
Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist - prostoalex
https://qz.com/1301123/why-eight-hours-a-night-isnt-enough-according-to-a-leading-sleep-scientist/
======
mamurphy
Great article. Sleep is important. I liked that the article went out of its
way to dispel several of the "but four hours is fine" myths. Two of my
favorites:

>some people are short sleepers: You can do a test to find out if you have
genetic makeup that makes you a short sleeper. That’s rare, though, so by and
large, people are not getting enough sleep.

Blunt and effective. The outliers who really do fine with just a few hours are
just that: outliers. Congratulations if you're one of them, but your genetic
gift doesn't make the need for sleep any less real for the rest of us, and
talk about these outliers is mostly a distraction.

>I normally get around six to seven hours of sleep a night and feel fine. But
is that just because how I feel has become my normal operating mode, and I
could really be functioning at a higher level?

>Right. That’s like the fish and the fish bowl phenomenon: The fish doesn’t
know that he’s in the fishbowl, nonetheless that he’s in water. Also, when
you’re sleep deprived, research has shown that you’re really bad at being able
to tell that you’re sleep deprived.

To me that's a great analogy. Most people can grasp the concept of having a
problem and dealing/coping/adapting so long that they don't realize they have
the problem. It makes sense that this phenomenon can apply to sleep as well.

Intellectually, I know I need to consistently sleep longer. If only knowing
that and then acting on it were an easier gap to bridge (as I write this just
past midnight...).

~~~
cowmoo728
I used to habitually play bullet and blitz chess online, which confirmed the
necessity of sleep for me. After a 6 hour night of sleep I noticed my rating
would drop significantly the next day, and after several low sleep nights in a
row it would take days to recover completely. A graph of my bullet rating over
time clearly showed the periods of low sleep.

Most people don't have a measurement that objective. After I stopped playing
chess so much in college, I even caught myself trying to excuse my poor sleep
habits by telling myself I wasn't falling asleep in lectures and I could still
finish my homework.

~~~
tudorconstantin
I use online chess tactics problems to assess how good my brain is that day. I
estimate there's a 300+ ELO variance, perhaps even more, in my performance
between when I'm tired and when I'm rested.

300 ELO points between 2 players means that the higher rates one wins about 9
out of 10 games against the lower rates one. A huge difference in performance.

~~~
rock8y
First thing I do at my computer if I am groggy is to do chess tactics. Based
on the results, I take a break or continue with my actual work. I should
probably be looking at ELO as well, I just go by numbers at this time !

------
telesilla
If there is one thing in this world I'd like to see, it's the worker's right
for an afternoon nap: I really would become highly anxious if deprived long-
term of my siesta.

I've been lucky in most of my environments to find somewhere to close my eyes
and sleep for 10-15 minutes - I just need somewhere to lie down or recline and
something to block the light: if I'm tired enough sound doesn't bother me.
Some people tell me they just don't fall asleep quickly enough and don't
bother to take any time to rest, so it's good to see the scientist here
mention quiet-time and meditation as options.

~~~
throwawayqdhd
I freelanced through college and continued doing that after I graduated. Since
I was working from home, I was used to taking afternoon naps.

When I finally did join an office, I was surprised that afternoon napping
wasn't a thing.

My 20-30 minute naps completely re-energize me and drastically improve my
focus. And for some reason, I have extremely vivid dreams during these naps.

~~~
dingaling
I used to book 'meetings' on my calendar and sneak off to the toilet cubicles
for an afternoon nap. After a while I could even sleep through the noise of
Dyson hand-dryers.

It still disappoints me that napping at work is stigmatised.

~~~
2020-3030
All hail the 10-15 min toilet nap and locks on bathroom doors. Yes our country
as a whole underestimates and stigmatizes healthy sleep patterns. People and
companies which recognize the great benefits of short mid-day brain
resets/toxin flushes (naps) are excellent but uncommon. Two cups of coffee
won't accomplish what one 10-15 min afternoon nap achieves. It also matters
what and how much you eat for lunch because the wrong foods or amounts can
cause drowsiness even in well-rested people. I find that vegetarian meals make
me less sleepy than meat-heavy meals.

