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Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)
- neom 2y agoInteresting, I have a DEC2 mutation and don't need much sleep, but I do sleep very consistently. When I was first working through this discovery, I asked the dr how it was that people who have this have no adverse effects when folks always say not sleeping long enough is bad for your health and he said "well, we don't really know that's true" and kinda shrugged it off.
- exe34 2y agoalso things are recommended for the average population, not the individual - with "conditions"/superpowers like yours, it's absolutely the individual that matters, not the mean.
- magicalhippo 2y agoI recall watching a documentary on Discovery way back, where they followed some multiday ultramaraton competitors. They'd draw blood samples, measure vitals and have them answer mental acuity questionnaires each time they stopped for food or sleep. The competitors limited themselves to power naps, max 30 minutes though often just ten minutes. The scientist found that all the physical adverse effects of sleep deprivation were negated by the short power naps. Though IIRC the mental acuity did drop some as the event progressed. Been at least 15 years since I saw the program so might misrember some parts, but I clearly recall the physical effects of the power naps. Keep in mind these were quite fit athletes though.
- makeitdouble 2y ago> power nap I assume they weren't drinking coffee at every stop, do you remember what they did before napping ? (the "power" part)
- magicalhippo 2y agoPower nap meaning getting up after 10-15 minutes, 30 minutes max. The idea being that after 30 minutes other processes in the body kick in, so you feel much worse if you woke up after an hour. That said, they usually did get some food, a bar or some hot stew IIRC. Though can't recall if they did that before or after the nap.
- fsckboy 2y ago>The scientist found that all the physical adverse effects of sleep deprivation were negated by the short power naps. we don't even know if the "brain cleaning so, longterm, you don't get dementia" hypothesis is true, and here you/they are saying "we know it's false for these people". nah, fam.
- magicalhippo 2y agoBy physical I meant primarily the body. As I mentioned the cofnitive fuctions did start to suffer somewhat. Though they had quite short naps.
- jorvi 2y ago> The scientist found that all the physical adverse effects of sleep deprivation were negated by the short power naps. Though IIRC the mental acuity did drop some as the event progressed. I assume you mixed these up? There's two well-known extreme sleep schedules (Uberman 6x20m or Dymaxion 4x30m) that let you subsist on two hours of sleep a day, because you drop into REM sleep immediately. This however only clears up "brain fog". If you would do exercise on these sleep schedules, you would make little progress because muscle repair happens outside of REM sleep.
- magicalhippo 2y agoPretty sure I did not. But it was related to blood pressure, stress markers in blood and such as I recall it.
- swyx 2y agowhen you say dont need much sleep, are we talking 6 hours or something more out thre like 4 hours or less?
- neom 2y agoI go to sleep between 1am and 1:30am naturally and wake up around 6/:30am naturally. Allergy season makes me kinda lethargic, but doesn't change how much sleep I need. 4/5hrs is ok, less than 4 is not ok. I also oddly don't get jet lag.
- swyx 2y agoits a blessing. i think i survive well on 4-5hrs (incl wake up naturally) but def feel suboptimal compared to 7-8hrs.
- foota 2y agoI realize this is far off, but I'm hoping that someday I can get gene therapy to get this.
- styyyaaa 2y agoThe assumption is what you do when awake those extra hours is more productive (or fun of whatever you are aiming for...) than asleep. Sleeping you has the disadvantage it cannot keep score. Wake you has "I completed X today and Y yesterday". Advocate for sleeping you!
- mklepaczewski 2y agoDo you work out? How often, how long and what type of exercises do you do?
- neom 2y ago5 days a week, Velodrome 1 hour high intensity. 49/14 + :30 each way to work. I'm tall and skinny.
- mklepaczewski 2y agoInteresting, I wonder if it's common for people who don't need much sleep. I need 5ish hours of sleep(usually less) and I feel that regular workouts (7 days a week, 60 min runs) help me clear brain fog a lot.
- fatnoah 2y agoGreat, another source of anxiety to make it harder to maintain a consistent sleep schedule.
