12 ms·

In case you feel sleep is a waste of time, it could actually be surprisingly productive to sleep. Once thing I noticed in grad school is that your sub-conscious

In case you feel sleep is a waste of time, it could actually be surprisingly productive to sleep. Once thing I noticed in grad school is that your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them. And often I would "dream" up a clever solution to a homework problem during my sleep. J.P. Serre, one of the most brilliant mathematician still living today, purportedly "does all his best work in his sleep": https://tinyurl.com/y25q45ut https://tinyurl.com/y25q45ut From what I learned in the wonderful Coursera course: "Learning How to Learn", these are manifestations of the unfocused or diffused mode of the mind, and play a critical role in learning and problem solving. https://medium.com/learn-love-code/learnings-from-learning-how-to-learn-19d149920dc4 https://medium.com/learn-love-code/learnings-from-learning-h...

Jill_the_Pill 7y ago
I used to be really good at this. I would wake up with answers, first thought in the morning! But as I have gotten older, the "working on it" dreams have become disruptive and my sleep less sound when processing some problem.
- jeffshek 7y ago
  Joshua Waitzkin has an interesting perspective on this. He will take an idea, keep it in his hold, and then make sure he lets go of the focus a few hours before bedtime. IE. Do something with family instead. Subconscious brain still works on it, but still able to sleep well. Not sure if this would be applicable.
  - CamelCaseName 7y ago
    Very interesting! In high school, I would often "retell" the day in my mind, usually right before bed. More often than not, I would wake up with the solutions to problems I struggled with. I have been trying to recreate this as an adult, except now I'm retelling the story of my day to my wife and vice versa. Maybe the key is to do it earlier in the evening, and then disconnect for a few hours? I'll give it a shot. Between lucid dreaming and solving problems overnight, sleeping was never better than in my high school years. I really do wish I could go back to that.
    - jeffshek 7y ago
      I'm still conflicted on the merit of lucid dreaming and problem-solving. I find ZMA and Huperzine A can you get you lucid dreaming, but I don't know if it helps with problem-solving. IE. You'll still wake with the solution w/out dreaming.
- root_axis 7y ago
  This happens to me too for as long as I can remember. It's an endless thought-loop of abstract reasoning with a dream-like quality and coherence, never actually quite focusing in on the problem but disruptive to the goal of restful sleep.
  - malingo 7y ago
    I've had these exact type of dreams 4-5x/year for the past 15 years, since being in grad school. They're an interesting phenomenon. They're also fairly disturbing.
- bradstewart 7y ago
  Same experience here. Sleeping with a notebook on my bedside table has helped somewhat--I can write down thoughts as I'm trying to fall asleep and not "worry" about forgetting them in the middle of the night. But I do resort to sleeping pills after a few of those nights in a row.
jeffshek 7y ago
I think the different stages of sleep play a part here ... Salvadore Dali apparently liked to keep an object/pen in his hand that would drop and wake him up. Still can't find enough real examples of polyphasic sleeping working, but love to know how well people of that retained content.
- mike_espinosa13 7y ago
  A litle bit insane, the article says: "Your number of immune cells begins to decline as well, as your body is deprived of its opportunity to make more". More daily work, less health!
- spking 7y ago
  Thomas Edison too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1649850 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1649850
- mikelyons 7y ago
  Have you read Steve Pavlina's account of transition to and from polyphasic sleep?
  - jeffshek 7y ago
    Yep! It's been hard to ignore the other things people questioned about his attempt though ... I'm leaning toward trying biphasic, but still not sure yet.
brightball 7y ago
I’ve learned to love the expression “let me sleep on it”
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
person_of_color 7y ago
Any tips on how to enact problem solving during sleep?
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  I've just learned to recognize the kind of problems that sleeping me is good at. Let's see if I can verbalize that... I think it's often when I've discovered a lot of new things during the day, and I struggle to combine them. Or when I get stuck on something, maybe having a hard time to decide between options. I go to sleep confident that I'll have fresh perspective and decisiveness the next day!
tomrod 7y ago
This was my experience as well. With so much work in graduate school to get done, the temptation is there to simply not sleep awhile. I'm sure you'd agree to get at least some sleep!
TallGuyShort 7y ago