------
dschuetz
Sleep is a twilight zone where personal problems get either amplified so that
they become tangible or even get solved. He's right about one thing: it's not
only 8 hours minimum you need, you should care about the quality of sleep you
get. Especially that tendency of some people being completely K.O. and
unproductive after lunch is _a thing_ you should solve the right way.

Though, the facts that he's a _TED talks resident_ and that he's _selling
apps_ doesn't do much damage to his actual research, but it definitely
explains why he's "the most talked about sleep scientist". I must admit that I
don't trust a scientist who deliberately draws attention to their work instead
of being just _that good_ to generate buzz.

~~~
tmpb
> completely K.O. and unproductive after lunch

That's totally me. At that point I have no choice than to entirely skip lunch
to be productive in the afternoon. Even eating a little can make me
dramatically less productive.

> you should solve the right way.

What's the way to solve this?

Sleeping more helps me but only a bit and I still get K.O. after lunch.

I've researched this many times but never found any solution. Would love so
much to fix that.

Thanks!

~~~
mlrtime
Same here, I get so tired after lunch. I did a full blood panel and nothing
abnormal. I eat low carb, healthy lunches and I still get tired. The only
thing that helps is a strong coffee or a nap.

------
quickpost
In addition to this, the JRE podcast with Matthew Walker has tons of
fascinating insights into sleep (and how essential it is for health,
longevity, etc.). Highly recommend just about everyone listen to it:

Joe Rogan Experience #1109 - Matthew Walker
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig)

~~~
sk1pper
The bit that really stuck with me from this podcast was how overworked some
medical professionals are, especially those in residency. Which ends up
contributing to them making mistakes with their patients, including deadly
ones. Shift work is already extremely taxing on the human body, on top of the
large amounts of stress nurses and doctors are already under; but on top of
_that_ , we're working the newbies 80 hours a week!?

According to Matthew Walker, this phenomenon started with one influential guy
who thought it was important for the residents to "prove themselves" by
working these insane hours, and it's just kind of stuck since then. Scary
stuff, and basically no reason for it.

~~~
perilunar
Medical residents do stupid work hours, and medicine is the one profession
ought to know better. Pilots and truck drivers are legally restricted in the
number of hours they can work, and doctors should be also. We know the effects
of sleep deprivation, but doctors are 'special'.

There is no reason for it that I can see, apart from a general shortage of
cheap, early-career doctors, due to their stupid guild-like methods of
limiting inputs. That and their stupid machismo of proving themselves, as you
say.

~~~
prostoalex
> William Halsted, the first chief of surgery at Johns Hopkins in the 1890s
> and a founder of modern medical training, required his residents to be on
> call 362 days a year (only later was it revealed that _Halsted fueled his
> manic work ethic with cocaine_ ), and for the next 100 years the attitude of
> the medical establishment was more or less the same.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/magazine/the-phantom-
mena...](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/magazine/the-phantom-menace-of-
sleep-deprived-doctors.html)

------
vanderZwan
> There’s this new finding where playing sounds at a certain frequency when
> your brain is in deep sleep actually increases the percentage of time spent
> in deep sleep. We’re publishing this paper in Society for Neuroscience
> Conference in a couple of weeks, and it’s basically what my TED talk is
> about. Playing these pulses at the same frequency as your deep-sleep
> brainwaves primes more deep sleep. Scientifically speaking, it’s a similar
> process as transcranial direct-current stimulation, except it doesn’t use
> electricity—just sound. Sound gets transmitted into electricity because
> you’re picking up on the auditory cortex while you’re sleeping.

I've tried the open source app Binaural Beats[0] a few days ago, mainly just
as a noise blocker, but I was surprised to notice it working quite well with
getting me into a deep sleep too. I don't know if it uses these frequencies
though.

[0]
[https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.binauralbeat...](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.binauralbeats/)

~~~
jambutters
Do you use phone speaker or sleep with headphones?

~~~
e40
If headphones, I'd be curious which ones. All the ones I've tried give me a
headache after a few hours.

~~~
freehunter
I've slept with LG Tone headphones as well as Beats X. I'd say the LG Tone was
more comfortable to sleep with, since the connection to the neck part is very
thin and moves around easily, and the neck part is free to move around loosely
as you move. It never seems to get in the way, and the buds aren't ripped out.
The BeatsX had a bigger problem with their stiffer neck part, if I moved
they'd be pulled from my ears. Plus their at-best 8 hour battery life doesn't
always last a full night, so I've been woken up by the sudden lack of white
noise.

