
Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says - dalfonso
http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/originals/ct-bsi-why-we-sleep-matt-walker-20171003-story.html
======
supernintendo
This is one of the reasons I hate the eight-hour work day. Between that and
all of the other shit you have to do in a day (commute, chores, eating,
exercise etc.), it seems like there's little to no opportunity to just have a
life. I know it sounds like first world problems (people used to work 100 hour
weeks), but I think our culture needs to change before we can really put the
onus on people to improve their sleeping habits. I'd love to get 7-9 hours of
sleep, but I just don't have the time.

~~~
lutorm
Actually, studies have shown that hunter-gatherer societies spent much less
than 40h/week "working" and had more leisure time than we do. It's just recent
history that's an anomaly...

~~~
wmil
Not only that, but the 40h/week ignores commutes. For some people that's an
additional 15h/week.

Also hunger-gatherers lived right beside the people they knew. They just had
to step outside to meet up with friends to socialize.

~~~
randcraw
15h / 5 days is 3h / day -- 1.5 hours each way, that's a _long_ commute.

The average commute in the US is 20 min each way. Suburbanites mostly jump to
nearby suburbs. It's the urbanites & rurals who outlie, with interminable
train rides or stops-and-gos via SUV & long highway drives to a bigger town an
hour away.

A map of US commute times: [https://lifehacker.com/this-map-shows-the-average-
commute-ti...](https://lifehacker.com/this-map-shows-the-average-commute-time-
in-every-u-s-c-1796559696)

~~~
tjic
I did this for six months.

I live in NH, I got a well paying contract in MA, and they needed me to work
60 hrs/week to rescue a project.

The 60 hrs/week is key, because it made the ratio of billable hours to wasted
hours plausible - 15 hours of commute to 40 of billable is terrible, but 15:60
made some sense.

Those six months (plus the side remote consulting gig I did on the weekend)
almost killed me, but they also let me pay off about 1/3 of my mortgage in
half a year.

~~~
skinnymuch
Would you do it again if something awful happened and you all of a sudden were
in the same spot you were when you did that work (less or none of your
mortgage paid off or something). Just wondering. Seems like it sucked but
worthwhile if it paid off 1/3 of your mortgage. Good job!

------
a_lieb
One important thing the article doesn't cover: we now have good reason to
suspect that chronic sleep deprivation can cause brain damage. Not just a long
term decrease in function, but actual cellular damage.

In a major triumph of medicine, we now know that brain cells shrink during
sleep (about 60% in rats), allowing cerebrospinal fluid to flow about 10 times
as fast [1] [2], helping to cycle out built up toxins and waste products and
eventually drain them into the bloodstream. It was previously a medical
mystery how the brain was able to eliminate toxins without being connected to
the lymphatic system (although it's since been shown that the brain is
directly connected to the lymphatic system to some degree as well [2])

As far as I know, it's not proven that this contributes to the cognitive
effects of chronic sleep deprivation. But it would make an awful lot of sense,
and also help explain why sleep debt becomes more difficult to pay off the
longer you let it sit around, and why the damage possibly even becomes
permanent.

[1] [https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24429-sleep-boosts-
br...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24429-sleep-boosts-brains-self-
cleaning-system/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glymphatic_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glymphatic_system)

------
rightos
But do I need to be more productive?

It's a tradeoff - I can go home and spend more social time, leisure time and
put more personal time into my projects if I sleep less. The 2-3 hours of
extra time I get by sleeping like crap allows me to do things I wouldn't
otherwise get to do. Productivity couldn't improve these if there's no time
left in the day to do them.

It costs me at work, I'm sure of it, but it hasn't gotten me fired or even
significantly prevented me from doing my job, so why would I change it?
There's no need to be obsessed with scraping every last ounce of productivity
out of myself at work. I like my job, but feel no obligation for that.

~~~
jules
If you are X% less productive you will be able to charge X% less for your
work, on average, so you would need to work longer hours for the same pay. You
might also be shortening your life by not sleeping enough, perhaps by a larger
amount than you're gaining by sleeping less. That is clearly the case in the
limit of not sleeping at all -- you would shorten your life to a month at
best, not to mention that the quality of life would go down.

~~~
rightos
> If you are X% less productive you will be able to charge X% less for your
> work, on average, so you would need to work longer hours for the same pay.

That's making the huge assumption that you're willing to constantly seek your
maximum pay and that you get paid solely for your measurable productivity
output, which is in my experience very rarely the case. More often than not
you get paid based on capabilities and responsibilities, not significantly
more or less on your output. It's certainly not a direct X% less productive =
X% less pay relationship. I believe it's been shown that seeking new employers
is the best way to maximize pay, but that means interviews are often the
difference between you and more pay, yet no one can judge future productivity
in an interview.

> you would shorten your life to a month at best

To my knowledge, sleep dep hasn't actually killed people directly like this,
they simply start sleeping.

