5 ms·

Can people get by on four hours' sleep?

48 points by mitmads 14y ago

joshguthrie 14y ago
Related blog post: "How I went through burnout because I lacked sleep."
- mitmads 14y ago
  Link please
  - iand 14y ago
    It was a joke, suggesting that getting by on 4 hours of sleep a night can lead to burnout
    - mitmads 14y ago
      Didn't get enough sleep in the night, so the joke escaped me :-)
- davidw 14y ago
  Nonsense. The tribe of intelligent, hairless, miniature purple cats that you will come to associate closely with after several weeks with minimal sleep will help you get by.
GotAnyMegadeth 14y ago
I wish I didn't have to sleep, sometimes I feel like it, but most of the time I have to stop doing what I want to do because my brain switches off...
incision 14y ago
Better question, does being awake 20 as opposed to 16 hours per day result in getting 25% more accomplished? I tend to put proud claims of little sleep in the same category as those of "working" long hours. We've all met people who are at work for long hours, but whether they are actually working, much less producing is another story.
- acuozzo 14y ago
  > Better question, does being awake 20 as opposed to 16 hours per day result in getting 25% more accomplished? In some cases, it does. My hobby, digital film preservation, requires work that's long, tedious, and relatively-unskilled. I often clean dirt/dust using temporal fixes in PFClean and having an active well-rested mind doesn't help with this __at_all__, so sleeping an extra four hours won't improve my productivity.
  - btilly 14y ago
    One of the downsides of being tired is that you become more distractible. Even work that's long, tedious, and relatively-unskilled doesn't get done if you started doing another random task.
- stevoyoung 14y ago
  Most of the time I do the whole get 4-5 hours of sleep. In fact, last night I went to bed at 3:30am and woke up at 6:00. I did have an hour nap during the day though. I normally like to go to bed earlier (12) and wake up earlier (4:30-5). I find my self a lot more productive early in the morning rather than late at night. For me, it's not about "get 25% more done". It's more about being able to still spend time with family when I need too and get work done while everyone else is still asleep. It's very much a work life balance tool for me. I can't go weeks on 4 hours though. If I do 4 hours consistently in about 10 days I crash and need a full 8 hours for a day or two.
- kyllo 14y ago
  In the short run, maybe. When it's crunch time at work or in school, sacrificing a few hours of sleep to work can pay off. But over any appreciable length of time, the sleep debt and stress accumulate, the law of diminishing returns kicks in, you run out of steam, and you burn out. It's like sprinting. You can't sprint a marathon, it isn't possible. Some people can run a marathon faster than others, but no one can run at their top speed for such a long distance. If you try, you will quickly run out of gas and need to rest. If you're in a game that resembles a 100m dash (like a tech startup or a Wall Street finance or making partner at a white shoe firm) then yes, you can sprint in the hopes of crossing the finish line and getting rich before you burn out. But for most career paths you need to pace yourself.
mitmads 14y ago
"The only rule is to sleep long enough to feel refreshed when you wake up." Totally agree with this. I guess for me it's 6.
halis 14y ago
I have twins, so I know that it is totally possible, sometimes necessary, and awful! Before they were born I tried to get 8 or 9 on weekends and 6 during the week. And I'm good with that. Now my schedule is completely up in the air.
Irregardless 14y ago
Yes, as they said, roughly 1% of the population has this "gift". Although they failed to mention that it's most likely genetic: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/16/135450214/eight-is-too-much-for-short-sleepers http://www.npr.org/2011/04/16/135450214/eight-is-too-much-fo...
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - Keats 14y ago
    Which app would that be ? sleepyti.me ?
    - infinitone 14y ago
      I used to use that, didn't work for me. I use: http://www.azumio.com/apps/sleep-time/ http://www.azumio.com/apps/sleep-time/
  - Irregardless 14y ago
    > Dr. Ying-Hui Fu, a human geneticist and neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, is part of a team that has found genetic mutations in short sleepers. > Unfortunately, she says, if it's not in your genes, you're out of luck. I'm going to have to trust the doctor on this one...
    - pyre 14y ago
      But... but... but... <anecdote>!
    - milanello1 14y ago
      but how would I find out if I'm a carrier of this mutation?? I mean sometimes for days on end I can do with 4hrs of sleep and then there are times I look like death with 4hrs...
  - carbocation 14y ago
noinsight 14y ago
I have a hard time believing that anyone can sleep for just 4 hours a night and be completely attentive for the whole day. These days I almost regularly sleep only 4-5 hours a night and I "can take it" but sometimes during the day I practically almost pass out from the tiredness - that passes shortly though and just closing my eyes for a bit helps a lot. And I yawn a lot but then again I do that even if I sleep for 10 hours or what have you.
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
You can get by on four hours, sure. Be as productive as you would be with eight? Probably not.
realguess 14y ago
I think this is trade-off. Sleep less every day, you borrow your future time to use it now, you might end up live a shorter life.
aashaykumar92 14y ago
