33 ms·

Engineering Sleep

459 points by amin 2y ago

awinter-py 2y ago
I read nancy kress / beggars in spain as a teenager and get such an eerie vibe from short sleeper research but also let's go, if a giraffe can sleep 2 hours so can I
necovek 2y ago
How about — instead of making sleep more "efficient" — we engineer our lives to provide decent amount of sleep and not stress over having more and more of the waking hours to do stuff. After all, we live in the age of abundance. (Though I admit I might not be the best person to ask for this as I am on the lower end of how much sleep I need)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- yMEyUyNE1 2y ago
  How about engineering the society/civilization(?)/world so that "all can" work hard (8hrs), rest hard (8hrs), live hard (8hrs) and die hard when the eventuality arrives?
- alfiedotwtf 2y ago
  Not sure why almostlit’s reply is grey and dead (sorry I can’t even ote to resurrect it).
- ozozozd 2y ago
  We could be sleeping less to do more fun stuff, no?
  - djtango 2y ago
    Don't know why you got downvoted for this. My whole life I have been shaving my sleep time to try to cram more of what I want to do into my day. I used to wake up an extra couple of hours before school so I could squeeze in extra gaming time. On holiday I regularly sacrifice sleep to extreme levels to do more. This isn't some kind of box ticking behaviour with its roots originating from toxic hustle culture, simply the adverse effects of sleep deprivation don't outweigh my enjoyment of things. And when my sleep debt finally catches up with me, I sleep my heart's delight. From experience, I have friends who share in my world view and threshold for sacrificing sleep for pleasure and I have met people who think are mortified by this behaviour. My immediate family are all willing to sacrifice sleep on the drop of the hat notably - waking up at the crack of dawn to send/accompany someone to the airport is simply modus operandi. My wife is very keen to protect her sleep on the flipside and so when we travel together our decision frameworks need to accommodate both MOs Ironically sometimes I'm most protective of my sleep during the weekly grind (and also training for fitness) because then my performance matters. If my only short term downside is discomfort from fatigue, I'll regularly trade that for more "uptime"
    - necovek 2y ago
      I hear you, but the thing is, what do you achieve by "cramming" more "doing" in? Do you also switch to those nutrient rich powder meals to save an extra hour or two prepping and eating food too? Are not all of those things that could be optimized away an opportunity to let yourself feel, relax and simply be? The examples you bring up (like waking early to do something for someone you care about) has nothing to do with the topic of engineering for consistently reduced sleep, imho.
  - necovek 2y ago
    I never said we couldn't and I did not refer only to work: it's still the wrong goal in my mind. "Fun" is usually defined as something providing instant gratification (through hormonal response), though there is fun in retrospect too ("I was scared like shit, that was fun"). And while it's nothing to sneeze at and we should always have some, you can achieve the similar with different medications or narcotics (if the goal is "have more fun"). But I wouldn't optimize for that: we can achieve plenty in our lives, including having plenty of fun, by just being ourselves. As in, get the sleep you need. Do the work you must and the work you enjoy. Have the fun you want. While our lifetimes are short, they are not that short. Even if we got 10% more of the waking hours, that won't be the thing that makes your life worthwhile or not. If you spent the other 90% making it worthwhile, that'll do. But if you must, go for it!
    - pimlottc 2y ago
      These two types of fun have been sometimes categorized as “type 1” and “type 2” fun: https://medium.com/@yinonweiss/the-four-types-of-fun-a745ec52a679 https://medium.com/@yinonweiss/the-four-types-of-fun-a745ec5...
worksonmymach 2y ago
Why is it not a survival advantage? Probably because we didn't work 18 hour days, the extra wakeness would just be used for rest. Night shifts that anyone can do are still needed if you need tribal watchers, and normal 8hr sleeping people can wake upnand fight when needed. In terms of the gene, I am suprised how rare it is (90 families?) given I have met someone who needs only 4hr sleep. Another point is less sleep doesn't mean you can do 2 more hours work a day. That is another vector: how much work per day (physical, mental) can be done.
- hgomersall 2y ago
  There's a plausible hypothesis that sleep is the thing that evolved precisely to stop us doing things for any more time than is strictly necessary. That is, sleeping is safe.
  - grues-dinner 2y ago
    Yes, but evolution didn't account for the need for those TPS reports to be ready by tomorrow morning and Bob over there is already 48 hours into his shift (don't worry he's on salary, the overtime is free).
  - jlpom 2y ago
    I don’t think any serious biologists agree with it. There is a hard physiological need to repair cellular damage from metabolism, UV (this a big deal in unicellular species), etc. If this theory was correct, and it is possible to do it entirely while awake, there would be species (apex predators in particular) that would have evolved without the need for it, like everything that is not a hard requirement. But this is not the case.
    - hgomersall 2y ago
      There must far more to it than that. As soon as sleep is a thing, it can be optimised for different goals. Since animals have widely varying sleep requirements, there's clearly some evolutionary factor that influences sleep length. That is, though sleep might have physiological requirements, it doesn't mean that the amount of sleep is not influenced by non physiological effects. I'm constantly amazed by the ability of biologists to be amazed by the reach and ingenuity of evolution.
nosefurhairdo 2y ago
For the afficionados, there's an excellent paper titled "The neurobiological basis of narcolepsy" published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience which examines the relationship between orexin and sleep as it relates to narcolepsy patients: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6492289/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6492289/ In narcolepsy type 1 (NT1), patients have severely diminished orexin levels. This appears to cause them to inappropriately enter REM sleep. OP notes that the mutation lowering the sleep requirement causes an increase in orexin. I wonder whether the increased orexin could be inhibiting REM and perhaps facilitating a more restful architecture of sleep. Alternatively, perhaps elevated orexin levels during the day cause wakefulness such that you just don't need as much sleep, regardless of how efficient the sleep is. It would be interesting to compare sleep tracking data of people with and without this mutation to see if there are significant differences in time spent in different sleep stages.
- jlpom 2y ago
  > Alternatively, perhaps elevated orexin levels during the day cause wakefulness such that you just don't need as much sleep, regardless of how efficient the sleep is. As noted elsewhere ITT, there is a strong biological need for sleep, and its main role is very likely to reduce reactive oxygen species (though the amount needed vary by genetics) Orexin levels increase the noradrenaline ones, which is one of the few antioxidants able to reach neurons (along with melatonin) and by this way also increase slow wave sleep, making it more efficient. So yes, this could be a way they would need less sleep.
almostlit 2y ago
If there was in fact a safe pathway to only needing 2 hours of sleep I would 100% use it and consider it a zero to one innovation. Although I think it would also come with a lot of pushback. One of my favourite questions to ask people is "if there was a way that allowed you to not sleep and be completely fine, would you take it?". Surprisingly (or maybe not) most people will answer no and say they like sleep to much. I think most people aren't trying to squeeze the maximum amount of time efficiency from their day. They don't like sleep because they need it, they like sleep because its synonymous to relaxing. So less sleep means less relaxing.
- esperent 2y ago
  I like sleep for several reasons, I like to cuddle with my spouse, I like a set amount of time where I don't have to think or worry about anything, and I love dreaming. Of these, only dreaming strictly needs sleep, however, I think the healing that occurs in deep sleep should be added as a need. And according to my smartwatch, I spend around 2 hours dreaming and 1 hour in deep sleep each night, although this varies quite a bit night to night. I don't think trying to reduce these is a good idea. That means light sleep is the candidate for reduction. However, I have researched this before and the most consistent answer I get is that we don't really know what the 5 hours spent in light sleep is for. It seems unlikely that it's just for conserving energy, the body rarely does things for only one reason. So my bet is that we might find a way to reduce light sleep by around 2 hours a night, which is what this article is suggesting. But it's unlikely that we'll go much further without causing problems. And even if someone does discover a way, there's no way I'd try it without at least a few decades of evidence that it doesn't cause Alzheimer's or some other old age disease.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Count me in with you - I'd definitely say "yes" to less sleep. But, if it were a general invention, I don't think it would work as well as you say. Beyond the usual economics issue[0], for me the value of not sleeping is entirely conditioned on everyone else sleeping. It's not that I don't like to sleep. It's that I also like me-time, autonomy, lack of other people's demands or expectations, and the only time to get that is when most people are sleeping, so the house is quiet and I can be sure no one will randomly want something from me[2]. Relaxation, unwinding, deep thinking, self-actualization are all competing with sleep for that limited amount of time. Everyone else not sleeping would cut into that for me. -- [0] - Any generally available trick or change that allows someone to get ahead economically, quickly becomes a requirement. See e.g. working longer, coffee, cars, double-income households, increasingly also stimulant meds. It's a textbook Red Queen's Race[1]. "Less sleep" would be so profound a win that it would turn from "hack" into global standard pretty much in an instant. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race [2] - Because of strong societal expectations of behavior, such as not calling or bothering people past 20:00-22:00.
gardenhedge 2y ago
I wonder if this would give full energy/mental capacity with 4 hours sleep after drinking alcohol
- almost_usual 2y ago
  Alcohol suppresses REM sleep, I’d imagine folks with FNSS would get the same quantity of sleep with much worse quality.
colordrops 2y ago
My first reaction is to wonder what the downside of such a gene is. Perhaps there is no downside for the individuals that have it, but these individuals serve a particular purpose to the greater civilization and lack other capabilities that benefit humanity as a whole. If there is a trade-off perhaps it is not at the individual level. Maybe it's similar to the idea that we can just eradicate mosquitos with no negative effects. Is that really true?
alfiedotwtf 2y ago
I wonder it I have this… Both my parents go to bed around 1am and wake up at 7am, and so did all of my grandparents. My kids on weekends go to bed around 1-2am as well but do sleep in, and my average is about 4-5 hours a night… As for me, I’ve had sleep issues all my life and found the only way to fall asleep within 20 minutes is to stay up until exhaustion. But lately I’ve been gaining back my time and pushing even further - once every one or two weeks I’ll skip a night of sleeping, staying up around 36 hours straight. I’ve been doing this for a few months now and have zero side effects so far. In fact I end up sleeping over 10 hours the next day without waking up in the middle (which /never/ happens otherwise).