- dakiol 2y agoAgree. Every month there’s some new “discovery” about what can make your life shorter. It makes me anxious and definitely doesn’t help at all. I cannot simply manage so many variables. I try to do a little bit of everything, to be in the middle point of everything as much as I can; that’s my strategy.
- guerrilla 2y agoI think this is a framing problem. You need to let go of the outcome and focus on what you can do. You can't control the result, but you can do the best that you're capsble of in your current situation, which includes not over-extending yourself.
- __turbobrew__ 2y agoI know this will not help you, but stressing about sleep is a vicious cycle which does not help. I used to be much more anxious about sleep — and life in general — but I have leaned that if I don’t sleep that is fine. Life goes on, the body gets what the body needs, and I should focus on living instead of sleeping. Being active, spending time with friends, going outside for walks, laughing, and taking the world as it comes to me has done more for my sleep than reading studies or buying stuff (outside of a tempurpedic matress and solid oak frame).
- fatnoah 2y agoFortunately, I did learn early on that stressing about sleep, especially as I lie awake in bed, was making things worse.
- greatpostman 2y agoThis is probably correlated with so many other cofounding factors, like employment/stress/substance abuse
- yamrzou 2y ago> Results were adjusted for age, sex, ethnicity, and sociodemographic, lifestyle, and health factors.
- anonym29 2y agoWhew, glad we covered all 6 of the known possible confounding variables.
- nativeit 2y agoYou are willfully taking more away from that than was stated. Such a fallacy is a favorite trope among science denialists, and those who would distort the objectivity of research for misinformed (and/or dishonest) ends. I don’t know what, if any, specific motivations you have, but I think it’s worth pointing out.
- danparsonson 2y agoTheir point was, there are other confounding variables, and therefore the parent comment doesn't negate the grandparent comment. I agree, and I am absolutely not a science denialist.
- geysersam 2y agoWhat do you mean? The commenter just pointed out (in a joking manner) that, even if some confounding factors were taken into account, the result might still be caused by other confounding factors. That's a serious critique, not a fallacy.
- l33t7332273 2y agoSuch a critique is also a favorite refrain among science professionals
- hypeatei 2y agoDoes anyone else consistently get 6 to 7 hours of sleep no matter what? It doesn't feel optimal and I feel great on the rare days I get 8 hours, but I can function just fine on less. Also cannot easily fall back asleep if woken up which is really frustrating.
- xeromal 2y agoI've found that 7 is about ideal for me as a 35 year old male. Anything more or less seems to cause more issues
- Toorkit 2y agoOn my days off, I can sleep 12 hours if I don't set an alarm. And I could easily do more, if I didn't force myself out of bed.
- derwiki 2y agoAmazing! Without Advil PM I can’t sleep more than 7. Really goes to show how diverse sleep habits/requirements are from person to person.
- Toorkit 2y agoHah, I blame my job. Different shift every few days, always tired. I'd love to try a fixed sleep schedule, but sometimes I don't get home until 2am, other times I have to get up at 7:30am.
- acidburnNSA 2y agoI'm this 100%. Waking up at 5am on a Saturday is such a pain because my brain just won't let me go back to sleep.
- p1esk 2y agoI feel like shit any time I get less than 8 hours of sleep. Usually I get 9 or 10. However a day nap of 45-60 min does help a lot when I’m at a deficit.
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- FuckButtons 2y agoAh, fuck.
- colordrops 2y agoMy exact same sentiment. My day got a little darker after reading this.
- CoastalCoder 2y agoYou beat me to it.
- hinkley 2y agoMy reaction was slightly more humorous: Baymax: Oh no.
- matwood 2y agoOne of the best things I ever did was start going to bed and waking up at roughly the same time every day regardless of weekend or weekday.
- hackernewds 2y agoin what ways was it one of the best things?