I once had a problem we had thought / talked about for maybe a year, that gradually increased in urgency. We were almost down to the wire on coming up with a solution, we had 3 detailed plans written up, and they all had huge trade-offs, none of which were really acceptable to the majority of use-cases. I once spent an entire day thinking it through non-stop and just couldn't see past what we had already planned. Eventually decided to call it a night. I woke up at 5am and knew exactly how to solve all of it. Took me 3 weeks to code what I knew the moment I woke up and it worked flawlessly from day 1 of testing. Now if I'm stuck I take off early and rest.
- dajohnson89 7y ago
  do you have an established routine for embarking on major efforts like that? how much value is there in writing out the plan, and at what resolution? I'm figuring out how to "sketch" large problems as I move towards being a more senior developer.
  - TallGuyShort 7y ago
    I have a pretty low bar for just starting a Google Doc, and it's part of my early thought process. It's important to very early on (even if you're not sure you're going to spend time on the problem - even if I just spend 30 minutes doing research on it), put the problem statement, exit criteria / success metrics, non-goals and stake holders on paper to clarify your own thinking about what you're even trying to do. As different approaches present themselves I just write a quick summary with the pros / cons and gotchas that come to mind. At first I don't put in a ton of time - it's just notes organized like it might be a report one day. I'll probably throw a lot of what I've written away as my thinking on it improves, but I never throw away ideas. If it was plausible enough that I spent some time researching, it's worth recording for everyone else's benefit why you decided to abandon it. Eventually when the problem comes to the surface more I can say, "I have a report started on this!", quickly revise it and share it with my team and stake holders, and we iterate from there. The design doc mentioned in my original post had actually been around for years, and I had shared it 6 months earlier and had a lot of detail and critical thinking applied to my early doc. It was just a progression from something I opened quickly when I had 1 idea. You should take notes or records for early research somehow anyway, I just try and do it in a way that's quickly shareable as a design / plan. It might take months (or forever) until it's worth sharing, but it's just a place to record my ideas and new things I learn as the problem's on my mind.
klenwell 7y ago
This is also covered in Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep where he cites several controlled studies demonstrating the role of sleep in learning and outlines the neurobiology behind it: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep I used to see sleep as a waste of time. A few years ago I started to recognize its importance in overall well-being and adjusted my schedule and commute accordingly. Reading Walker's book led me both to take sleep more seriously still and to take more pleasure in it.
- Smaug123 7y ago
  On the other hand, while Walker may be right about everything he says (anecdotally I'm extremely aware of how important sleep is day-to-day), I found his book to be very poor evidence of what he's trying to persuade us of. His writing is that of one who has bought unquestioningly into a cult. The evo-psych digressions about "wise Mother Nature" are nothing short of ridiculous; the one that sticks in my memory is that he seriously considers the possibility that Nature gave teenagers an offset sleep cycle from adults so that they could start exploring the world on their own for a few hours each night. (One much simpler possible explanation is that it gave the tribe someone who was naturally on guard duty for more of the night, but of course this is testable by looking at non-tribal animals and I haven't tested it.)
  - alecco 7y ago
    I think that was a hardcore scientist trying to reach out to the wider audience.
  - kashyapc 7y ago
    As alecco says in this thread, it is indeed a hardcore scientist who studied sleep for twenty years trying to communicate to a wider audience. I'll cut him a lot of slack. Also, not sure if you've seen Walker speak (do check out on YouTube), he's one of the most brilliant public speakers. Very few scientists can manage to hold your concentration like Prof. Walker does.
- tomp 7y ago
makz 7y ago
One day I could not compile something. After fighting it several hours I decided to go sleep. A few minutes before waking up I dreamed that the solution was to set an environment variable. I even saw the specific variable and which value I had to set. I woke up and immediately tried it. It worked.
- nashequilibrium 7y ago
  Just had one of these moments two days ago, the only other thing that comes close is when I go for long walks.
  - mantap 7y ago
    I have many epiphanies on the toilet. I'm not sure if it's extra blood flowing to the brain or what but the throne seems to add extra IQ.
    - kerkeslager 7y ago
      I noticed extra inspiration on bathroom breaks as well, but as a control I tried just getting up and walking outside and back, and that seemed to have the same effect for me.
      - WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
        There's something going on during that context switch. It feels like because all of the data about a problem is being unloaded into long term memory, when you return to the problem, you parse the entire data as once instead of adding to it in pieces. It almost feels like a puzzle except the second time looking at it, you're looking at the whole thing you've solved versus just the piece you last added.
        egeozcan 7y ago
        I totally agree. When faced with a problem outside the comfort zone, sometimes the brain focuses too much on a part that may turn out to be irrelevant. Having a break and returning later usually works wonderfully to again see the big picture.
jmspring 7y ago
One of my undergrad (and favorite) required classes was Graph Theory at UCSC taught by Gerhard Ringel. Asked how he solved problems - he pointed out that he slept on them. It was a comment I heard from many Profs. but his was the first and it stuck. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Ringel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Ringel
mmazing 7y ago
Happens to me all the time. I sit up in bed and think "oh that's how I can solve that" or "I should refactor this code this way", etc.
numlock86 7y ago
> I noticed in grad school that your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them As other comments already mentioned, this works amazing for problem solving related jobs as well. As an engineer I use this actively on almost a weekly basis. To make this work you just gotta really think about that problem and understand the actual parameters very well. Like almost every detail. And you really need to want it solved. Like make it really bother you. This usually comes by itself if you are engaged enough with the problem anyway. You can't solve something subconsciously when you just glanced at it and think "meh" about it. Then go to sleep and hope for the best if you didn't already solve it by using the above steps. Worst case is you wake up with the urge to understand the problem better and either get the solution or the next hints within the day ... or next session of sleep. The brain is really an amazing tool if utilized right.
- harikb 7y ago
  Lucky you. In my case, I end up thinking about the problem in my sleep, come up with solutions that are a mix between reality and fantasy within the dream and usually end in a horrible loop of the above while I desperately try to break out of it. In short, spoils my whole night sleep ( at least how I feel about it next day ). Rarely have it actually produced a successful solution!
  - coconutrandom 7y ago
    Wow, I thought that only happened to me. There was only one specific project I was on where I would have the not so practical fantasy solution like you described. Others were like the parent, a good sleep discovers solutions, I wonder what my subconscious was saying about all of this.
  - pmikesell 7y ago
    I secretly suspect this is everybody, and the people who claim to be coming up with real solutions in their sleep are back justifying what happened when they had enough time to sleep well and felt nice.
agumonkey 7y ago
Similarly pauses allow for other skills to grow (stop playing music for a week, a month, and you'll often feel more apt when you return). We're probably full of phasors and delays. And letting time for everything to mature/settle seems to matter.
Zarath 7y ago
While I understand why you'd write something like this, I think that this sort of thinking is the reason people get poor sleep nowadays anyway. This obsession with "efficiency" and "productivity". Even if it is more productive to get sleep, I believe that thinking about it in terms of hygiene or in terms of quality of life is much healthier. Maybe you disagree but not every minute of life should be devoted to doing the most productive thing you can. Sleeping for sleep's sake or because it makes you feel good should be enough reason. I'd rather turn my attention away from all these life-hack, min-maxing ways of thinking and just listen to my body telling me what it wants.
- nindalf 7y ago
  Completely agree. I think GP put it this way because it’s easier to convince a “productivity ninja” that sleep is good for productivity than to convince them that productivity shouldn’t be their sole focus. If the goal is for them to get more sleep, this is how to reason with them.
- mft_ 7y ago
  It doesn't have to be about work productivity. The most profound effect I noticed myself is learning passages of music on an instrument (note I'm an amateur, and not especially good!) After not too long trying to learn/practise one evening, I will be noticeably better the next day.
  - copperx 7y ago