~~~
jane_pl
>To my knowledge, sleep dep hasn't actually killed people directly like this,
they simply start sleeping.

Actually, there is at least one example, surely there are more:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/27/man-dies-11-days-
no...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/27/man-dies-11-days-no-sleep-
deprivation-jiang-xiaoshan_n_1631703.html)

~~~
kaybe
There is a somewhat rare genetic disease where at some point in their life
people can't sleep any more and eventually die from it. So yes, there are
more.

------
epc
If you feel groggy in the morning or just not well–rested even after 7-8 hours
sleep, get your sinuses & lungs checked.

Could be sleep apnea, but in my case I felt congested all the time. What I
thought was allergies was actually the linings of my sinuses inflamed to the
point of closing off air passages.

Unclear if the root cause in my case was acid-reflux into the sinus cavities
or exposure to dust from ground zero.

The resulting surgery kind of sucked (free tip: don't have your sinuses roto-
rootered in the winter) but ever since I've been able to sleep a solid 6-7
hours every night. I now wake up rested, don't feel groggy, typically without
an alarm.

~~~
nikkwong
I was just diagnosed with sleep apnea this week after it wreaked havoc on my
personal and professional life for the last 6. I couldn't work, couldn't
engage in anything. Now I'm pretty much terrified to go to sleep every night
as I know I'm probably not going to get any rest and wake up zombified. I
heard the surgery was a hit or miss. Would you recommend?

~~~
rhcom2
CPAP is usually the first line for sleep apnea. I've been using one for the
past couple of months. They've improved the masks so the really only annoyance
is being tethered to the machine when you roll over but it isn't too bad.

Another thing I've learned is the CPAP machines now phone home to the
insurance company to give them compliance data on how and when you use the
machine. Less happy about that.

~~~
isostatic
You have a free market in healthcare, vote with your wallet.

~~~
rhcom2
I'd love to but the thing's base price is $800 without hoses or mask. I can't
afford that without going through my insurance.

------
maxxxxx
I don't you can generalize things like this. I am sure there are people who
can get by on 6 hours or less naturally. But the problem starts when people
who need more try force themselves to sleep less. I have done a lot
experimentation with this and had to accept that the only sustainable way for
me is to sleep around 8 hours every night. It would be cool if I could make do
with 4 but it's just not in me.

~~~
frozenport
The point is that people who claim to function on six are unable to correctly
judge their capabilities and are most likely wrong about that claim.

~~~
LogicX
Anecdote is not data, but I have not set an alarm for many years - I sleep 5-6
hours (only 5 since I went vegan) and I wake up on my own, refreshed.
Occasionally I’m tired, I take a nap. I don’t do coffee, I have unsweetened
tea but don’t go nuts on caffeine, social drinking.

I don’t feel any need to ‘sleep in’ on weekends.

Yes, I work from home and own my own company, so I have the luxury of taking a
nap in the middle of the day.

If I were to try to force myself to sleep 8 or 9 hours I feel worse; so I
don’t do that anymore.

~~~
sethrin
I'm in the same boat, working from home to no one else's schedule, but
probably with a worse habit of body. I have no idea when I might last have
slept for more than seven hours, and I very rarely nap. I'm considering
acquiring a 'real job' again, but I'm probably not willing to ever compromise
my sleep habits for an employer. I don't think anyone else should either, but
I suspect that's not likely to be a popular opinion.

------
ramirez60
I can't be alone in being exhausted at these studies. Doctors and Lawyers have
spent the better part of the last century working on little to no sleep.
Academics too. As an engineer, I would regularly work through little sleep
because the process of loading a large project into my head to work on it
would take more time than the gains from being more well rested. I'm older
now, and no longer work as an engineer. I value my sleep and appreciate how
much more I can task-switch on a good nights rest, but the idea that I'm not
being productive when I'm grinding through work that has to get done and I'm
tired seems an overwritten idea.