- xeromal 2y agoIrregular weekend sleeping seems to have a knockon effect of hurting weekday sleeping. Just do it the same every time. The weekend shouldn't be different
- matwood 2y agoI wake up feeling rested everyday around the same time without an alarm. I also go to sleep fairly easily. The yo yo of late weekends and spending part of the week trying to get back to an earlier time left me tired much of the time.
- Calavar 2y ago> We aimed to assess the relationship of objectively measured sleep regularity with risk for all-cause mortality, and mortality from cardiometabolic causes and cancer, in a large cohort (N = 60 977) who wore accelerometer devices for 1 week. They look at one week of sleep data and then check mortality records about 10 to 15 years later. It's hard to argue a causative effect between one week of bad sleep and death potentially 10+ years out. Obviously there's an implication that people with terrible sleep regularity in that one week snapshot had terrible sleep regularity chronically, which in turn had a causative effect on mortality, but we have to make a couple of deductive jumps to get to that conclusion. I'd really like to see the same study with longer term sleep data.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago> It's hard to argue a causative effect between one week of bad sleep and death potentially 10+ years out. Statistically—absolutely, I agree with you, but controls and sample sizes can always be improved. Narratively—it's also not difficult to see: "gunk builds up in brain; gunk requires regular removal; sleep removes gunk; stable sleep removes gunk better than unstable sleep" It's difficult to blame people for emotionally attaching more to the latter than the former.
- geysersam 2y agoIt seems easier to see: "some people have lots of difficulties in their lives that makes them have an irregular sleep schedule; some people have lots of difficulties in their lives that makes them die early"
- kimixa 2y agoI agree - an obvious connection would be "Lower income jobs tend to have less control over their schedule", be it shift workers, hourly service jobs or similar. There also may be links to worse healthcare due to lack of insurance in those jobs. It might just be another "Poorer people don't live as long" correlation.
- worstspotgain 2y agoI wish some of the sleeping/eating studies covered the options "sleep when I'm tired" and "eat when I'm hungry." When remote work is an option, it'd be nice to know the health opportunity cost of RTO. Sadly the cohort is too hard to study outside of nursing home residents.
- spazbob 2y agoThis feels like one of those points that go back to our recent history vs the last 100,000 years of evolution. Before artifical light, alarm clocks, jobs, screens with blue light etc - we presumably woke and slept fairly consistently, no doubt tied partly to sunlight and temperature. Some people probably slept more than others, as they always have, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot more consistency. Disclaimer: I know nothing, just interested
- noduerme 2y agoI wonder how this translates if the irregularity is by choice. I can certainly see why people working back to back night and day shifts, or otherwise frequently being at a sleep debt that was compensated for later, would die younger. But as a freelancer, my sleep schedule is more or less my own. I go to sleep when I'm tired and usually try to sleep as long as I want to. Sometimes that's 11pm-10am, sometimes 6am-11am. It can oscillate throughout the week, but I try to average 16 hours of sleep in any given 48 hour period. Maybe this is incredibly unhealthy, but I've believed for a long time that it's kept me younger and healthier than being forced into a sleep rhythm that isn't what my body wants.
- atomicnumber3 2y agoAs someone whose natural sleep cycle seems to be closer to 26-28 hours, and whose preferred sleeping hours in a 24-hour cycle are 6am to 2-3pm... I commend you. Sincerely, someone forced into a "normal" schedule by kids school start times and, well, everything else too, I suppose.
- noduerme 2y agoHah. I've often thought that my actual rhythm is for a 25-26 hour day. I was going to write that but it seemed like too much to explain. As I go to bed later and later, eventually I find myself awake past sunrise, which is usually the day when I'll intentionally have a short sleep and snap back to an early bedtime that night. Kids would definitely screw up this aspect of my lifestyle lol. But kids give you immortality, and here I am just wondering if I'm gaining or losing a couple years.