    I found exactly the same thing and it weirded me out. How did I get better without practicing? Often I would hit a wall after practicing for hours and was not able to play a certain passage, but then the next day I magically could. I've recently found that reading before going to sleep (while not staying up late reading) opens my mind the next day and I wake up knowing whether I have accepted or rejected a premise of a nonfiction book. It's like I read, don't think about it then, but then as I sleep I make up my mind or have more questions about the things that I read. It's strange, and I wish I could learn more about this phenomenon.
carokann 7y ago
This is so true. I had spent a long time analyzing a chess puzzle, gave up and slept. Boom, i "see" the answer. It was so stimulating that i woke up.
dkersten 7y ago
I’ve experimented with nootropics and I came to the conclusion that the best way to improve your mental ability is: Sleep Exercise Diet And then everything else like nootropics In that order. That is, they certainly work and help but they’re a micro-optimisation so there’s not much benefit if you’re not doing the macro ones first and sleep, in my opinion and anecdotal experience is at the very top of that list.
- koonsolo 7y ago
  This is also my experience that sleep has the most impact. Not only does it impact my mental ability, it also impacts my mood, and therefore my productivity of wanting to work. I don't know about the order or exercise and diet, but they are definitely on there.
- she11c0de 7y ago
  Those are my exact conclusions too after doing a lot of research and experimenting. I may add that high intensity exercise seems to work best for the brain. I'd also add stress to this list - people underestimate how big it's impact can be nowadays.
  - dkersten 7y ago
    You're absolutely right about stress, in my experience. I missed that one, but its so true.
rootw0rm 7y ago
So many times I'd be at home in my office, crunching 12 hours straight on a problem, only to finally give up and go to sleep. Without fail I'd jump out of bed an hour later, test my solution, and go back to sleep a happy man.
b123400 7y ago
Few years ago I spent quite some time learning Haskell, failing to understand the concept of Monad. One day I just woke up, with the concept understood. It was like magic.
- tome 7y ago
  That's interesting. Have you ever woken up with the ability to explain monads?
coldtea 7y ago
>In case you feel sleep is a waste of time, it could actually be surprisingly productive to sleep. Probably the most productive thing one can do. Idea: Full sleep is useless. I'll sleep 5 hours or less and gain more productive time / life lived. Reality: Without full sleep (7-8.30 hours/day) you'll be less performant, less intelligent, less healthy, less productive, and on top of the less performance through your life, your life itself will be shorter.
ptah 7y ago
I find this works best if the last thing you do before falling asleep is studying or thinking about the problem as you are falling asleep. i remember reading thomas edison and salvador dali used a more intricate technique to problem solve during sleep https://www.inc.com/the-muse/albert-einstein-thomas-edison-your-half-asleep-brain-can-solve-problems-better.html https://www.inc.com/the-muse/albert-einstein-thomas-edison-y...
pingyong 7y ago
>"does all his best work in his sleep" So do I, but I haven't been able to convince my boss yet...
mmaunder 7y ago
Agreed. Sleep has been a critical tool for foreign language learning for me. I'd also point out that exercise improves sleep quality.
soulofmischief 7y ago
When I have long bouts of binge coding (the last month) my dreams are just me constantly refactoring the same bits of code, usually related to the task at hand when I fell asleep.
driverdan 7y ago
This doesn't happen for everyone. I've never had this happen. I've had a few dreams that seemed like amazing insights when I first woke up but then realized how they were dumb dream ideas. That said solving problems while not focusing them has been repeatedly shown in research, including in dreams. I've had it happen many times while awake. The technique is to work intensely on a problem, then completely stop and move to something unrelated and simple. Often times a solution or missing information will pop into your head much later.
whywhywhywhy 7y ago
> your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them. This is the same for creativity, this is why you come up with ideas in the shower or the train, assuming you're just idling and not scrolling through your smartphone.
zupreme 7y ago
Thomas Edison used sleep too. It is written that he would would would sit holding two metal objects in a chair over metal pans. He would sit and contemplate a hard problem until he dozed off and dropped the items in to the pans, waking him up, after which he would rapidly write down what conclusions or ideas he came to in that few moments of sleep. He is not alone in this regard among the elite thinkers, “healers”, and inventors throughout history
jjtheblunt 7y ago
nice username!
mywacaday 7y ago
I refer to it as my hamster, it sits in the background spinning the wheel of whatever problem I'm stuck on. I find it works best if I actively think about the problem before sleep and then consciously put it out of my mind by doing something else. It might take a few days but there is usually an A-Ha! moment out of nowhere.