"There's no correct amount of sleep, says Prof Kevin Morgan, of Loughborough University's sleep research centre. The only rule is to sleep long enough to feel refreshed when you wake up." ^That answers the question quite well I believe. Yes, people CAN, but it is uncommon. And anything that is uncommon usually takes a considerable amount of practice. Ms. Thatcher most likely made it a concerted goal to train her self to be fully functional on just 4 hours of sleep over the weekdays. It is stated that she most likely slept longer on weekends, indicating that she was aware of her sleep schedule on weekdays vs. weekends. Things like sleep are studied so much that it is a subject overly-saturated with studies, and that too, conflicting ones. This, more than anything, shows that one's need for sleep can be controlled by him/her. I had a friend in college, he was a junior when I was a freshman. He slept through most of his morning classes and would always tweet that he was napping in the evening. He had amazing grades, though, and good enough interview skills to land him a job as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and he would be working in their most demanding team. In fact, his boss to-be even emailed him saying something like "Make sleep an option, not a requirement". Mike (my friend) took it literally. From the day he got that email in March, he chose to sleep 7 minutes less every 3 days with no naps. By the end of April, he was sleeping about 5.5 hours a night. For the next month, he got even crazier and took off minutes from his sleep on a daily basis. He succeeded and by the time he was at GS, he needed 2hrs 52minutes of sleep per night and was productive the rest. How do I know he was productive? Because after his internship, he was given a personalized offer letter...from the CEO. He had worked on more deals than not only all interns across the world, but more than 98% of current employees. Training our body is something we can do and just like anything, if you work hard at it, you'll more than likely be successful at some point.
- Atropos 14y ago
  I don't believe you can "train" to require less sleep, the people for whom it is possible are probably neurophysiologically different. Your example would contradict it, but I think you made it up, some statements will sound strange to anyone familiar with the industry. You certainly wouldn't mind linking Mike's linkedin profile?
  - 14y ago
C1D 14y ago
I currently sleep at 12 PM(Sometimes 1AM) and wake-up at 5AM, and as long as I get my morning breakfast I don't feel any fatigue; thou, on the weekends I need about 12 Hours of sleep, i'ts not that I'm tired but more that I enjoy sleeping ^_^.
woodchuck64 14y ago
Before we admire Thatcher's sleep minimalism too much, let's not forget the onset of dementia in her 70s (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7579352.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7579352.stm).
- brador 14y ago
  Is there any research on correlation of dementia with lack of sleep? Would be an interesting angle.
- gwern 14y ago
  Dementia in one's 70s... Surely that hardly ever happens to normal women who sleep 8 hours a night...
  - woodchuck64 14y ago
    I'd say roughly the normal rate for dementia is about 6 in 100 at around age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky 6 and you don't think sleep disorder is a possible risk?
    - gwern 14y ago
      > Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky 6 and you don't think sleep disorder is a possible risk? As far as I know, the underlying causes of dementia are not very well understood. Besides the fact that 6% is not very rare, there's an issue of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy): taking whatever problem exists and claiming that may be linked to whatever one disapprove of. "She has Parkinson's, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..." "She has Huntington's, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..." "She has Alzheimer's, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..." "She has MLS, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..." "She has brain cancer, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..." "She had a crippling stroke, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..." You see my point. There are an awful lot of things that can go wrong with a brain over time, the rate at which things go wrong goes up with time (we call it "aging"), and sooner or later something will go wrong (and you will "die"). It is inevitable that some short sleepers will suffer awful brain problems. Just like everyone else. I saw another example yesterday in a discussion of famous drug chemist & inventor Shulgin; apparently, upon getting cancer at age 80 and asking for help, his friends had to deny to people that it was related to any of the drugs he took! I was like, "are you serious? A large minority or a majority of the entire population will have cancer at some point in their lifetime, many will not even make it to their 80s at all much less only develop cancer at that advanced age, and people seriously think that this might be more than-microscopically-small evidence that some of the drugs cause cancer, when if anything it may be evidence against?"
mindcrime 14y ago
I wish I could get by on four hours of sleep a night. But my body just doesn't cooperate. If I get less than ~7 hours of sleep over a period of a couple of days, I start to feel absolutely miserable and can't sustain it. I seem to function best on 8 hours, but I can survive on 7. I can do less than 7 for a couple of days in a row, but not consistently for long periods of time. It's depressing, because I would love to use those hours for something more productive than sleep, but what can ya do? I think I should just start taking a nootropic of some sort to make up for it... Good thing there's no PED test for entrepreneurs...
- alex_doom 14y ago
  I feel like as I get older my body is rebelling. In my 20's I used to sleep 5 hour and wake up feeling great. Now I can't even wake up to an alarm if I haven't slept 7hrs.
  - lmm 14y ago
    Anecdotally there seems to be an inversion as people get older - those who stayed up all night in their youth find themselves needing more, while those who used to get the full 8 hours start waking up after less. (I must admit this makes no sense)
gaoshan 14y ago
I try to put myself in the position to sleep as long as my body needs and I find that I am still groggy after 10 hours (and 7, 8 and 9). Using the Sleep Cycle app I regularly record 10 hours in bed but even getting a 90%+ "sleep quality" score has no impact on how groggy I feel each morning. I doubt my body "needs" more than 10 hours a day and even if I do it isn't feasible for me, or most people. Leads me to suspect that the issue is rather more complex than just the number of hours slept.