- deprecative 2y agoJust as a secondary data point. Without medication I have about a 32:12 hour cycle. Up for at least 30 hours and sleeping for about 12. I can function on 5 but I'm grumpy about it for a while. Always been that way. Completely inverted as well. Up all night and my body tries to convince me to sleep during the day but I'm just not able to for another twelve hours. I got fired from several jobs because of it. My folks weren't understanding so I genuinely believed that I was willingly staying up and well... Needless to say I have no professional network and most of my friends thought I was a massive flake and those connections fell apart, too. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Even diagnosed with insomnia I still feel massive guilt about not being able to sleep like a normal person. I just ruin everyone's plans around me. If I need to be up I have to hope my medication works (when employed) and if it does I need an hour to wake up enough to feel safe doing anything major like cooking or driving. Sorry for the ramble. Appropriately I've been up for like 34 hours and am hoping these OTC meds kick in. Hope y'all have a great weekend.
- codr7 2y agoWell my sleep is certainly regularly fucked up, so I guess that means I'm dying eventually.
- Hashex129542 2y ago-
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- Buttons840 2y agoPersonal experiences cannot disprove a large scale statistical observation like this.
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- Hashex129542 2y agoi forgot the rule that I don't post against the wind in internet. So I can avoid arguments with random peoples at online.
- hackernewds 2y agoyour anecdata is not data. this almost seems like a troll post
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- Hashex129542 2y agoi forgot the rule that I don't post against the wind in internet. So I can avoid arguments with random peoples at online.
- tayo42 2y agoAfter having a kid Ive wondered how all these sleep disruption means you'll die studies could actually be true. You'd think evolution would have taken care of it at some point
- devmor 2y agoAs far as evolution is concerned, you've already had the kid - you passed on your genes. If you survive long enough to make sure your kid reaches maturity, that's all that matters there. Evolution can't select for anything that happens significantly past the birth of your progeny.
- CardenB 2y agolong enough to pass on genes also includes living long enough to make sure your child survives, so there is that as well.
- devmor 2y agoYes, which is why I said that.
- tayo42 2y agoMaybe, but do other mammals suffer from this? Maybe it woukd have been taken care of with some early human-ish species with shorter life spans or something.
- lostlogin 2y ago> As far as evolution is concerned, you've already had the kid - you passed on your genes A second child would help with that too.
- xeromal 2y agoSure but I doubt lack of sleep effects mortality greatly in childbearing years. Assuming you make it to 40-50, that's it. Now you can die whenever and have succeeded
- andsoitis 2y agoMy Oura ring establishes a consistent sleep rhythm and nudges me when it is approaching.
- styyyaaa 2y agoI read that with a lower case O at first and was intrigued!
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoRelated: How to Train Yourself to Go to Sleep Earlier https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42016904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42016904
- nojs 2y agoI think a “correlation is not causation” cautionary note is important here - there are a lot of things that cause fragmented sleep, and also cause death. Stress and underlying disease are two obvious ones.
- sahmeepee 2y ago"Finally, we acknowledge the correlational nature of our findings. Sleep regularity may be both a cause and marker of premature mortality risk."
- wayoverthecloud 2y agoShit, I do sleep 8 hrs a day but regularity is out of the question. Fuck
- snitzr 2y agoSleep is like drinking water. No one says, "I'm gonna get dehydrated right now and then drink a lot more water later so it's OK." But people do this for sleep. You need to sleep right when you're tired, because being tired is a stress that will need more time to heal the longer it goes. Sleep timing is underrated but it is just as important as quality and amount.
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- Uncouple4063 2y ago> Sleep regularity was a stronger predictor of all-cause mortality than sleep duration, by comparing equivalent mortality models, and by comparing nested SRI-mortality models with and without sleep duration (p = 0.14–0.20). These findings indicate that sleep regularity is an important predictor of mortality risk and is a stronger predictor than sleep duration. Not totally disagreeing with you, but this indicates that it is _more_ important than the latter two when concerned with all-cause mortality.
