
Good sleep, good learning, good life - JesseAldridge
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm
======
sivers
I love this guy.

Great article about him here:
[http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia...](http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak?currentPage=all)

See his apology at the bottom of
<http://www.supermemo.com/english/company/wozniak.htm>

~~~
michael_nielsen
The apology is strange. It seems predicated on a false notion of efficiency,
assuming that somehow one's interactions with other people can be "efficient"
in the same sense as one's interactions with a book. But that's not at all
true. I am reminded of Freeman Dyson's comment soon after he met Feynman:

"Feynman is a man whose ideas are as difficult to make contact with as Bethe's
are easy; for this reason I have so far learnt much more from Bethe, but I
think if stayed here much longer I should begin to find it was Feynman with
whom I was working more."

More generally, working with and learning from other people requires dealing
with all sorts of "inefficiencies"; they're not optional. But if you're
working with the right people, those inefficiencies are more than compensated
for in other ways.

~~~
Luc
> working with and learning from other people requires dealing with all sorts
> of "inefficiencies"; they're not optional.

I don't think he's all that interested in working with other people. In other
words, he's not seeking to optimize his relationship with other people so much
as he is finding a convenient excuse for not seeing other people at all.

~~~
jamesbritt
"In other words, he's not seeking to optimize his relationship with other
people so much as he is finding a convenient excuse for not seeing other
people at all."

Which is sort of foolish. A big problem with being hyper efficient and
blocking out assorted noise and distraction is that you end up filtering out
serendipity. You become very efficient at some local maxima. If nothing else
you risk missing out on learning about some new, better way to be efficient,
but mostly you miss out on the weird random stuff that comes from the odd
conversation with people.

It's like people who only listen to [right|left]-wing radio or follow
[right|left]-wing Web sites. You get really good at reinforcing the same
beliefs and attitudes. (Same is true for people who stop paying attention to
new other programming languages and paradigms.)

I've reduced the number of local gatherings and general conferences I attend
because of, overall, a poor return on the time invested vs tasks I want to
complete, but don't want to become a hermit altogether because at the better
gatherings there's a reasonable chance I'll learn about something interesting
out of the blue.

~~~
Luc
> Which is sort of foolish. A big problem with being hyper efficient

I think you're defining a metric by which your life is a success, but I'm sure
you'll agree other people can be aware of this and still have other goals.
This person probably doesn't need to work for a living (passive income from
his software), so he can afford not following your otherwise quite sensible
rules about serendipity. He can dig deep into a narrow subject, which may end
up bringing him more satisfaction than aspiring to be something of a
Renaissance man. He doesn't have to be all HackerNewsy, entrepreneurial etc.

Besides, let him be a hermit if he wants to. It's kind of comforting to know
that there is no high score or awards ceremony at the end of our lives. Local
maxima don't sound so bad.

------
lunchbox
Summary (from the bottom of the page):

 _Sleep is important for learning! Sleep deprivation results in intellectual
deprivation!

Sleep as much as you feel you need

Avoid alarm clocks

Forget about trying to fall asleep at pre-planned time! Let your body decide!

Forget about trying to fall asleep quickly! If your body decides it is the
right time, it will come naturally!

Do not try to make yourself sleepy! It is enough you stay awake and keep on
working/learning long enough!

It is much better to eliminate the source of stress rather than to try to
forget stressful situations right before the bedtime!

Learn the details of your sleep timing (how many hours you sleep, how many
hours before you need to take a nap or go to sleep again, etc.). Use this
knowledge to optimize your schedule.

Adjust the timing of intellectual work to your circadian cycle (see Fig. 5)

Stick with good people! The bad lot will often ruin your slumber

Be careful with caffeine. Drink coffee only upon awakening (or after a nap if
you take one)

Do not go beyond a single drink of alcohol per day. Drink it at siesta time

Quit smoking!

Use siesta time for a nap if you find it helpful

If you cannot fall asleep in 30 minutes, get up! You are not yet ready for
sleep!

If you experience racing thoughts at the time when your body calls for sleep,
the best method is: get up and use ... SuperMemo for 30 minutes! Few other
activities can be equally taxing to your tired brain (do not expect this to
work before your circadian timing though)

If you sleep it out and still not feel refreshed, be sure you do not sleep
against your circadian rhythm. Try free running sleep. Remember that you may
need 1-2 weeks to synchronize all bodily functions before this starts working!

