6 ms·

For Hackers Who Don't Sleep

63 points by bearwithclaws 17y ago

randomwalker 17y ago
The research described is about the adaptive benefits of sleep to species as a function of their ecological environment. This has no implications for the differences between individuals, even though the article desperately tries to make it seem that way. If you're suffering from insomnia, get help. Don't be a smart-ass and fool yourself into thinking you're supremely adapted to your environment.
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  I wouldn't say I suffer from insomnia...
  - ewjordan 17y ago
    Right with you there. However, I do suffer from the people around me bitching about my sleep problems because they see me up at 7 AM after a long night of coding. If one more "helpful" printout with an "FYI" scribble on it mysteriously appears on my desk explaining how to fix a chronic sleep problem I swear I'm going to scream... But "insomnia" probably isn't the right word for me. I get my eight hours like clockwork, I just take it whenever it suits me. A lot of people think that's a problem, but if it is, it's certainly not mine. I don't have a 9 to 5 for a reason (many, in fact), and I'm going to enjoy the benefits of that as long as I can. There's just something so productive about that midnight to sunrise stretch that's impossible to replicate during the day...
    - cracki 17y ago
      please, would you do me the favor of catching these printout-droppers and whacking them over the head for me? if my school and work didn't interfere, i'd try the 28-hour day... http://xkcd.com/320/ http://xkcd.com/320/ also: http://xkcd.com/571/ http://xkcd.com/571/
      - etal 17y ago
        I've had better results with a siesta schedule -- 6 hours asleep at night, half-hour nap during the day, awake for both night life and morning obligations and nobody thinks you're crazy (as they would with the Everyman schedule). The Wikipedia page on Sleep actually covers the current theories pretty well, including this article's hypothesis and a rebuttal to it.
thaumaturgy 17y ago
Most of this article pretty much flies in the face of everything that I've read on the physiologically restorative powers of sleep, including things like links between insomnia and alzheimer's. As a "hacker" that hasn't slept well or regularly for about 15 years now, I'd dearly love to be able to fix my sleep lack-of-patterns. Sleep has become one of those imaginary, wistful things that sounds wonderful but is out-of-reach.
- delackner 17y ago
  This is an honest question: how much exercise do you get? More general question: Any insomniacs out there that also happen to get cardio (running, yoga, whatever) at least 3 times a week for at least 30 minutes each time?
  - thaumaturgy 17y ago
    I get more than the average joe, but not as much as I need. I'm 30, and still childishly vault railings and fly down stairs and swing around corners on poles and the like. But, no, I haven't been getting enough serious cardio exercise; thanks for the reminder. Thinking back to my time as a climbing instructor, I think my sleep patterns were a lot better. Still irregular, but better.
  - crayz 17y ago
    Yes. I've been training for long-distance cycling for about a month, and did at least 8-10 hours total last week. Although a strenuous workout will generally get me asleep sooner (and for longer) than normal on the day I do it, it doesn't seem to have any permanent effect on my sleep patterns (I'm a serious night person - I like to stay up until it starts getting light out - and seem to have a natural 25/26 hour circadian rhythm)
  - fendale 17y ago
    Yes, 3km swim sets 4 or 5 times a week. Doesn't seem to help mesleep at all. It does make me knackered, but sleep is still elusive!
    - 17y ago
skolor 17y ago
While its no more than an anecdote, I've found this to be true. I only seem to have trouble sleeping when I'm working on a project that keeps me thinking all day long. When I am, I sleep light, waking often, and frequently only sleep 5-6 hours and wake rested. On the other hand, after finishing the project, or in a lull when I'm waiting on something (parts to arrive, someone else to get back to me or the like), I tend to sleep deeply and need upwards of 10 hours a night. On the other hand, I will once in a while get an opposite period, I'll be working on a project and not be able to get by without at least 10 hours of sleep, or I won't have anything to do and not be able to sleep more than 4 hours at a time. Sleep just generally seems to not be worth losing sleep over...
dcheong 17y ago
For non-subscribers: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/health/01mind.html?_r=2&ref=science http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/0...
- rms 17y ago
  Or just clear your NY Times cookies.
- gaius 17y ago
  As an aside, it bemuses me how someone does this for every NYT article posted here, when a repeated theme on HN is the death of old media. Like the NYTs content, why not register? They need all the help they can get.
  - jws 17y ago