- lloeki 2y ago
  Sleep starting late + driving to exhaustion + occasional night skipping then catchup sounds almost like DSPD: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder That one sleeps 4-5h per night also sounds like one light/deep/REM sleep cycle, of which there would typically be two in an idealised 8h-ish "night". There are hypotheses out there that a single 8h block of sleep is a myth - possibly socially induced by industrialisation and 3x8 shifts - and that waking up in the middle of these 8h is a normal thing. "waking up" here may mean anything from near-consciousness sleep to actually waking up and possibly do shit for an hour then going back to bed; or even for some, splitting sleep in two 4-hour blocks spread around the 24h day. In parent's post it may be that one 4h block is done, then social pressure (work/child schedules) pushes one to continue with this one-block schedule. It may even look appealing as triggering sleep through exhaustion superficially appears to help with sleep in the short term. Long term it gets exhausting but this perceptually becomes the new normal, especially when the symptoms of this kind of sleep deprivation aren't that obviously tied to sleep habits, the naively expected ones being masked by external pressure (schedule), habit bias (normalisation of deviance through repetition), exogenic (alcohol, caffeine, nicotine) or endogenic (adrenalin, cortisol, dopamine). The main problem is then that by the time symptoms are impacting the situation is deeply anchored; worse, because the root cause is non-obvious it is often misdiagnosed. Don't ask me how I know. Also, not a physician, just saying: take care.
  - 2y ago
pella 2y ago
A Gut Bacteria" is also a rather interesting approach to solving sleep problems. Does anyone have experience related to this? "The company ( FitBiomics ) has already commercialized two products. Their flagship offering, V•Nella, helps metabolize lactic acid and reduce fatigue, while Nella targets sleep health - a crucial market considering that 100 million Americans suffer from insomnia. "Within 10 to 14 days of daily consumption, consumers feel the difference," Scheiman notes. "They have less daily fatigue interfering with their daily life, more energy, and some people are tracking cardiovascular benefits on their wearables. We hear really cool anecdotal feedback like, 'Hey, I no longer have to take a nap in the middle of the day, or I no longer need coffee in the middle of the day.'" https://archive.md/XOmx5#selection-827.0-839.405 https://archive.md/XOmx5#selection-827.0-839.405
- rkallos 2y ago
  I experienced a similar change (more energy and steadier energy levels throughout the day) after switching to a plant-based diet, which has been shown to change one's gut microbiome over a few weeks.
naming_the_user 2y ago
I'm not really convinced that removing the need for sleep would result in me being more productive primarily because I'm not an always-on computer. The average day for me has huge differences in terms of my productivity at any given moment. I need downtime anyway, if I didn't sleep I believe that I'd end up vegging out in some way because I'm not doing 24 hours of flashcards. The discussions on here also always seem to centre around a very stereotypical "I am a vat for my brain" way of thinking. Realistically whilst sleeping other things are going on, muscles are recovering, digestive processes are going on, other forms of growing, etc, it's not just the brain. There are also things like circadian rhythm, sunshine, etc. I woke up early today and had a few hours of darkness, I can feel my mood and brainpower improving as the sun rises. We are not bots, this stuff is analogue.
- mlyle 2y ago
  Yah, but if you needed 2 hours less of sleep, there'd still be myriad advantages. Times when it's not possible to get enough sleep: you'd be less sleep-deprived. And, if it's truly without negative side effects: maybe you get 20 minutes more useful time per day and increase your ratio of conscious relaxation to useful time. I'd call that a pretty big win.
  - naming_the_user 2y ago
    It's interesting but I feel as if the discussion is a bit flawed because it feels very binary, i.e. sleep 8 hours = have 16 hours non sleep, sleep 6 hours = have 18 hours non sleep, and we assume that each hour is the same regardless, but it won't be. It feels a bit like - well could I engineer myself to require 1500 calories a day instead of 2000. Maybe. But as a result there would definitely be some downside, maybe I'd be less physically strong, or have less endurance, or have a bit less processing power, or have to rest more, etc. If we straight up designed a more efficient body, then I'd rather keep eating 2k and be "more powerful", or maybe I'd go to 4k! Maybe I can sleep for 2 fewer hours and retain the same or more productivity. Or maybe I could sleep for the full amount of hours but be more well rested and as a result be more productive in the awake time. That sort of thing.
clumsysmurf 2y ago
Recently this came up on sleep deprivation : "preemptive administration of low-dose aspirin during sleep restriction reduced pro-inflammatory responses. Specifically, aspirin reduced interleukin-6 expression and COX-1/COX-2 double positive cells in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated monocytes, as well as C-reactive protein serum levels." "aspirin-induced reduction of inflammatory pathway activity in sleep-restricted participants was paralleled by decreased wake after sleep onset and increased sleep efficiency during recovery sleep" But, bleeding and strokes :( https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06-dose-aspirin-inflammation-loss.html https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06-dose-aspirin-inflamma...
- sahmeepee 2y ago
  Low dose aspirin is used to reduce the risk of strokes: https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/low-dose-aspirin/about-low-dose-aspirin/ https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/low-dose-aspirin/about-low-dose...
killjoywashere 2y ago
> The UCSF group hypothesizes that this elevated level of orexin expression partially explains reduced sleep So, one possible line of investigation would be a table of mammals, their sleep cycles, their orexin levels, and the numbers of copies of orexin and it's regulators in their genomes. For example: compared to humans, elephants have a lower cancer risk. Turns out they have significantly more copies of p53, a tumor supressor gene (1). Perhaps a similar, somewhat parallel construct exists: elephants sleep 3-4 hours a night. Maybe they have more orexin? Maybe they have different copy numbers or mutations of the relevant genes in the pathway? (1) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5061548/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5061548/
abhaynayar 2y ago
Love the writing-style. Quite "to-the-point", without any fluff, and with a nice flow and purpose.
lokimedes 2y ago
As above, so below. These lines of thinking sees sleep as a hygiene factor for maintaining bio stasis. We also process experiences and “simulate” effects of potential actions in the waking state. These “software-level” sleep activities seems less quantifiable in terms of sleep-time efficiency. If I get an evolutionary advantage from better consolidated experiences through longer dream sessions, how would that compare with more “face-time” with lions and famines in my waking state? There is a nasty “all things being equal” fallacy hidden in this line of thinking.
sinuhe69 2y ago
My question is, if sleeping less (with FNSS) offers so much advantage, why haven't we all evolved to sleep less with FNSS? If a mutation offers a distinct advantage, natural selection will force us to adopt it sooner or later.
- dinoqqq 2y ago
  There is a theory that sleeping more hours was not a determining factor in survival [1]. Homo sapiens mitigated sleeping on the ground as a risk by sleeping in groups. > However, too much deep sleep is dangerous. REM is the stage of sleep in which we experience dreams, so our muscles become paralyzed to avoid acting out these dreams. In his “social sleep hypothesis,” Samson suggests that our ancestors mitigated the risk of deep sleep by sleeping in large groups with at least one person on guard. > “Human camps are like a snail’s shell. They can pick it up and move it around with them,” Samson says. Our ancestral hunter-gatherers might have slept in groups of 15 to 20 around a campfire, taking turns staying awake and watching over the others. [1] https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-strange-sleeping-habits-of-homo-sapiens https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-strange-sl...
- m0llusk 2y ago
  Humans already sleep far less than other mammals, so that seems to be the case. It also might be evidence that attempting to get by with less has costs. Sleep debt has a range of troubling symptoms including psychosis, so risks involved in experimentation are significant.
globular-toast 2y ago
I've always wanted to reduce my sleep requirement. These days I naturally sleep for 8 hours. It's not completely wasted; my brain often figures out difficult problems while I sleep. But if I could do something relaxing like playing a game or socialising instead that would be great. I did try polyphasic sleep when I was younger but it didn't work out. Having my sleeping patterns so far off the standard made me really unhappy.
- rramadass 2y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42281618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42281618
exmadscientist 2y ago
Hey, discussion of orexin receptor stuff! As someone with clinically-diagnosed insomnia, I've been lucky enough to/unfortunate enough to have to try the orexin receptor antagonist sleep aids for a while. As recent, on-patent drugs, they are very, very expensive ($360/month was the number marked on the receipt slip, not that that means much in the US; I certainly wasn't paying that)... and they work. They really, really do work. I was prescribed them because I tried every single other class of sleep aid on the market and they were mostly ineffective, had massive side effects, or were benzos (temazepam: best sleep of my life, but better not use it for longer than a month!). This stuff? Orexin receptor antagonists? They work. Holy crap, do they ever work. Sleep quality better than the Z-drugs, great tolerability, no massive disruption going off them... when these things go off-patent they're going to be massive. Sleep quality was not perfect (maybe 80% of "normal"? I don't know) but that is absolutely minor compared to the alternative. (And for the record, I'm off them now due to other stuff clearing up such that I don't need this level of sleep assistance anymore. Not because I can't afford them.) I guess that's a long-winded way to say that if you're going to do questionably-advised sleep biohacking, orexin receptors are probably the place to start.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
  >(And for the record, I'm off them now due to other stuff clearing up such that I don't need this level of sleep assistance anymore. Not because I can't afford them.) If it was available over the counter for, say, $50/month -- do you think you would be taking it just for the improved sleep quality? Also, what was the specific name of the drug you had such a good experience with?
  - smallnix 2y ago
    Afaiu exmadscientist said their sleep quality improved in the context of their condition, but still worse than a healthy person's sleep: > Sleep quality was not perfect (maybe 80% of "normal"? I don't know)
    - exmadscientist 2y ago
renewiltord 2y ago
Is it really possible? Taking 16 waking hours to 20 waking hours would make my 40 remaining years into 50 remaining year equivalent. I will attend to this.
- rramadass 2y ago
  No, don't. Sleep is fundamental to everything else and hence messing with it is never advisable. Some resources; 1) Neuroscience of Sleep - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_sleep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_sleep 2) Sleep Epigenetics - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_epigenetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_epigenetics 3) Sleep deprivation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation 4) Familial natural short sleep - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_natural_short_sleep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_natural_short_sleep