- wahnfrieden 14y ago
  You may want to look into whether you have sleep apnea, by doing a sleep study.
  - gaoshan 14y ago
    I did that, actually. They diagnosed me with "mild sleep apnea" but I got the feeling that was sort of the default diagnosis. Maybe I was wrong... hmmm.
    - WalterSear 14y ago
      I got that feeling as well. They seemed more interested in selling CPAP machines than anything useful.
      - gaoshan 14y ago
        Exactly what I was thinking. Those machines are usually handled on a monthly installment so they are recurring and lucrative sources of income. I tried one but it was like trying to sleep with the creature from Alien perched on your face all night.
6cxs2hd6 14y ago
You can "get by" with a variety behaviors that have negative health impacts. In the case of sleep, attentiveness isn't the only measure. Sleep deprivation weakens your immune system, lowers testosterone production, and so on. I don't see how being a "functional insomniac" is any more admirable than being a functional alcoholic?
corin_ 14y ago
Is there any research (or even opinion pieces) on the difference between spreading sleep evenly over days or catching-up at certain times? I normally aim for a couple of nights a week of full sleep (no alarm clock), and the past week and a half I pushed this - 3-4 hours a night for 9 nights (with an exception of 7 hours once in the middle), which left me needing two really long nights the last couple of days. But is it any better or worse this way? For example the difference between 6 hours a night over the whole week (42 hours total) or 4 hours a night for five days then 11 hours a night for the other two?
steven2012 14y ago
I was living on 4-6 hrs sleep a day for many years, and felt fine, until finally a couple of years ago, it caught up to me. I literally couldn't think straight, I had terrible headaches, I couldn't learn anything new. At one point, I couldn't remember what I did that afternoon, my mind was a blank. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I couldn't remember which toothbrush was mine. I went to the doctor, and she suspected I had a brain tumor, but thankfully the MRI was negative. I decided maybe I should sleep more, and in the middle of the work day, I left at 2pm, and went home and slept 17 hrs straight. Now, I can't stay up later than 1030pm, and if I get less than 7 hrs sleep I feel horrible.
damoncali 14y ago
Anyone who's been through military boot camp will tell you that you can "get by" on 4 hours of sleep. But there is a reason that Drill Instructors exert baby-sitter like control over their recruits.
joering2 14y ago
This is something new I recently learnt about myself. The body tends to fit to whatever conditions you force it into. Of course there is limit and it can shut itself down, but I think sleeping less won't do it. I too thought I need more sleep, or 7 hours at least. Then I had couple late nights when my sleep was in 5 hours bracket and it felt weird how good I feel, how wired I am during the day. So, I suggest you at least try sleep less (6 or 5) and see how you feel daily. Do it for one week at least to make sure you give your body space to get used to it and adjust.
davidroberts 14y ago
There was a time a few years ago when I was playing online poker or working on personal projects every evening until about midnight or a little later, then waking up before 5 am to work. Both the work and the poker were fascinating. I had no problems staying awake while doing them, and I did well at both. I didn't even feel tired most of the time. There were some bad effects though. If my immediate task wasn't engaging (a boring task or speech for example), I had to work really hard to stay awake. My typical daily cycle of alert and productive in the morning, and dull and sleepy in the afternoon became much deeper. I felt more creative and congenial during the high points and much more lethargic during the valleys. After a few months, I began to realize another downside. Although I was able to function well tactically on moment-by-moment tasks that required constant attention, my ability to make good strategic decisions really began to suffer. It was as though the effort to deeply think things through long-term went totally down the drain. This began to scare me after a while. Everything changed when I took a new job in a distant city and simultaneously decided to stop playing poker for a while. I lived by myself in a tiny room in the suburbs and rode my bike to work seven miles each way. The new environment, exercise and huge lessening of daily commitments caused me to take things a lot slower. I began reading a lot, reflecting about things, and started sleeping around seven hours a night. I became less manic, definitely healthier, and more peaceful and introspective. I didn't instantly fall asleep when I was bored, but slept very soundly at night. Of course a lot of that could be the result of a simpler, more active life. But I think the increased sleep had a major influence too. I started playing poker again, and I found that I was consistently doing better than before. I started reacquainting myself with math, and could think much more deeply about it. I wonder how this applies to Thatcher? She obviously had a very engaging job, and she seemed able to keep up with the details of her work. But if she had slept more, would she had been less radical, perhaps more conciliatory? Would that have dulled her edge and reduced her achievements or helped her bring more people on board and be less polarizing? Would she had made better long-term decisions? Did the extra hours of wakefulness really help her get more done or was she just trading weekday hours awake for weekend hours asleep? In my own life, I've decided to keep to a longer sleep schedule for now. I'm always tempted to go back to the exciting mania the previous schedule, but for me, the benefits are uncertain and the costs are pretty scary.

