
The myth of the eight-hour sleep - gps408
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783
======
VonLipwig
I am really into 'do what works for you'. You may find that that sleeping in
two 4 hour blocks changes your life. You feel alive!

Alternatively you may find yourself more tired. Personally I like sleeping 8-9
hours a night. I find myself fairly alert a few minutes after I wake up and I
can start my day. It certainly doesn't feel 'unnatural' to me.

I am also a big fan of sleeping when other people sleep so I can enjoy time
with friends and family. Unusual sleep patterns typically mean missing out on
some of this time.

~~~
jfoldi
You don't feel like you over slept after 9 hours of sleep?

Either way I have to agree with doing what works for you. I always made an
attempt to sleep a full 8 hours and failed. I get by on 4-5 hours of sleep a
night and feel fine!

~~~
nostrademons
I find my acceptable waking points occur in 1.5 hour sleep cycles, and how
many I need depends on how mentally taxing the stuff I'm working on is. For
ordinary work, stuff I know how to do fairly well already, I need 8 hours. If
I'm learning something new or putting in long hours that require
concentration, I'll need 9.5 hours. If I'm thrown into a completely new
situation - say, I need to decide the architecture of my startup and learn 3-4
new frameworks all at once, or I've just moved cross-country and started a new
job - I'll need 11 hours. I can also function on 6.5 hours but feel pretty
crummy, and there's a noticeable performance penalty for anything that
requires concentration (math, computer programming, etc). On 4 hours of sleep,
I'm a zombie - I do okay with everyday tasks and social interaction (with
people I know), but can't really learn anything new and retain it. Curiously,
I _feel_ better on 4 hours of sleep than on 6.5, 9.5, or 11 - I'm more alive
and less groggy, I just notice that my performance on external measures
declines.

I recall in the 2010 there were a bunch of athletes that all said the secret
to their success - besides training hard - was getting 9 hours of sleep at
night. IIRC both Sasha Cohen and Shaun White mentioned it.

I think I'd also read brain research that REM sleep (which tends to be back-
loaded towards the end of the night) is when your brain converts experiences
from that day from short-term memory into long-term skillsets. That'd be
consistent with my experience that more mentally demanding tasks require more
sleep, and the experience of those Olympic athletes, and that I don't really
suffer a short-term penalty from lack of sleep, it's more a long-term problem.

~~~
swah
But how do you do this? You wake up and go to sleep again and again? I wake up
naturally after 7 or 8 hours, would be kinda hard for me to sleep 11.5 hours.

~~~
nostrademons
I find that I'll often come up to a point of half-consciousness at about
8/9.5/11 hours, but as long as I don't sit up or get out of bed or start
checking my e-mail on my phone, it's pretty easy to fall back asleep.

Whether I want to depends on how much mental activity I've been doing; I'm far
more likely to think "That was a nice dream, I don't wanna get out of bed yet"
if I've got a thorny challenging problem in my head than if I'm like "Gotta
get into work and start coding."

~~~
sycren
I think it also depends how much light you have in the room. I think you would
find it easier to sleep longer if the room was still dark after 8 hours.

------
Xurinos
There is only one study in this article, and it involves how a group of people
adapted to a 14-hour sleep pattern. Other than that, there are no studies of
importance here, nothing that confirms concretely that this kind of segmented
sleep is effective for humans. It is based on historical hearsay but cannot
make a prescriptive judgment. The evidence purely anecdotal. Please be careful
in reading things like this that you do not immediately form a blind belief or
justification.

~~~
hessenwolf
Also, don't Spanish people and sailors sleep in segmented blocks? Not exactly
newsworthy, then.

~~~
kmfrk
Link to relevant article for people who are interested:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siesta>.