Then again, when the Tone dies, it screams "LOW BATTERY PLEASE CHARGE NOW" at
you over and over again, which might wake you up :)

------
graeme
Small quibble: the headline should be "in bed for more than eight hours"

The expert says 8.5 hours in bed (trying to sleep) to sleep 8, since we don't
sleep the whole time.

So, if you have an accurate sleep tracker, "8" is still the number.

~~~
Izkata
Was ready to say the same.

Over 8 hours of sleep starts reaching into the "hell no" territory for me,
typically resulting in a headache all day. But I'm usually in bed before then,
so it does work out much closer to what I actually go for.

------
rosstex
>A professor I collaborate with at Penn State named Orfeu Buxton says that 8.5
hours of sleep is the new eight hours. In order to get a healthy eight hours
of sleep, which is the amount that many people need, you need to be in bed for
8.5 hours.

So, the title is misleading. It means you should _lie in bed_ for 8.5 hours in
order to actually be asleep for 8 hours.

That said, this article has plenty of good insight and is well-written.

~~~
coldtea
> _So, the title is misleading. It means you should lie in bed for 8.5 hours
> in order to actually be asleep for 8 hours._

No, the title is not misleading.

Sleep is not just the time you're actually asleep. It's the whole time that
you're in bed.

If you are in bed for only 8 hours a night, do you account for the times you
woke up mid-sleep and went to have a piss, for example?

~~~
rosstex
Ah, I assumed that was obvious.

------
f_allwein
> Bose just released an earbud that you can sleep with, for example

Wait, what? These are 249.95$. Why not just use simple earplugs? In Germany,
we have Ohropax, made from wax, which sell for less than 3€ for a set of 12:
[http://www.ohropax.de/en.html](http://www.ohropax.de/en.html)

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Because earplugs also tune out the sounds of an alarm clock. This isn't an
issue if I never have to wake before 11 or noon. A 6am waking time means I
continually run the risk of simply not hearing the alarm, even with good
sleeping habits and not sleeping in on weekends.

Of course, most of the earbuds that say they are designed for sleep only hold
a charge for an average of 6 hours, and at the most 8. These actually have 16
hours, but unfortunately it seems they won't stream music instead of their
pre-set sounds.

~~~
tinco
I've used Ohropax for the past couple of years, and they're absolutely
amazing. None of the regular earplugs fit my ears, or are uncomfortable.
Ohropax is just bees wax I think, and there's other brands that work just as
well.

I also use an alarm if I have work to show up for, and I've never missed the
alarm, the alarms on my phone are annoying as hell and never fail to wake me.

If you're so tired that you fall back asleep after your alarm, then you've
messed up, and you probably were so tired that you could've fallen asleep
without the earplugs anyway. I know I had many of those mornings during
school/university.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
mornings for me is akin to most folks trying to work a late shift. I'm fine if
I have an adequately late waking time: 11 is pretty natural. I can do 9 with
good sleep. 6am? My actual quality of sleep suffers.

And I think you misunderstand: I don't fall back asleep. I fail to hear the
alarm at all. Or the phone. While we were dating, my now spouse called me to
wake me up since he realized he didn't see me online. I did wake... on the
17th phone call. This simply happens with early wakings, regardless of sleep
hygiene.

------
forapurpose
Does anyone know much about the source, Daniel Gartenberg? The credentials in
the article are not great for a "leading" scientist, but perhaps others know
more:

"assistant adjunct professor ... at Penn State"

"one of the world’s _most-talked-about_ sleep scientist" (emphasis added) -
most talked about?