benreesman 2y ago
I’ll admit I didn’t read TFA. Some combination of the title and the submission domain triggered my tick even more than usual around the use of “AI”. It’s extremely unlikely that I’ll regard any artifact as artificially intelligent if the broader context fails a pretty low bar for intelligence of any kind.
- benreesman 2y ago
  Please tell me Foubners Fund is a gigaparsec from this before I become the Unabomber.
- kthejoker2 2y ago
  The article is very real and human written and highly intelligent regardless of its merits. So a bit of a false positive for your mental model.
stared 2y ago
> Familial Natural Short Sleep (FNSS), a benign mutation that allows them to sleep 1-2 hours less than the recommended 7-9 hours, without experiencing the negative effects of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is one concern, but there’s a more subtle impact on cognitive functions (working memory, creativity, deep focus), overall health (particularly the endocrine and immune systems), and long-term health outcomes (such as an increased risk of dementia). When I was younger, I was fascinated by various optimized sleep schedules. However, I noticed a stark contrast: many of my math friends consistently slept 9–10 hours a day. They needed that—not just to function in daily life but to achieve the deep focus required for their work. Living on less sleep might not affect immediate action (and in some cases, it might even seem to enhance focus on doing), but it can impair deeper, more complex thinking. Some suggest that one of sleep's key roles is to help the brain regenerate. Chronic sleep deprivation, in turn, is linked to a higher risk of dementia. For anecdotal evidence: Churchill and Thatcher, known for boasting about sleeping only 4–5 hours a night, experienced significant cognitive decline later in life.
- consf 2y ago
  [dead]
- djtango 2y ago
  This is true, I was neighbours with one of the top mathematicians in my uni and he slept what felt like an excessive amount everyday. I definitely underperformed academically due to sleep deprivation and I probably benefited greatly during my revision period because I had a very strong sleep routine. That said, I entered my final exam having only slept probably less than two hours and that was 100% the right call because the extra cramming was necessary and drove the needle significantly.
  - vacuity 2y ago
    Sleep deprivation affects many different things, some of which are salvageable with stimulants like caffeine, and certain functions are fairly unaffected. Exams that can be solved mostly with rote memorization are less impacted by sleep deprivation than exams that require spontaneous creativity. In any case, glad to know it went well for you!
kator 2y ago
This article makes me want to get a DNA test. In my family, it’s very common to sleep in the six-hour range. I personally sleep from 10 pm to 4:25 am every day, often waking up around 4:15 am before my watch vibrates to wake me. If I sleep eight hours, I feel groggy, jet-lagged, and generally have a day where I’m slogging through molasses to get from one task to the next. My wife has raised concerns about my sleep pattern, so I started using sleep-tracking tools like Fitbit and, more recently, an Apple Watch. She tracks her sleep too, and the big difference we’ve noticed is that I fall asleep within about two minutes, and my “sleep efficiency” using these tools is 98%. If I’m traveling and feel a bit jet-lagged, I can take a 20-minute nap (often without an alarm) and wake up feeling refreshed. She also seems to wake up a lot, most nights I "sleep like a log" and I only wakeup in the morning. My mother has the same pattern but stays up later and sleeps about six hours into the morning. I used to do this too, but around age 23, I switched to an earlier bedtime and a consistent daily routine. When I became a “morning person,” I found I could code like crazy in the morning before “starting” my day, and this rewarding experience reinforced the habit. I’ve tested this pattern in many ways, including not using an alarm (I still wake up around the same time for weeks at a time) and using a “light clock” I built with a Raspberry Pi to slowly brighten the room. Again, I wake up after roughly 6 hours and 20 minutes. Now, I use my Apple Watch to vibrate as a gentle reminder to start the day. On weekends, I keep the same schedule and use the extra time to read or hack away at side projects, often coding until the late afternoon when my wife protests enough that I need to stop and hang out or do my honey-do's. About 10 years ago, during my annual checkup, my wife asked my doctor about this sleep pattern. The doctor asked me several questions, seemingly looking for signs of sleep deficit or dysfunction. In the end, he said I could do a sleep study but concluded, “If it works, don’t break it.” As for productivity, I’ve found I can code effectively from 4:30 am to 8:30 am, then shower and work from 9 am to 6 pm without much trouble. I also practice intermittent fasting, typically eating only at 6 pm, with a protein shake around noon. This habit happened by accident—I realized breakfast slowed me down, and eating lots of carbs impaired my cognitive function and ability to code or handle complex tasks in the morning. Before you ask, I generally don’t use caffeine or other stimulants. Occasionally, I’ll have one cup of coffee around 9 am as a social habit, but I recently stopped that again and actually feel better. I’ll most likely drop it again for a while until it sneaks back in again.
m0llusk 2y ago
Kind of tangential, but some time ago now passed famous sleep researcher William Dement gave a presentation at Google TechTalks about healthy sleep and optimal performance that is a good overall review of what we know about sleep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8
k__ 2y ago
Cool! Next solve going to the toilet and we're all set.
cmiller1 2y ago
They talk about the people achieving full mental capacity with less sleep, but are there any studies on physical recovery in people with FNSS? Do they also experience improved rate of exercise recovery and muscle growth during sleep?
yapyap 2y ago
This paper totally ignores the human aspect of sleeping, there is a habit to it. If we were able to be awake 20 hours a day we may still be miserable because of factors like the sun being down for ane even longer time while we’re awake. I feel like this is one of those inane pursuits for productivity where that doesn’t fit at all, at least not for the thinking jobs. Maybe in a dystopia big companies like amazon would use inventions like this to be able to let their employees work 20 hour work days or something. Of course this shouldn’t discredit the linked article of being interesting or anything, just sharing my thoughts on the endless pursuit of productivity.
- xandrius 2y ago
  Many people spend a lot of time awake during the darker hours and not everyone is miserable. I actually enjoy both, so if I could operate 20h a day without any harm or loss, it would be a net win for sure (and I also love sleeping).
- kthejoker2 2y ago
  The article is neutral on the impacts of needing less sleep. It's not proposing an increase in productivity or how to use more waking hours. Its main raison d'etre is we're all sleep deprived so engineering less sleep may provide health and wellness benefits.
- jevogel 2y ago
  If you're required to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, gaining an extra hour or two per day could go toward leisure or recreation or exercise. Or maybe you're already sleeping only 6.25 hours a night, but it is having negative health and mood effects, and eliminating those negatives could improve quality of life without detracting from waking time.
muzster 2y ago
not all hours sleep/awake hours are equal - for example, I may be more work productive late at night, a better listener/learner in the mornings and better sleeper post meals, in the bath tub, travelling (my kids used to love falling asleep in the car). Wonder if we could engineer multiple sleep intervals through out the single day (e.g. power napping, siesta's). There is plenty of dead time for me during the day that could be swapped out for sleep.. the question is at what cost to the body & mind? Just a thought.
baq 2y ago
I’m not convinced we need to engineer sleep in the general population. Once shorter sleep times are available to everyone, they’ll be expected and then simply assumed just as cars are right now in most of the US.
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  It is very important to ensure that society does not work this way.
- quotemstr 2y ago
  Your argument works just as well for eyeglasses. Was inventing eyeglasses a mistake?
  - baq 2y ago
    You’re confusing glasses with sight and besides the analogy would be not vs glasses, but vs some kind of cyber eye implant.
dooglius 2y ago
There is a good reason why this would be selected against by evolution: being awake increases metabolic rate--how many calories you use every day. Humans have only had abundant food availability for a short time, not long enough for evolution to adapt.
wslh 2y ago
COVID affected my sleep, but I wouldn't classify it as “long COVID” Does anyone have interesting insights or resources about this? I’ve found a references, but HN is one of the best resources to ask for this. It seems to improve over time, and I don't have any trouble napping during the day. However, my main issue is fragmented sleep: I wake up a few times at night but can fall back asleep easily. I used to sleep continuously, so I’m curious about what part of the brain this could be affecting and how can this be changed. I tried melatonin [1] in different dosages, from extra low to relatively high. I’m fairly certain COVID was the cause since the symptoms coincided with the infection. Of course, statistically speaking, it could be a coincidence involving other factors, but I’m not planning to dive into a PhD analysis of it, yet! [1] https://gwern.net/melatonin https://gwern.net/melatonin
- bsamuels 2y ago
  had the same thing coincide with covid, but much harder to fall asleep once disrupted. Melatonin only seems to last for an hour or so, so I would take one to go back to sleep after a disruption
  - wslh 2y ago
    Thank you very much for the tip. I will try it out for a month, and let you know how it works.
    - joveian 2y ago
      The one I like to take at night is Life Extension 300mcg (.3mg) 6 hour timed release (they make a bunch of different ones), which is the closest to natural melatonin release of any supplemental melatonin I've seen, although it sounds like there is massive variation between people in how much makes it to the blood from a given dose. There are a couple of ways to use melatonin and for circadian use a small non-delayed dose earlier may be better (or use both): https://circadiansleepdisorders.org/treatments.php#melatonin https://circadiansleepdisorders.org/treatments.php#melatonin I have had issues waking up more frequently when taking melatonin. It sounds like while not common this side effect is not that rare either. Based on my severe sleep issues (primarly circadian) I suspect that one part of "sleep issues" for many people is actualy waking up issues and that the detailed process around waking up has a bigger influence than is currently appreciated. I suspect one reason that melatonin is helpful is that it sets the stage for a better wake up, however if something causes this wake up procedure to start after not enough sleep it can be more difficult to get back to sleep. The delayed release seems to help quite a bit to limit the chance of this happening for me, although it does still happen at times. I'm not sure if melatonin is a particularly good option for staying asleep. Unfortunately, there aren't particulary good options. Magnesium is the easiest and as effective as anything for me but unfortunately a high enough dose to be effective will also make me tired the next day. However, if your diet is low on magnesium then just increasing that some might help or possibly you won't have the issue with tiredness the next day. baclofen helps me but has issues and I certainly would not recommend it for your case. A short (few minutes) nap mid day helps the circadian rhythm but longer naps can make it harder to stay asleep at night. If you nap for longer periods, multiple times, or later in the day that is the first thing I would suggest changing. I'm not sure what length causes more trouble but I think getting to sleep but staying asleep as briefly as you easily can is the ideal (though if you will naturally wake up after a bit longer that might be better than an alarm). I also noticed covid made my already bad sleep worse when I had it (most likely covid, not confirmed by test; cold or flu usually give me better sleep for a day or two). However, I didn't notice any lasting issues (I still have severe sleep issues but it was just that first week of covid that they seemed to be different from usual). I wonder if it could be just your memory of how you sleep that changed after you noticed it due to the disruption. As long as you can easily get back to sleep and aren't staying awake for long it should not cause trouble and is not uncommon. If you feel rested there is nothing to fix while worrying about it or trying to change it could case worse trouble. These are my thoughts anyway, hopefully something in there is helpful :).