I'm not arguing against rest and recharging and clearing your mind. I just
don't see what these articles are trying to prove. When I was in college I had
several stints of no sleep days to finish projects. Even into my early
engineering career, I once billed 40 hours straight. Was I as "productive" per
minute for that entire time as if I had slept through 5 nights? No. Would the
work have gotten done faster than those 40 hours if I had slept for 8 hours in
the middle a few times? No. I had a deadline, and there was nothing getting
around the work needing to be done.

The argument seems to be against a constant sprinting mode, which I don't
think any company employs. Humans burn out after continuous work for weeks,
sometimes months. But a week or 3 of little to no sleep to get through
everything you need to? It's worked for a long time. Arguably building up
muscle memory while forcing rote things to be learned while on little sleep
works. What are we trying to prove by this? That "the man" is out to abuse
workers? Of course he is. But did anyone make partner at a law firm by
claiming he's going to more productive by working less? If you're goal is work
life balance, go ahead. But if you're goal is to excel in a field, then it
probably involves some sleep deprivation. PG wrote an article about the reason
startups were suited for youth is that you could push through unreasonable
hours to crank a lot of life into fewer days.

Sorry for the rant...just wondering if I'm alone in thinking this

~~~
wpietri
Your definition of "works" is suspicious to me.

If you're saying that in the short term, short-term thinking works, sure. If
you're in college and are doing a bunch of work that doesn't matter to
deadlines that are entirely made up, sure, you can get away with it.

You claim that doctors do fine without enough sleep, but even doctors don't
claim that any more. Doctor friends tell me it's a big focus for reform. [1]
And in areas where safety is even more important, like piloting planes, they
take mandatory rest even more seriously.

Software is mostly not life-critical, but I think it's uniquely bad in this
regard. Doctors can bury their mistakes, but version control systems preserve
ours forever. It's too easy to be negatively productive in software, and
enormously easier if you're not getting enough sleep.

[1] [http://www.bcmj.org/article/sleep-deprivation-among-
physicia...](http://www.bcmj.org/article/sleep-deprivation-among-physicians)

~~~
ramirez60
I don't mean to claim doctors do fine without enough sleep. Doctor friends I
have spoken to talk about this talk about the reforms but it is not uniformly
positive. I am trying to posit that the claim that we function better with
more sleep is true. But that claim is made in a vacuum. Person A operates at
100% well rested. But operating at 80% or 60% is more valuable than 0% if
averaged out over time. So I can write better code when I'm well rested, sure.
I agree with that. I think everyone logically will. If I have 1000 lines of
code to write. And it will take me 10 hours to write it. And I have 2 days to
do it. I'll spread it out over 2 days and write good code, and maybe it only
end up taking 800 lines of code. But if I have 1 day to write it. I might end
up writing 1200 lines of code, but still get it done in that day, it is more
valuable to me, than a day later when the code doesn't matter anymore. I'd
argue I'd rather a doctor save my life that day, than do a great job and make
sure I never scar over two days when the option isn't there.

Medicine is a regulated industry in that the number of people trained almost
precisely matches the number of jobs available. The training process is
designed to prune out people who cannot function when they have to choose
between life saving procedure, and doing the life saving procedure perfectly
but losing the patient. It's a straw-man I know, I'm just tired of everyone
being absolutely fascinated by this idea that resting is better than not
resting. Isn't that just obvious? Does anyone feel like they work better when
they are tired? What knowledge are we gaining by these discussions?

~~~
wpietri
If you are throwing away your tired-brain code a week later, godspeed. Do what
you like. But if you are checking in that code and making other people deal
with it, then quality becomes much more important. If you write 1200 lines of
code instead of 800, then you have something that has 50% more maintenance
cost and 50% more bugs. (And it's probably worse given that you were tired and
thinking with a short-term mindset.) So hell yes, it matters to me whether my
coworkers are putting long-term value above short-term incentives.

> I'm just tired of everyone being absolutely fascinated by this idea that
> resting is better than not resting. Isn't that just obvious?

It is not in fact obvious. So many places reward time spent more than quality
work. Just today at a meetup we were talking about how to shift people away
from damaging and expensive heroics to investing in not creating such big
problems that you need work-all-night heroes. The industry is notorious for
death marches and work-all-the-time startups. And it's also notorious for
buggy, low-productivity, high-tech-debt code bases and giant rewrites caused
by years of accumulated short-term thinking.

If it's obvious to you, skip over the articles. Not everything has to be for
you.

------
ams6110
I feel like my natural body clock is a 28-hour day. If I have no reason to get
up I'll sleep for about 10 hours, but then I'm not ready to sleep again for
about 18 hours.

I'm guessing the 10 hours is just making up for sleep debt and that might
taper off if I could sleep as much as I wanted every night. But the realities
of life (kids in school, work, kid's activities, etc.) mean that I have to be
awake by about 6:45am and being in bed and asleep before 10:00 just doesn't
happen very often either.