"entrepreneur who has launched several cognitive-behavioral-therapy apps"

~~~
coldtea
There's this place called Google, and it's literally a click on his name away:

[http://danielgartenberg.com/resume/](http://danielgartenberg.com/resume/)

[http://danielgartenberg.com/publications/](http://danielgartenberg.com/publications/)

[http://danielgartenberg.com/patents/](http://danielgartenberg.com/patents/)

> _" assistant adjunct professor ... at Penn State" (...) "one of the world’s
> most-talked-about sleep scientist" (emphasis added) - most talked about?
> (...) "entrepreneur who has launched several cognitive-behavioral-therapy
> apps"_

Basically: "someone we saw at TED and which has several videos of him
attempting a career as a popularizer".

------
anxiousguy
I believe I'm one of the "short sleepers" they mention in the article. I've
bought wirstband mostly to track my sleep patterns. Even though article says
that devices like fitbit are not accurate enough in tracking different phases
of sleep, my goal was largley to see how much time do I spend sleeping. In the
last four months, I average out at 6,1hrs.

90% of the time I will wake up before the alarm and will sleep the same amount
of time over the weekends, when I usually don't go to bed as early as I do
during the working part of the week. The thing that I constantly think about
is - could I benefit from those 2 extra hours to get to that magic number 8? I
would really like to try it, but I keep waking up after 6 hrs. :)

I've started to think it's because of not so healthy lifestile - no exerxice,
sub optimal diet, irregular bed time. Is it possible that my poor lifestyle
results in me waking up after only 6 hrs of sleep and while feeling OK (it
became normal to me), I could feel better if I slept longer? That was always
something I pondered about. How to know if you really are a short sleeper, or
you're just a person that gets by with sleeping less than recommended while
not feeling as good as they could if they slept longer?

~~~
scrollaway
You mention you bought a wristband. Tracking my sleep is one of those things I
want to start doing. Do you have any recommendations?

I don't particularly want to remember to put it on every night. I know Nokia
launched a mattress pad recently
([https://health.nokia.com/gr/en/sleep](https://health.nokia.com/gr/en/sleep))
but I'm concerned about how reliable this is if I don't sleep exactly on top
of it. (Plus I don't know how this could actually tell anything like sleep
cycles and what not, or even detect that I'm asleep vs. watching TV in bed)

~~~
jfim
Not the parent, but I've been using the Oura ring
([https://ouraring.com/](https://ouraring.com/)) for almost a year and it
works very well for sleep tracking. It's a sleep tracker above all, and has
rather limited exercise tracking. It tracks resting heart rate, sleep phases,
body temperature, and breathing. There's also an API to download data from
their cloud service, although I haven't tried it.

I haven't yet received the newer model, but it seems to solve the issue of
limited battery life in the previous model and the ring is also significantly
smaller.

~~~
scrollaway
Woah, that's cool. I'll try it out, thanks for the pointer!

------
mancerayder
I'm jealous of folks who have the luxury of being able to have their bodies
let them sleep 8 or more hours. I'm not sitting there with a phone next to my
pillow, and I have no problems falling asleep. But I always wake up too early,
before the alarm, meaning I can't get more than 6.5-7.5 hours because my body
is too sensitive to light, noise and everything else: I'm cursed genetically
as a light sleeper.

Worst part is, I'm in an unsympathetic world of non-light sleepers who play
music, stomp around at odd hours, etc.

~~~
tbmh
You should try earplugs and/or sleeping masks. They both take a little getting
used to but they will definitely improve your sleep quality if external
stimulation is your main problem.

~~~
mancerayder
I use earplugs almost every night. Earplugs don't block thumping from bass
music or footsteps or slamming doors unfortunately. :-(

~~~
asfasgasg
I live in Manhattan next to an intersection where people are beeping all night
long. White noise machine on = I don't hear anything.

------
Nomentatus
The article understates how important pure darkness is, just a crack of light
under a door can whack lab animals' melatonin levels. Also for constant
biphasic sleep (which you want) 8.5 hrs isn't really enough, certainly not
year 'round (I do skimp a bit during summer, near equinox.)

------
Wowfunhappy
But is it worth the time?

I've seen the studies showing how people who get more sleep live longer, but I
always wonder, if you were measuring "total number of waking hours lived",
would they come out to more or less equal?

(My curiosity has never been strong enough to make me actually do the
calculation.)

~~~
_Tev
From my experience* yes, it is worth it. But not in "total number of waking
hours lived", but in performance in those waking hours - every hour cut from
my optimal 8-8.5h sleep reduces my awareness / perf at work / social skills by
10% or more.

* I worked both in menial jobs and as a programmer, both with periods of short & long sleep.

EDIT: I can of course force myself to perform at higher level even with
shorter sleep, but that very often leads to need for even longer sleep or
health issues.

------
limezeister
What if one always finds oneself waking up spontaneously, in a moderately
alert state, after about 5-6 hours' sleep and can then only achieve fitful,
unrefreshing sleep for the rest of the night?

