll also lose myself
in time on a regular basis.

~~~
drbawb
The article actually sounds a lot like my sleep schedule.

I retire quite early (9-10PM) compared to my roommates who will game, drink,
and socialize into the wee hours of the night.

I have to be up around 6:30AM to do my morning routine. I often find myself
waking up around 3:00 or 4:00 though.

I just can't bring myself to "run with my naturally wakeful energy," though.
Those next few hours until my alarm goes off are the most precious thing in
the world. I bundle up, and try to get back to sleep.

Usually I'm in an odd state of creative reflection, an almost "wakeful
dreaming."

It's more like wishful thinking, or a daydream, than an actual dream.

My mind is too busy to sleep, but I can't let it run wild, I have to work in
two hours.

\---

Then, just as I'm dozing off, my (sleep cycle aware) alarm clock goes off and
tells me it's time to get up.

Then I feel lethargic all day; spending my entire day anxious to get home so I
can do the same thing all over again.

\---

My sleep cycle app tells me I'm a pretty decent sleeper (unless I've had a
drink).

Perhaps I'm just naturally a segmented sleeper; but what's a part-time
student/full-time employee to do?

~~~
smt88
It honestly sounds like you have some anxiety issues that are interfering with
your sleep. It may even be that you feel anxious about not sleeping (and
therefore having a lethargic day), which keeps you up.

You should certainly look into "sleep hygiene". If you religiously practice
it, you may have better luck. Some of the recommendations are: no caffeine, no
alcohol, get out of bed if you can't sleep, don't work in your bedroom, wake
up at the same time every day. I can't remember the rest.

------
gtirloni
You cannot wake up in the middle of the night feeling full of ideas if you've
not been sleeping weel (and probably getting more hours of sleep than you
really needed).

When I'm on vacations, sleeping my ass off, I routinely wake up in the middle
of the night, or 2-3 hours before my regular wake up time and I'm well
prepared to think.

Going back to traditional 8-5 work week, I'm glad I have a full night of
sleep.

------
scott_karana
He's made a reasonable historical case for the commonness of a split cycle
sleep.

However, I wanted more evidence, so I looked to an ancestor: research on
chimpanzees in wild seems to indicate that they start their days at dawn, and
sleep mainly uninterrupted through the night...

Did humans really diverge that much? I suppose further studies will tell.
(After all, the creative differences seem undeniable, anecdotally...)

------
contingencies
I have been changing routine to get some more exercise recently... I've
started sailing again. The general routine is work the morning, sail the
afternoon, sleep damn early (8:30PM?), wake up 2AM, work awhile, sleep again
about 5AM, wake again about 8AM, eat, rinse, repeat.

Yesterday I woke up early for a cancelled meeting, which broke my pattern. As
a result, I sailed too early and too long .. and slept right through. This
morning three dogs woke me up, apparently they were having sex. I have no
doubt they will sleep again :)

------
jumby
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep)

------
smokey_the_bear
I dunno, I haven't slept four hours straight since my baby was born, and this
may be the least creative I've ever felt.

~~~
chuckcode
I think being woken up rather than naturally reaching the end of a sleep cycle
is very very different. When our baby was waking up a lot we were lucky to
function much less do anything super creative.

Article tries to make the case that historically people would have a period of
wakefulness in the night based on historical writing. I'd like to see some
more actual research before modifying my life and sleep habits as I'm not sure
that this says anything more than sleep requirements are personal.

My sense from working/living/traveling with lots of different folks is that
sleep is just as personal as the types of foods you like to eat. Some people
like napping, some don't. Some people like waking up early, some people like
staying up early. The only real constants I see is that you absolutely have to
get some and that the "experts" don't really know why...

~~~
ansible
I don't know that you, personally ought to be modifying your sleep schedule
any. If you're doing something that works, that's fine.

However, if you do go to sleep early (like 9pm), and wake up in the middle of
the night, maybe it's not necessary to stress about that too much. If you can
get something useful done, then you can do that, and then go back to sleep in
a couple hours.

I think the point is if you're feeling awake in the middle of the night, that
isn't necessarily insomnia, and it isn't necessarily a problem. Maybe you can
make it work and also get enough sleep to function well during the day.

------
j_lev
Anyone else here never have dreams?

I can't remember having a dream for at least 18 years now. So even if I have
the flexibility to sleep once at dusk and then work for a couple of hours, I'm
not convinced I'll see any benefit.

~~~
agumonkey
After a dermatologist prescription I suddenly dreamed every night very
detailed and surreal dreams for three weeks. Weird brains are weird.

------
oliwary
The wikipedia article for Polyphasic sleep is very interesting - apparently it
it possible to reduce the required sleep to 2h per day, split into six
20-minute naps.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep)

~~~
seivadmas
I think this article was probably written by people who haven't actually tried
it.

I experimented with the Uberman sleep schedule myself as a student (i.e. 2
hours sleep a day, split into 20 minute naps). I stuck rigidly to the schedule
over the course of three weeks but despite near-perfect discipline, it only
got harder and harder.

The hours between 1am to 5am were the hardest. I would stay awake because the
program required it (and supposedly it gets easier as your body 'adjusts') but
between these hours I was totally useless. I couldn't read because my eyes
would unfocus, I had blackouts where I couldn't remember anything. Usually I
would just sit and stare catatonically at a wall.

I started breaking things and falling over due to malcoordination from the
sleep deprivation and finally gave up after spending a night hallucinating
that strange figures were appearing out of the wood patterns on my desk.

I slept for 24 hours and felt like a completely different person after I woke
up.

So I encourage you to actually try this yourself, and see if it works. Just
don't drive, operate heavy machinery or in fact do anything remotely risky
during the experiment. Sleep deprivation can be dangerous.

Personally, I think the 2 hours is enough theory is garbage.

~~~
johnnymonster
The concept was tested by Tim ferris in the book 4 hour body. He noted that
its a hard thing to keep up with because you have to keep exactly on schedule
or you will mess everything up and then you just end up sleeping for a day.

~~~
Goronmon
_He noted that its a hard thing to keep up with because you have to keep
exactly on schedule or you will mess everything up and then you just end up
sleeping for a day._

That sounds like one of those excuses people make for something that doesn't
really work.