~~~
ashark
I used to think that about myself. Now I'm pretty sure it's just the result of
having light pollution (lights outside candle temperature and brighter than
three or four candles) including glowing screens, electronic device
hyperstimulation, and the Internet info treadmill, after 9:00 or so. If I give
myself a good long stretch of low light and no electronic toys my "28-hour
clock" not-so-mysteriously turns into an ordinary 24-hour one. Being outdoors
and active as much as possible during daylight hours also helps (especially in
Summer, when dark hours are in short supply).

~~~
randcraw
My natural day lasts considerably more than 24 hours, but only when TV/video
is active. Without them, I'm ready for bed by 10 PM. If I still had any
working grey cells, I'd run some week-long A/B experiments to verify and
assess the impact of each. But I don't think I could live with all that
silence, so...

------
zitterbewegung
I feel like when I get 8-9 I am much more productive and have a much better
mood. Seven for me is sort of the point where I can go throughout the day but
I will be distracted. Six or less is really bad for me.

I really notice when I get less sleep I make a bunch more comments on HN /
reddit or use Twitter much more.

~~~
passivepinetree
Likely because you're less focused/more susceptible to the quick reward and
novelty that these sites provide.

I've noticed when I sleep better I can better focus on long-form entertainment
(reading a novel vs. browsing HN, for example).

------
imustbeevil
I'm much more interested in why a body needs an amount of sleep, what
processes it is conducting, and how you can affect those processes.

What happens in the 7th hour that didn't happen in the 6th? If it's a fourth
REM cycle, why do we need 4? What does the fourth do that the third didn't?
Why do REM cycles take that long? Can you make them take more or less time?
Can you determine lack of sleep from a brain scan? Can you tell the difference
between a 6th hour brain and a 7th hour brain? Does anything you eat or do
during a day affect how long this process takes? What about hydration /
nutrition?

I'm sure these are all answerable, but I'm not sure most people know the
answers, and this article certainly doesn't get us any closer to
understanding.

~~~
cavanasm
This article isn't exactly a presentation of research. Several of those
answerable questions will probably be worth Nobel Prizes for the people who
can answer them. This is fundamentally a puff piece with a sleep expert
promoting his new general audience book on sleep health (Not discounting the
tips, or his expertise, but this is obviously not a research paper). Several
of the sleep hygiene tips he gives are things that aren't really settled AFAIK
in the field, possibly why he even specifically mentions "practicing what he
preaches" in that last question. He's preaching at least as much as talking
about settled science.

------
chiefalchemist
I think the headline is misleading. Let's say I stay up late to do X, Y and/or
Z. These things to mean have meaning. In doing them I feel a sense of
accomplishment. I've been productive.

Now I show up to work the next day. Certainly less sleep has some effect on
me. But that doesn't devalue the increased productivity from the previous
evening.

The brain is a limited resource. There might be occasional short term
hacks/cheats. But on average you'll have X gallons in the mental tank. This is
true. If you spend that at home then yes you will be "less productive" at
work.

------
refurb
Maybe I'm weird, but I've never deluded myself about the impact of a lack of
sleep. My entire life I've strived to get 7.5 to 8 hours a night. I'm not that
successful lately, but I make it a priority.

What I don't get are people that brag about not getting much sleep. It's
clearly unhealthy. Would you brag about your poor eating habits? Or not
following a medication regimen?

I know the science is still early, but I have no doubt that poor sleep has a
significant, long-term, permanent impact on health.

------
hellofunk
Most of the problems being discussed here in this thread regarding work hours
per week, commute times, finding time for leisure and exercise and family
time, the time spent dropping off kids at school, etc -- there are mostly
unique to America. Americans could really learn a lot about how successful you
can be despite spending less time at work, as well as less time fretting about
other things, by looking at any of many countries on the continent of Europe,
who offer a much better work/life balance but with no sacrifice on work
output.

Some of the most talented and productive developers I know are in the
Netherlands, France and Germany, and have a lifestyle that would be considered
impossible by many in the States.

The brain needs time to recharge, time away from "work", time to think about
work without actually doing work, and the punch that gets packed into a
shorter work day can be much greater if the brain is working at optimum
capacity, which usually doesn't happen if it is taxed for loads of hours day
after day after day.

For me personally, my best ideas come when I am away from a computer, and my
brain is free to wander. The more time I sit at a computer, ironically the
less likely good ideas will come. Most work environments in the States have
not learned this yet.