If you cannot get refreshing sleep even in free-running conditions after at
least a month of trying, consult a sleep specialist (see: Sleep Disorders).
Remember, however, that a bad night is a factor of life. Few can avoid it. Do
not get alarmed even if it happens weekly_

I'd be interested if a qualified person could corroborate these
recommendations.

------
goodside
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, a neurologist, or an endocrinologist. I'm in no
way qualified to be talking about this.

I have a fairly severe form of delayed sleep-phase syndrome: left to my own
devices, as when I was on summer vacation back in school, I would gladly stay
awake for 24 hours and sleep for 12. I've long noticed anecdotally this
pattern is associated with geeks. Ask yourself: if a 6:00 AM Twitter update
says your geekiest friend is waiting for his code to compile, is it because he
woke up early or because he hasn't been to bed yet?

It turns out there's a reason for this. There's a gene called the ASMT gene,
which codes for enzymes responsible (in part) for the synthesis of melatonin
from serotonin in the pineal gland. This gene is often deleted in individuals
with autism or Aspergers syndrome, which results in _extremely_ low levels of
serum melatonin. The effect is so strong that even family members of autistic
children, even those not themselves diagnosed with autism or Aspergers, have
been shown to have abnormally depressed melatonin levels. More information:
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2199264/>

Melatonin is one of the biggest chemical regulators of the sleep cycle in
humans, and increased melatonin at night has been shown experimentally to
reduce the time of sleep onset. I'm not aware of any studies comparing the
effect size between autistic/Aspergers patients and healthy controls, but it
stands to reason that the former group might stand more to gain.

I've personally experienced _tremendous_ benefit in my sleep patterns from
taking melatonin. I spent my entire teenage life showing up to classes in a
sleep-deprived haze because I wasn't aware of this. Hopefully I can save
someone else from that.

Now, for the catch: We have no idea why Aspergers symptoms are associated with
reduced melatonin synthesis. Melatonin is a regulator of neural plasticity
during fetal and early childhood brain development. Melatonin is synthesized
from serotonin, and serotonin levels at various stages of development are
drastically different in autistics/Aspergers compared to healthy children. We
don't know to what extent these are causes or effects of autistic symptoms,
and what effect there might be on development from long-term melatonin
supplementation during early childhood. However, in healthy adults, the safety
of long-term melatonin use, even at doses many _dozens_ of times higher than
the maximum clinically effective dose, has been shown to be completely safe.
How you generalize from that is up to you.

~~~
Mz
_I've personally experienced tremendous benefit in my sleep patterns from
taking melatonin._

I did better with taking co-q-10 in the morning. For a long time, I couldn't
tolerate melatonin. I would feel like I wasn't fully awake for up to three
days after taking it. When my health improved enough that I could tolerate it,
I still needed co-q-10 in the morning to feel fully awake.

Co-q-10 is the co-enzyme of melatonin and wakes your brain up in the morning.
It is made in the body in a complex (17 step?) process. A bottleneck at any
stage can leave you deficient, so many people are deficient. If you take
co-q-10 in the morning, your body will produce a small melatonin spike about
12 or so hours later. If you take melatonin, it does not increase production
of co-q-10. So taking co-q-10 can do a lot more in terms of healing both sides
of waking/sleeping cycle of the brain chemistry. It is also gentler/subtler
than melatonin.

Lots of people use melatonin to good effect, so I'm not trying to knock it.
Just trying to expand on the topic of nutritional supplements and brain
chemistry wrt the waking/sleeping cycle. Thanks for bringing this up. :-)

~~~
nazgulnarsil
I'm betting on a placebo effect of the melatonin. taken in pill form it is
only effective for a few hours.

~~~
kowen
It's hardly a placebo effect if it has an effect for a few hours.

I've struggled with insomnia my whole life. If I'm able to fall asleep in the
first place, I'm usually able to stay asleep long enough to get rested.

I only need the effect for about an hour, maybe 90 minutes. Long enough to
fall asleep.

~~~
angusgr
I think the comment refers to the placebo affect for "I would feel like I
wasn't fully awake for up to three days after taking it."

~~~
kowen
Ah, right! Rereading the thread, that seems the more likely interpretation.

------
kiba
High school students like me, unfortunately do not have means to get the
necessary good sleep that everyone needs.

The school system will continue to impose this miserable condition on us.