48 points by mitmads 14y ago

joshguthrie 14y ago

Related blog post: "How I went through burnout because I lacked sleep."

mitmads 14y ago
Link please
- iand 14y ago
  It was a joke, suggesting that getting by on 4 hours of sleep a night can lead to burnout
  - mitmads 14y ago
    Didn't get enough sleep in the night, so the joke escaped me :-)
davidw 14y ago
Nonsense. The tribe of intelligent, hairless, miniature purple cats that you will come to associate closely with after several weeks with minimal sleep will help you get by.

GotAnyMegadeth 14y ago

I wish I didn't have to sleep, sometimes I feel like it, but most of the time I have to stop doing what I want to do because my brain switches off...

incision 14y ago

Better question, does being awake 20 as opposed to 16 hours per day result in getting 25% more accomplished? I tend to put proud claims of little sleep in the same category as those of "working" long hours. We've all met people who are at work for long hours, but whether they are actually working, much less producing is another story.

acuozzo 14y ago
> Better question, does being awake 20 as opposed to 16 hours per day result in getting 25% more accomplished? In some cases, it does. My hobby, digital film preservation, requires work that's long, tedious, and relatively-unskilled. I often clean dirt/dust using temporal fixes in PFClean and having an active well-rested mind doesn't help with this __at_all__, so sleeping an extra four hours won't improve my productivity.
- btilly 14y ago
  One of the downsides of being tired is that you become more distractible. Even work that's long, tedious, and relatively-unskilled doesn't get done if you started doing another random task.
stevoyoung 14y ago
Most of the time I do the whole get 4-5 hours of sleep. In fact, last night I went to bed at 3:30am and woke up at 6:00. I did have an hour nap during the day though. I normally like to go to bed earlier (12) and wake up earlier (4:30-5). I find my self a lot more productive early in the morning rather than late at night. For me, it's not about "get 25% more done". It's more about being able to still spend time with family when I need too and get work done while everyone else is still asleep. It's very much a work life balance tool for me. I can't go weeks on 4 hours though. If I do 4 hours consistently in about 10 days I crash and need a full 8 hours for a day or two.
kyllo 14y ago
In the short run, maybe. When it's crunch time at work or in school, sacrificing a few hours of sleep to work can pay off. But over any appreciable length of time, the sleep debt and stress accumulate, the law of diminishing returns kicks in, you run out of steam, and you burn out. It's like sprinting. You can't sprint a marathon, it isn't possible. Some people can run a marathon faster than others, but no one can run at their top speed for such a long distance. If you try, you will quickly run out of gas and need to rest. If you're in a game that resembles a 100m dash (like a tech startup or a Wall Street finance or making partner at a white shoe firm) then yes, you can sprint in the hopes of crossing the finish line and getting rich before you burn out. But for most career paths you need to pace yourself.