    The last time I started to register I read the terms and they wanted me to bind myself to terms that they could unilaterally alter and still bind me! I sent them a note and received a nice phone call from a person that assured me they would never do that. Very impressive customer service, but thank you, no. To be fair, this was probably 10 years ago and they may have a new policy.
    - radu_floricica 17y ago
      It's a good bet it's not enforceable. The lawyers tend to be paranoid because it can help, and hurts very little (you're a minority).
  - ars 17y ago
    I registered years ago, I can't even remember how long ago (5 years+ I'd guess, maybe even 10). I have not gotten a single email from them. I don't understand why they want the registration, but at the same time it's not problem to do it.
    - timwiseman 17y ago
sho 17y ago
This Dr. Siegel guy makes no sense: "as Dr. Siegel put it, sleepers are less vulnerable to harm than they would be if they were out on the street late at night" Circular reasoning. If people didn't need sleep, there'd be just as many people on the street as during the day and it wouldn't be any riskier. "argues that sleep evolved to optimize animals’ use of time, keeping them safe and hidden when the hunting, fishing or scavenging was scarce and perhaps risky" ... so if all the animals are asleep at night, we should be awake then, right? We can just walk up and bop them on the head from behind, Halo-style. Why don't lions hunt at night if it's got anything to do with that? Moreso, why does any creature at the top of its food chain need to sleep? It's hard to imagine any scenario when asleep humans are more safe at night than awake humans. Even if there were giant nocturnal monsters all over the place, they could just hide .. in the same place they would be so safe sleeping, say. Very unconvincing.
- rtp 17y ago
  Circular reasoning. If people didn't need sleep, there'd be just as many people on the street as during the day and it wouldn't be any riskier. No, what he is saying is that when you're sleeping in your bed, you are in a situation that are far less risky than being out on the street, driving your car, etc. How many people, statistically, die in their sleep, compared to "out on the streets" (especially when it is dark)?
  - sho 17y ago
    That's not how I read it. But if so, if the safety of sleep is indeed an evolutionary pressure, why don't we sleep more? And why do we have to close our eyes and lose consciousness to get the benefit of this safety?
    - crayz 17y ago
      Well, try an experiment. Find a time of day when you are alert and well-rested, and lay still in your bed with no external entertainment for eight hours I'm not saying the idea is correct, but your argument is sorely lacking in plausibility - creatures with complex nervous systems get bored staying still unless they lose consciousness (and actually, we spend a lot of sleep with our brains still active in dream-world). If evolution "wanted" to come up with a way to keep animals out of trouble for the part of the day they'd be vulnerable, sleep might be a reasonable and generic way of doing so
joubert 17y ago
>Why should lions get 15 hours a night and giraffes just 5 — >when it is the giraffes who will be running for their lives >come hunting time? Lions also have to run for their lives come hunting time.
- billswift 17y ago
  When you're running for your dinner, you get several tries. When you're running for your life, you win or die.
  - joubert 17y ago
    You need to look at it from the genetic point of view, not the individual organism point of view. Catching prey / avoiding being caught, is a matter of life and death for the gene pools on both sides. Hence the "crazy" arms races amongst prey & hunter.
- radu_floricica 17y ago
  That one's pretty obvious. Giraffes are herbivores, so their caloric input is both less efficient and linear with time. Most herbivores spend a huge percentage of their time grazing. Lions on the other hand need to be in tip-top shape only a few hours per day to cover their calories.
edw519 17y ago
Why should lions get 15 hours a night and giraffes just 5... Lions are carnivores who eat huge amount of raw meat intermittently. They need lots of rest to save energy to digest that meat. Giraffes are herivores who must continuously eat just to get enough calories. They don't have much time to sleep. What's so difficult to understand?
- olliesaunders 17y ago
  That one of many possible explanations. Science relies on reductionist proof.
sethg 17y ago
Jerome Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, argues that sleep evolved to optimize animals’ use of time, keeping them safe and hidden when the hunting, fishing or scavenging was scarce and perhaps risky. IIRC a character from "Beggars in Spain" (a Nancy Kress novella that she later expanded into a trilogy) makes a similar argument for why her clever genetic hack for creating children who never need to sleep will have no negative side effects. It seemed like an audacious handwave when I read it; I had no idea it had the backing of a Real Scientist.
olliesaunders 17y ago
My take-away from this: We don't know anything, for sure, about sleep yet so do what comes naturally.