In my youth, in the absence of an alarm, I would consistently get 8-9 hours of
deep, unbroken sleep, but since my early 20s, I've found it impossible to get
more than about six hours in one block. If I do succeed in returning to sleep
after a premature awakening, I'll wake up again no more than 30 minutes later
from what feels like a very non-restorative light sleep.

Schedule permitting, what seems to work best for me is a biphasic routine
where the bulk of my sleep, typically about 5-6 hours, is had at night
together with a short siesta in the afternoon, usually after lunch.

~~~
trophycase
How is your exercise? Are you limiting your intake of artificial light?

~~~
limezeister
I've experimented with all the commonly suggested stuff: blue-light blocking,
sublingual melatonin (dosed appropriately and timed according to the phase
response curve), exercise, meditation, etc., simultaneously and in isolation,
and nothing extended my sleep significantly.

I suspect if I went through a grueling few weeks of sleep restriction, I would
eventually see an increase in the duration of my sleep, but I'm content for
now to stick with my biphasic protocol.

------
sleepysheep
I suffer from nocturia (diagnosed as non pathological after many rounds of
tests all turning up negative).

In a typical night I get five hours max of contiguous sleep and have started
sleeping (by that I mean the in bed duration) nine to ten hours as an attempt
to compensate for not being able to stay asleep.

I've always been curious about the difference between time spent in bed and
actual time in deep sleep and their equivalence.

Also for anyone with an Android phone that is interested in tracking sleep the
app Sleep As Android is really
great.[https://sleep.urbandroid.org/](https://sleep.urbandroid.org/)

------
wilkystyle
I think we are only beginning to understand the importance of a good night's
sleep.

I just recently listened to a fantastic episode of the Kevin Rose podcast
featuring sleep scientist Matthew Walker [0], and found it very enlightening.

[0] [https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/matthew-
walker](https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/matthew-walker)

------
T-Winsnes
>Jobs used to be very manual, but as jobs are becoming more and more
cognitive, I think caring for your cognition is going to become increasingly
important for the work.

That's an interesting point, it will become less about not sitting in the same
position for a long period of time, and more about making sure you don't
strain your brain

~~~
hago1234
your muscles wont grow and your body goes kaput if you sleep insufficiently
and do physical labor.

~~~
coldtea
Employees didn't care about that though, as they could get another cheap hired
hand to do your work went you went kaput. Plus it didn't take much clarity or
muscle to do most factory, farm etc work, just tedious persistence -- so you
could be overtired all the time and they would still get productive work out
of you.

With mental work it's not so simple (e.g. there are bigger costs in training
you and in employee churn).

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> Lightsabers?

>> Zeitgebers! It’s this weird German word. There’s a lot of cool words in
sleep: like the photo receptors control the release of melatonin by sending
signals to the suprachiasmatic nucleus, just like
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

See kids? Science is this really cool thing with all those cool words. And
stuff.

Science!

------
givan
It's about quality not quantity.

"You people do not sleep correctly ..."
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIxNgQ-
CwPo&t=65](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIxNgQ-CwPo&t=65)

------
bsenftner
I must be a genetic short sleeper: 4 hours and I'm awake, as in my eyes won't
stay shut. 5 hours and I'm groggy. Been this way for quite a while, and I used
to stress about it, but now I just get up and get things done. I do take a nap
here and there, but maybe once a month? However, I am somewhat of a health
nut, crunches and core stuff during compiles, and a hard cardio mid afternoon.
All this while coding 10 to 14 hours a day. Working from home, no commute, and
a boss 12 time zones away, I've been able to get pretty extreme because I
really like my work.

------
mlrtime
Has anyone seen research into letting your body sleep as long as it wants by
not setting an alarm? I don't set an alarm anymore and reason that my body
will wake up when it wants to. However doctors have told me that just because
I don't "artificially" wake up, I might not be getting enough sleep.

~~~
dagw
_my body will wake up when it wants to._

That only works if you can completely control your external environment. Even
when I don't set an alarm clock I often wake up at least partially due to
external light/noise/temperature.

------
shabbyrobe
I wonder if there are any studies of the effect on the quality and quantity of
people's sleep and their general wellbeing since this recent surge of "sleep
shaming" in the press started.

It's always the same thing: "You are not sleeping in exactly this way and you
should feel bad." Nope, sorry. I don't.