righthand 2y ago
> Getting a bad night of sleep now and then is annoying, but not a health risk. However, chronic poor sleep may increase the likelihood of developing dementia, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity and even cancers of the breast, colon, ovaries and prostate. [0] [0] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/health-risks-of-poor-sleep https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi... Is it entirely possible that yes you can get 2 hours less sleep, but you're at higher risk of developing dementia, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, etc.? I don't see anything discussing long term effects of less sleep in comparison in TFA.
- kthejoker2 2y ago
  There's a whole section in TFA called "too good to be true?" Which calls this out but says we don't have enough data to know
  - righthand 2y ago
    > Instead, the risks are concentrated in medium to long term health of individuals who undergo therapy. As of now, we simply don’t have enough data to profile risk factors. More experiments are needed to know if “FNSS for all” is too good to be true. > Which calls this out but says we don't have enough data to know I don’t know if that is true, that section to me reads as we don’t know if there are long term effects with FNSS therapy because they haven’t been study yet, specifically to the therapy. Not necessarily how FNSS or FNSS therapy is related to other sleep health studies.
londons_explore 2y ago
It's notable that almost every animal sleeps in some way, even organisms that are away from sunlight (ie. creatures that live underground). If you sleep 30% of the time, that's 30% of the time you aren't eating, mating, etc. Also, during sleep you are more vulnerable to predators. One would expect evolution to get rid of sleep in creatures who don't rely on sunlight cycles. So, there must be some really good evolutionary reason for sleep.
- jlpom 2y ago
  Repairing cellular damage (mitochondrial and main DNA) from oxidation thanks to slower metabolism is the main reason. On a side note taking vitamin E (an antioxidant that passes the blood-brain barrier) seems to have slightly reduced the need for sleep for me.
- ajsisbckjx 2y ago
  > So, there must be some really good evolutionary reason for sleep. Is this how evolution works? Might it be that animals sleeping is good on the macro level but bad for the animal?
  - jampekka 2y ago
    I don't know why this is downvoted. It's entirely feasible that weaknesses in a species (or its individuals) may be beneficial for the ecosystem and hence survival of the species in the long term. E.g. rabbit population being culled by predators may prevent the rabbits from eating their feed plants to extinction.
  - dahart 2y ago
    Parent is suggesting that sleeping must be good on the macro level. That does imply that it must also be good for the animal, right? In order to statistically benefit the population, the benefits to any given animal must statistically outweigh the costs. It can’t be all bad for all animals and still be good for the whole. But sleep can be partially bad for some animals, they can be more prone to becoming prey while sleeping (though Google tells me sleep also prevents nighttime activity where predators have the advantage). There are definitely evolutionary adaptations around sleep to make it safer, sleeping in trees, sleep patterns & duration, hypnic jerk, etc.
ranprieur 2y ago
> it’s not a desire but a necessity. Speak for yourself. I love sleep and wish I could sleep more. Sometimes I think the only purpose of being awake is to get food and shelter for more sleep.
- codr7 2y ago
  Same, but waking up is very painful, I just want to go back to wherever.
kthejoker2 2y ago
The Taylorism (and eugenics) people would have a field day with this. Are there any good sci fi stories or novels on reducing or eliminating sleep through better chemistry? Given the impetus of the article is we're all chronically sleep deprived, I wonder what kind of (Swiftian?) political solution there might be to collectively improving sleep health. Certainly the current commercial solution is drugs and lots of them.
- mbb70 2y ago
  "Beggars in Spain" is exactly this and worth the read. There is a book and a short story but as usual, the short story packs more punch.
thepuppet33r 2y ago
I did a lot of sleep hacking in college, trying to sleep as little as possible so that I could spend time with friends, play video games, and (ostensibly) study. Now that I'm working a job where I do overnight deployments, often work 12-14 hours days, and have a couple of kids who don't sleep well, I hate my past self for not sleeping while he could. You never know when circumstances will drive you into unplanned sleep deprivation. Doing it to yourself for low-to-mid-level time gains isn't worth it.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- mettamage 2y ago
  This is one of the bigger failures of modern society. This information should've been pervasive but back then it wasn't. It arguably still isn't, perhaps for the highly educated. Back when I studied (15 years ago), if I knew that I'd have the short-term memory issues that I do now, I'd never have done what I did just in order to study longer.
pedalpete 2y ago
I work in the sleep space, particularly enhancing slow-wave sleep - the synchronous firing of neurons which define deep sleep, the most restorative and vital component of sleep. Only focusing on the amount of time asleep is a significantly limited viewpoint, but I believe this will change in the coming years as we gather more knowledge of sleep and access to EEG data about our brain activity during sleep increases. Only measuring sleep time is like measuring the health of a persons diet is by measuring how much time they spent eating, but of course, looking at macronutrients, calories, is the right way of doing it. I'll be writing more about this in the coming months, but my current thinking is that the concept of "can we sleep less" isn't the correct approach, and can be dangerous. At AffectableSleep.com - we increase the efficiency of deep sleep, and much of the research (https://affectablesleep.com/research https://affectablesleep.com/research) focuses on enhancing deep sleep in sleep deprived individuals (I'll post more research soon). This doesn't mean we should be sleeping less. A lack of quality sleep is already an epidemic in society, and massively underreported because the focus of the sleep industry has been the amount of time asleep, not the restorative functions of sleep. Our goal isn't to help you sleep less, and we will need to be very clear in our marketing, but rather to ensure the sleep you get is as restorative as possible. Of course, like any technology, some people will use it for negative purposes, which I believe would be to just "get by" on less sleep, rather than optimize your health through better sleep. You can find out more at https://affectablesleep.com https://affectablesleep.com
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- FooBarWidget 2y ago
  Your /research link doesn't work. It seems your company produces a deep sleep headband. I'm interested in these sorts of products because I want more deep sleep (for myself, and for family) while lifestyle factors (mostly kids) make that very difficult. The last product I tried was the Philips deep sleep headband (which, unfortunately, never appeared in Netherlands, I had to import it from the US even though Philips is a Dutch company). The main problem I had was that the headband is not compatible with ear plugs. Without ear plus, I get woken up very easily, either by outside traffic or by people in the household going to the toilet. The sound insulation in my house is terrible, and it cannot be improved short of tearing down all the walls and rebuilding them. So now I use a pair of really good ear plugs, and I also put a noise cancelling head phone over that to block out extra sounds. Would it be possible to combine a deep sleep headband with a good ear plug? Or better: would it be possible to combine with that, and also noise cancelling headphones?
ein0p 2y ago
Yeah, optimize yourself to make every available dollar for your corporate / government masters. Or just sleep 8+ hours a night like you're supposed to according to decades of published research. Which way western man/woman?
iancmceachern 2y ago
The best advice I ever received, and will give again. It has really served me well. In the words of John Lennon, let it be. Sleep when you're tired, work and play when you're not. The constrination and worrying about it, how much time you have for what, etc. is the single biggest driver for the stress and loss of sleep. Let go of that, let if flow, it will.
- klysm 2y ago
  Doesn’t work for me, my natural cycle would have me not aligned with the sun and the rest of the world operates aligned with the sun
  - iancmceachern 2y ago
    You are not getting what I'm laying down. I'm not saying this at all. Have an alarm clock, have a schedule. But don't stress about it or "optimize" it. Just do it.
    - hackable_sand 2y ago
      I get what you are saying too, but it is privileged to assume people can "just" unbind their natural cycle. It's like telling someone who is lactose intolerant to "just" eat their cereal with milk.
      - iancmceachern 2y ago
        I'm not saying anything about your schedule. You do you. What I am saying is adding another layer of stress and yet another thing to optimize on top of all that does nothing but make it worse. In terms of the analogy you gave: I'm not saying drink milk, I'm saying stop worrying about it and drink oat milk. Spend that energy elsewhere in your life in things that are more easily effected by your efforts.
        klysm 2y ago
joshdavham 2y ago
> What if they could keep sleeping less, but with no consequences? This is a super interesting question! I think one ironic possibility is that people would still sleep deprive themselves, but with even fewer hours of sleep.
- vacuity 2y ago
  Absolutely they would. It's soooo easy to lose sleep, and unfortunately getting it back isn't really a thing, not unless you want to use up more time. I guess we need to keep reducing the need for sleep until it's short enough it can be conveniently done anywhere, anytime!
ouraf 2y ago
Maybe I skipped something, but the article went on about sleep efficiency without touching on sleep quality. Things like apnea and even a bad pillow/mattress combination can make someone's sleeping hours pretty miserable, and that's much easier to control and spread awareness than promoting gene therapy
lccerina 2y ago
It bums so much that the "solution" to people suffering sleep deprivation is always trying to find something to sell them and not remove the causal problems: noise and light pollution, limited opportunities for proper nutrition and physical activity, insane work hours requirements and excessive commute time, etc...
RobCodeSlayer 2y ago
One of my friends is participating in a research studying using Orexin Agonists to treat narcolepsy - the research is happening!

