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To everyone requesting more, different studies: Okay, you're correct in the philosophy-of-science sense. No doubt that feels good. But, current understanding o
by xkcd-sucks 9y ago
To everyone requesting more, different studies: Okay, you're correct in the philosophy-of-science sense. No doubt that feels good.
But, current understanding of biology is that:
- Literally no biological process is not affected by sleep
- Disrupting sleep disrupts whichever process is being studied
- Literally every type of organism sleeps[0]
It's a huge waste of time further proving that sleep is really, really, important, and this waste of time is actively harmful to everyone. What's maybe not a waste of time is researching
- How to actually get things into a shape where sleep is a priority on a population level
- Therapeutic interventions targeting poor sleep
- Otherwise preventing or mitigating poor sleep
[0] Sleep:
- Periodic
- Quiescent (less activity, less response to environmental stimuli)
- Homeostatic, e.g. sleep less now -> sleep more later
- mythrwy 9y agoIt's not a waste of time at all. The "why" may become apparent from these studies.
- owenversteeg 9y agoI think studies like this are important to determine the importance of sleep and the right amount. For example, this study suggests that too much sleep is harmful, which isn't a universally agreed-on point. Additionally, sleeping isn't a binary thing. People do mini cost-benefit analyses: sleep an extra hour vs do more work? Sleep vs talk to a friend? Sleep more or spend time eating a slow, healthy breakfast? Maybe the health benefits of sitting down and eating a healthy breakfast outweigh the benefits of sleeping by a large margin, although both are helpful. More research could help people make decisions about how much they sleep.