
For Hackers Who Don't Sleep - bearwithclaws
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/health/01mind.html?_r=2&ref=science
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skolor
While its no more than an anecdote, I've found this to be true. I only seem to
have trouble sleeping when I'm working on a project that keeps me thinking all
day long. When I am, I sleep light, waking often, and frequently only sleep
5-6 hours and wake rested. On the other hand, after finishing the project, or
in a lull when I'm waiting on something (parts to arrive, someone else to get
back to me or the like), I tend to sleep deeply and need upwards of 10 hours a
night.

On the other hand, I will once in a while get an opposite period, I'll be
working on a project and not be able to get by without at least 10 hours of
sleep, or I won't have anything to do and not be able to sleep more than 4
hours at a time.

Sleep just generally seems to not be worth losing sleep over...

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joubert
>Why should lions get 15 hours a night and giraffes just 5 — >when it is the
giraffes who will be running for their lives >come hunting time?

Lions also have to run for their lives come hunting time.

~~~
billswift
When you're running for your dinner, you get several tries.

When you're running for your life, you win or die.

~~~
joubert
You need to look at it from the genetic point of view, not the individual
organism point of view.

Catching prey / avoiding being caught, is a matter of life and death for the
gene pools on both sides.

Hence the "crazy" arms races amongst prey & hunter.

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thaumaturgy
Most of this article pretty much flies in the face of everything that I've
read on the physiologically restorative powers of sleep, including things like
links between insomnia and alzheimer's.

As a "hacker" that hasn't slept well or regularly for about 15 years now, I'd
dearly love to be able to fix my sleep lack-of-patterns. Sleep has become one
of those imaginary, wistful things that sounds wonderful but is out-of-reach.

~~~
delackner
This is an honest question: how much exercise do you get? More general
question: Any insomniacs out there that also happen to get cardio (running,
yoga, whatever) at least 3 times a week for at least 30 minutes each time?

~~~
fendale
Yes, 3km swim sets 4 or 5 times a week. Doesn't seem to help mesleep at all.
It does make me knackered, but sleep is still elusive!

~~~
radu_floricica
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome>

Maybe it's this? It's very common among hackers, and easy to confuse with
insomnia. Well, it's effectively the same if you have to wake up early.

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randomwalker
The research described is about the adaptive benefits of sleep to _species_ as
a function of their ecological environment. This has no implications for the
differences between individuals, even though the article desperately tries to
make it seem that way.

If you're suffering from insomnia, get help. Don't be a smart-ass and fool
yourself into thinking you're supremely adapted to your environment.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
I wouldn't say I _suffer_ from insomnia...

~~~
ewjordan
Right with you there. However, I _do_ suffer from the people around me
bitching about my sleep problems because they see me up at 7 AM after a long
night of coding. If one more "helpful" printout with an "FYI" scribble on it
mysteriously appears on my desk explaining how to fix a chronic sleep problem
I swear I'm going to scream...

But "insomnia" probably isn't the right word for me. I get my eight hours like
clockwork, I just take it whenever it suits me. A lot of people think that's a
problem, but if it is, it's certainly not mine. I don't have a 9 to 5 for a
reason (many, in fact), and I'm going to enjoy the benefits of that as long as
I can.

There's just something so productive about that midnight to sunrise stretch
that's impossible to replicate during the day...

~~~
cracki
please, would you do me the favor of catching these printout-droppers and
whacking them over the head for me?

if my school and work didn't interfere, i'd try the 28-hour day...
<http://xkcd.com/320/>

also: <http://xkcd.com/571/>

~~~
etal
I've had better results with a siesta schedule -- 6 hours asleep at night,
half-hour nap during the day, awake for both night life and morning
obligations and nobody thinks you're crazy (as they would with the Everyman
schedule).

The Wikipedia page on Sleep actually covers the current theories pretty well,
including this article's hypothesis and a rebuttal to it.

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dcheong
For non-subscribers:

[http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/0...](http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/health/01mind.html?_r=2&ref=science)

~~~
gaius
As an aside, it bemuses me how someone does this for every NYT article posted
here, when a repeated theme on HN is the death of old media.

Like the NYTs content, why not register? They need all the help they can get.

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ars
I registered years ago, I can't even remember how long ago (5 years+ I'd
guess, maybe even 10). I have not gotten a single email from them.

I don't understand why they want the registration, but at the same time it's
not problem to do it.