- OJFord 2y ago> No one says, "I'm gonna get dehydrated right now and then drink a lot more water later so it's OK." Err yeah they do? That's 'a night out', 'going out for drinks', 'night on the town', etc. Sort of get the point, but not a brilliant analogy ;)
- xeromal 2y agoI think the analogy holds if you consider all these behaviors as negative behaviors which they are. But you're right, people do say it so he's wrong. You could rephrase it as going on a bender and not eating/drinking as healthy is probably just as bad as lack of regular sleep. I've walked myself into a circle. You're right
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- alliao 2y agowhen I worked in UK doing shift work work gave me bonuses and pamphlets on the health costs for working through the graveyard shift regularly. The management initially wanted us to do weekly rotations of 3 shifts we tried for a month and it was undeniably sure fire way to die early. So we decided we'd rather do monthly shifts, it worked mostly ok except heading into winter I didn't get to see the sun for a while. nowadays I still do some kind of on-call hours, and I think being on call should pay a butt load more honestly.
- lucb1e 2y agoSubtitling: "Graveyard shift is a work shift running through the late hours of the night through the early hours of the morning, typically from midnight until 8 am." I was wondering if you actually did some job on a graveyard at night or if there was a second meaning there. Good I looked that up...
- thimabi 2y agoI found the best way to ensure sleep regularity is by having a fixed wake-up time. If you don’t have one and you begin to set your alarm clock to early hours, the first weeks doing so will feel like hell. But eventually all will be worth it. The sleepiness during the day will disappear and, at night, your body will naturally want to get some rest early. Another strategy is to fill your day with deep work and exercise, so as to ensure maximum tiredness at night. Nowadays, my sleeping patterns are mostly regular thanks to these protocols. Every day about 9pm, I feel sleepy, and my bed begins to look very enticing. I follow this pattern for my daily well-being, but it’s nice to know it reduces my mortality risk, too.
- m463 2y agowhat helped me was to use an alarm clock. but to go to sleep!
- thimabi 2y agoIn my case, having a bedtime alarm would only leave me anxious and frustrated if I went to bed and failed to sleep at that time. But I have tried something similar: setting an alarm to decompress before sleeping. No phone, no TV — just some quiet music playing or some books to read. I still set this night alarm, but it is much easier to ignore it than to ignore my body’s natural tendency to lose steam after waking up early and having done so much during the day.
- m463 2y agoactually, I should correct my comment. Not alarm! but notification. What helped was notifications leading up to bedtime. two hours, one hour 30 minute, "get to sleep". It sort of gives you context to wind down.
- lazyasciiart 2y agoI did that for years with jobs that required it and didn’t find that worked for me.
- throw7 2y agovery cool that dst has been killing us all this time.
- kiwijamo 2y agoI live in an area that observes DST and since most devices does the changeover automatically I've never noticed the switch. Only notice when other people start moaning about it. Wonder if it affects certain people more than others.
- left-struck 2y agoIt deeply affects me. I’ve lived in places that have it and currently live where there is no DST. If my state implemented it I would try to negotiate with my workplace to keep the same actual hours so my schedule doesn’t change, if they refused I would consider moving, job or state.
- xeromal 2y agoIt would still happen with or without DST. The winter and summer phases of sunlight adjust people's sleep schedules. It's just more dramatic with DST
- benbojangles 2y agoAs somebody with Non-24 sleep wake disorder i concur.
- 4b11b4 2y agoJust consider yourself to not live long, that is the reality anyway
- cryptozeus 2y agoOh man I took my sleep for granted last month, have been working late and waking up at strange times. Sometimes sleep at 3 am and wake up at 7am then sleep at 11pm and wake up at 6am. Eventually my body totally crashed, interestingly I had a panic attack and heart attack type symptoms at 2am in the morning. Had to rush to ER.
- tomcam 2y agoI am so fucked
- computator 2y agoWhenever I see a study about something that affects longevity, I want to know how much of a difference it makes expressed as a number I can relate to. If you were able to switch from a highly irregular sleep schedule to a very regular schedule, would you live 18 hours longer on average, or 1.5 months, or 5 years? This would be a way to decide how much attention and effort one should to devote to the numerous studies about things that affect mortality.
