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Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

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81–90 of 186 posts

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you lose a piece of an old memory from sleep deprivation, you are not going to magically get it back once you catch up on your sleep. It has happened to me when I pulled all-nighters. I just couldn't remember that friend's name or that old password.

And you still don't remember that friends name?

> And you still don't remember that friends name?

Some information can be relearned. Some cannot. It would be relatively easy to discover the name of someone from your past (ask a coworker, check a yearbook). I think the better example in the parent’s comment is a lost password.

I changed the pin on my phone while I was in a sleep deprived state and had to erase it to recover from not knowing the pin after I finally slept.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#83
post #3

> Sleep is not like the bank, so you can't accumulate a debt and then try and pay it off at a later point in time. And the reason is this: We know that if I were to deprive you of sleep for an entire night — take away eight hours — and then in the subsequent night I give you all of the sleep that you want, however much you wish to consume, you never get back all that you lost. You will sleep longer, but you will neve…

I think there are two things: the short-term effects of missing a night of sleep persist for several days even if you get plenty of sleep later and the chronic effects of missing a day of sleep accumulate even if you "make up" the hours later on.

I'm guessing the second one is what the article is trying to say here. If you don't get enough sleep during the week, you can't make it up on the weekend, even if the total hours slept per week adds up. You'll still suffer the long-term effects of chronic sleep deprivation.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#84
post #78
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is one of those oft repeated pieces of advice that has never made sense to me. It's always worded such that it sounds like the effects of any sleep deprivation ever are permanent.

Of course they are. You'll learn less in your sleep deprived states, Which are days you aren't going to get back. Your sleep deprived self will also be better at creating tech debt, which takes away time from the future.

>You'll learn less in your sleep deprived states, Which are days you aren't going to get back.

That's not what a description of what the professor says in the article, or the way we mean it.

Of course you won't get "chances to learn" or "tech debt" back. This is not about it. TFA talks about a physiological debt that you can't repay.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#85
post #42
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess what they mean is that if you don't sleep for 24 hours and the next day you sleep for 16 (to make up for the lack of sleep in the previous day), after you wake up you still wont be as good (mentally, immune-wise, etc) as you'd be if you've slept properly on both days. Obviously that can be corrected over a few days period and you get back to normal (except if you had abused yourself will lack of sleep over ma…

He seems to be saying that you won't sleep for 16 hours the second night.

Well, as for that, you'd be surprised.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#86
You can be in an "underslept state" even if you get 8 hrs a night. I usually am. I snore. Most of the time and very loudly. So do maybe a billion other people. It negatively impacts the quality and quantity of your sleep (and that of the people around you). It can greatly increase the risk of a whole slew of nasty diseases. And yet there is no cure and no effective treatment. As near as I can tell, no one is working on magic potion to fix it either.

There are tons of gimmicks and gadgets which promise to help, but none of them do, not really. There's surgery which is invasive and has poor long term outcomes. There's CPAP (and variants) which many people don't tolerate well, and many more people stop using as time goes on.

There are sleep studies in hospital, which are an expensive hassle and only a snapshot. There are apps which track your snoring, but they can't diagnose the cause or tell you what to do to fix it.

With such a huge potential user base, why isn't anyone working on an effective solution (not that I know what that would look like)? I would glady give up my Netflix subscription and gym membership and pay the equivalent amount to get better quality sleep.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#87
post #23

Apart from quantity, quality of sleep is also important. I just realized how much a little light can disturb sleep. My blinds are opaque but hung 1-2 cm from the window frame, letting in just a few unwanted photons. I temporarily taped the blinds to the frame, leaving the room in almost complete darkness. I haven't felt this rested in years. Do try this at home!

Light can impact sleep to a smaller or greater extent depending on the person. My research group studies this and has developed an app (Android-only for now) to let people test what affects their sleep the most, since sleep outcomes are so different for everyone (depending on chronotype, etc.). We use a form of Bayesian statistics to compute certainties and effect sizes after each night of sleep.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.brown.slee...

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#88

I'm no expert but I thought that the whole 8 hour a night thing was not true, at least not for everyone. If I force myself to get 8 hours of sleep, by forcing myself to stay in bed after I wake up, I get a headache. If I let myself wake up on its own without an alarm, it averages around 6.5 hours. If I get below that, then at some point I will sleep more than the 6.5 hours, and maybe even 8 hours. So from personal ex…

That's what was unclear about the article for me. The recommendation is 8 hours, but under 6 hours is considered sleep deprivation. So... there seems to be a wide amount of flexibility between 6 and 8 hours, and it's likely person-dependent. Perhaps there's deleterious effects below 8 hours for everyone, but once you're at ~6 hours or below, the negative impact increases significantly.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#89
post #4

I'm currently in my 20s and I've been a type 1 chronic insomniac my whole life. Physically, I'm healthy and fit and I have been my whole life, but mentally my mind feels slower and foggier than my peers and I struggled through high school and college because of it. I know this might sound morbid, but I am fully expecting to die early despite doing everything in my power to live a healthy, balanced lifestyle. I can't…

The article mentions meditation as a sleep aid. I have no idea if it could help someone with a sleep disorder, but I’m just curious if you’ve explored that option.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that different wavelengths effect sleep hormones differently. My less than educated guess would be that evolutionarily speaking there are different optimal sleep environment cycles based on wavelength, intensity, and temperature variables depending on location and habits of ancestors.

You're absolutely right, our body most definitely reacts in different ways to different wavelengths of light. A specific green has been shown to help reduce pain. [1] 525 nm seems to be the magic wavelength in this particular case. I'm a chronic acute pain sufferer. I'd love for something as simple as an array of green LEDs to help with my pain. I keep meaning to get a large breadboard, a bunch of LEDs, and make such…

There was an interesting piece [1] on the BBC a couple of days ago about research finding exposure to Cyan might help keep us awake.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-44565320

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