~~~
encoderer
While some studies have indicated that adolecents would benefit from starting
classes later in the day, I don't believe it's the silver bullet that you
believe it is.

I'm 27, and I quoted that when I was in High School. But the truth is, I
seldom was wound-down and in bed by 9 or 10 PM. I was irresponsible with my
bed time. All my friends were the same.

I think you would be surprised at how much of the "misery" you and your peers
are self-imposing. Do your homework when you get home, skip the Daily Show,
shut off the computer by 9PM, and in bed by 10. I understand you'll think
"easier said than done" but if you're truly miserable, take some
responsibility for it!

~~~
mechanical_fish
_I think you would be surprised at how much of the "misery" you and your peers
are self-imposing._

It's a pity the article is so long, because otherwise you might have
encountered this sentence before composing a reply:

 _It won't be enough to demand an early hour for going to bed. If you ban the
late evening Internet surfing, you will just swap a dose of evening education
for an idle tossing and turning in bed._

You can't necessarily change your biological clock by an effort of will, even
if you know exactly what you are doing -- which few people do. Your biological
clock has a "mind" of its own. No matter how much "responsibility" you take
for your schedule, and how much intelligence and full-spectrum lighting you
apply to the problem, you may find yourself unable to be optimally awake at
7am. Especially if you are a teenager.

Meanwhile, I'm afraid that everything about this reply rubs me the wrong way.
It is a textbook example of its kind [1], and it illustrates why broken
designs persist for decade upon decade. School day starts too early for the
typical young person's biological clock? We survived it, so should you! Third-
shift workers causing accidents at 3am? Your grandpa worked third shift and
survived with 80% of his fingers intact; so should you! Medical interns forced
to work continuous shifts of 24 hours or more, even though studies have shown
that they therefore make avoidable errors that harm patients? We survived it,
so should you!

It's so much easier to instruct the victim on coping techniques than it is to
contemplate changing the system that it becomes a reflex: You poke an adult,
and out pops a sanctimonious lecture.

\---

[1] The world would be a better place if every text editor came with an alarm
that rang every time someone typed the word _peers_. ("Hi! Microsoft Word has
noticed that you sound just like your mom! Can Clippy help you with that?")

~~~
encoderer
The trouble I see here is you're equating a propensity for high school kids to
push the envelope on _everything_ with medical residents and shift workers.

Sanctimonious lecturing? I think you need more time in the field. Stop by any
house with kids on a Friday night about 2300 and you'll see kids and
adolescents alike dozing off, barely able to keep their heads up. When bed is
suggested they sit up a little straighter and protest "I'm not tired."

What you missed in my original post (somehow, it was only a paragraph) is that
I spent 4 years in high school quoting these sleep studies. Just like I spent
4 years quoting the Tinker decision, and debating Hazelwood.

