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I know a very successful banker who prides himself on sleeping 4 hours a night because he believes that is the optimal point where each additional hour no longe

I know a very successful banker who prides himself on sleeping 4 hours a night because he believes that is the optimal point where each additional hour no longer has any incremental benefit. I have gone through periods of high and low amounts of sleep for both work and personal reasons. Sleep has always been phrased in terms of time - ie get x hours of uninterrupted sleep to perform your best. But there has to be more to it than that. I've stayed up all night and felt rejuvenated the next day. And I've had lazy Sundays where I've remained tired the entire day. I might not have not seen the scientific study on it yet, but I believe the quality of your sleep has a lot to do with the nature of when and why you're sleeping as well as your mental state when doing so.

djsumdog 8y ago
There are some humans who only need 5 hours of sleep a night. Others that need 8 or 10. A good indicator is during a long vacation, without an alarm, how long do you typically sleep? If I allow my body to wake up naturally, it's almost always after 7 hours. If you go long enough without needing to be on a schedule, studies have found a lot of people move back into a rolling/rotating sleep cycle .. a few hours at a time throughout the day/night. I found myself doing this while I took a several month sabbatical from the workforce.
- acct1771 8y ago
  > There are some humans who only need 5 hours of sleep Define "need". Also, citation needed. Just because you can get away with it and live, doesn't mean it's the best move.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > citation needed “In 2009, a woman came into Ying-Hui Fu’s lab at the University of California, San Francisco, complaining that she always woke up too early. At first, Fu thought the woman was an extreme morning lark – a person who goes to bed early and wakes early. However, the woman explained that she actually went to bed around midnight and woke at 4am feeling completely alert. It was the same for several members of her family, she said. Fu and her colleagues compared the genome of different family members. They discovered a tiny mutation in a gene called DEC2 that was present in those who were short-sleepers, but not in members of the family who had normal length sleep, nor in 250 unrelated volunteers. When the team bred mice to express this same mutation, the rodents also slept less but performed just as well as regular mice when given physical and cognitive tasks.“ http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150706-the-woman-who-barely-sleeps http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150706-the-woman-who-barel...
    - mmirate 8y ago
      And we have not started genetically engineering this mutation into humans, why exactly?
      - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
        Unforeseen consequences is a reason I would not touch this. Something that correlates with one positive thing can also (and often does) have correlations to other negative things that greatly outweigh the positive. And sometimes the latter can be much more difficult to discern than the former. For instance in the US today childhood injury and fatality rates have plummeted [1]. And this seems like an obviously good thing. And one might reasonably hypothesize that the increase in rules and regulations against letting children play independently, as well as the rise of helicopter parenting has played some substantial role in this. Since it's very easy to see the link there. Yet at the same time other factors such such as childhood mental illness, obesity, and other major issues have sharply increased. Relative academic results are down and even IQ levels are declining. Are these linked to the behaviors that have driven the decrease in injuries in fatalities? Well that's a lot harder to say, though I think it's a very reasonable hypothesis that at least some of these issues are linked with the same behaviors that have reduced childhood injury/mortality rates. This is a recurring pattern in many things. Our understanding of the causality of genetics right now is essentially 0 keeping in mind that saying gene A 'causes' effect B is no more a meaningful understanding of the reason for the causality there than saying rain clouds cause rain. [1] - https://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=unintentional-injuries https://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=unintentional-injuri...
        mmirate 8y ago
        Right, that's why our ancestors didn't all evolve that mutation anyway. But our ancestral environment isn't the same as our current environment: just engineer more genes to paper over each successive disadvantage, recursively, until the only remaining disadvantage is "reduced energy efficiency". Because our current environment is more than efficient at supplying humans with energy.
arthurofbabylon 8y ago
In the traditional medicine system of India (Ayurveda), there is an anecdote passed around that goes something like this: for each hour of sleep before midnight, count it as two hours. For each hour of sleep between midnight and sunrise, count it as one hour. Sleeping after sunrise counts for zero - it is useless. And I've observed this to be true in my life. The most peaceful, restful sleep I experience is consistently between 10pm and 1am. I fully agree with your dismissal of hours slept being the quantitative unit of sleep, and I'm similarly curious about what constitutes a healthy, effective sleep habit...
- Malician 8y ago
  Sounds like it's not really worth sleeping during summer above the Arctic Circle, then.
  - simonsarris 8y ago
    Or it is possible that humans are maladapted to living in the artic circle.
  - jrs95 8y ago
    Maybe by extension it’s not really worth living there ;)
  - fyfy18 8y ago
    My grandparents are farmers in part of Northern Europe where currently it’s dark from 11pm - 3am (it’s never truly dark though, and if you look North in the middle of the night it is distinctly brighter). Their sleeping patterns do strongly follow that of the sun, in the winter they sleep more and in the summer they sleep a lot less. For the work they do this is good though, in the summer there are a lot more things to do, whereas in winter when it’s -20c and the ground is covered in snow, there isn’t very much to do. In a way I think they have it better than me, trying to go to sleep when it’s still a bright sunny day outside just feels weird.
- lordnacho 8y ago
  But there are definitely people who sleep right in the middle of the day, eg siestas in sunny places.
forgotmypw 8y ago
After giving up an enforced routine schedule and allowing my sleep to settle where it will, I have found my sleeping "schedule" to be largely irregular. Sometimes I want to stay up all night and keep going the next day. Other times, I go to bed at 9 and get up early the next morning. Sometimes I only need a couple of naps. Other times, I want to keep on sleeping, which I allow myself to do. I have slept for 20 hours straight before, with only short breaks to pee and drink water. I think this typically happens when I contract a cold or flu, and helps my body focus on fighting it off. I feel much, much better than when I used to have to be at the office every weekday, even if I could come in at noon.
- tw1010 8y ago
  I presume you work remotely?
  - forgotmypw 8y ago
    I've gradually given up using currency, and no longer need to work.
    - thekingofh 8y ago
      Well, you may as well have changed the laws of physics. Care to share how you managed this?
      - forgotmypw 8y ago
        I sleep outside, occasionally couchsurfing. I scavenge my food and everything else. I'm not 100% currency-free, but close to it.
dageshi 8y ago
Melatonin is interesting, I occasionally take it when I can't fall asleep, it generally works although I try not to use it too often. Occasionally, I wake up in the middle of the night tho and got into the habit of taking a 3mg melatonin pill to get me back to sleep. More often than not, the resulting sleep, probably around 4 hours left me feeling absolutely amazing, I mean better rested than I have been in years it was that big of a difference. Of course sometimes it doesn't have that effect, but I've managed to repeat it 2-3 times and I know for a fact that simply being awake in the middle of the night and going back to sleep again doesn't have that effect.
- positr0n 8y ago
  You might be interested in this link. https://www.gwern.net/Melatonin https://www.gwern.net/Melatonin Gwern claims: 1. 0.1mg is an effective dose. 2. It is probably beneficial to take it every night before sleep.
acct1771 8y ago
Bankers also think they add value to the world, so
marmshallow 8y ago
There are some studies - I'll have to do some digging to find them - that show that even if you "feel rejuvenated" the next day, you will still not be performing at full cognitive capacity. I think this makes much anecdotal evidence invalid.