63 points by bearwithclaws 17y ago

The research described is about the adaptive benefits of sleep to species as a function of their ecological environment. This has no implications for the differences between individuals, even though the article desperately tries to make it seem that way. If you're suffering from insomnia, get help. Don't be a smart-ass and fool yourself into thinking you're supremely adapted to your environment.

RyanMcGreal 17y ago
I wouldn't say I suffer from insomnia...
- ewjordan 17y ago
  Right with you there. However, I do suffer from the people around me bitching about my sleep problems because they see me up at 7 AM after a long night of coding. If one more "helpful" printout with an "FYI" scribble on it mysteriously appears on my desk explaining how to fix a chronic sleep problem I swear I'm going to scream... But "insomnia" probably isn't the right word for me. I get my eight hours like clockwork, I just take it whenever it suits me. A lot of people think that's a problem, but if it is, it's certainly not mine. I don't have a 9 to 5 for a reason (many, in fact), and I'm going to enjoy the benefits of that as long as I can. There's just something so productive about that midnight to sunrise stretch that's impossible to replicate during the day...
  - cracki 17y ago
    please, would you do me the favor of catching these printout-droppers and whacking them over the head for me? if my school and work didn't interfere, i'd try the 28-hour day... http://xkcd.com/320/ http://xkcd.com/320/ also: http://xkcd.com/571/ http://xkcd.com/571/
    - etal 17y ago
      I've had better results with a siesta schedule -- 6 hours asleep at night, half-hour nap during the day, awake for both night life and morning obligations and nobody thinks you're crazy (as they would with the Everyman schedule). The Wikipedia page on Sleep actually covers the current theories pretty well, including this article's hypothesis and a rebuttal to it.

thaumaturgy 17y ago

Most of this article pretty much flies in the face of everything that I've read on the physiologically restorative powers of sleep, including things like links between insomnia and alzheimer's. As a "hacker" that hasn't slept well or regularly for about 15 years now, I'd dearly love to be able to fix my sleep lack-of-patterns. Sleep has become one of those imaginary, wistful things that sounds wonderful but is out-of-reach.

delackner 17y ago
This is an honest question: how much exercise do you get? More general question: Any insomniacs out there that also happen to get cardio (running, yoga, whatever) at least 3 times a week for at least 30 minutes each time?
- thaumaturgy 17y ago
  I get more than the average joe, but not as much as I need. I'm 30, and still childishly vault railings and fly down stairs and swing around corners on poles and the like. But, no, I haven't been getting enough serious cardio exercise; thanks for the reminder. Thinking back to my time as a climbing instructor, I think my sleep patterns were a lot better. Still irregular, but better.
- crayz 17y ago
  Yes. I've been training for long-distance cycling for about a month, and did at least 8-10 hours total last week. Although a strenuous workout will generally get me asleep sooner (and for longer) than normal on the day I do it, it doesn't seem to have any permanent effect on my sleep patterns (I'm a serious night person - I like to stay up until it starts getting light out - and seem to have a natural 25/26 hour circadian rhythm)
- fendale 17y ago
  Yes, 3km swim sets 4 or 5 times a week. Doesn't seem to help mesleep at all. It does make me knackered, but sleep is still elusive!
  - 17y ago

skolor 17y ago

While its no more than an anecdote, I've found this to be true. I only seem to have trouble sleeping when I'm working on a project that keeps me thinking all day long. When I am, I sleep light, waking often, and frequently only sleep 5-6 hours and wake rested. On the other hand, after finishing the project, or in a lull when I'm waiting on something (parts to arrive, someone else to get back to me or the like), I tend to sleep deeply and need upwards of 10 hours a night. On the other hand, I will once in a while get an opposite period, I'll be working on a project and not be able to get by without at least 10 hours of sleep, or I won't have anything to do and not be able to sleep more than 4 hours at a time. Sleep just generally seems to not be worth losing sleep over...

dcheong 17y ago

For non-subscribers: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/health/01mind.html?_r=2&ref=science http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/0...