459 points by amin 2y ago

I read nancy kress / beggars in spain as a teenager and get such an eerie vibe from short sleeper research but also let's go, if a giraffe can sleep 2 hours so can I

necovek 2y ago

How about — instead of making sleep more "efficient" — we engineer our lives to provide decent amount of sleep and not stress over having more and more of the waking hours to do stuff. After all, we live in the age of abundance. (Though I admit I might not be the best person to ask for this as I am on the lower end of how much sleep I need)

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
yMEyUyNE1 2y ago
How about engineering the society/civilization(?)/world so that "all can" work hard (8hrs), rest hard (8hrs), live hard (8hrs) and die hard when the eventuality arrives?
alfiedotwtf 2y ago
Not sure why almostlit’s reply is grey and dead (sorry I can’t even ote to resurrect it).
ozozozd 2y ago
We could be sleeping less to do more fun stuff, no?
- djtango 2y ago
  Don't know why you got downvoted for this. My whole life I have been shaving my sleep time to try to cram more of what I want to do into my day. I used to wake up an extra couple of hours before school so I could squeeze in extra gaming time. On holiday I regularly sacrifice sleep to extreme levels to do more. This isn't some kind of box ticking behaviour with its roots originating from toxic hustle culture, simply the adverse effects of sleep deprivation don't outweigh my enjoyment of things. And when my sleep debt finally catches up with me, I sleep my heart's delight. From experience, I have friends who share in my world view and threshold for sacrificing sleep for pleasure and I have met people who think are mortified by this behaviour. My immediate family are all willing to sacrifice sleep on the drop of the hat notably - waking up at the crack of dawn to send/accompany someone to the airport is simply modus operandi. My wife is very keen to protect her sleep on the flipside and so when we travel together our decision frameworks need to accommodate both MOs Ironically sometimes I'm most protective of my sleep during the weekly grind (and also training for fitness) because then my performance matters. If my only short term downside is discomfort from fatigue, I'll regularly trade that for more "uptime"
  - necovek 2y ago
    I hear you, but the thing is, what do you achieve by "cramming" more "doing" in? Do you also switch to those nutrient rich powder meals to save an extra hour or two prepping and eating food too? Are not all of those things that could be optimized away an opportunity to let yourself feel, relax and simply be? The examples you bring up (like waking early to do something for someone you care about) has nothing to do with the topic of engineering for consistently reduced sleep, imho.
- necovek 2y ago
  I never said we couldn't and I did not refer only to work: it's still the wrong goal in my mind. "Fun" is usually defined as something providing instant gratification (through hormonal response), though there is fun in retrospect too ("I was scared like shit, that was fun"). And while it's nothing to sneeze at and we should always have some, you can achieve the similar with different medications or narcotics (if the goal is "have more fun"). But I wouldn't optimize for that: we can achieve plenty in our lives, including having plenty of fun, by just being ourselves. As in, get the sleep you need. Do the work you must and the work you enjoy. Have the fun you want. While our lifetimes are short, they are not that short. Even if we got 10% more of the waking hours, that won't be the thing that makes your life worthwhile or not. If you spent the other 90% making it worthwhile, that'll do. But if you must, go for it!
  - pimlottc 2y ago
    These two types of fun have been sometimes categorized as “type 1” and “type 2” fun: https://medium.com/@yinonweiss/the-four-types-of-fun-a745ec52a679 https://medium.com/@yinonweiss/the-four-types-of-fun-a745ec5...

worksonmymach 2y ago

Why is it not a survival advantage? Probably because we didn't work 18 hour days, the extra wakeness would just be used for rest. Night shifts that anyone can do are still needed if you need tribal watchers, and normal 8hr sleeping people can wake upnand fight when needed. In terms of the gene, I am suprised how rare it is (90 families?) given I have met someone who needs only 4hr sleep. Another point is less sleep doesn't mean you can do 2 more hours work a day. That is another vector: how much work per day (physical, mental) can be done.

hgomersall 2y ago
There's a plausible hypothesis that sleep is the thing that evolved precisely to stop us doing things for any more time than is strictly necessary. That is, sleeping is safe.
- grues-dinner 2y ago
  Yes, but evolution didn't account for the need for those TPS reports to be ready by tomorrow morning and Bob over there is already 48 hours into his shift (don't worry he's on salary, the overtime is free).
- jlpom 2y ago
  I don’t think any serious biologists agree with it. There is a hard physiological need to repair cellular damage from metabolism, UV (this a big deal in unicellular species), etc. If this theory was correct, and it is possible to do it entirely while awake, there would be species (apex predators in particular) that would have evolved without the need for it, like everything that is not a hard requirement. But this is not the case.
  - hgomersall 2y ago
    There must far more to it than that. As soon as sleep is a thing, it can be optimised for different goals. Since animals have widely varying sleep requirements, there's clearly some evolutionary factor that influences sleep length. That is, though sleep might have physiological requirements, it doesn't mean that the amount of sleep is not influenced by non physiological effects. I'm constantly amazed by the ability of biologists to be amazed by the reach and ingenuity of evolution.

nosefurhairdo 2y ago

For the afficionados, there's an excellent paper titled "The neurobiological basis of narcolepsy" published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience which examines the relationship between orexin and sleep as it relates to narcolepsy patients: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6492289/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6492289/ In narcolepsy type 1 (NT1), patients have severely diminished orexin levels. This appears to cause them to inappropriately enter REM sleep. OP notes that the mutation lowering the sleep requirement causes an increase in orexin. I wonder whether the increased orexin could be inhibiting REM and perhaps facilitating a more restful architecture of sleep. Alternatively, perhaps elevated orexin levels during the day cause wakefulness such that you just don't need as much sleep, regardless of how efficient the sleep is. It would be interesting to compare sleep tracking data of people with and without this mutation to see if there are significant differences in time spent in different sleep stages.

jlpom 2y ago
> Alternatively, perhaps elevated orexin levels during the day cause wakefulness such that you just don't need as much sleep, regardless of how efficient the sleep is. As noted elsewhere ITT, there is a strong biological need for sleep, and its main role is very likely to reduce reactive oxygen species (though the amount needed vary by genetics) Orexin levels increase the noradrenaline ones, which is one of the few antioxidants able to reach neurons (along with melatonin) and by this way also increase slow wave sleep, making it more efficient. So yes, this could be a way they would need less sleep.

almostlit 2y ago

If there was in fact a safe pathway to only needing 2 hours of sleep I would 100% use it and consider it a zero to one innovation. Although I think it would also come with a lot of pushback. One of my favourite questions to ask people is "if there was a way that allowed you to not sleep and be completely fine, would you take it?". Surprisingly (or maybe not) most people will answer no and say they like sleep to much. I think most people aren't trying to squeeze the maximum amount of time efficiency from their day. They don't like sleep because they need it, they like sleep because its synonymous to relaxing. So less sleep means less relaxing.

esperent 2y ago
I like sleep for several reasons, I like to cuddle with my spouse, I like a set amount of time where I don't have to think or worry about anything, and I love dreaming. Of these, only dreaming strictly needs sleep, however, I think the healing that occurs in deep sleep should be added as a need. And according to my smartwatch, I spend around 2 hours dreaming and 1 hour in deep sleep each night, although this varies quite a bit night to night. I don't think trying to reduce these is a good idea. That means light sleep is the candidate for reduction. However, I have researched this before and the most consistent answer I get is that we don't really know what the 5 hours spent in light sleep is for. It seems unlikely that it's just for conserving energy, the body rarely does things for only one reason. So my bet is that we might find a way to reduce light sleep by around 2 hours a night, which is what this article is suggesting. But it's unlikely that we'll go much further without causing problems. And even if someone does discover a way, there's no way I'd try it without at least a few decades of evidence that it doesn't cause Alzheimer's or some other old age disease.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
Count me in with you - I'd definitely say "yes" to less sleep. But, if it were a general invention, I don't think it would work as well as you say. Beyond the usual economics issue[0], for me the value of not sleeping is entirely conditioned on everyone else sleeping. It's not that I don't like to sleep. It's that I also like me-time, autonomy, lack of other people's demands or expectations, and the only time to get that is when most people are sleeping, so the house is quiet and I can be sure no one will randomly want something from me[2]. Relaxation, unwinding, deep thinking, self-actualization are all competing with sleep for that limited amount of time. Everyone else not sleeping would cut into that for me. -- [0] - Any generally available trick or change that allows someone to get ahead economically, quickly becomes a requirement. See e.g. working longer, coffee, cars, double-income households, increasingly also stimulant meds. It's a textbook Red Queen's Race[1]. "Less sleep" would be so profound a win that it would turn from "hack" into global standard pretty much in an instant. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race [2] - Because of strong societal expectations of behavior, such as not calling or bothering people past 20:00-22:00.

gardenhedge 2y ago

I wonder if this would give full energy/mental capacity with 4 hours sleep after drinking alcohol

almost_usual 2y ago
Alcohol suppresses REM sleep, I’d imagine folks with FNSS would get the same quantity of sleep with much worse quality.

colordrops 2y ago

My first reaction is to wonder what the downside of such a gene is. Perhaps there is no downside for the individuals that have it, but these individuals serve a particular purpose to the greater civilization and lack other capabilities that benefit humanity as a whole. If there is a trade-off perhaps it is not at the individual level. Maybe it's similar to the idea that we can just eradicate mosquitos with no negative effects. Is that really true?

alfiedotwtf 2y ago

I wonder it I have this… Both my parents go to bed around 1am and wake up at 7am, and so did all of my grandparents. My kids on weekends go to bed around 1-2am as well but do sleep in, and my average is about 4-5 hours a night… As for me, I’ve had sleep issues all my life and found the only way to fall asleep within 20 minutes is to stay up until exhaustion. But lately I’ve been gaining back my time and pushing even further - once every one or two weeks I’ll skip a night of sleeping, staying up around 36 hours straight. I’ve been doing this for a few months now and have zero side effects so far. In fact I end up sleeping over 10 hours the next day without waking up in the middle (which /never/ happens otherwise).

