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Sure, biologically needing less sleep is certainly an advantage. But in the context of this thread it is a bad example. There are some things common among succe
by caddemon 5y ago
Sure, biologically needing less sleep is certainly an advantage. But in the context of this thread it is a bad example. There are some things common among successful people that are feasible to do and would increase odds of success. The reason "sleep less" is dangerous is because it is feasible to do, but it is not going to be helpful for the majority of people. If you are someone that functions best on 7 hours a night and you start pushing yourself sleeping 5, you will notice some cognitive decline, and very well could be decreasing your odds of success.
Stress tolerance is an interesting one, because there's definitely a huge innate component but there also are ways to improve your stress tolerance behaviorally. It's an interesting question for child rearing too, because there is a lot more opportunity to modify stress tolerance during development than in adulthood. How do you give a child the right amount of stress exposure? I imagine it varies a lot between kids.
I will concede there probably are sleep hygiene things that could be done to decrease the amount of sleep needed a bit. But sleep is one of the few things I won't mess around with much any more. Granted if your career is not going well you may be more inclined to roll the dice, but I just consistently find lack of sleep to cause nothing but issues, and I personally haven't discovered anything that allows me to feel rested with < 7 hours.
- hirvi74 5y agoThe time in which one sleeps is not the only variable that matters. I rather have 5 hours of restful, deep sleep than 8 hours of tossing, turning, and waking up every couple of hours. Plus, there are other variables like how close to sleep was your last meal/snack, what time you go to sleep and wake up at, caffeine intake, etc.. Can some people function better on less sleep? Sure, but I would need to see more data on this topic before I believe it is as widespread as I anecdotally hear it. Are these people that need less sleep actually performing better, or they do they merely believe that because they are inhibited by their lack of sleep? I am pretty sure there have been studies observing this effect. One "thinks" they are performing better, but reality begs to differ.