5 ms·
> This was an extremely thought provoking article. It is. I keep thinking about an article I once read, maybe ten years ago, about a chinese woman who was 123
by xuak 10y ago
> This was an extremely thought provoking article.
It is. I keep thinking about an article I once read, maybe ten years ago, about a chinese woman who was 123 years old (according to her own account). The reason she gave why she lived so long was that she used a very strange two daily sleep cycle: she slept only once every two days.
Off coarse this is extremely anecdotal, even if it proves to be true, but I can't stop thinking about a possible connection: what if she grew so old because her slowed down circadian rhythm also slowed down the aging process by slowing down the 7-8 day cell growth cycles?
- kaybe 10y agoDid she sleep longer than a normal once-a-day sleep?
- xuak 10y agoYes I think it was somewhere between 12 and 16 hours in one go, but I can't remember exactly. And she might had an hour or so of waking somewhere in the middle (like they used to do in the middle ages).
- drusepth 10y agoI actually spent a little over a month (a few years ago) sleeping longer periods after two-day awake periods. My days basically looked like: - Sleep in until noon (~14 hours sleep) - Pull an all nighter that night - Go to sleep around 10pm the next day (~34 hours awake) - Repeat It had its ups and downs, but the primary reason I stopped is because, while I was able to do more, I felt like a zombie most days (even the first day of the pair) and my work suffered greatly. I'm a software dev by trade, so I had some luck mitigating the loss of clarity and quickness in thought by structuring my workload where I'd write a suite of tests upfront in the first 4-6 hours after waking up (when I felt the most rested), and then relied on them for correctness while coding for the rest of the 2 days, rather than needing to think through issues. Things still slipped through (because often I was too tired to realize when the tests weren't comprehensive enough), but honestly it was a boon for my test-writing abilities and I think I could have eventually pulled off a decently high quality had I continued. Eventually I went back to a normal sleeping schedule, and I felt leagues more well-rested each day. My mood increased (well, except when thinking about all the stuff I could be doing if I didn't have to sleep as much) and I generally enjoyed life more on the whole, which is a huge bonus that I don't think I'd trade much for. It was an interesting experience, and one I've busted out for shorter periods when things at work need a lot of manpower behind a single man, but not something I'd go back to for a long period of time, I think.
- pasta 10y agoWhat if she lived longer because she took her life easy, having less stress and also having less need to sleep?
- sjcsjc 10y agoI'm a big fan of intermittent fasting (regular multiday fasts). I realise that to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail, but I wonder if fasting's apparent but as yet mostly unproven (in humans) longevity and health benefits could in some way be related to your interrupted growth cycles idea.
- skmurphy 10y agoMy hypothesis is that intermittent and alternate day fasting are closer to the lifestyle are bodies evolved in so it's less that they have health benefits as much as eating multiple meals a day may be less healthy for you.
- projektir 10y agoIn cases like this I'm much inclined to say it's genetics that allow for the sleep cycle and other things than the sleep cycle itself.
- Kinnard 10y agoWow! Hope you get in touch with the researchers and share your conjecture!