I've got a friend who can get by on ~5 hours/night pretty much indefinitely, without feeling the kind of awful brain-numbing fatigue and dangerous (for e.g. dri

I've got a friend who can get by on ~5 hours/night pretty much indefinitely, without feeling the kind of awful brain-numbing fatigue and dangerous (for e.g. driving) levels of tiredness that I do with more than one night in a row of less than ~7 hours of sleep. A full 8-hour night is sleeping in to him. The key to understanding why this is so great is to compare the extra time not to the total waking time that others get, but to the total time others get that isn't spoken for. Actual free time. Measured that way, he's consistently getting at least 50% more completely free time per week than I do on a good week. The result of this is that he's pretty much a fear-of-missing-out[1] machine for all around him. While I've watched my hobbies and interests narrow by necessity as I've grown older[2] his have seemingly widened without any apparent ill effects. That new TV show that's supposed to be really good? He's seen it. All those Criterion movies you've been meaning to watch? He's seen them all. Twice. This year's Oscar nominees? Yes. Even the documentaries and shorts. Video games? All of them that matter and most of the ones that don't. That one comic book series you heard good things about? He's read it. His academic field of choice? Keeps up with some journals. Writing, both fiction and academic? He has the time. Crafts? He juggles a couple of them. That funny thing you saw on the Internet? He was on the thread where it was first posted. Reading? Oh man. You don't want to know. It'd just make you sad. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out [2] Frustratingly, it seems like the most "productive" and useful hobbies and interests are the first to go, as when life demands more hours from you it always wants your most valuable ones, not your nearly-worthless ones when you're already drained and tired. No, those you get to keep, for what little good they do you.