But the truth is that staying out past curfew and putting my homework off
until the last possible second and staying up to watch Conan and the Daily
Show had absolutely NOTHING to do with my "biological clock." It was me,
dozing off, and snapping to, my backbone stiff, saying "I'm ok, i'm not
tired."

~~~
jacobolus
> _... I spent 4 years in high school quoting these sleep studies. Just like I
> spent 4 years quoting the Tinker decision, and debating Hazelwood._

What do Tinker/Hazelwood have to do with sleep? Or are you suggesting that
siding with the Warren court decision was some kind of youthful indiscretion
that thankfully the Rehnquist court backed off on? Though I was never a writer
for a high school newspaper, I’m damn glad in CA we have some legitimate
protection for student journalists and other student speech.

> _But the truth is that staying out past curfew and putting my homework off
> [...] had absolutely NOTHING to do with my "biological clock."_

How can you possibly assert this? First, your suggestion that you personally
would have been fine if you’d just been less stubborn is counter-factual
speculation. But second, your assertion is flat out contradicted by careful
scientific research on the subject.

The whole “personal individual willpower is the only causal mechanism in the
world” fallacy so pervasive in our society is really distressing to me.

It leads to terrible policy aimed at blaming the suffering rather than trying
to help them achieve better outcomes. It’s great that poor diets; low-paying
menial jobs; living in physically dangerous gang neighborhoods; getting
stiffed out of insurance, pensions, etc. by unscrupulous businesses; deaths
from “reckless driving” on poorly planned streets; getting imprisoned for
decades for drug possession; getting straight-up scammed by not carefully
reading through all the fine print on contracts intentionally designed such
that their real implications differ substantially from the signatories’ mutual
understanding; becoming pregnant as a teenager; catching a venereal disease;
etc. etc. are subject to free will, and can be avoided by the smart and
careful. But while that’s good advice for individuals trying to navigate the
society – “do your work”, “get enough sleep and exercise”, “eat right”, “read
the fine print” – it’s atrocious policy, because it ignores cognitive biases
and intuitions and focuses only on narrowly construed technical
responsibility. The result is inefficiency, poor health, unnecessary death,
&c. &c. And we “teach” people to be “personally responsible” by condemning
large numbers of them to bad outcomes, with nearly no evidence that any
learning actually occurs as a result.

Most importantly, it eliminates empathy for those in rough situations. After
all, if all outcomes are based mostly on personal merit, the down-on-their-
luck must just deserve what they get.

------
Mz
I actually like his apology. It resonates with how I have been living of late.
I don't expect to do things exactly like I this "forever", but if you have a
serious goal, it can be extremely effective (and even necessary) to cut out
distractions and refuse to participate in social expectations that you have
realized add little or nothing of value but take away a lot from you in terms
of time, energy, mental distraction and so forth.

I also like this bit from the article and very much identify with the
sentiment he expresses:

 _Bundled up in parkas with fur-trimmed hoods, strolling hand in mittened hand
along the edge of the Baltic Sea, off-season tourists from Germany stop
openmouthed when they see a tall, well-built, nearly naked man running up and
down the sand. "Kalt? Kalt?" one of them calls out. The man gives a polite but
vague answer, then turns and dives into the waves. After swimming back and
forth in the 40-degree water for a few minutes, he emerges from the surf and
jogs briefly along the shore. The wind is strong, but the man makes no move to
get dressed. Passersby continue to comment and stare. "This is one of the
reasons I prefer anonymity," he tells me in English. "You do something even
slightly out of the ordinary and it causes a sensation."_

------
oldgregg
I've wasted way too much time due to sleep issues.

My Miracle Mix:

\- Morning: _100m Provigil_ (ordered from an Indian pharmacy, naturally!)

\- Night: _Melatonin_

I don't take provigil on the weekends and sometimes skip a weekday so I don't
build up tolerance to it. Some people say it's like adderall without any nasty
side effects. Just do it and thank me later.

~~~
maneesh
any side effects? Stay up too late?

~~~
oldgregg
Nadda. Just don't take it in the afternoon or evening.

------
vijaydev
Is it not ironical if at 0130 hrs in the morning, i could not sleep and start
browsing hn and i get to see an article that tells me to get a good sleep and
life ?

~~~
vijaydev
0130 hrs IST it is ..

------
cool-RR
I hope someone will post a summary of this here.

~~~
epochwolf
It's hard to summarize. There is a lot of data and a lot of stuff to cover.
I'll grab a couple of parts for you and I hope others can summarize others for
you. :)

Why we need sleep:

Your brain needs sleep because your brain uses it to organized and optimized
the experiences of the day. Without sleep your brain is unable to support new
learning.

------
mroman
I have Asperger's and DSPS, and have noticed that taking Piracetam helps me
regulate my sleep cycle. On days when I take it, I begin to feel sleepy right
around my 16th hour of being awake. I have also noticed that when I have not
had decent sleep for a few days, taking Piracetam puts me to sleep within a
couple of hours of taking it.

~~~
jamii
I found exactly the same thing. I've had problems for years with roving sleep
cycles to the point that it seriously interfered with my life. After I started
taking piracetam it settled down within a week or two. I also wake up feeling
completely refreshed and ready to go. I haven't seen this effect documented
anywhere - it was completely unexpected.

~~~
mroman
It is good to know that you experienced this effect as well. I also have not
seen it documented anywhere. The stuff is simply great. I am in a third world
country (Colombia) and in a backwater town to boot, and Piracetam is both
readily available and inexpensive. What's more, it's a local generic brand,
and the quality is very decent.