Jill_the_Pill 7y ago

I used to be really good at this. I would wake up with answers, first thought in the morning! But as I have gotten older, the "working on it" dreams have become disruptive and my sleep less sound when processing some problem.

jeffshek 7y ago
Joshua Waitzkin has an interesting perspective on this. He will take an idea, keep it in his hold, and then make sure he lets go of the focus a few hours before bedtime. IE. Do something with family instead. Subconscious brain still works on it, but still able to sleep well. Not sure if this would be applicable.
- CamelCaseName 7y ago
  Very interesting! In high school, I would often "retell" the day in my mind, usually right before bed. More often than not, I would wake up with the solutions to problems I struggled with. I have been trying to recreate this as an adult, except now I'm retelling the story of my day to my wife and vice versa. Maybe the key is to do it earlier in the evening, and then disconnect for a few hours? I'll give it a shot. Between lucid dreaming and solving problems overnight, sleeping was never better than in my high school years. I really do wish I could go back to that.
  - jeffshek 7y ago
    I'm still conflicted on the merit of lucid dreaming and problem-solving. I find ZMA and Huperzine A can you get you lucid dreaming, but I don't know if it helps with problem-solving. IE. You'll still wake with the solution w/out dreaming.
root_axis 7y ago
This happens to me too for as long as I can remember. It's an endless thought-loop of abstract reasoning with a dream-like quality and coherence, never actually quite focusing in on the problem but disruptive to the goal of restful sleep.
- malingo 7y ago
  I've had these exact type of dreams 4-5x/year for the past 15 years, since being in grad school. They're an interesting phenomenon. They're also fairly disturbing.
bradstewart 7y ago
Same experience here. Sleeping with a notebook on my bedside table has helped somewhat--I can write down thoughts as I'm trying to fall asleep and not "worry" about forgetting them in the middle of the night. But I do resort to sleeping pills after a few of those nights in a row.

jeffshek 7y ago

I think the different stages of sleep play a part here ... Salvadore Dali apparently liked to keep an object/pen in his hand that would drop and wake him up. Still can't find enough real examples of polyphasic sleeping working, but love to know how well people of that retained content.

mike_espinosa13 7y ago
A litle bit insane, the article says: "Your number of immune cells begins to decline as well, as your body is deprived of its opportunity to make more". More daily work, less health!
spking 7y ago
Thomas Edison too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1649850 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1649850
mikelyons 7y ago
Have you read Steve Pavlina's account of transition to and from polyphasic sleep?
- jeffshek 7y ago
  Yep! It's been hard to ignore the other things people questioned about his attempt though ... I'm leaning toward trying biphasic, but still not sure yet.

brightball 7y ago

I’ve learned to love the expression “let me sleep on it”

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

person_of_color 7y ago

Any tips on how to enact problem solving during sleep?

BurningFrog 7y ago
I've just learned to recognize the kind of problems that sleeping me is good at. Let's see if I can verbalize that... I think it's often when I've discovered a lot of new things during the day, and I struggle to combine them. Or when I get stuck on something, maybe having a hard time to decide between options. I go to sleep confident that I'll have fresh perspective and decisiveness the next day!

tomrod 7y ago

This was my experience as well. With so much work in graduate school to get done, the temptation is there to simply not sleep awhile. I'm sure you'd agree to get at least some sleep!