lloeki 2y ago
Sleep starting late + driving to exhaustion + occasional night skipping then catchup sounds almost like DSPD: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder That one sleeps 4-5h per night also sounds like one light/deep/REM sleep cycle, of which there would typically be two in an idealised 8h-ish "night". There are hypotheses out there that a single 8h block of sleep is a myth - possibly socially induced by industrialisation and 3x8 shifts - and that waking up in the middle of these 8h is a normal thing. "waking up" here may mean anything from near-consciousness sleep to actually waking up and possibly do shit for an hour then going back to bed; or even for some, splitting sleep in two 4-hour blocks spread around the 24h day. In parent's post it may be that one 4h block is done, then social pressure (work/child schedules) pushes one to continue with this one-block schedule. It may even look appealing as triggering sleep through exhaustion superficially appears to help with sleep in the short term. Long term it gets exhausting but this perceptually becomes the new normal, especially when the symptoms of this kind of sleep deprivation aren't that obviously tied to sleep habits, the naively expected ones being masked by external pressure (schedule), habit bias (normalisation of deviance through repetition), exogenic (alcohol, caffeine, nicotine) or endogenic (adrenalin, cortisol, dopamine). The main problem is then that by the time symptoms are impacting the situation is deeply anchored; worse, because the root cause is non-obvious it is often misdiagnosed. Don't ask me how I know. Also, not a physician, just saying: take care.
- 2y ago

pella 2y ago

A Gut Bacteria" is also a rather interesting approach to solving sleep problems. Does anyone have experience related to this? "The company ( FitBiomics ) has already commercialized two products. Their flagship offering, V•Nella, helps metabolize lactic acid and reduce fatigue, while Nella targets sleep health - a crucial market considering that 100 million Americans suffer from insomnia. "Within 10 to 14 days of daily consumption, consumers feel the difference," Scheiman notes. "They have less daily fatigue interfering with their daily life, more energy, and some people are tracking cardiovascular benefits on their wearables. We hear really cool anecdotal feedback like, 'Hey, I no longer have to take a nap in the middle of the day, or I no longer need coffee in the middle of the day.'" https://archive.md/XOmx5#selection-827.0-839.405 https://archive.md/XOmx5#selection-827.0-839.405

rkallos 2y ago
I experienced a similar change (more energy and steadier energy levels throughout the day) after switching to a plant-based diet, which has been shown to change one's gut microbiome over a few weeks.

naming_the_user 2y ago

I'm not really convinced that removing the need for sleep would result in me being more productive primarily because I'm not an always-on computer. The average day for me has huge differences in terms of my productivity at any given moment. I need downtime anyway, if I didn't sleep I believe that I'd end up vegging out in some way because I'm not doing 24 hours of flashcards. The discussions on here also always seem to centre around a very stereotypical "I am a vat for my brain" way of thinking. Realistically whilst sleeping other things are going on, muscles are recovering, digestive processes are going on, other forms of growing, etc, it's not just the brain. There are also things like circadian rhythm, sunshine, etc. I woke up early today and had a few hours of darkness, I can feel my mood and brainpower improving as the sun rises. We are not bots, this stuff is analogue.

mlyle 2y ago
Yah, but if you needed 2 hours less of sleep, there'd still be myriad advantages. Times when it's not possible to get enough sleep: you'd be less sleep-deprived. And, if it's truly without negative side effects: maybe you get 20 minutes more useful time per day and increase your ratio of conscious relaxation to useful time. I'd call that a pretty big win.
- naming_the_user 2y ago
  It's interesting but I feel as if the discussion is a bit flawed because it feels very binary, i.e. sleep 8 hours = have 16 hours non sleep, sleep 6 hours = have 18 hours non sleep, and we assume that each hour is the same regardless, but it won't be. It feels a bit like - well could I engineer myself to require 1500 calories a day instead of 2000. Maybe. But as a result there would definitely be some downside, maybe I'd be less physically strong, or have less endurance, or have a bit less processing power, or have to rest more, etc. If we straight up designed a more efficient body, then I'd rather keep eating 2k and be "more powerful", or maybe I'd go to 4k! Maybe I can sleep for 2 fewer hours and retain the same or more productivity. Or maybe I could sleep for the full amount of hours but be more well rested and as a result be more productive in the awake time. That sort of thing.

clumsysmurf 2y ago

Recently this came up on sleep deprivation : "preemptive administration of low-dose aspirin during sleep restriction reduced pro-inflammatory responses. Specifically, aspirin reduced interleukin-6 expression and COX-1/COX-2 double positive cells in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated monocytes, as well as C-reactive protein serum levels." "aspirin-induced reduction of inflammatory pathway activity in sleep-restricted participants was paralleled by decreased wake after sleep onset and increased sleep efficiency during recovery sleep" But, bleeding and strokes :( https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06-dose-aspirin-inflammation-loss.html https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06-dose-aspirin-inflamma...

sahmeepee 2y ago
Low dose aspirin is used to reduce the risk of strokes: https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/low-dose-aspirin/about-low-dose-aspirin/ https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/low-dose-aspirin/about-low-dose...

killjoywashere 2y ago

> The UCSF group hypothesizes that this elevated level of orexin expression partially explains reduced sleep So, one possible line of investigation would be a table of mammals, their sleep cycles, their orexin levels, and the numbers of copies of orexin and it's regulators in their genomes. For example: compared to humans, elephants have a lower cancer risk. Turns out they have significantly more copies of p53, a tumor supressor gene (1). Perhaps a similar, somewhat parallel construct exists: elephants sleep 3-4 hours a night. Maybe they have more orexin? Maybe they have different copy numbers or mutations of the relevant genes in the pathway? (1) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5061548/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5061548/

abhaynayar 2y ago

Love the writing-style. Quite "to-the-point", without any fluff, and with a nice flow and purpose.

lokimedes 2y ago

As above, so below. These lines of thinking sees sleep as a hygiene factor for maintaining bio stasis. We also process experiences and “simulate” effects of potential actions in the waking state. These “software-level” sleep activities seems less quantifiable in terms of sleep-time efficiency. If I get an evolutionary advantage from better consolidated experiences through longer dream sessions, how would that compare with more “face-time” with lions and famines in my waking state? There is a nasty “all things being equal” fallacy hidden in this line of thinking.

sinuhe69 2y ago

My question is, if sleeping less (with FNSS) offers so much advantage, why haven't we all evolved to sleep less with FNSS? If a mutation offers a distinct advantage, natural selection will force us to adopt it sooner or later.

dinoqqq 2y ago
There is a theory that sleeping more hours was not a determining factor in survival [1]. Homo sapiens mitigated sleeping on the ground as a risk by sleeping in groups. > However, too much deep sleep is dangerous. REM is the stage of sleep in which we experience dreams, so our muscles become paralyzed to avoid acting out these dreams. In his “social sleep hypothesis,” Samson suggests that our ancestors mitigated the risk of deep sleep by sleeping in large groups with at least one person on guard. > “Human camps are like a snail’s shell. They can pick it up and move it around with them,” Samson says. Our ancestral hunter-gatherers might have slept in groups of 15 to 20 around a campfire, taking turns staying awake and watching over the others. [1] https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-strange-sleeping-habits-of-homo-sapiens https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-strange-sl...
m0llusk 2y ago
Humans already sleep far less than other mammals, so that seems to be the case. It also might be evidence that attempting to get by with less has costs. Sleep debt has a range of troubling symptoms including psychosis, so risks involved in experimentation are significant.

globular-toast 2y ago

I've always wanted to reduce my sleep requirement. These days I naturally sleep for 8 hours. It's not completely wasted; my brain often figures out difficult problems while I sleep. But if I could do something relaxing like playing a game or socialising instead that would be great. I did try polyphasic sleep when I was younger but it didn't work out. Having my sleeping patterns so far off the standard made me really unhappy.

rramadass 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42281618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42281618

exmadscientist 2y ago

Hey, discussion of orexin receptor stuff! As someone with clinically-diagnosed insomnia, I've been lucky enough to/unfortunate enough to have to try the orexin receptor antagonist sleep aids for a while. As recent, on-patent drugs, they are very, very expensive ($360/month was the number marked on the receipt slip, not that that means much in the US; I certainly wasn't paying that)... and they work. They really, really do work. I was prescribed them because I tried every single other class of sleep aid on the market and they were mostly ineffective, had massive side effects, or were benzos (temazepam: best sleep of my life, but better not use it for longer than a month!). This stuff? Orexin receptor antagonists? They work. Holy crap, do they ever work. Sleep quality better than the Z-drugs, great tolerability, no massive disruption going off them... when these things go off-patent they're going to be massive. Sleep quality was not perfect (maybe 80% of "normal"? I don't know) but that is absolutely minor compared to the alternative. (And for the record, I'm off them now due to other stuff clearing up such that I don't need this level of sleep assistance anymore. Not because I can't afford them.) I guess that's a long-winded way to say that if you're going to do questionably-advised sleep biohacking, orexin receptors are probably the place to start.

