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I used to habitually play bullet and blitz chess online, which confirmed the necessity of sleep for me. After a 6 hour night of sleep I noticed my rating would

I used to habitually play bullet and blitz chess online, which confirmed the necessity of sleep for me. After a 6 hour night of sleep I noticed my rating would drop significantly the next day, and after several low sleep nights in a row it would take days to recover completely. A graph of my bullet rating over time clearly showed the periods of low sleep. Most people don't have a measurement that objective. After I stopped playing chess so much in college, I even caught myself trying to excuse my poor sleep habits by telling myself I wasn't falling asleep in lectures and I could still finish my homework.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> I used to habitually play bullet and blitz chess online, which confirmed the necessity of sleep for me 60-minute games made the same apparent to me. Instantaneous drops and rises, solely resulting from sleep (or the lack thereof).
tudorconstantin 8y ago
I use online chess tactics problems to assess how good my brain is that day. I estimate there's a 300+ ELO variance, perhaps even more, in my performance between when I'm tired and when I'm rested. 300 ELO points between 2 players means that the higher rates one wins about 9 out of 10 games against the lower rates one. A huge difference in performance.
- rock8y 8y ago
  First thing I do at my computer if I am groggy is to do chess tactics. Based on the results, I take a break or continue with my actual work. I should probably be looking at ELO as well, I just go by numbers at this time !
0x00000000 8y ago
Sleep seems to be very cyclical and internalized in the body, so it isn't surprising that a drastic change would have such a dramatic effect. I wonder if anyone could gain the ability to only need 6 hours of sleep by very slowly decreasing sleep over a long time (say 6-12 months). But your body will probably never adapt to this 6 hours on the weekdays, 10 hours on the weekends stuff that seems to be common. The people I know who sleep 5-6 hours a night consistently have been doing it for a very long time and describe the feeling of sleeping 8 hours the same way I would describe sleeping 13 hours. Just feeling slow and almost like being sleep deprived all day.
garfieldnate 8y ago
Speaking a foreign language is that meter for me. If I don't get proper sleep, my tongue doesn't do what I want it to. I slip up more in my pronunciation and I forget words that I need. More sleep has always equalled higher fluency for me.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> I used to habitually play bullet and blitz chess online, which confirmed the necessity of sleep for me 60-minute games made the same apparent to me. Instantaneous drops and rises, solely resulting from sleep (or the lack thereof).

tudorconstantin 8y ago

I use online chess tactics problems to assess how good my brain is that day. I estimate there's a 300+ ELO variance, perhaps even more, in my performance between when I'm tired and when I'm rested. 300 ELO points between 2 players means that the higher rates one wins about 9 out of 10 games against the lower rates one. A huge difference in performance.

rock8y 8y ago
First thing I do at my computer if I am groggy is to do chess tactics. Based on the results, I take a break or continue with my actual work. I should probably be looking at ELO as well, I just go by numbers at this time !

0x00000000 8y ago

Sleep seems to be very cyclical and internalized in the body, so it isn't surprising that a drastic change would have such a dramatic effect. I wonder if anyone could gain the ability to only need 6 hours of sleep by very slowly decreasing sleep over a long time (say 6-12 months). But your body will probably never adapt to this 6 hours on the weekdays, 10 hours on the weekends stuff that seems to be common. The people I know who sleep 5-6 hours a night consistently have been doing it for a very long time and describe the feeling of sleeping 8 hours the same way I would describe sleeping 13 hours. Just feeling slow and almost like being sleep deprived all day.

garfieldnate 8y ago

Speaking a foreign language is that meter for me. If I don't get proper sleep, my tongue doesn't do what I want it to. I slip up more in my pronunciation and I forget words that I need. More sleep has always equalled higher fluency for me.