~~~
timwiseman
I am speculating here, but I suspect it gives them a metric that is in some
ways more reliable than just measuring unique IP addresses.

Most likely it is that metric they really want, but if you want to be cynical,
they could be selling those addresses without ever sending a single message
themselves.

~~~
ars
It's a unique email address that no one else has. It has never received email.

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olliesaunders
My take-away from this: We don't know anything, for sure, about sleep yet so
do what comes naturally.

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sethg
_Jerome Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los
Angeles, argues that sleep evolved to optimize animals’ use of time, keeping
them safe and hidden when the hunting, fishing or scavenging was scarce and
perhaps risky._

IIRC a character from "Beggars in Spain" (a Nancy Kress novella that she later
expanded into a trilogy) makes a similar argument for why her clever genetic
hack for creating children who never need to sleep will have no negative side
effects. It seemed like an audacious handwave when I read it; I had no idea it
had the backing of a Real Scientist.

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edw519
_Why should lions get 15 hours a night and giraffes just 5..._

Lions are carnivores who eat huge amount of raw meat intermittently. They need
lots of rest to save energy to digest that meat.

Giraffes are herivores who must continuously eat just to get enough calories.
They don't have much time to sleep.

What's so difficult to understand?

~~~
olliesaunders
That one of many possible explanations. Science relies on reductionist proof.

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sho
This Dr. Siegel guy makes no sense:

 _"as Dr. Siegel put it, sleepers are less vulnerable to harm than they would
be if they were out on the street late at night"_

Circular reasoning. If people didn't need sleep, there'd be just as many
people on the street as during the day and it wouldn't be any riskier.

 _"argues that sleep evolved to optimize animals’ use of time, keeping them
safe and hidden when the hunting, fishing or scavenging was scarce and perhaps
risky"_

... so if all the animals are asleep at night, we should be awake then, right?
We can just walk up and bop them on the head from behind, Halo-style. Why
don't lions hunt at night if it's got anything to do with that? Moreso, why
does any creature at the top of its food chain need to sleep?

It's hard to imagine any scenario when asleep humans are more safe at night
than awake humans. Even if there were giant nocturnal monsters all over the
place, they could just hide .. in the same place they would be so safe
sleeping, say.

Very unconvincing.

~~~
rtp
_Circular reasoning. If people didn't need sleep, there'd be just as many
people on the street as during the day and it wouldn't be any riskier._

No, what he is saying is that when you're sleeping in your bed, you are in a
situation that are far less risky than being out on the street, driving your
car, etc. How many people, statistically, die in their sleep, compared to "out
on the streets" (especially when it is dark)?

~~~
sho
That's not how I read it. But if so, if the safety of sleep is indeed an
evolutionary pressure, why don't we sleep _more_? And why do we have to close
our eyes and lose consciousness to get the benefit of this safety?

~~~
crayz
Well, try an experiment. Find a time of day when you are alert and well-
rested, and lay still in your bed with no external entertainment for eight
hours

I'm not saying the idea is correct, but your argument is sorely lacking in
plausibility - creatures with complex nervous systems get bored staying still
unless they lose consciousness (and actually, we spend a lot of sleep with our
brains still active in dream-world). If evolution "wanted" to come up with a
way to keep animals out of trouble for the part of the day they'd be
vulnerable, sleep might be a reasonable and generic way of doing so

~~~
sho
It wouldn't be lying in bed motionless. It would be sitting in the cave
talking quietly instead of sleeping. Or whatever.

I don't think that being asleep is safer than being awake, even in the exact
same place. Why do you think someone always stays awake to guard the camp?

Oh well, not like I know what the hell I'm talking about. I just thought
Siegel's explanations were too cute by half. Of course we evolved to sleep,
there's nothing about us that _didn't_ evolve. But the idea that the state of
being asleep makes us safer from predators, and that's the reason for the
selection? Doesn't pass the smell test IMO. Could be wrong. Been wrong before.