~~~
GFischer
Siesta (midday nap) is very common in Bolivia, Mexico and other Latin American
countries, but I'd hesitate to call it segmented sleep.

~~~
yariang
Not to detract from your main point, but I don't think Siesta is very common
in Mexico and most other Latin American countries. I was born in Cuba, lived
there for five years and lived in Mexico for about three or four. I don't know
of a single person who regularly slept after noon.

In fact, I had an opportunity to live in Barcelona for three months and while
a lot of businesses do close down from noon to three, I got the impression
that people were not using that time to sleep, and that the idea of siesta in
Catalunya is on the decline.

~~~
GFischer
Ok, I did work for Bolivia for a time, and our Bolivian office closed for
siesta, as did our main customer (the La Paz city council).

Same for a more rural area of Mexico (Toluca surroundings), they also did
siestas there.

Googling a bit, acording to Time magazine, siesta was struck down in Mexico in
1944, so it's more a myth than reality now I guess (probably subsists in some
more rural areas).

[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,850501,00.h...](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,850501,00.html)

My impression was that siesta still persisted in some countries, but that it
tends to disappear as they conform to western work hours, and, as the Time
article states, it does involve four commutes instead of two, so it's not
workable in urban areas (btw, people who siesta still work the same amount of
hours, I'm not saying they work less).

------
mchafkin
The New York Times took on this topic a few years back in a very good article
that argued that the whole idea of the 8-hour sleep was invented by the
mattress industry (and other purveyors of sleep products), and that humans
don't need anywhere near 8 hours of continuous sleep.

Ironically, all of the industry's marketing makes people anxious about getting
enough sleep--and makes it harder for them to get to sleep (thus propagating
the need for more expensive mattresses and pillows.)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18sleep-t.html?pa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18sleep-t.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
preetkimausam
Western consumerism is going to change human lives for bad.

~~~
freehunter
Then again, it's already changed human lives for the better as well. You take
the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have... the facts
of life.

------
mmwako
Oh my God. This could change my life.

One lifelong problem I've got is sleeping. I have great trouble falling
asleep, and my sleeping patterns are very uncommon: some days I sleep 12
hours, some 5, but I'm usually very tired because of this. However, I used to
think I had a "gift" of being really creative and having my best ideas just
before sleep, just waking up, and during insomnia episodes. However, I've
discovered that many suffer from this phenomena (anyone here?). This article
could explain a lot!

~~~
Florin_Andrei
You're definitely not alone. Extraordinary insight and creativity, rich,
vivid, inspired and out-of-the-box thinking, are typical for "twilight"
states, when you're floating between waking state and sleep; not fully awaken
to the outside world, but not fully unconscious either. The only problem is
replicating and maintaining these states.

It is sometimes possible to remain fully aware in what is essentially a full-
on dream state. This is the best of both worlds, combining the rationality and
critical thinking of the waking state, with the unbound creativity of the
dream. It's like opening up the firehose of new ideas, while remaining in
control.

I am fairly certain that at least some of the unusual claims made by people
who practice meditation a lot (such as having access to a higher "wisdom",
etc.) are based on gaining a measure of control over these states. For this
reason, I think it's worth exploring some of the traditional meditation
systems, seen as empirical "brain hacking" techniques. I'd love to see more
research done in this field; some of Sam Harris' work is relevant.

~~~
mmwako
Thanks for the insight. As a matter of fact, I do meditate :) From my
experience (nothing scientific), to replicate these states, what you need is
to shut down your rational mind. You see, everyone has in there mind a small
voice going "hey, I like this lamp" or "mmm I forgot to do something". This
voice is your rational, conscious part of your "self". However, it's not your
entire "self". Meditation aims at quieting this "voice" (it's really hard, and
I'm not there yet). Once its quiet, you've got "space" for actual inspiration
to come in, and once this happens it's amazing, and can happen in many levels.
That's why meditation is a mystical experience. Mystical means that it is not
possible to communicate via ideas, just by personal experience. If you get
good at it you can actually control you emotional states and LISTEN to them,
bringing you a lot of wellbeing in many ways. (ok, I'm waaay off topic,
sorry).