djsumdog 8y ago

There are some humans who only need 5 hours of sleep a night. Others that need 8 or 10. A good indicator is during a long vacation, without an alarm, how long do you typically sleep? If I allow my body to wake up naturally, it's almost always after 7 hours. If you go long enough without needing to be on a schedule, studies have found a lot of people move back into a rolling/rotating sleep cycle .. a few hours at a time throughout the day/night. I found myself doing this while I took a several month sabbatical from the workforce.

acct1771 8y ago
> There are some humans who only need 5 hours of sleep Define "need". Also, citation needed. Just because you can get away with it and live, doesn't mean it's the best move.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > citation needed “In 2009, a woman came into Ying-Hui Fu’s lab at the University of California, San Francisco, complaining that she always woke up too early. At first, Fu thought the woman was an extreme morning lark – a person who goes to bed early and wakes early. However, the woman explained that she actually went to bed around midnight and woke at 4am feeling completely alert. It was the same for several members of her family, she said. Fu and her colleagues compared the genome of different family members. They discovered a tiny mutation in a gene called DEC2 that was present in those who were short-sleepers, but not in members of the family who had normal length sleep, nor in 250 unrelated volunteers. When the team bred mice to express this same mutation, the rodents also slept less but performed just as well as regular mice when given physical and cognitive tasks.“ http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150706-the-woman-who-barely-sleeps http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150706-the-woman-who-barel...
  - mmirate 8y ago
    And we have not started genetically engineering this mutation into humans, why exactly?
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      Unforeseen consequences is a reason I would not touch this. Something that correlates with one positive thing can also (and often does) have correlations to other negative things that greatly outweigh the positive. And sometimes the latter can be much more difficult to discern than the former. For instance in the US today childhood injury and fatality rates have plummeted [1]. And this seems like an obviously good thing. And one might reasonably hypothesize that the increase in rules and regulations against letting children play independently, as well as the rise of helicopter parenting has played some substantial role in this. Since it's very easy to see the link there. Yet at the same time other factors such such as childhood mental illness, obesity, and other major issues have sharply increased. Relative academic results are down and even IQ levels are declining. Are these linked to the behaviors that have driven the decrease in injuries in fatalities? Well that's a lot harder to say, though I think it's a very reasonable hypothesis that at least some of these issues are linked with the same behaviors that have reduced childhood injury/mortality rates. This is a recurring pattern in many things. Our understanding of the causality of genetics right now is essentially 0 keeping in mind that saying gene A 'causes' effect B is no more a meaningful understanding of the reason for the causality there than saying rain clouds cause rain. [1] - https://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=unintentional-injuries https://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=unintentional-injuri...
      - mmirate 8y ago
        Right, that's why our ancestors didn't all evolve that mutation anyway. But our ancestral environment isn't the same as our current environment: just engineer more genes to paper over each successive disadvantage, recursively, until the only remaining disadvantage is "reduced energy efficiency". Because our current environment is more than efficient at supplying humans with energy.