- julianeon 2y agoA confounding factor example would be someone who sleeps regularly and someone who sleeps irregularly, two people who both live the same amount of years... but the irregular sleeper lives their last 10 years with greatly impaired capacity after a stroke. [Note: some of my work involves dealing with elderly people and "impaired after a stroke" is an extremely real, and common, thing.] These 'fuzzy' conclusions may be the best we can do.
- alister 2y agoLooking at the graph in the study, it looks like 0.972 fraction of the very regular sleepers are alive after 7.8 years and 0.945 of the highly irregular sleepers. The difference is 0.027, or in other words 2.7% more of the highly irregular sleepers have died off after 7.8 years. It might be significant in the statistical sense, but it looks like a pretty small difference to me. I don't know to translate that into a statement like: If you were able to switch from a highly irregular sleep schedule to a very regular schedule, you would live __(x days)__ longer on average. With some hand-wavy reasoning I arrived at something like 10 days longer over a period of 10 years. I.e., a very small amount on average. I'd welcome someone with a statistics background to do a real calculation.
- nomilk 2y agoCurious to learn which lifestyle factors correlate with extremely regular sleep patterns. Of my friends who have very regular sleep patterns, they tend to be very stable, long termists, career focussed, good in relationships, at least moderately sociable, fit and healthy (although in no way obsessed) and well rounded. Kinda good at everything but not extreme in any way. I'd guess those factors alone would have a noticeable effect on longevity.
- dghughes 2y agoCat owners are screwed.
- m3kw9 2y agoThere is likely 100 factors that affects longevity and having a 3% better is pretty huge just for one factor
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoWhen I was younger I went to clubs every Friday and Saturday, dancing till morning, then continuing the exercises at home. Guess that takes a toll.
- dmead 2y agoim checking hacker news in between astrophotography subs. looks like i'm in danger
- syspec 2y agoWhat about people with very young children? Like infants?
- left-struck 2y agoWell obviously they would have severely impacted sleep? What are you trying to imply?
- xeromal 2y agoConsider it a sacrifice. The cause being noble doesn't make it any healthier
- fastball 2y agoMy problem with regular sleep is that the sum of "good night sleep" + "energy for the day" is > 24 hours. Realistically I think it is about 26 hours on average. If I sleep for a normal amount (7-8 hours) I will generally have about 18 hours of energy. So if I just sleep when I'm tired my schedule is constantly shifting. If I go to bed when not tired I just stair at the ceiling for hours, which feels like a waste.
- beautron 2y agoThis matches my experience. I think I have a 25 hour circadian rhythm, which has me always wanting to stay up one hour later than the night before.
- seer 2y agoYou might need stronger environmental queues for your body to wake up. The body has both internal and external data to know when you have to wake up - lights, noise levels etc. If you set up your bedroom “too well” - quiet, light blocking roller blinds etc, then your body can only rely on the internal clock. I used to have that but since moving to another place without those “niceties” suddenly my body quite easily finds “the correct time” every day. Also you can experiment with this on long flights to get rid of jet lag. After I land, if I spend the first night drinking and fall asleep, I effectively ruin my internal clock for the night, and then the body has only the environmental queues. Wake up in the morning and my clock is effectively reset. Might not feel great for the day but suffer zero jet lag as I start waking up in the morning at the “correct” time even though I’ve flown halfway across the planet.
- fastball 2y agoMy problem isn't really waking up though, it's the going to sleep.
- flemhans 2y agoI sleep when I feel tired and wake up when my body naturally wakes up (never an alarm). However it results in irregularity, although somewhat aligning with a 28-hour cycle. I wonder if that's good or bad.
- princearthur 2y agoIf you can't help it, this is called Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder (N24SWD) [1]. If it's just because you're not exposed to natural light a whole lot, circadian drift is "normal," though my recollection is that ~25 hours is more common. I guess it gets diagnosed if and when you complain to a doctor that you can't help it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep–wake_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep–wake_disorde...
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