~~~
lobotryas
That sounds pretty interesting. Any suggestion on books or ofher resources for
peope new to meditation? How did you get started with meditation?

~~~
mmwako
I'm far from being an expert, but I learned this type of meditation
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation> from a guy my mother
hired to teach all my family. There are many different meditations and
practices, and I've actually never read a book about just meditation but I
recommend books by Osho and Deepak Chopra (just google'em) to have insight on
Indian practices and philosophy. I would recommend to reach out any yoga
institution around town and ask. It's better to learn from someone than from a
book, and, as cliché as it sounds, if you are looking for it, the appropriate
practice will come to you.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _as cliché as it sounds, if you are looking for it, the appropriate practice
> will come to you_

Yeah. Keep looking for the right career / hobby / spiritual path / etc., and
it will likely come to you. Provided you are sincere and are actually looking.

I've a different bias, myself, but to each his own. The various buddhist
techniques also seem well suited for the western skeptics, since they
typically don't require adherence to any theology at all. You could practice
Zen and be a total agnostic or atheist. "Brain hacking" in its purest form.
YMMV.

I find Zen difficult, myself. Feels too... um... dry, for lack of a better
word. I require something that engages the emotional apparatus, and the
physical base, in a more active fashion. I guess this is like preferring
Python over Ruby over Perl over etc.etc.etc. Everyone's different.

~~~
mmwako
Haha I never heard anyone compare Zen to Python. Point granted, anyways.

------
chollida1
My brother in law is a "sleep scientist" at UPenn.

His recommendation is that sleep cycles typically happen in 4 hour intervals
so it's best to sleep 4 or 8 hours a night.

Getting up int he middle of a sleep cycle is often as bad as getting less than
4 hours of sleep.

And going to bed drunk is the worst for your sleep cycle.

~~~
refurb
I can believe this. One time I had 2 hours to sleep where I normally get 7 or
8 a night. I felt way worse the next day then if I hadn't slept at all. It was
like my fight or flight response went haywire and I felt jittery and anxious
all day.

------
etrain
Google ngram explorer has the term 'first sleep' peaking in use in English
Language circa 1870, before declining ~80% to present day.
<http://bit.ly/zt8AfD>

Tough to say if this was a 19th century phenomenon or was persistent through
history based on the structure of their corpus.

~~~
achille
It does not seem to be relevant, as it seems to track along with the general
use of the word 'sleep'

<http://i.imgur.com/4AtC1.png>

------
wisty
Isn't this the proverbial midnight? You went to sleep for about four hours,
then woke to have a midnight snack.

~~~
prodigal_erik
Makes me wonder whether we're now (mostly) sleeping through midnight because
eating more carbs acclimates us to extremes of blood sugar and insulin levels,
letting the midnight food craving pass unnoticed.

------
ericdykstra
It would have been nice if there were some actionable items. What are the best
segments? Is there something wrong if I can sleep 8 hours without trouble?

Does anyone have links to more research, perhaps with something a little more
actionable of a conclusion?

~~~
sodiumphosphate
The article suggests that it's natural to take two four hour sleep sessions,
intermediated by a one to two hour break.

I think that this bears out to what many of us are experiencing, and the idea
to consider is simply to stop worrying about it and embrace it. The 'second
sleep' is likely getting cut short, because we are not budgeting for the
break.

I consistently tend to find myself daydreaming during this part of the night,
anxious (as the article notes) about not sleeping. So personally, I'm just
going to continue doing this without worry, and _budget time for it_. Duh,
right? Why didn't I think of that before? It makes perfect sense now after
reading the article.

I may even go wild and actually get up and do things for an hour or two every
night, you know, for science.

Many thanks to the poster.

------
ericmoritz
I am going to try for a week or two. Having nearly 12 hours dedicated to work,
I only have 4 exhausted hours in the evenings for eating dinner, spending time
with my wife, kids and myself.

If my wife and I split our sleep cycle into two 4 hour periods we can better
spend my four hours of free time.