TallGuyShort 7y ago

I once had a problem we had thought / talked about for maybe a year, that gradually increased in urgency. We were almost down to the wire on coming up with a solution, we had 3 detailed plans written up, and they all had huge trade-offs, none of which were really acceptable to the majority of use-cases. I once spent an entire day thinking it through non-stop and just couldn't see past what we had already planned. Eventually decided to call it a night. I woke up at 5am and knew exactly how to solve all of it. Took me 3 weeks to code what I knew the moment I woke up and it worked flawlessly from day 1 of testing. Now if I'm stuck I take off early and rest.

dajohnson89 7y ago
do you have an established routine for embarking on major efforts like that? how much value is there in writing out the plan, and at what resolution? I'm figuring out how to "sketch" large problems as I move towards being a more senior developer.
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  I have a pretty low bar for just starting a Google Doc, and it's part of my early thought process. It's important to very early on (even if you're not sure you're going to spend time on the problem - even if I just spend 30 minutes doing research on it), put the problem statement, exit criteria / success metrics, non-goals and stake holders on paper to clarify your own thinking about what you're even trying to do. As different approaches present themselves I just write a quick summary with the pros / cons and gotchas that come to mind. At first I don't put in a ton of time - it's just notes organized like it might be a report one day. I'll probably throw a lot of what I've written away as my thinking on it improves, but I never throw away ideas. If it was plausible enough that I spent some time researching, it's worth recording for everyone else's benefit why you decided to abandon it. Eventually when the problem comes to the surface more I can say, "I have a report started on this!", quickly revise it and share it with my team and stake holders, and we iterate from there. The design doc mentioned in my original post had actually been around for years, and I had shared it 6 months earlier and had a lot of detail and critical thinking applied to my early doc. It was just a progression from something I opened quickly when I had 1 idea. You should take notes or records for early research somehow anyway, I just try and do it in a way that's quickly shareable as a design / plan. It might take months (or forever) until it's worth sharing, but it's just a place to record my ideas and new things I learn as the problem's on my mind.

klenwell 7y ago

This is also covered in Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep where he cites several controlled studies demonstrating the role of sleep in learning and outlines the neurobiology behind it: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep I used to see sleep as a waste of time. A few years ago I started to recognize its importance in overall well-being and adjusted my schedule and commute accordingly. Reading Walker's book led me both to take sleep more seriously still and to take more pleasure in it.

Smaug123 7y ago
On the other hand, while Walker may be right about everything he says (anecdotally I'm extremely aware of how important sleep is day-to-day), I found his book to be very poor evidence of what he's trying to persuade us of. His writing is that of one who has bought unquestioningly into a cult. The evo-psych digressions about "wise Mother Nature" are nothing short of ridiculous; the one that sticks in my memory is that he seriously considers the possibility that Nature gave teenagers an offset sleep cycle from adults so that they could start exploring the world on their own for a few hours each night. (One much simpler possible explanation is that it gave the tribe someone who was naturally on guard duty for more of the night, but of course this is testable by looking at non-tribal animals and I haven't tested it.)
- alecco 7y ago
  I think that was a hardcore scientist trying to reach out to the wider audience.
- kashyapc 7y ago
  As alecco says in this thread, it is indeed a hardcore scientist who studied sleep for twenty years trying to communicate to a wider audience. I'll cut him a lot of slack. Also, not sure if you've seen Walker speak (do check out on YouTube), he's one of the most brilliant public speakers. Very few scientists can manage to hold your concentration like Prof. Walker does.
tomp 7y ago

makz 7y ago

One day I could not compile something. After fighting it several hours I decided to go sleep. A few minutes before waking up I dreamed that the solution was to set an environment variable. I even saw the specific variable and which value I had to set. I woke up and immediately tried it. It worked.

nashequilibrium 7y ago
Just had one of these moments two days ago, the only other thing that comes close is when I go for long walks.
- mantap 7y ago
  I have many epiphanies on the toilet. I'm not sure if it's extra blood flowing to the brain or what but the throne seems to add extra IQ.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    I noticed extra inspiration on bathroom breaks as well, but as a control I tried just getting up and walking outside and back, and that seemed to have the same effect for me.
    - WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
      There's something going on during that context switch. It feels like because all of the data about a problem is being unloaded into long term memory, when you return to the problem, you parse the entire data as once instead of adding to it in pieces. It almost feels like a puzzle except the second time looking at it, you're looking at the whole thing you've solved versus just the piece you last added.
      - egeozcan 7y ago
        I totally agree. When faced with a problem outside the comfort zone, sometimes the brain focuses too much on a part that may turn out to be irrelevant. Having a break and returning later usually works wonderfully to again see the big picture.

