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Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

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Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#41

Post by throwawayqdhd »

telesilla wrote: post #23

If there is one thing in this world I'd like to see, it's the worker's right for an afternoon nap: I really would become highly anxious if deprived long-term of my siesta. I've been lucky in most of my environments to find somewhere to close my eyes and sleep for 10-15 minutes - I just need somewhere to lie down or recline and something to block the light: if I'm tired enough sound doesn't bother me. Some people tell…

I freelanced through college and continued doing that after I graduated. Since I was working from home, I was used to taking afternoon naps.

When I finally did join an office, I was surprised that afternoon napping wasn't a thing.

My 20-30 minute naps completely re-energize me and drastically improve my focus. And for some reason, I have extremely vivid dreams during these naps.

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#42

Post by closeparen »

f_allwein wrote: post #28

> Bose just released an earbud that you can sleep with, for example Wait, what? These are 249.95$. Why not just use simple earplugs? In Germany, we have Ohropax, made from wax, which sell for less than 3€ for a set of 12: http://www.ohropax.de/en.html

Attenuation isn’t nearly as effective as masking with white noise.

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#43

Post by Thriptic »

mamurphy wrote: post #3

Great article. Sleep is important. I liked that the article went out of its way to dispel several of the "but four hours is fine" myths. Two of my favorites: >some people are short sleepers: You can do a test to find out if you have genetic makeup that makes you a short sleeper. That’s rare, though, so by and large, people are not getting enough sleep. Blunt and effective. The outliers who really do fine with just a…

>Right. That’s like the fish and the fish bowl phenomenon: The fish doesn’t know that he’s in the fishbowl, nonetheless that he’s in water. Also, when you’re sleep deprived, research has shown that you’re really bad at being able to tell that you’re sleep deprived.

100% this. If you habitually get poor sleep it becomes your new normal and you forget what it's like to be well rested. I used to get between 3 and 6 hours per night for years and my cognitive skills plummeted. At one point I switched to getting 8 hours per night and problems which previously seemed extremely difficult became trivially easy almost immediately.

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#45

Post by thrav »

anxiousguy wrote: post #8

I believe I'm one of the "short sleepers" they mention in the article. I've bought wirstband mostly to track my sleep patterns. Even though article says that devices like fitbit are not accurate enough in tracking different phases of sleep, my goal was largley to see how much time do I spend sleeping. In the last four months, I average out at 6,1hrs. 90% of the time I will wake up before the alarm and will sleep the…

I’m the same way. Exercise and eating healthy just makes my body want even less sleep. When I’m firing on all cylinders, eating right and working out, I can get away with 5.5-6 and feel better than I ever do trying to push up past 7 by going back to sleep in the morning.

I my experience, the most important thing is, wake up when you wake up. Don’t go back to sleep because you feel like you should, or the alarm has 20 more minutes. If you’re awake, get moving.

I feel like going back down signals to my body that this is going to be a lazy day and it should settle in, instead of firing up all systems.

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#46

Post by rdiddly »

Zeitgeber isn't "like totally this weird German word OMG." (Foreign languages aren't, as a rule, inherently super fucked up just because you don't speak them.) It just means "time-giver" - a cue (like the sunrise) that tells your body what time it is.

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#47

Post by limezeister »

What if one always finds oneself waking up spontaneously, in a moderately alert state, after about 5-6 hours' sleep and can then only achieve fitful, unrefreshing sleep for the rest of the night?

In my youth, in the absence of an alarm, I would consistently get 8-9 hours of deep, unbroken sleep, but since my early 20s, I've found it impossible to get more than about six hours in one block. If I do succeed in returning to sleep after a premature awakening, I'll wake up again no more than 30 minutes later from what feels like a very non-restorative light sleep.

Schedule permitting, what seems to work best for me is a biphasic routine where the bulk of my sleep, typically about 5-6 hours, is had at night together with a short siesta in the afternoon, usually after lunch.

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#49

Post by trophycase »

limezeister wrote: post #47

What if one always finds oneself waking up spontaneously, in a moderately alert state, after about 5-6 hours' sleep and can then only achieve fitful, unrefreshing sleep for the rest of the night? In my youth, in the absence of an alarm, I would consistently get 8-9 hours of deep, unbroken sleep, but since my early 20s, I've found it impossible to get more than about six hours in one block. If I do succeed in returnin…

How is your exercise? Are you limiting your intake of artificial light?
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