The waking period between my commute and first sleep could be spend eating
dinner, playing with the kids, and exercise. After my first sleep I can spend
time with my wife, and study with a rested mind. Theoretically it seems like a
good idea. We'll see how I cope after a week or two of trying.

------
mdkess
For a long time I've wanted to cut myself off and figure out a natural sleep
cycle. Normally (for better or for worse), I sleep 5-6 hours a night during
the week, then get 8-9 on the weekends, but that's definitely shaped to the
work week.

Also, maybe interesting - two 4 hour sleep cycle with a couple hours between
is what happens naturally to me after a night of too much drinking. I wonder
if there's some reason for that.

~~~
RobAtticus
I believe I've read that all the alcohol processing eventually makes your
blood sugar drop very low which is when you wake up (if you're like me, around
6-7am after going to bed at 3). Then of course, you're not very rested from
little sleep (and not very high quality sleep) so you probably go back down
for a few more hours.

~~~
jennyjitters
Maybe that could explain why the segmented sleep pattern was considered normal
way back when. I don't imagine there was a whole lot for people to do in the
evenings besides drink =)

------
andyjohnson0
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep> has some interesting links

------
agentultra
Sleep is weird. If I wake up in the middle of the night and go back to
sleep... I feel like ass the next day. If I get less than eight hours I'm
pretty tired the next day.

But science says that shouldn't happen!?

Not enough evidence to suggest that there's any kind of regularity to how
humans "should" sleep yet.

~~~
pavelkaroukin
It is even more weird than that. From my and some friend's experience: if you
sleep more then 9 hours straight, instead of usual 6-8 (this happens on
weekends usually), I feel really terrible in the morning - not being able to
get out of bed, but in the same time not being able to sleep. Finally when I
get out of bed - I feel really trashed for next several hours.

So it is not just less than 8 hours makes things worse, same applies to more
then 8 hours. So it is either I have to sleep 6-8 hours only, or I have
adapted to this schedule so well, that anything else makes me feel terrible.

On the other hand, I have handful examples of me traveling with few flight
changes, timezones changes, more than 30 hours in flights/airports, and after
getting to my destination I spent full 16 hours day working or meeting with
friends just fine. May be a little dizzy. And after consequent 8 hours sleep
night - feel great next day.

This suggest, that it (8 hours sleep requirement) is more than just a
something "hardwired" in to human's body...

Yes, sleep is weird.

~~~
just-a-rascal
Often when you wake up after sleeping longer than usual (say more than 9
hours) you feel tired because of dehydration. Your body loses a fair bit of
water while you sleep, so that might be reason you feel bad after a lie-in.

~~~
Arelius
I have anecdote to confirm this. I stay well hydrated, and drink more water
than most people I know, will generally sip on a glass by my bed, and have a
glass of water by my bed at night. I have also been able to sleep over 12
hours (generally waking up at least once to use the restroom and water) Yet I
feel fantastic when I do such!

------
rokhayakebe
Just get rid of your alarm clock, and wake up when your body tells you to.

~~~
joering2
hm, sorry to ask, but: are you employed?

most folks I know, including me, have serious problems with sleep. it seems
like we tap into each corner of human body and understand less or more how it
works, but yet there is no real science behind how sleep works and how much of
it we need. Heck, afaik scientists still argue why we need sleep at all and
whats the main reasoning behind it. But not to brag too much: sometimes it
happens to me that I sleep less hours and am more refreshed than sleeping
longer, or even legit 7 or 8. I guess I just hit the right spot at the right
time and REM phases worked out. If someone comes up with a device that can
help you sleep not too long not to short so you always wake up fresh, I think
he/she will nail a billion dollar idea!

~~~
recursive
I'm employed. I don't use alarms. I just go to bed early enough so that I'll
naturally want to wake up in time for work.

~~~
joering2
so you should say that.

this:

> Just get rid of your alarm clock, and wake up when your body tells you to.

means you are telling me and everyone else to get a rid of your [mine] alarm
clock.

Guess not everyones body acts the same, right?

