Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by vanderZwan » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 12:42 PM UTC

> There’s this new finding where playing sounds at a certain frequency when your brain is in deep sleep actually increases the percentage of time spent in deep sleep. We’re publishing this paper in Society for Neuroscience Conference in a couple of weeks, and it’s basically what my TED talk is about. Playing these pulses at the same frequency as your deep-sleep brainwaves primes more deep sleep. Scientifically speaking, it’s a similar process as transcranial direct-current stimulation, except it doesn’t use electricity—just sound. Sound gets transmitted into electricity because you’re picking up on the auditory cortex while you’re sleeping.

I've tried the open source app Binaural Beats[0] a few days ago, mainly just as a noise blocker, but I was surprised to notice it working quite well with getting me into a deep sleep too. I don't know if it uses these frequencies though.

[0] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.binauralbeat...

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

#92

Post by thg » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 12:44 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #65

rdiddly wrote: post #46

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.

> Foreign languages aren't, as a rule, inherently super fucked up just because you don't speak them No, but German kinda is. It almost always sounds like someone in authority is screaming at you :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBIMvXpw0t0

Speaking as a German here, the German words in that video were pronounced that way for the sole purpose to ridicule our language. No German would ever pronounce them like that.

Not to mention that the supposedly German in that video looks like a Bavarian and believe me here, Bavarians are not Germans and they're not representative of Germany as a whole. Officially and geographically they are, but in reality the Free State of Bavaria is more like its own nation with its own language and culture. They even have their own political party, the CSU, that only campaigns in Bavaria.

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

#93

Post by amelius » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 12:55 PM UTC

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…

> The outliers who really do fine with just a few hours are just that: outliers.

Or you could look at them as people at the forefront of evolution, leading us to a future where we need less sleep.

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

#94

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 12:59 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #93

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…

> The outliers who really do fine with just a few hours are just that: outliers. Or you could look at them as people at the forefront of evolution, leading us to a future where we need less sleep.

[deleted]

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

#95

Post by Moru » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 1:00 PM UTC

thg wrote: post #92

coldtea wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Foreign languages aren't, as a rule, inherently super fucked up just because you don't speak them No, but German kinda is. It almost always sounds like someone in authority is screaming at you :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBIMvXpw0t0

Speaking as a German here, the German words in that video were pronounced that way for the sole purpose to ridicule our language. No German would ever pronounce them like that. Not to mention that the supposedly German in that video looks like a Bavarian and believe me here, Bavarians are not Germans and they're not representative of Germany as a whole. Officially and geographically they are, but in reality the Free…

But it's based on the perception of the outside observer. You DO sound angry even though you are having fun when you talk. Ofcourse there are less loud, angry sounding people but in general when listening to people conversing, it sounds like they are angry with eachother. I'm a swede with german wife so lots of biased experience. When she and her friends talk, they always sound angry. Even people at the store sounds angry.

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

#96

Post by 0x00000000 » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 1:15 PM UTC

cowmoo728 wrote: post #9

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…

I used to habitually play bullet and blitz chess online, which confirmed the necessity of sleep for me. After a 6 hour night of sleep I noticed my rating would drop significantly the next day, and after several low sleep nights in a row it would take days to recover completely. A graph of my bullet rating over time clearly showed the periods of low sleep. Most people don't have a measurement that objective. After I s…

Sleep seems to be very cyclical and internalized in the body, so it isn't surprising that a drastic change would have such a dramatic effect. I wonder if anyone could gain the ability to only need 6 hours of sleep by very slowly decreasing sleep over a long time (say 6-12 months). But your body will probably never adapt to this 6 hours on the weekdays, 10 hours on the weekends stuff that seems to be common.

The people I know who sleep 5-6 hours a night consistently have been doing it for a very long time and describe the feeling of sleeping 8 hours the same way I would describe sleeping 13 hours. Just feeling slow and almost like being sleep deprived all day.

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

#97

Post by mrhappyunhappy » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 1:21 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #20

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…

Itsy probably a valuable adaptation tool. When my son was born in went from 8-9 a night to 4-5 for a few months. At a certain point it started feeling like I adapted. I wasn't really miserable. I wasn't dragging myself through the day anymore. Then when my sleep went back up as my son got older, I had that moment of, "holy crap I forgot what rested felt like. This is amazing. I actually want to go for a pointless wal…

I envy you. Going through it now.

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

#98

Post by rory096 » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 1:32 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #93

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…

> The outliers who really do fine with just a few hours are just that: outliers. Or you could look at them as people at the forefront of evolution, leading us to a future where we need less sleep.

How? Are you planning to prohibit the rest of us from procreating?

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

#99

Post by amelius » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 1:34 PM UTC

rory096 wrote: post #98

amelius wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The outliers who really do fine with just a few hours are just that: outliers. Or you could look at them as people at the forefront of evolution, leading us to a future where we need less sleep.

How? Are you planning to prohibit the rest of us from procreating?

Relax, we can still procreate with the short-sleepers.

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

#100

Post by falcolas » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 1:35 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #93

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…

> The outliers who really do fine with just a few hours are just that: outliers. Or you could look at them as people at the forefront of evolution, leading us to a future where we need less sleep.

I would think that, given the capability to have light after the sun has gone down for hundreds of generations (candles have been around for ~5,000 years), any such trait would have become much more than an outlier by now.

Even if it is a positive evolutionary trait, that doesn't help anybody today. The 4 hour sleepers are still outliers, and the rest of us still need that sleep to operate at full capability.