~~~
palpatine_an
Considered impossible due to the different laws set by companies for their
employees. European employees get way more vacation time among other things,
and American employees get a whole lot of pressure due to the fact that they
can be fired anytime with no warning or explanation while places in Europe,
for example Denmark, make it much harder to fire employees on a whim, which
inherently puts a whole lot pressure on the American employee

~~~
hellofunk
Everything you said is exactly the point I am making.

------
sandworm101
>> If you were not to set an alarm clock, would you sleep past it? If the
answer is yes, then there is clearly more sleep that is needed.

Totally wrong. I just finished 4 months of military training. Sleep
deprivation was part of the training. We were constantly sleep deprived. It
impacted our performance, that was the point. That said, I'm one of those
people who always seems to get up 2 minutes before the alarm. Even in my
sleep-deprived state, less than four hours a night for weeks, I still woke up
before my alarm.

~~~
Rasco
Your point, although interesting, does not invalidate the quote. Let A be «
you would sleep past the alarm clock without it » and B « you are sleep-
deprived » They say A → B. You say false since I got B and not(A). A → B does
not imply B → A which would be proved false by your case.

------
tryingagainbro
Why not sleep 8 hours a day if needed (Personally, I'm even more useless on
less than 7-8 hrs of sleep)?

I am sure you can reinvent the wheel and then some in what's left. People are
productive when they are productive, you can come up with the idea to change
the world in 60 mins...or never in your lifetime.

If Einstein had lived to 150 it's not a given that his contribution to the
would would have 2X...

------
tbihl
I recognize the thrust of this argument, and anecdotally agree with it from my
experience,but it's not practical advice. Work 12 hours, spend at least 30
minutes each way commuting,work out, prepare and eat meals, and you're at
pretty nearly 15 hours, without counting preparing for work. Sure,you have
time for sleeping 8 hours,but only if you eschew any personal life and find
your work sufficiently exciting to not see any need for recreation/fun all
week. Dropping to about 6.5 hours of sleep at least doubles time for those
things each work day.

I've tried maintaining 8 hours of sleep daily in such conditions. What I've
found is that I'm productive for two days. By Tuesday or Wednesday night, I'm
frustrated and bored, and spend 3 or 4 hours doing something interesting and,
bam, week derailed. For me, 6.5 hours is the compromise that works. Plus, I
sleep 9 hours on Friday and Saturday nights.

~~~
gejjaxxita
How and why would you work for 12 hours in a day? I don't understand why
anyone with choose that life for an extended period of time.

~~~
tbihl
Great co-workers, somewhat interesting work, insight into a really interesting
organization, and a situation where I went in with too little information and
now would face substantial costs if I back out rather than persisting for
another 3 or 4 years.

~~~
gejjaxxita
That's fair enough, but I think your personal circumstances are unusual (and
unhealthy). For the majority of people sleeping 8 hours is practical advice
because they work 8 not 12 hours, leaving them with 4 extra hours, which is
enough time to go to the gym, spend with family etc..

------
imustbeevil
> the Foundation suggests anywhere from six hours to 11 hours of sleep per
> night for individuals between the ages of 18 and 25 may be suitable, or six
> hours to 10 hours for those between the ages of 26 and 64.

A four to five hour deviation is quite significant. That's a difference of 80%
between the most amount of sleep needed and the least.

> "I suppose the rule of thumb in adults is about seven to eight hours, but is
> that based on any really solid science? I would sort of say not," said
> Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience and head of the Sleep
> and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford.

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vv7eqx/why-do-
dif...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vv7eqx/why-do-different-
people-need-different-amounts-of-sleep)

~~~
SebNag_
Scientific sources?