mitmads 14y ago

"The only rule is to sleep long enough to feel refreshed when you wake up." Totally agree with this. I guess for me it's 6.

halis 14y ago

I have twins, so I know that it is totally possible, sometimes necessary, and awful! Before they were born I tried to get 8 or 9 on weekends and 6 during the week. And I'm good with that. Now my schedule is completely up in the air.

Irregardless 14y ago

Yes, as they said, roughly 1% of the population has this "gift". Although they failed to mention that it's most likely genetic: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/16/135450214/eight-is-too-much-for-short-sleepers http://www.npr.org/2011/04/16/135450214/eight-is-too-much-fo...

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- Keats 14y ago
  Which app would that be ? sleepyti.me ?
  - infinitone 14y ago
    I used to use that, didn't work for me. I use: http://www.azumio.com/apps/sleep-time/ http://www.azumio.com/apps/sleep-time/
- Irregardless 14y ago
  > Dr. Ying-Hui Fu, a human geneticist and neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, is part of a team that has found genetic mutations in short sleepers. > Unfortunately, she says, if it's not in your genes, you're out of luck. I'm going to have to trust the doctor on this one...
  - pyre 14y ago
    But... but... but... <anecdote>!
  - milanello1 14y ago
    but how would I find out if I'm a carrier of this mutation?? I mean sometimes for days on end I can do with 4hrs of sleep and then there are times I look like death with 4hrs...
- carbocation 14y ago

noinsight 14y ago

I have a hard time believing that anyone can sleep for just 4 hours a night and be completely attentive for the whole day. These days I almost regularly sleep only 4-5 hours a night and I "can take it" but sometimes during the day I practically almost pass out from the tiredness - that passes shortly though and just closing my eyes for a bit helps a lot. And I yawn a lot but then again I do that even if I sleep for 10 hours or what have you.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago

You can get by on four hours, sure. Be as productive as you would be with eight? Probably not.

realguess 14y ago

I think this is trade-off. Sleep less every day, you borrow your future time to use it now, you might end up live a shorter life.

aashaykumar92 14y ago

"There's no correct amount of sleep, says Prof Kevin Morgan, of Loughborough University's sleep research centre. The only rule is to sleep long enough to feel refreshed when you wake up." ^That answers the question quite well I believe. Yes, people CAN, but it is uncommon. And anything that is uncommon usually takes a considerable amount of practice. Ms. Thatcher most likely made it a concerted goal to train her self to be fully functional on just 4 hours of sleep over the weekdays. It is stated that she most likely slept longer on weekends, indicating that she was aware of her sleep schedule on weekdays vs. weekends. Things like sleep are studied so much that it is a subject overly-saturated with studies, and that too, conflicting ones. This, more than anything, shows that one's need for sleep can be controlled by him/her. I had a friend in college, he was a junior when I was a freshman. He slept through most of his morning classes and would always tweet that he was napping in the evening. He had amazing grades, though, and good enough interview skills to land him a job as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and he would be working in their most demanding team. In fact, his boss to-be even emailed him saying something like "Make sleep an option, not a requirement". Mike (my friend) took it literally. From the day he got that email in March, he chose to sleep 7 minutes less every 3 days with no naps. By the end of April, he was sleeping about 5.5 hours a night. For the next month, he got even crazier and took off minutes from his sleep on a daily basis. He succeeded and by the time he was at GS, he needed 2hrs 52minutes of sleep per night and was productive the rest. How do I know he was productive? Because after his internship, he was given a personalized offer letter...from the CEO. He had worked on more deals than not only all interns across the world, but more than 98% of current employees. Training our body is something we can do and just like anything, if you work hard at it, you'll more than likely be successful at some point.