jmspring 7y ago

One of my undergrad (and favorite) required classes was Graph Theory at UCSC taught by Gerhard Ringel. Asked how he solved problems - he pointed out that he slept on them. It was a comment I heard from many Profs. but his was the first and it stuck. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Ringel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Ringel

mmazing 7y ago

Happens to me all the time. I sit up in bed and think "oh that's how I can solve that" or "I should refactor this code this way", etc.

numlock86 7y ago

> I noticed in grad school that your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them As other comments already mentioned, this works amazing for problem solving related jobs as well. As an engineer I use this actively on almost a weekly basis. To make this work you just gotta really think about that problem and understand the actual parameters very well. Like almost every detail. And you really need to want it solved. Like make it really bother you. This usually comes by itself if you are engaged enough with the problem anyway. You can't solve something subconsciously when you just glanced at it and think "meh" about it. Then go to sleep and hope for the best if you didn't already solve it by using the above steps. Worst case is you wake up with the urge to understand the problem better and either get the solution or the next hints within the day ... or next session of sleep. The brain is really an amazing tool if utilized right.

harikb 7y ago
Lucky you. In my case, I end up thinking about the problem in my sleep, come up with solutions that are a mix between reality and fantasy within the dream and usually end in a horrible loop of the above while I desperately try to break out of it. In short, spoils my whole night sleep ( at least how I feel about it next day ). Rarely have it actually produced a successful solution!
- coconutrandom 7y ago
  Wow, I thought that only happened to me. There was only one specific project I was on where I would have the not so practical fantasy solution like you described. Others were like the parent, a good sleep discovers solutions, I wonder what my subconscious was saying about all of this.
- pmikesell 7y ago
  I secretly suspect this is everybody, and the people who claim to be coming up with real solutions in their sleep are back justifying what happened when they had enough time to sleep well and felt nice.

agumonkey 7y ago

Similarly pauses allow for other skills to grow (stop playing music for a week, a month, and you'll often feel more apt when you return). We're probably full of phasors and delays. And letting time for everything to mature/settle seems to matter.

Zarath 7y ago

While I understand why you'd write something like this, I think that this sort of thinking is the reason people get poor sleep nowadays anyway. This obsession with "efficiency" and "productivity". Even if it is more productive to get sleep, I believe that thinking about it in terms of hygiene or in terms of quality of life is much healthier. Maybe you disagree but not every minute of life should be devoted to doing the most productive thing you can. Sleeping for sleep's sake or because it makes you feel good should be enough reason. I'd rather turn my attention away from all these life-hack, min-maxing ways of thinking and just listen to my body telling me what it wants.

nindalf 7y ago
Completely agree. I think GP put it this way because it’s easier to convince a “productivity ninja” that sleep is good for productivity than to convince them that productivity shouldn’t be their sole focus. If the goal is for them to get more sleep, this is how to reason with them.
mft_ 7y ago
It doesn't have to be about work productivity. The most profound effect I noticed myself is learning passages of music on an instrument (note I'm an amateur, and not especially good!) After not too long trying to learn/practise one evening, I will be noticeably better the next day.
- copperx 7y ago
  I found exactly the same thing and it weirded me out. How did I get better without practicing? Often I would hit a wall after practicing for hours and was not able to play a certain passage, but then the next day I magically could. I've recently found that reading before going to sleep (while not staying up late reading) opens my mind the next day and I wake up knowing whether I have accepted or rejected a premise of a nonfiction book. It's like I read, don't think about it then, but then as I sleep I make up my mind or have more questions about the things that I read. It's strange, and I wish I could learn more about this phenomenon.