> Prescribing one amount of sleep for every kind of person seems very
> obviously wrong.

That's, AFAIK, not.

------
conistonwater
There is a very good talk on youtube by William Dement from Stanford that is
longer-form than this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8)

------
garfieldnate
This is the first time I've ever read about sleep problems caused by a simple
glass of wine before bed. About ten years ago some study came out linking red
wine to heart health, and I remember one smug kid at school making fun of the
Mormons because the article had just "proven their religion wrong". Meanwhile
health organizations were recommending you not start drinking because it's
also addictive. I've heard that the drinking culture in the US has changed
lately, as it is being seen as less and less healthy (I've been abroad for
about 5 years).

------
njarboe
The genetic variability of humans seems large enough that simple rules about
sleep, like nutrition, are probably wrong for many people. Get more sleep if
you are tired all the time? Maybe that would work.

------
peterwwillis
Sleep need is variable, work is variable, motivation is variable. It's more
likely that sleep is a spectrum, hence the 8.34% variance in required minimum
sleep for adults, or how general quality of health affects ability to maintain
sleep. It's even possible that sleep has nothing to do with our health and
productivity other than being an indicator of it, and not necessarily a cause
for it. Thanks, pseudo-scientific studies.

~~~
ryanbrunner
This is all true, but I think it's worthwhile to be _very_ skeptical about
your assumption of how much sleep is healthy for you. Everyone in these
threads assumes that they are one of the special few who does perfectly fine
on 5 hours of sleep.

------
wtetzner
I'm productive on six hours of sleep in the sense that I get _something_ done.
However, I am quite noticeably less productive than if I get more sleep.

Even if I don't feel tired, I notice that my thoughts are more muddled and
it's hard to concentrate. If I get 6 hours or less of sleep one night, it's
usually not a problem. But if the lack of sleep is over multiple days (like it
usually is), then it becomes much worse.

------
pascalxus
the article states 7 hours is the minimum, but I seem to need a lot more. they
state, if you can sleep after the alarm clock goes off, then you should sleep
more.

So, what if you get 8.5 hours of sleep but you still could sleep, after the
alarm clock goes off? there should be some upper limit, maybe 9?

~~~
ForRealsies
I recommend a 'Sleep' app on your phone. I set it to 7am and it'll wake me up
anywhere from 6:30-7, depending on my sleep cycle. Never felt drowsy on 6:30
days.

~~~
givinguflac
This works well for me (I use ‘sleep cycle’) but doesn’t solve my inability to
actually get tired and go to bed at night.

~~~
thirdsun
Have you tried avoiding screens an hour or two before going to bed? Fill that
time with reading or listening to podcasts.

~~~
arvinsim
Does the Kindle still count? I heard that it is different from computer
screens because the light is backlit, not directly shown into your eyes.

~~~
thirdsun
A Kindle should be fine, preferably without backlight however.

------
jason_slack
This makes me feel weird knowing that I practice a polyphasic sleep pattern
for such a long time now.

------
bsenftner
What is it about those that need less? I personally have been sleeping 5-6
hours per night for decades. In my mid-30's I stopped my youthful partying and
found I did not need to sleep as much. Now, at 52, more than 6 hours feel like
too much and I'm groggy.

~~~
evanwise
Same. 5 to 6 hours and I feel fine, unless I'm ill or already sleep deprived.
I can function on 3-4 hours per night for extended periods of time before I
start to notice serious deterioration in mental faculties. I believe it's
genetic. Some studies have tentatively tied naturally short sleep cycles to a
gene variant ([http://www.sleepeducation.org/sleep-disorders-by-
category/in...](http://www.sleepeducation.org/sleep-disorders-by-
category/insomnias/short-sleeper)). Also, my father sleeps for about the same
amount of time as well.

------
ssijak
Are there any reliable devices that can measure rem phases during sleep
reliably and wake you up after 6-8 hours when the rem phase ends? And I'm not
talking about sleep apps for phones which work with mics and accelerometers.

------
ramblerman
"Don’t sleep any more than you have to, I usually sleep about four hours per
night." \-- Think Like a Billionaire, President Trump.

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ohdrat
Have gotten 6 for decades, but I used to swim/run/yoga. Now I don't do
anything because there's no time and am still productive, but need lots of
caffeine and morale boosters, like I traded a couple pairs loafer mesh shoes I
didn't like for a high end pair of proper fitting ASIC running shoes at
Nordstrom's today. In fact I lost a couple hours sleep just thinking about
trading those shoes today...

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mbertschler
Does someone have some scientific source on that topic? I couldn't find
something linked in the article.

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lanius
And yet South Korean students get less than 6 hours of sleep a night. Insane
how society just accepts that.

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k__
I stopped setting an alarm 90% of my nights and ended up with 10h sleep (2-12)
till I wake up by myself.

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sabujp
so basically having kids makes you stupid, more prone to heart attack, etc etc

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swah
Sometimes I can sleep over 6 hours, but then I wake up with back pain...