Atropos 14y ago
I don't believe you can "train" to require less sleep, the people for whom it is possible are probably neurophysiologically different. Your example would contradict it, but I think you made it up, some statements will sound strange to anyone familiar with the industry. You certainly wouldn't mind linking Mike's linkedin profile?
- 14y ago

C1D 14y ago

I currently sleep at 12 PM(Sometimes 1AM) and wake-up at 5AM, and as long as I get my morning breakfast I don't feel any fatigue; thou, on the weekends I need about 12 Hours of sleep, i'ts not that I'm tired but more that I enjoy sleeping ^_^.

woodchuck64 14y ago

Before we admire Thatcher's sleep minimalism too much, let's not forget the onset of dementia in her 70s (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7579352.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7579352.stm).

brador 14y ago
Is there any research on correlation of dementia with lack of sleep? Would be an interesting angle.
gwern 14y ago
Dementia in one's 70s... Surely that hardly ever happens to normal women who sleep 8 hours a night...
- woodchuck64 14y ago
  I'd say roughly the normal rate for dementia is about 6 in 100 at around age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky 6 and you don't think sleep disorder is a possible risk?
  - gwern 14y ago
    > Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky 6 and you don't think sleep disorder is a possible risk? As far as I know, the underlying causes of dementia are not very well understood. Besides the fact that 6% is not very rare, there's an issue of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy): taking whatever problem exists and claiming that may be linked to whatever one disapprove of. "She has Parkinson's, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..." "She has Huntington's, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..." "She has Alzheimer's, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..." "She has MLS, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..." "She has brain cancer, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..." "She had a crippling stroke, which X in 100 have by age 70. Clearly there are some unusual things going on with those unlucky X..." You see my point. There are an awful lot of things that can go wrong with a brain over time, the rate at which things go wrong goes up with time (we call it "aging"), and sooner or later something will go wrong (and you will "die"). It is inevitable that some short sleepers will suffer awful brain problems. Just like everyone else. I saw another example yesterday in a discussion of famous drug chemist & inventor Shulgin; apparently, upon getting cancer at age 80 and asking for help, his friends had to deny to people that it was related to any of the drugs he took! I was like, "are you serious? A large minority or a majority of the entire population will have cancer at some point in their lifetime, many will not even make it to their 80s at all much less only develop cancer at that advanced age, and people seriously think that this might be more than-microscopically-small evidence that some of the drugs cause cancer, when if anything it may be evidence against?"

mindcrime 14y ago

I wish I could get by on four hours of sleep a night. But my body just doesn't cooperate. If I get less than ~7 hours of sleep over a period of a couple of days, I start to feel absolutely miserable and can't sustain it. I seem to function best on 8 hours, but I can survive on 7. I can do less than 7 for a couple of days in a row, but not consistently for long periods of time. It's depressing, because I would love to use those hours for something more productive than sleep, but what can ya do? I think I should just start taking a nootropic of some sort to make up for it... Good thing there's no PED test for entrepreneurs...

alex_doom 14y ago
I feel like as I get older my body is rebelling. In my 20's I used to sleep 5 hour and wake up feeling great. Now I can't even wake up to an alarm if I haven't slept 7hrs.
- lmm 14y ago
  Anecdotally there seems to be an inversion as people get older - those who stayed up all night in their youth find themselves needing more, while those who used to get the full 8 hours start waking up after less. (I must admit this makes no sense)

gaoshan 14y ago

I try to put myself in the position to sleep as long as my body needs and I find that I am still groggy after 10 hours (and 7, 8 and 9). Using the Sleep Cycle app I regularly record 10 hours in bed but even getting a 90%+ "sleep quality" score has no impact on how groggy I feel each morning. I doubt my body "needs" more than 10 hours a day and even if I do it isn't feasible for me, or most people. Leads me to suspect that the issue is rather more complex than just the number of hours slept.

wahnfrieden 14y ago
You may want to look into whether you have sleep apnea, by doing a sleep study.
- gaoshan 14y ago
  I did that, actually. They diagnosed me with "mild sleep apnea" but I got the feeling that was sort of the default diagnosis. Maybe I was wrong... hmmm.
  - WalterSear 14y ago
    I got that feeling as well. They seemed more interested in selling CPAP machines than anything useful.
    - gaoshan 14y ago
      Exactly what I was thinking. Those machines are usually handled on a monthly installment so they are recurring and lucrative sources of income. I tried one but it was like trying to sleep with the creature from Alien perched on your face all night.