~~~
coldtea
> _It 's always the same thing: "You are not sleeping in exactly this way and
> you should feel bad." Nope, sorry. I don't._

The article already mentions that sleep deprived people, up to a certain point
at least, don't feel bad.

Their inferior performance and clarity becomes their "new normal" \-- like
people who have shortsightedness and don't know it, and think everybody just
sees that way.

------
taeric
This headline couldn't have been worse. People always overstate the importance
of what they study. Pretty much period.

Obviously doesn't mean there isn't something to this; but "topic x is
something everyone neglects, according to person studying x" is enough to set
me on defensive. Hard.

------
jonnytran
"You actually have genes that dictate whether you’re a morning person or an
evening person."

The workplace constantly discriminates against night owls. How long will it
take for cultures to finally catch up in this respect?

------
hoodwink
Is there some way I can test if I have this short sleeper gene? I have a hard
time sleeping more than 5 to 6 hours and these articles all make me think I’m
going to die early, lose memories, and every other affliction possible.

~~~
syassami
check 23andme

------
tinco
Ever since my teens I considered sleep the most difficult thing in my life,
and the most detrimental to my health. For me falling asleep has been a
difficult assignment that usually takes 1-3 hours. It's been a negative
feedback loop where when I am tired I lose discipline and stay awake longer,
which makes me even more tired the next day, which makes me stay awake even
longer. It makes no sense at all and frequently throws me in bouts of
grogginess that last days.

It's been that way for more than ten years now, and I've read and talked a lot
about sleeping but nothing ever made me get rid of this problem of not being
able to fall asleep. A couple of weeks ago however I read two HN articles that
together seem to have finally given me some grip on falling asleep more
quickly (i.e. in less than 1 hour).

Reading back that last paragraph makes me feel like I'm about to introduce a
"doctors hate this one trick" product.. Anyway, the first article is the one
about WW2 pilots having to fall asleep in two minutes:

[https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fall-asleep-
fast/](https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fall-asleep-fast/)

The key takeaway from that is kind of obvious, but it's nice to be made
conscious of it, and that is that it's important to _actively_ make yourself
relax. Relax both your muscles, and your mind.

I can't seem to find the second article, maybe it didn't have sleep in the
title or something, but it was the missing link for me. The article was a
little bit controversial because it had a linkbaity title implying sleep is
not important. The main point of that article was that since stress and
stressful thinking inhibits sleep, you sleep better if you don't worry about
sleeping. It's the old ice bear problem, you have to sleep, but you're not
allowed to think about having to sleep.

I combined those two articles into a simple strategy that seems to be fairly
succesful so far. First step is to get into a position where all my limbs are
relaxed, and I actively relax my body.

The next step is to stop my mind from racing through the realization and
acceptation that the most important thing right now is to sleep. That means
that my ideas are unimportant, that my organization of tomorrows tasks are
unimportant, that sudden realizations are unimportant, that nothing matters,
not even falling asleep. I kill any brain activity with "it doesn't matter",
almost as a mantra. When something pops up in my brain, I force myself to
think "it doesn't matter" and cease working on the idea.

Maybe it sounds a bit silly, but I think it might help someone in the same
situation as me. I think I let myself feel my thoughts were important for too
long. I really enjoy thinking about how to do things, and apparently it's
become a point of discipline to make myself stop thinking about things.

------
beeforpork
> ...misconceptions... Even that eating cheese before snoozing causes
> nightmares.

Stilton definitely does cause weird dreams -- the fungus in it is
psychoactive, I am absolutely sure of it.

~~~
tonyarkles
Man... some Rarebit an hour or two before going to bed (eggs, cheese, mustard,
Worcestershire and a couple other spices)... that is a guaranteed way for me
to have totally messed up dreams. They’re generally not nightmares so much as
super vivid and weird.

At least I’m not the only one:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_of_the_Rarebit_Fiend](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_of_the_Rarebit_Fiend)

------
werber
I never use an alarm clock and rarely sleep more than six hours. I've been
trying to sleep eight for as long as I can remember and it never seems to
happen

------
pendenthistory
How someone with no sleep issues can choose to sleep less than 8 hours is
beyond me. I would be in heaven if I could consistently pull off more than 8
hours.