~~~
undersuit
Sleep on your back on the floor, beds are an new invention and a bad one can
be painful. So before you go out and buy a new mattress experiment with your
sleep. Hammocks are also said to be a good alternative.

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martin1975
multiple shrinks, doctors, psychiatrists, sleep therapists have told me a 7
hour minimum is required... I'm in my 40's.

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justherefortart
I've slept roughly 9 hours every night my entire life. I can't imagine giving
up good sleep for anything. Hell, going to bed is usually my favorite thing to
do outside of hobbies.

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dingo_bat
Fuck sleep. I'm waiting for the day when I can click a button on my phone to
go to sleep instantly and wake up instantly on a timer. No natural feeling of
sleepiness. I hate the time lost to sleep. What does it matter if I lose 5
years in my old age? I gain so much time in my younger years. It's like
smoking. It's harmful and will kill you in the long term. But why do you care
about living to a 100? You will have n other problems.

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Danihan
I'm extremely productive on 4.5 hours, but using a biphasic sleep pattern. 3
hours at night, 1.5 hours in a daytime nap.

~~~
pmoriarty
How long have you been sleeping like that?

~~~
Danihan
About 1.5 years, give or take.

I pretty much require 9 hours on a monophasic schedule to feel as sharp.

~~~
Ygg2
Yeah, I worry, this only gets rid of tiredeness but not fulfill the whole 8-9
hours of sleep.

~~~
Danihan
From my experience, I'm better rested now than I was before I went bi-phasic.

I personally believe sleep is simply a cleaning cycle for the brain, waiting
16 hours between cleaning cycles may be deleterious.

~~~
Ygg2
I wasn't speaking about better rested vs less rested.

You can totally lose symptoms of tiredness, only to wind up with dementia at
later point in life.

~~~
rthomas6
Is this just speculation or is there evidence for this?

~~~
Ygg2
There is:

[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/24/why-
lac...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/24/why-lack-of-
sleep-health-worst-enemy-matthew-walker-why-we-sleep)

[https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-
sle...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-sleep-clears-
brain)

~~~
Danihan
>Does the 90-minute cycle mean that so-called power naps are worthless? “They
can take the edge off basic sleepiness. But you need 90 minutes to get to deep
sleep, and one cycle isn’t enough to do all the work. You need four or five
cycles to get all the benefit.

Notice, my sleep pattern contains 3 full cycles a day. And less time between
cycles.

I'm not just subsisting on short naps.

The second link simply confirms what I initially said, that sleep is a
cleaning cycle for the brain.

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dreamdu5t
Not a single study or piece of research referenced by the article. "Some
professor with a book says..." is not very convincing.

This is not a news article, and is not journalism. This is an advertisement
for a book.

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harryf
By use of meditation and yoga I've found the opposite to be true. The system
I've used is described somewhat here
[http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/lifestyle/health-
fitness/10-he...](http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/lifestyle/health-
fitness/10-healthy-tips-to-reduce-your-sleep-quota/)

Edit: downvotes why?

~~~
Mefis
I didn't down vote you,but just skimming through your article, #9 seems false.

Blood is not affected by magnetic fields, it seems to me.
[https://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-blood-attracted-to-a-
magnet-s...](https://www.quora.com/Why-isnt-blood-attracted-to-a-magnet-since-
it-contains-iron)

~~~
harryf
I can't attest for that point scientifically or even personally.

The argument in #9 as I understand it is, over the course of your lifetime,
the cumulative minuscule effect of how you sleep relative to the Earths
magnetic field can have a negative effect on your health, increasing the risk
of stroke or brain related conditions.

To prove or disprove would require long term study (in the order of a human
lifetime) with equipment capable of detecting very small changes while
eliminating all other effects.