------
metatronscube
I have never slept for 8hrs, not even close. I sometimes wonder how people can
sleep for that long and what their jobs and life's must be like. After 5-7hrs
I usually wake up feeling totally refreshed and ready to go (even better after
my first coffee ;))

~~~
pavelkaroukin
You are lucky :) Some math - 1 hour a day less sleep than "normal" people give
you:

1 hr * 365 days / 24 hours in day ~ 15 days.

And these are 24hours day. What it really should be:

1 hr * 365 days / (24 hours in day - 6 hours you sleep on average) ~ 21 days.

Which is, well, in office terms, work month :) congrats, you got 1/12 life for
free :)

~~~
kamaal
I don't think sleep can be counted out of life.

Dreams are the most beautiful things to ever happen to humans. I have always
lived two lives one in dreams and one while am awake.

And some experiences that I've had dreaming just can't be had while I'm awake.

------
fredley
This is great, I've always worried about being or feeling awake for long
periods at night. What doesn't seem clear though is whether I should be
setting aside 10 hours a night for sleep (two 4 hour cycles + 2 waking hours
in between)

------
mhartl
There's a Zen saying relevant to the article (and to much of the discussion
here). Rather than wringing your hands over "optimal sleep", I suggest trying
it out. If your schedule allows, it can work wonders:

 _When hungry, eat. When tired, sleep._

------
jmsduran
Interesting article. I usually sleep from 7pm - 10pm, wake up and do stuff
(like read HN), then sleep again from 3am - 8am, with just enough time to get
ready for work in the morning.

Not too long ago I suffered from minor insomnia and lucid dreaming. It was
awful, to the point where I started to dread bedtime. For me, my diet at the
time (fatty foods + sugar + caffeine + alcohol) had a lot to do with it, so
once I committed to a healthy diet, my body settled back into a consistent
sleep cycle. I guess it's really what works for you.

------
dkarl
I experience two sleeps sometimes when I'm not alone or when I drink a lot. If
I'm alone, I usually read for an hour, and if I'm not alone, reading is the
second choice. I always go back to sleep easily and get my full allotment.
Until I read this article, it never occurred to me that I might be able to
have that experience every night. Honestly, it sounds wonderful; sign me up to
be in the vanguard. Now if only I could figure out how to make it happen when
I'm alone and not drunk!

------
will_lam
This would be an interesting opportunity for Zeo or Fitbit to chime in on this
if they were to mine their data, anonymize it and publish something about
their users sleep patterns.

~~~
ricardobeat
There are a few mobile sleep timer apps that could also contribute data.

------
b3b0p
According to my Bodymedia Fit, I almost never ever get a true 8 hours or more
of sleep. Sure, I lay down at 10 PM or so and get up at 6 AM or later, but if
this little device is as accurate as they claim it really opened my eyes that
I was never getting 8 hours, when I thought I actually was. It says normally I
get between 6 and 7 hours.

Edit: I'm curious what the recommended amount of sleep, or if it really is an
individual thing per 24 hour or so period.

------
xfhai
There is some problem with the title of the article. It could also mean that
you dont need 8 hours of sleep. Other point is the need for sleep varies with
age. Babies sleep for very long time like 14 hours; old people need only 5 to
6 hours of sleep. The 8 hour sleep is for youth between 25 and 40 i think.
Otherwise, very original point, I have never thought sleeping in 4-hour chunks
was natural.

------
waiwai933
Not that I know anything about this, but isn't it possible that having this
segmented sleep could possibly be _bad_ for you? Just because our ancestors
slept as such doesn't mean it's necessarily good for you, does it? (That's not
to say it couldn't be good, just that I don't understand why the article seems
to imply that it necessarily must be good.)

------
grey
Has anyone ever read <http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm> or put it
through any verification? It looks good but I'm no biologist, I've used it as
my basis for years to avoid polyphasic schedules and embrace naps and biphasic
sleep when my life allows for it.

------
samTeacup
I have this weird sleep pattern, where I sleep from around 5pm-7pm or 7.30pm
without an alarm clock, I am sleeping very deeply, always dreaming and really
hard to wake me up (I don't notice the phone ringing right next to me) and
then I'm sleeping from 1am to 6am, where I usually don't remember dreaming and
where I wake up very easily

------
kylek
Interesting. Some of the lucid dreaming techniques try to capitalize on the
split sleep schedule by taking melatonin before the first segment(induces a
REM-less, deep sleep for the most part) and other supplements (vitamin B6,
etc) before the second segment, resulting in a longer, more vivid dreaming
session.

------
jsherry
"In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which
a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a
month."

'Plunging' people into 14 hours of darkness per day? Does this sound like a
scientifically sound way to determine the natural sleeping patterns of humans?