arthurofbabylon 8y ago

In the traditional medicine system of India (Ayurveda), there is an anecdote passed around that goes something like this: for each hour of sleep before midnight, count it as two hours. For each hour of sleep between midnight and sunrise, count it as one hour. Sleeping after sunrise counts for zero - it is useless. And I've observed this to be true in my life. The most peaceful, restful sleep I experience is consistently between 10pm and 1am. I fully agree with your dismissal of hours slept being the quantitative unit of sleep, and I'm similarly curious about what constitutes a healthy, effective sleep habit...

Malician 8y ago
Sounds like it's not really worth sleeping during summer above the Arctic Circle, then.
- simonsarris 8y ago
  Or it is possible that humans are maladapted to living in the artic circle.
- jrs95 8y ago
  Maybe by extension it’s not really worth living there ;)
- fyfy18 8y ago
  My grandparents are farmers in part of Northern Europe where currently it’s dark from 11pm - 3am (it’s never truly dark though, and if you look North in the middle of the night it is distinctly brighter). Their sleeping patterns do strongly follow that of the sun, in the winter they sleep more and in the summer they sleep a lot less. For the work they do this is good though, in the summer there are a lot more things to do, whereas in winter when it’s -20c and the ground is covered in snow, there isn’t very much to do. In a way I think they have it better than me, trying to go to sleep when it’s still a bright sunny day outside just feels weird.
lordnacho 8y ago
But there are definitely people who sleep right in the middle of the day, eg siestas in sunny places.

forgotmypw 8y ago

After giving up an enforced routine schedule and allowing my sleep to settle where it will, I have found my sleeping "schedule" to be largely irregular. Sometimes I want to stay up all night and keep going the next day. Other times, I go to bed at 9 and get up early the next morning. Sometimes I only need a couple of naps. Other times, I want to keep on sleeping, which I allow myself to do. I have slept for 20 hours straight before, with only short breaks to pee and drink water. I think this typically happens when I contract a cold or flu, and helps my body focus on fighting it off. I feel much, much better than when I used to have to be at the office every weekday, even if I could come in at noon.

tw1010 8y ago
I presume you work remotely?
- forgotmypw 8y ago
  I've gradually given up using currency, and no longer need to work.
  - thekingofh 8y ago
    Well, you may as well have changed the laws of physics. Care to share how you managed this?
    - forgotmypw 8y ago
      I sleep outside, occasionally couchsurfing. I scavenge my food and everything else. I'm not 100% currency-free, but close to it.

dageshi 8y ago

Melatonin is interesting, I occasionally take it when I can't fall asleep, it generally works although I try not to use it too often. Occasionally, I wake up in the middle of the night tho and got into the habit of taking a 3mg melatonin pill to get me back to sleep. More often than not, the resulting sleep, probably around 4 hours left me feeling absolutely amazing, I mean better rested than I have been in years it was that big of a difference. Of course sometimes it doesn't have that effect, but I've managed to repeat it 2-3 times and I know for a fact that simply being awake in the middle of the night and going back to sleep again doesn't have that effect.

positr0n 8y ago
You might be interested in this link. https://www.gwern.net/Melatonin https://www.gwern.net/Melatonin Gwern claims: 1. 0.1mg is an effective dose. 2. It is probably beneficial to take it every night before sleep.

acct1771 8y ago

Bankers also think they add value to the world, so

marmshallow 8y ago

There are some studies - I'll have to do some digging to find them - that show that even if you "feel rejuvenated" the next day, you will still not be performing at full cognitive capacity. I think this makes much anecdotal evidence invalid.