rms 17y ago
Or just clear your NY Times cookies.
gaius 17y ago
As an aside, it bemuses me how someone does this for every NYT article posted here, when a repeated theme on HN is the death of old media. Like the NYTs content, why not register? They need all the help they can get.
- jws 17y ago
  The last time I started to register I read the terms and they wanted me to bind myself to terms that they could unilaterally alter and still bind me! I sent them a note and received a nice phone call from a person that assured me they would never do that. Very impressive customer service, but thank you, no. To be fair, this was probably 10 years ago and they may have a new policy.
  - radu_floricica 17y ago
    It's a good bet it's not enforceable. The lawyers tend to be paranoid because it can help, and hurts very little (you're a minority).
- ars 17y ago
  I registered years ago, I can't even remember how long ago (5 years+ I'd guess, maybe even 10). I have not gotten a single email from them. I don't understand why they want the registration, but at the same time it's not problem to do it.
  - timwiseman 17y ago

sho 17y ago

This Dr. Siegel guy makes no sense: "as Dr. Siegel put it, sleepers are less vulnerable to harm than they would be if they were out on the street late at night" Circular reasoning. If people didn't need sleep, there'd be just as many people on the street as during the day and it wouldn't be any riskier. "argues that sleep evolved to optimize animals’ use of time, keeping them safe and hidden when the hunting, fishing or scavenging was scarce and perhaps risky" ... so if all the animals are asleep at night, we should be awake then, right? We can just walk up and bop them on the head from behind, Halo-style. Why don't lions hunt at night if it's got anything to do with that? Moreso, why does any creature at the top of its food chain need to sleep? It's hard to imagine any scenario when asleep humans are more safe at night than awake humans. Even if there were giant nocturnal monsters all over the place, they could just hide .. in the same place they would be so safe sleeping, say. Very unconvincing.

rtp 17y ago
Circular reasoning. If people didn't need sleep, there'd be just as many people on the street as during the day and it wouldn't be any riskier. No, what he is saying is that when you're sleeping in your bed, you are in a situation that are far less risky than being out on the street, driving your car, etc. How many people, statistically, die in their sleep, compared to "out on the streets" (especially when it is dark)?
- sho 17y ago
  That's not how I read it. But if so, if the safety of sleep is indeed an evolutionary pressure, why don't we sleep more? And why do we have to close our eyes and lose consciousness to get the benefit of this safety?
  - crayz 17y ago
    Well, try an experiment. Find a time of day when you are alert and well-rested, and lay still in your bed with no external entertainment for eight hours I'm not saying the idea is correct, but your argument is sorely lacking in plausibility - creatures with complex nervous systems get bored staying still unless they lose consciousness (and actually, we spend a lot of sleep with our brains still active in dream-world). If evolution "wanted" to come up with a way to keep animals out of trouble for the part of the day they'd be vulnerable, sleep might be a reasonable and generic way of doing so

joubert 17y ago

>Why should lions get 15 hours a night and giraffes just 5 — >when it is the giraffes who will be running for their lives >come hunting time? Lions also have to run for their lives come hunting time.

billswift 17y ago
When you're running for your dinner, you get several tries. When you're running for your life, you win or die.
- joubert 17y ago
  You need to look at it from the genetic point of view, not the individual organism point of view. Catching prey / avoiding being caught, is a matter of life and death for the gene pools on both sides. Hence the "crazy" arms races amongst prey & hunter.
radu_floricica 17y ago
That one's pretty obvious. Giraffes are herbivores, so their caloric input is both less efficient and linear with time. Most herbivores spend a huge percentage of their time grazing. Lions on the other hand need to be in tip-top shape only a few hours per day to cover their calories.

edw519 17y ago

Why should lions get 15 hours a night and giraffes just 5... Lions are carnivores who eat huge amount of raw meat intermittently. They need lots of rest to save energy to digest that meat. Giraffes are herivores who must continuously eat just to get enough calories. They don't have much time to sleep. What's so difficult to understand?

olliesaunders 17y ago
That one of many possible explanations. Science relies on reductionist proof.

sethg 17y ago

Jerome Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, argues that sleep evolved to optimize animals’ use of time, keeping them safe and hidden when the hunting, fishing or scavenging was scarce and perhaps risky. IIRC a character from "Beggars in Spain" (a Nancy Kress novella that she later expanded into a trilogy) makes a similar argument for why her clever genetic hack for creating children who never need to sleep will have no negative side effects. It seemed like an audacious handwave when I read it; I had no idea it had the backing of a Real Scientist.

olliesaunders 17y ago

My take-away from this: We don't know anything, for sure, about sleep yet so do what comes naturally.