carokann 7y ago

This is so true. I had spent a long time analyzing a chess puzzle, gave up and slept. Boom, i "see" the answer. It was so stimulating that i woke up.

dkersten 7y ago

I’ve experimented with nootropics and I came to the conclusion that the best way to improve your mental ability is: Sleep Exercise Diet And then everything else like nootropics In that order. That is, they certainly work and help but they’re a micro-optimisation so there’s not much benefit if you’re not doing the macro ones first and sleep, in my opinion and anecdotal experience is at the very top of that list.

koonsolo 7y ago
This is also my experience that sleep has the most impact. Not only does it impact my mental ability, it also impacts my mood, and therefore my productivity of wanting to work. I don't know about the order or exercise and diet, but they are definitely on there.
she11c0de 7y ago
Those are my exact conclusions too after doing a lot of research and experimenting. I may add that high intensity exercise seems to work best for the brain. I'd also add stress to this list - people underestimate how big it's impact can be nowadays.
- dkersten 7y ago
  You're absolutely right about stress, in my experience. I missed that one, but its so true.

rootw0rm 7y ago

So many times I'd be at home in my office, crunching 12 hours straight on a problem, only to finally give up and go to sleep. Without fail I'd jump out of bed an hour later, test my solution, and go back to sleep a happy man.

b123400 7y ago

Few years ago I spent quite some time learning Haskell, failing to understand the concept of Monad. One day I just woke up, with the concept understood. It was like magic.

tome 7y ago
That's interesting. Have you ever woken up with the ability to explain monads?

coldtea 7y ago

>In case you feel sleep is a waste of time, it could actually be surprisingly productive to sleep. Probably the most productive thing one can do. Idea: Full sleep is useless. I'll sleep 5 hours or less and gain more productive time / life lived. Reality: Without full sleep (7-8.30 hours/day) you'll be less performant, less intelligent, less healthy, less productive, and on top of the less performance through your life, your life itself will be shorter.

ptah 7y ago

I find this works best if the last thing you do before falling asleep is studying or thinking about the problem as you are falling asleep. i remember reading thomas edison and salvador dali used a more intricate technique to problem solve during sleep https://www.inc.com/the-muse/albert-einstein-thomas-edison-your-half-asleep-brain-can-solve-problems-better.html https://www.inc.com/the-muse/albert-einstein-thomas-edison-y...

pingyong 7y ago

>"does all his best work in his sleep" So do I, but I haven't been able to convince my boss yet...

mmaunder 7y ago

Agreed. Sleep has been a critical tool for foreign language learning for me. I'd also point out that exercise improves sleep quality.

soulofmischief 7y ago

When I have long bouts of binge coding (the last month) my dreams are just me constantly refactoring the same bits of code, usually related to the task at hand when I fell asleep.

driverdan 7y ago

This doesn't happen for everyone. I've never had this happen. I've had a few dreams that seemed like amazing insights when I first woke up but then realized how they were dumb dream ideas. That said solving problems while not focusing them has been repeatedly shown in research, including in dreams. I've had it happen many times while awake. The technique is to work intensely on a problem, then completely stop and move to something unrelated and simple. Often times a solution or missing information will pop into your head much later.

whywhywhywhy 7y ago

> your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them. This is the same for creativity, this is why you come up with ideas in the shower or the train, assuming you're just idling and not scrolling through your smartphone.

zupreme 7y ago

Thomas Edison used sleep too. It is written that he would would would sit holding two metal objects in a chair over metal pans. He would sit and contemplate a hard problem until he dozed off and dropped the items in to the pans, waking him up, after which he would rapidly write down what conclusions or ideas he came to in that few moments of sleep. He is not alone in this regard among the elite thinkers, “healers”, and inventors throughout history

jjtheblunt 7y ago

nice username!

mywacaday 7y ago

I refer to it as my hamster, it sits in the background spinning the wheel of whatever problem I'm stuck on. I find it works best if I actively think about the problem before sleep and then consciously put it out of my mind by doing something else. It might take a few days but there is usually an A-Ha! moment out of nowhere.