0xDEAFBEAD 2y ago
>(And for the record, I'm off them now due to other stuff clearing up such that I don't need this level of sleep assistance anymore. Not because I can't afford them.) If it was available over the counter for, say, $50/month -- do you think you would be taking it just for the improved sleep quality? Also, what was the specific name of the drug you had such a good experience with?
- smallnix 2y ago
  Afaiu exmadscientist said their sleep quality improved in the context of their condition, but still worse than a healthy person's sleep: > Sleep quality was not perfect (maybe 80% of "normal"? I don't know)
  - exmadscientist 2y ago

renewiltord 2y ago

Is it really possible? Taking 16 waking hours to 20 waking hours would make my 40 remaining years into 50 remaining year equivalent. I will attend to this.

rramadass 2y ago
No, don't. Sleep is fundamental to everything else and hence messing with it is never advisable. Some resources; 1) Neuroscience of Sleep - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_sleep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_sleep 2) Sleep Epigenetics - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_epigenetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_epigenetics 3) Sleep deprivation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation 4) Familial natural short sleep - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_natural_short_sleep https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_natural_short_sleep

benreesman 2y ago

I’ll admit I didn’t read TFA. Some combination of the title and the submission domain triggered my tick even more than usual around the use of “AI”. It’s extremely unlikely that I’ll regard any artifact as artificially intelligent if the broader context fails a pretty low bar for intelligence of any kind.

benreesman 2y ago
Please tell me Foubners Fund is a gigaparsec from this before I become the Unabomber.
kthejoker2 2y ago
The article is very real and human written and highly intelligent regardless of its merits. So a bit of a false positive for your mental model.

stared 2y ago

> Familial Natural Short Sleep (FNSS), a benign mutation that allows them to sleep 1-2 hours less than the recommended 7-9 hours, without experiencing the negative effects of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is one concern, but there’s a more subtle impact on cognitive functions (working memory, creativity, deep focus), overall health (particularly the endocrine and immune systems), and long-term health outcomes (such as an increased risk of dementia). When I was younger, I was fascinated by various optimized sleep schedules. However, I noticed a stark contrast: many of my math friends consistently slept 9–10 hours a day. They needed that—not just to function in daily life but to achieve the deep focus required for their work. Living on less sleep might not affect immediate action (and in some cases, it might even seem to enhance focus on doing), but it can impair deeper, more complex thinking. Some suggest that one of sleep's key roles is to help the brain regenerate. Chronic sleep deprivation, in turn, is linked to a higher risk of dementia. For anecdotal evidence: Churchill and Thatcher, known for boasting about sleeping only 4–5 hours a night, experienced significant cognitive decline later in life.

consf 2y ago
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djtango 2y ago
This is true, I was neighbours with one of the top mathematicians in my uni and he slept what felt like an excessive amount everyday. I definitely underperformed academically due to sleep deprivation and I probably benefited greatly during my revision period because I had a very strong sleep routine. That said, I entered my final exam having only slept probably less than two hours and that was 100% the right call because the extra cramming was necessary and drove the needle significantly.
- vacuity 2y ago
  Sleep deprivation affects many different things, some of which are salvageable with stimulants like caffeine, and certain functions are fairly unaffected. Exams that can be solved mostly with rote memorization are less impacted by sleep deprivation than exams that require spontaneous creativity. In any case, glad to know it went well for you!

kator 2y ago

This article makes me want to get a DNA test. In my family, it’s very common to sleep in the six-hour range. I personally sleep from 10 pm to 4:25 am every day, often waking up around 4:15 am before my watch vibrates to wake me. If I sleep eight hours, I feel groggy, jet-lagged, and generally have a day where I’m slogging through molasses to get from one task to the next. My wife has raised concerns about my sleep pattern, so I started using sleep-tracking tools like Fitbit and, more recently, an Apple Watch. She tracks her sleep too, and the big difference we’ve noticed is that I fall asleep within about two minutes, and my “sleep efficiency” using these tools is 98%. If I’m traveling and feel a bit jet-lagged, I can take a 20-minute nap (often without an alarm) and wake up feeling refreshed. She also seems to wake up a lot, most nights I "sleep like a log" and I only wakeup in the morning. My mother has the same pattern but stays up later and sleeps about six hours into the morning. I used to do this too, but around age 23, I switched to an earlier bedtime and a consistent daily routine. When I became a “morning person,” I found I could code like crazy in the morning before “starting” my day, and this rewarding experience reinforced the habit. I’ve tested this pattern in many ways, including not using an alarm (I still wake up around the same time for weeks at a time) and using a “light clock” I built with a Raspberry Pi to slowly brighten the room. Again, I wake up after roughly 6 hours and 20 minutes. Now, I use my Apple Watch to vibrate as a gentle reminder to start the day. On weekends, I keep the same schedule and use the extra time to read or hack away at side projects, often coding until the late afternoon when my wife protests enough that I need to stop and hang out or do my honey-do's. About 10 years ago, during my annual checkup, my wife asked my doctor about this sleep pattern. The doctor asked me several questions, seemingly looking for signs of sleep deficit or dysfunction. In the end, he said I could do a sleep study but concluded, “If it works, don’t break it.” As for productivity, I’ve found I can code effectively from 4:30 am to 8:30 am, then shower and work from 9 am to 6 pm without much trouble. I also practice intermittent fasting, typically eating only at 6 pm, with a protein shake around noon. This habit happened by accident—I realized breakfast slowed me down, and eating lots of carbs impaired my cognitive function and ability to code or handle complex tasks in the morning. Before you ask, I generally don’t use caffeine or other stimulants. Occasionally, I’ll have one cup of coffee around 9 am as a social habit, but I recently stopped that again and actually feel better. I’ll most likely drop it again for a while until it sneaks back in again.

m0llusk 2y ago

Kind of tangential, but some time ago now passed famous sleep researcher William Dement gave a presentation at Google TechTalks about healthy sleep and optimal performance that is a good overall review of what we know about sleep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hAw1z8GdE8

k__ 2y ago

Cool! Next solve going to the toilet and we're all set.

cmiller1 2y ago

They talk about the people achieving full mental capacity with less sleep, but are there any studies on physical recovery in people with FNSS? Do they also experience improved rate of exercise recovery and muscle growth during sleep?

yapyap 2y ago

This paper totally ignores the human aspect of sleeping, there is a habit to it. If we were able to be awake 20 hours a day we may still be miserable because of factors like the sun being down for ane even longer time while we’re awake. I feel like this is one of those inane pursuits for productivity where that doesn’t fit at all, at least not for the thinking jobs. Maybe in a dystopia big companies like amazon would use inventions like this to be able to let their employees work 20 hour work days or something. Of course this shouldn’t discredit the linked article of being interesting or anything, just sharing my thoughts on the endless pursuit of productivity.

xandrius 2y ago
Many people spend a lot of time awake during the darker hours and not everyone is miserable. I actually enjoy both, so if I could operate 20h a day without any harm or loss, it would be a net win for sure (and I also love sleeping).
kthejoker2 2y ago
The article is neutral on the impacts of needing less sleep. It's not proposing an increase in productivity or how to use more waking hours. Its main raison d'etre is we're all sleep deprived so engineering less sleep may provide health and wellness benefits.
jevogel 2y ago
If you're required to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, gaining an extra hour or two per day could go toward leisure or recreation or exercise. Or maybe you're already sleeping only 6.25 hours a night, but it is having negative health and mood effects, and eliminating those negatives could improve quality of life without detracting from waking time.

muzster 2y ago

not all hours sleep/awake hours are equal - for example, I may be more work productive late at night, a better listener/learner in the mornings and better sleeper post meals, in the bath tub, travelling (my kids used to love falling asleep in the car). Wonder if we could engineer multiple sleep intervals through out the single day (e.g. power napping, siesta's). There is plenty of dead time for me during the day that could be swapped out for sleep.. the question is at what cost to the body & mind? Just a thought.

baq 2y ago

I’m not convinced we need to engineer sleep in the general population. Once shorter sleep times are available to everyone, they’ll be expected and then simply assumed just as cars are right now in most of the US.

wizzwizz4 2y ago
It is very important to ensure that society does not work this way.
quotemstr 2y ago
Your argument works just as well for eyeglasses. Was inventing eyeglasses a mistake?
- baq 2y ago
  You’re confusing glasses with sight and besides the analogy would be not vs glasses, but vs some kind of cyber eye implant.

dooglius 2y ago

There is a good reason why this would be selected against by evolution: being awake increases metabolic rate--how many calories you use every day. Humans have only had abundant food availability for a short time, not long enough for evolution to adapt.

wslh 2y ago

COVID affected my sleep, but I wouldn't classify it as “long COVID” Does anyone have interesting insights or resources about this? I’ve found a references, but HN is one of the best resources to ask for this. It seems to improve over time, and I don't have any trouble napping during the day. However, my main issue is fragmented sleep: I wake up a few times at night but can fall back asleep easily. I used to sleep continuously, so I’m curious about what part of the brain this could be affecting and how can this be changed. I tried melatonin [1] in different dosages, from extra low to relatively high. I’m fairly certain COVID was the cause since the symptoms coincided with the infection. Of course, statistically speaking, it could be a coincidence involving other factors, but I’m not planning to dive into a PhD analysis of it, yet! [1] https://gwern.net/melatonin https://gwern.net/melatonin

bsamuels 2y ago
had the same thing coincide with covid, but much harder to fall asleep once disrupted. Melatonin only seems to last for an hour or so, so I would take one to go back to sleep after a disruption
- wslh 2y ago
  Thank you very much for the tip. I will try it out for a month, and let you know how it works.
  - joveian 2y ago
    The one I like to take at night is Life Extension 300mcg (.3mg) 6 hour timed release (they make a bunch of different ones), which is the closest to natural melatonin release of any supplemental melatonin I've seen, although it sounds like there is massive variation between people in how much makes it to the blood from a given dose. There are a couple of ways to use melatonin and for circadian use a small non-delayed dose earlier may be better (or use both): https://circadiansleepdisorders.org/treatments.php#melatonin https://circadiansleepdisorders.org/treatments.php#melatonin I have had issues waking up more frequently when taking melatonin. It sounds like while not common this side effect is not that rare either. Based on my severe sleep issues (primarly circadian) I suspect that one part of "sleep issues" for many people is actualy waking up issues and that the detailed process around waking up has a bigger influence than is currently appreciated. I suspect one reason that melatonin is helpful is that it sets the stage for a better wake up, however if something causes this wake up procedure to start after not enough sleep it can be more difficult to get back to sleep. The delayed release seems to help quite a bit to limit the chance of this happening for me, although it does still happen at times. I'm not sure if melatonin is a particularly good option for staying asleep. Unfortunately, there aren't particulary good options. Magnesium is the easiest and as effective as anything for me but unfortunately a high enough dose to be effective will also make me tired the next day. However, if your diet is low on magnesium then just increasing that some might help or possibly you won't have the issue with tiredness the next day. baclofen helps me but has issues and I certainly would not recommend it for your case. A short (few minutes) nap mid day helps the circadian rhythm but longer naps can make it harder to stay asleep at night. If you nap for longer periods, multiple times, or later in the day that is the first thing I would suggest changing. I'm not sure what length causes more trouble but I think getting to sleep but staying asleep as briefly as you easily can is the ideal (though if you will naturally wake up after a bit longer that might be better than an alarm). I also noticed covid made my already bad sleep worse when I had it (most likely covid, not confirmed by test; cold or flu usually give me better sleep for a day or two). However, I didn't notice any lasting issues (I still have severe sleep issues but it was just that first week of covid that they seemed to be different from usual). I wonder if it could be just your memory of how you sleep that changed after you noticed it due to the disruption. As long as you can easily get back to sleep and aren't staying awake for long it should not cause trouble and is not uncommon. If you feel rested there is nothing to fix while worrying about it or trying to change it could case worse trouble. These are my thoughts anyway, hopefully something in there is helpful :).