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gh1
The article claims that catching up on sleep during the weekend doesn't work.
This is most likely wrong information, as shown in this very recent study [0].

[0]
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jsr.12712](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jsr.12712)

~~~
101km
As far as I can tell your linked study says that "possibly, long weekend sleep
may compensate for short weekday sleep" in terms of _mortality_ but says
nothing about qualify of life.

You can catchup/reset but the days you don't sleep enough you'll do worse.

~~~
gh1
Yes, different priorities lead to different results. If you are looking at
life satisfaction, then 8 hours a day is claimed to be optimal [0].

[0]
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12232-016-0256-1](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12232-016-0256-1)

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lostmsu
Where can we get the actual research paper?

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jaimex2
I get along just fine on 6.

~~~
coldtea
Probably missed the part of the interview where they explained that people
that get less sleep become less able to tell whether they're sleep deprived or
not.

Their new, less than perfect, functioning, becomes "the new normal".

(That, or you're one of the outliers with the genes for "short sleeping").

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sus_007
Previously Discussed:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17299491](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17299491)

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rdiddly
Zeitgeber isn't "like totally this weird German word OMG." (Foreign languages
aren't, as a rule, inherently super fucked up just because you don't speak
them.) It just means "time-giver" \- a cue (like the sunrise) that tells your
body what time it is.

~~~
coldtea
> _Foreign languages aren 't, as a rule, inherently super fucked up just
> because you don't speak them_

No, but German kinda is. It almost always sounds like someone in authority is
screaming at you :)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBIMvXpw0t0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBIMvXpw0t0)

~~~
thg
Speaking as a German here, the German words in that video were pronounced that
way for the sole purpose to ridicule our language. No German would ever
pronounce them like that.

Not to mention that the supposedly German in that video looks like a Bavarian
and believe me here, Bavarians are not Germans and they're not representative
of Germany as a whole. Officially and geographically they are, but in reality
the Free State of Bavaria is more like its own nation with its own language
and culture. They even have their own political party, the CSU, that only
campaigns in Bavaria.

~~~
PuffinBlue
The video is just an exaggeration, a caricature, of an existing feature. There
is a grain of truth behind it, particularly 'High German', but the video
definitely exaggerates it. If anything, as an outsider, Bavarian and Low
German sound much softer.

I lived in Germany for about 5 years (still go back at least once a year) but
mostly always spoke English for the job, though obviously I was surrounded by
the language. Germanic languages (English included) do contain quite a lot
more 'sharp' sounds and generally are spoken in a deeper register than
romantic languages.

Mongrel languages like English contain characteristics of both, though I'd say
English sounds way more like Low German to me.

Going from memory - in 'High German' sharper sounds like 'echt', 'icht',
gutteral 'um', 'zee', ' tzim', gutteral 'uct', 'acht', gutteral 'tur',
gutteral 'ch' and 'schmeh' are just a few common examples that are often
spoken with emphasised or strong pronunciation even in northern Germany (where
I worked but actually now spend more time in Bavaria) and can easily given an
impression of a 'harsher' tone to the language to us outsiders. I certainly
remember them standing out enough to recall them now.

I guess this comes from the strong pronunciation of each syllable in German,
which certainly seems to be more common than something like French or Italian
where sounds can be rolled together.

I do agree with you though that emphasis can change the characteristic of the
language. To use an example from English, a Glaswegian accent sounds very
aggressive. Yet, listen to someone from Aberdeenshire or parts of Wales and
English becomes quite mellifluous. Talk to someone from Northern Ireland and
you might become concerned they're suicidal such is the cadence and tone of
the language.

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pokemongoaway
"What I study is important and everyone else should value it more too"

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hago1234
man, do i have a funny...

despite being a genius i just couldn't do skool. Eventually i concluded that
the topics just bored me. It just now struck me that they bored me because i
barely slept before school. in the weekends i would sleep 14 hours then did
things mentally that blew my own mind. to borrow an example from the
discussion: i could look at a chessboard and explore openings without moving a
piece, all the way to the end game then the next variation. there was this
huge inconsistency with my one ear in other ear out school performance.

~~~
fouc
I've always felt there was a dramatic difference in my mental
performance/IQ/genius-level thinking when I got a full 9 hours of sleep versus
just 7-8 hours. Very noticeable in school or the early years of work.