~~~
AkThhhpppt
Subtract artificial light, and how long would you be "plunged" into darkness
every night this time of year at your latitude? Enforcing prehistoric lighting
conditions at night and observing the resulting sleep pattern seems like a
decent of finding someone's "natural" sleep pattern to me...

------
donniezazen
My sleep is a lot more deep when I regularly sleep around 7 hours. Anything
less or over makes me restless. I think I am going to try this. If I get up in
middle of night, I will work for an hour or two and when I feel sleepy, I will
go to bed.

------
Shank
I've kept a sleep pattern of 4-5 hours by accident, and I don't seem to
function any less efficiently than when I sleep 8 or more hours. I do end up
taking a nap on occasion, but that's still 6-7 hours, not 8.

------
conradfr
Some recent studies showed that an healthy night seems to be no more than 7
hours.

Segmented sleep is interesting but I don't think a majority of people could
balance that with family and work.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
It rather seems that family and work need to be adjusted to balance them with
our natural sleeping rhythm.

~~~
icebraining
_Assuming_ that this is in fact out natural sleeping rhythm.

------
bufo
A great page about sleep cycles is this one
<http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic.htm>

~~~
kylebrown
Hah, the Uberman's sleep schedule (six 20 minuted sessions totaling two hours
of sleep per day). I remember trying that for a few days after seeing the
kuro5hin article way back when. Supposed to take two weeks to adjust, but it
was so painful after a few days that I lost faith and feared I getting caught
in a hoax.

------
felipebueno
Really? I think this is BS... I don't care about statistics or a 1595 painting
or whatever.

What I know is if I sleep less than seven hours I feel like crap during the
day.

------
nazgulnarsil
I seem to operate best on a 6 hour block and a 3 hour block. The problem is
that doing this my body wants to have a total cycle time around 26 hours.

------
clux
The guy who did this study spent 20 years. He found 500 'references to
segmented sleep'. One of which being a painting depicting people not sleeping
and sleeping simultaneously.

That's less than one reference every 2 weeks. Either that guy had the most
relaxing job in the world, or it is genuinely difficult to find such
references. Assuming the latter to give the researcher the benefit of the
doubt here; how deep do you have to look before you start to think that maybe
this isn't actually that common after all?

Also, how the bbc title reflects this study is beyond me.

------
ry0ohki
So if one wanted to try getting into this cycle, do you set an alarm after 4
hours or if you wake up at all naturally in the night, stay up?

------
kakaroto_BR
I'm always tired and sleepy, doesn't matter how many hours I sleep. Taking
pills to sleep make me fill dizzy all day long :(

------
rokhayakebe
While we are on the subject of sleep, does anyone here experience sleep
paralysis?

------
username3
<http://sleepyti.me/>

------
MrKurtHaeusler
I had 10 hours last night. 8 til 6

------
af3
now corporations want you to work more than 9 hours per day.

~~~
amalag
Especially in Asian countries it is considered normal that your workplace
demands more than 8 hours. Becoming like that in the USA as well for some.

~~~
Chrono
In Europe, or at least Nothern Europe, it feels like working days are actually
becoming shorter. I seem to recall 37.5hrs/w being standard for most office
workers, at least in Sweden. Will have a look and see if I can find a source
later!