righthand 2y ago

> Getting a bad night of sleep now and then is annoying, but not a health risk. However, chronic poor sleep may increase the likelihood of developing dementia, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity and even cancers of the breast, colon, ovaries and prostate. [0] [0] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/health-risks-of-poor-sleep https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi... Is it entirely possible that yes you can get 2 hours less sleep, but you're at higher risk of developing dementia, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, etc.? I don't see anything discussing long term effects of less sleep in comparison in TFA.

kthejoker2 2y ago
There's a whole section in TFA called "too good to be true?" Which calls this out but says we don't have enough data to know
- righthand 2y ago
  > Instead, the risks are concentrated in medium to long term health of individuals who undergo therapy. As of now, we simply don’t have enough data to profile risk factors. More experiments are needed to know if “FNSS for all” is too good to be true. > Which calls this out but says we don't have enough data to know I don’t know if that is true, that section to me reads as we don’t know if there are long term effects with FNSS therapy because they haven’t been study yet, specifically to the therapy. Not necessarily how FNSS or FNSS therapy is related to other sleep health studies.

londons_explore 2y ago

It's notable that almost every animal sleeps in some way, even organisms that are away from sunlight (ie. creatures that live underground). If you sleep 30% of the time, that's 30% of the time you aren't eating, mating, etc. Also, during sleep you are more vulnerable to predators. One would expect evolution to get rid of sleep in creatures who don't rely on sunlight cycles. So, there must be some really good evolutionary reason for sleep.

jlpom 2y ago
Repairing cellular damage (mitochondrial and main DNA) from oxidation thanks to slower metabolism is the main reason. On a side note taking vitamin E (an antioxidant that passes the blood-brain barrier) seems to have slightly reduced the need for sleep for me.
ajsisbckjx 2y ago
> So, there must be some really good evolutionary reason for sleep. Is this how evolution works? Might it be that animals sleeping is good on the macro level but bad for the animal?
- jampekka 2y ago
  I don't know why this is downvoted. It's entirely feasible that weaknesses in a species (or its individuals) may be beneficial for the ecosystem and hence survival of the species in the long term. E.g. rabbit population being culled by predators may prevent the rabbits from eating their feed plants to extinction.
- dahart 2y ago
  Parent is suggesting that sleeping must be good on the macro level. That does imply that it must also be good for the animal, right? In order to statistically benefit the population, the benefits to any given animal must statistically outweigh the costs. It can’t be all bad for all animals and still be good for the whole. But sleep can be partially bad for some animals, they can be more prone to becoming prey while sleeping (though Google tells me sleep also prevents nighttime activity where predators have the advantage). There are definitely evolutionary adaptations around sleep to make it safer, sleeping in trees, sleep patterns & duration, hypnic jerk, etc.

ranprieur 2y ago

> it’s not a desire but a necessity. Speak for yourself. I love sleep and wish I could sleep more. Sometimes I think the only purpose of being awake is to get food and shelter for more sleep.

codr7 2y ago
Same, but waking up is very painful, I just want to go back to wherever.

kthejoker2 2y ago

The Taylorism (and eugenics) people would have a field day with this. Are there any good sci fi stories or novels on reducing or eliminating sleep through better chemistry? Given the impetus of the article is we're all chronically sleep deprived, I wonder what kind of (Swiftian?) political solution there might be to collectively improving sleep health. Certainly the current commercial solution is drugs and lots of them.

mbb70 2y ago
"Beggars in Spain" is exactly this and worth the read. There is a book and a short story but as usual, the short story packs more punch.

thepuppet33r 2y ago

I did a lot of sleep hacking in college, trying to sleep as little as possible so that I could spend time with friends, play video games, and (ostensibly) study. Now that I'm working a job where I do overnight deployments, often work 12-14 hours days, and have a couple of kids who don't sleep well, I hate my past self for not sleeping while he could. You never know when circumstances will drive you into unplanned sleep deprivation. Doing it to yourself for low-to-mid-level time gains isn't worth it.

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mettamage 2y ago
This is one of the bigger failures of modern society. This information should've been pervasive but back then it wasn't. It arguably still isn't, perhaps for the highly educated. Back when I studied (15 years ago), if I knew that I'd have the short-term memory issues that I do now, I'd never have done what I did just in order to study longer.

pedalpete 2y ago

I work in the sleep space, particularly enhancing slow-wave sleep - the synchronous firing of neurons which define deep sleep, the most restorative and vital component of sleep. Only focusing on the amount of time asleep is a significantly limited viewpoint, but I believe this will change in the coming years as we gather more knowledge of sleep and access to EEG data about our brain activity during sleep increases. Only measuring sleep time is like measuring the health of a persons diet is by measuring how much time they spent eating, but of course, looking at macronutrients, calories, is the right way of doing it. I'll be writing more about this in the coming months, but my current thinking is that the concept of "can we sleep less" isn't the correct approach, and can be dangerous. At AffectableSleep.com - we increase the efficiency of deep sleep, and much of the research (https://affectablesleep.com/research https://affectablesleep.com/research) focuses on enhancing deep sleep in sleep deprived individuals (I'll post more research soon). This doesn't mean we should be sleeping less. A lack of quality sleep is already an epidemic in society, and massively underreported because the focus of the sleep industry has been the amount of time asleep, not the restorative functions of sleep. Our goal isn't to help you sleep less, and we will need to be very clear in our marketing, but rather to ensure the sleep you get is as restorative as possible. Of course, like any technology, some people will use it for negative purposes, which I believe would be to just "get by" on less sleep, rather than optimize your health through better sleep. You can find out more at https://affectablesleep.com https://affectablesleep.com

deleted 2y ago
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FooBarWidget 2y ago
Your /research link doesn't work. It seems your company produces a deep sleep headband. I'm interested in these sorts of products because I want more deep sleep (for myself, and for family) while lifestyle factors (mostly kids) make that very difficult. The last product I tried was the Philips deep sleep headband (which, unfortunately, never appeared in Netherlands, I had to import it from the US even though Philips is a Dutch company). The main problem I had was that the headband is not compatible with ear plugs. Without ear plus, I get woken up very easily, either by outside traffic or by people in the household going to the toilet. The sound insulation in my house is terrible, and it cannot be improved short of tearing down all the walls and rebuilding them. So now I use a pair of really good ear plugs, and I also put a noise cancelling head phone over that to block out extra sounds. Would it be possible to combine a deep sleep headband with a good ear plug? Or better: would it be possible to combine with that, and also noise cancelling headphones?

ein0p 2y ago

Yeah, optimize yourself to make every available dollar for your corporate / government masters. Or just sleep 8+ hours a night like you're supposed to according to decades of published research. Which way western man/woman?

iancmceachern 2y ago

The best advice I ever received, and will give again. It has really served me well. In the words of John Lennon, let it be. Sleep when you're tired, work and play when you're not. The constrination and worrying about it, how much time you have for what, etc. is the single biggest driver for the stress and loss of sleep. Let go of that, let if flow, it will.

klysm 2y ago
Doesn’t work for me, my natural cycle would have me not aligned with the sun and the rest of the world operates aligned with the sun
- iancmceachern 2y ago
  You are not getting what I'm laying down. I'm not saying this at all. Have an alarm clock, have a schedule. But don't stress about it or "optimize" it. Just do it.
  - hackable_sand 2y ago
    I get what you are saying too, but it is privileged to assume people can "just" unbind their natural cycle. It's like telling someone who is lactose intolerant to "just" eat their cereal with milk.
    - iancmceachern 2y ago
      I'm not saying anything about your schedule. You do you. What I am saying is adding another layer of stress and yet another thing to optimize on top of all that does nothing but make it worse. In terms of the analogy you gave: I'm not saying drink milk, I'm saying stop worrying about it and drink oat milk. Spend that energy elsewhere in your life in things that are more easily effected by your efforts.
      - klysm 2y ago

joshdavham 2y ago

> What if they could keep sleeping less, but with no consequences? This is a super interesting question! I think one ironic possibility is that people would still sleep deprive themselves, but with even fewer hours of sleep.

vacuity 2y ago
Absolutely they would. It's soooo easy to lose sleep, and unfortunately getting it back isn't really a thing, not unless you want to use up more time. I guess we need to keep reducing the need for sleep until it's short enough it can be conveniently done anywhere, anytime!

ouraf 2y ago

Maybe I skipped something, but the article went on about sleep efficiency without touching on sleep quality. Things like apnea and even a bad pillow/mattress combination can make someone's sleeping hours pretty miserable, and that's much easier to control and spread awareness than promoting gene therapy

lccerina 2y ago

It bums so much that the "solution" to people suffering sleep deprivation is always trying to find something to sell them and not remove the causal problems: noise and light pollution, limited opportunities for proper nutrition and physical activity, insane work hours requirements and excessive commute time, etc...

RobCodeSlayer 2y ago

One of my friends is participating in a research studying using Orexin Agonists to treat narcolepsy - the research is happening!