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Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

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Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#101

Post by bmelton »

bsenftner wrote: post #93

What is it about those that need less? I personally have been sleeping 5-6 hours per night for decades. In my mid-30's I stopped my youthful partying and found I did not need to sleep as much. Now, at 52, more than 6 hours feel like too much and I'm groggy.

I'm in the same boat as you. You might Google for DEC2, and maybe there's even a test for it. I'm convinced I have it, and even did a 23andMe thinking they might test for it, but alas, they don't.

Despite knowing that I just don't need a lot in the way of sleep, it seems that every time I make that claim, it's met with incredulity, but having worked a job for 6 years in a different time zone, and with a loose schedule, whenever I just went to bed when I got tired, and woke up when I woke up, I found that the median sleep length was in the 5-5.5 hour range.

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#102

Post by evanwise »

bsenftner wrote: post #93

What is it about those that need less? I personally have been sleeping 5-6 hours per night for decades. In my mid-30's I stopped my youthful partying and found I did not need to sleep as much. Now, at 52, more than 6 hours feel like too much and I'm groggy.

Same. 5 to 6 hours and I feel fine, unless I'm ill or already sleep deprived. I can function on 3-4 hours per night for extended periods of time before I start to notice serious deterioration in mental faculties. I believe it's genetic. Some studies have tentatively tied naturally short sleep cycles to a gene variant (http://www.sleepeducation.org/sleep-disorders-by-category/in...). Also, my father sleeps for about the same amount of time as well.

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#103

Post by fapjacks »

r00fus wrote: post #100
wmil wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but the 40h/week ignores commutes. For some people that's an additional 15h/week. Also hunger-gatherers lived right beside the people they knew. They just had to step outside to meet up with friends to socialize.

The commute and school dropoffs are the real lifestyle killer I think. Imagine having an extra 5-15h a week to hang out and do things. Imagine having that much more sleep (if you happen to be burning the midnight oil a lot). I used to remember my parents letting me walk to the school bus stop (near our apartment) and then walking to work or taking the bus themselves. Nowadays we pack the kids into the car drop them o…

Honest question: Why do people do this with the school pickup/dropoff? What is the point of that? Do schools still have buses?

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#105

Post by schmidty »

_qbjt wrote: post #17

This is one of the reasons I hate the eight-hour work day. Between that and all of the other shit you have to do in a day (commute, chores, eating, exercise etc.), it seems like there's little to no opportunity to just have a life. I know it sounds like first world problems (people used to work 100 hour weeks), but I think our culture needs to change before we can really put the onus on people to improve their sleepi…

commute - work someplace closer. or get remote work.

chores - have less stuff to maintain.

eating - not sure what can be done here.

exercise - look into tabata or hiit. you can workout 2x20min a week.

you can also find way to be more efficient with your activities to cut off time on each one, even if you keep it.

sure none of these suggestions is without cost. but these suggestions can be enacted to the end goal of more time (for sleep or whatever)

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#106

Post by sandworm101 »

>> If you were not to set an alarm clock, would you sleep past it? If the answer is yes, then there is clearly more sleep that is needed.

Totally wrong. I just finished 4 months of military training. Sleep deprivation was part of the training. We were constantly sleep deprived. It impacted our performance, that was the point. That said, I'm one of those people who always seems to get up 2 minutes before the alarm. Even in my sleep-deprived state, less than four hours a night for weeks, I still woke up before my alarm.

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#107

Post by refurb »

Maybe I'm weird, but I've never deluded myself about the impact of a lack of sleep. My entire life I've strived to get 7.5 to 8 hours a night. I'm not that successful lately, but I make it a priority.

What I don't get are people that brag about not getting much sleep. It's clearly unhealthy. Would you brag about your poor eating habits? Or not following a medication regimen?

I know the science is still early, but I have no doubt that poor sleep has a significant, long-term, permanent impact on health.

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#109

Post by epc »

komali2 wrote: post #59
epc wrote: post #24

If you feel groggy in the morning or just not well–rested even after 7-8 hours sleep, get your sinuses & lungs checked. Could be sleep apnea, but in my case I felt congested all the time. What I thought was allergies was actually the linings of my sinuses inflamed to the point of closing off air passages. Unclear if the root cause in my case was acid-reflux into the sinus cavities or exposure to dust from ground zero…

I had so much shit that just sucked in my life the first 21 years of it. I always had sinus infections, I would constantly have what my friends and I call "poo-brain," where you just have slug thoughts and can't get your shit in order and your speech might even slur. Depression. Etc. Then I started taking fexofenadine (allegra) and fluticasone (nasonex) every day. After 2 weeks, nearly every problem I had vanished. N…

That worked for me for awhile (mix of actifed + loratadine/claritin) but eventually the inflammation got so bad that no medication worked.

Re: Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says

#110

Post by eeereerews »

bluGill wrote: post #46
ksk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it important that studies have shown a particular result?

Because only well designed studies can show a truth. It is obviously the case that when you drop a big rock and a little rock at the same time the big rock will hit the ground first. Because we have a study we know this to be false even though it is obvious.

There was no such study. Galileo showed this was false with the following famous thought experiment:

Suppose it were true. Join a heavy rock and a light rock by a cord and drop them from a tower. If the light rock falls slower, eventually the cord will be pulled taut and retard the fall of the heavier, so this system falls more slowly than the heavy rock alone. But the system is heavier than the heavy rock alone, so it should fall faster, a contradiction.

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