6cxs2hd6 14y ago

You can "get by" with a variety behaviors that have negative health impacts. In the case of sleep, attentiveness isn't the only measure. Sleep deprivation weakens your immune system, lowers testosterone production, and so on. I don't see how being a "functional insomniac" is any more admirable than being a functional alcoholic?

corin_ 14y ago

Is there any research (or even opinion pieces) on the difference between spreading sleep evenly over days or catching-up at certain times? I normally aim for a couple of nights a week of full sleep (no alarm clock), and the past week and a half I pushed this - 3-4 hours a night for 9 nights (with an exception of 7 hours once in the middle), which left me needing two really long nights the last couple of days. But is it any better or worse this way? For example the difference between 6 hours a night over the whole week (42 hours total) or 4 hours a night for five days then 11 hours a night for the other two?

steven2012 14y ago

I was living on 4-6 hrs sleep a day for many years, and felt fine, until finally a couple of years ago, it caught up to me. I literally couldn't think straight, I had terrible headaches, I couldn't learn anything new. At one point, I couldn't remember what I did that afternoon, my mind was a blank. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I couldn't remember which toothbrush was mine. I went to the doctor, and she suspected I had a brain tumor, but thankfully the MRI was negative. I decided maybe I should sleep more, and in the middle of the work day, I left at 2pm, and went home and slept 17 hrs straight. Now, I can't stay up later than 1030pm, and if I get less than 7 hrs sleep I feel horrible.

damoncali 14y ago

Anyone who's been through military boot camp will tell you that you can "get by" on 4 hours of sleep. But there is a reason that Drill Instructors exert baby-sitter like control over their recruits.

joering2 14y ago

This is something new I recently learnt about myself. The body tends to fit to whatever conditions you force it into. Of course there is limit and it can shut itself down, but I think sleeping less won't do it. I too thought I need more sleep, or 7 hours at least. Then I had couple late nights when my sleep was in 5 hours bracket and it felt weird how good I feel, how wired I am during the day. So, I suggest you at least try sleep less (6 or 5) and see how you feel daily. Do it for one week at least to make sure you give your body space to get used to it and adjust.

davidroberts 14y ago

There was a time a few years ago when I was playing online poker or working on personal projects every evening until about midnight or a little later, then waking up before 5 am to work. Both the work and the poker were fascinating. I had no problems staying awake while doing them, and I did well at both. I didn't even feel tired most of the time. There were some bad effects though. If my immediate task wasn't engaging (a boring task or speech for example), I had to work really hard to stay awake. My typical daily cycle of alert and productive in the morning, and dull and sleepy in the afternoon became much deeper. I felt more creative and congenial during the high points and much more lethargic during the valleys. After a few months, I began to realize another downside. Although I was able to function well tactically on moment-by-moment tasks that required constant attention, my ability to make good strategic decisions really began to suffer. It was as though the effort to deeply think things through long-term went totally down the drain. This began to scare me after a while. Everything changed when I took a new job in a distant city and simultaneously decided to stop playing poker for a while. I lived by myself in a tiny room in the suburbs and rode my bike to work seven miles each way. The new environment, exercise and huge lessening of daily commitments caused me to take things a lot slower. I began reading a lot, reflecting about things, and started sleeping around seven hours a night. I became less manic, definitely healthier, and more peaceful and introspective. I didn't instantly fall asleep when I was bored, but slept very soundly at night. Of course a lot of that could be the result of a simpler, more active life. But I think the increased sleep had a major influence too. I started playing poker again, and I found that I was consistently doing better than before. I started reacquainting myself with math, and could think much more deeply about it. I wonder how this applies to Thatcher? She obviously had a very engaging job, and she seemed able to keep up with the details of her work. But if she had slept more, would she had been less radical, perhaps more conciliatory? Would that have dulled her edge and reduced her achievements or helped her bring more people on board and be less polarizing? Would she had made better long-term decisions? Did the extra hours of wakefulness really help her get more done or was she just trading weekday hours awake for weekend hours asleep? In my own life, I've decided to keep to a longer sleep schedule for now. I'm always tempted to go back to the exciting mania the previous schedule, but for me, the benefits are uncertain and the costs are pretty scary.