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Even if it's true that less sleep results in less life, it's still a wash. Say you slept 10 hours a day and lived to 100. In other words, you have 14 wakings h
by tabeth 9y ago
Even if it's true that less sleep results in less life, it's still a wash.
Say you slept 10 hours a day and lived to 100. In other words, you have 14 wakings hours times 100 years. 1400 * 365 hours, in other words. Now compare this to sleeping 6 hours a day and living to 80. In other words, 18 waking hours. 1440 * 365 in a year, in this case.
This gets more complicated if you abandon the hours and rather frame it as a percentage of time you spend with the people you care about. Now your sleep is a function of their sleep and the math gets too convoluted, but I'm sure you get the point.
Whether one is better than the other is more of a philosophical question, but just food for thought.
IMHO people shouldn't worry about these kinds of things. In general, trying to optimize the quality of life you have when you're awake will generally lead to the optimal outcome in general. In this case, eating well, exercising and having meaningful relationships will result in a higher quality sleep due to lower stress and also make your waking hours also more enjoyable. Ultimately, that's the point, right?
EDIT: Hah, forgot to multiply by 365, but my point stands.
- exceptione 9y agoThose waking hours are not of the same quality according to the article. Moreover, the article states that with sleeping 6 hours a day one will die in their sixties rather than living to 80, without medical assistence.
- dingo_bat 9y agoThere's something off in your math, but I'm too sleepy to figure out what.
- usjehshksish 9y ago14 h/d x 100 y x 365 d/y = way more than 1400 hours
- knocte 9y ago>Say you slept 10 hours a day and lived to 100. In other words, you have 14 wakings hours times 100 years. 1400 hours, in other words. Now compare this to sleeping 6 hours a day and living to 80. In other words, 18 waking hours. 1440 in a year, in this case. True, but what's the quality of life of those zombie-walking hours?
- tabeth 9y agoThat's not the point though. You could replace 6 and 10 with 8 and 12.
- coldtea 9y ago>Say you slept 10 hours a day and lived to 100. In other words, you have 14 wakings hours times 100 years. 1400 365 hours, in other words. Now compare this to sleeping 6 hours a day and living to 80. In other words, 18 waking hours. 1440 * 365 in a year, in this case.* You haven't adjusted for the worse 'wake-time' quality, loss of productivity, and worsened day-to-day health and focus, because of the lesser sleep.
- icantdrive55 9y agoSay you slept four hours a day, and by 50 you have precancerous cells growing, and significant dementia. Personally, I feel doctors should tell their patients to try to get as much sleep as possible. I know in America it's not feasible. Maybe we should stop trying to do everything perfect in life, and not show up for every event? "Is it possible to have too much sleep? This is unclear. There is no good evidence at the moment. But I do think 14 hours is too much." I've been interested in this one for years.
- majkinetor 9y agoWhat is wrong in your deduction is that you suppose that we all live up great to the moment when we die. Long health span is more important then long life span. Given that the hypothesis here is that sleep deprivation brings the chronic disease its not that simple as measuring percentage of time you spend with your loved ones - what if last N years of it is totally not worth it, for both them and you.
- swat535 9y agoyou're assuming that the quality of your wake hours with less sleep is the same as the quality of your wake hours with enough sleep.