Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie • Hacker News Board

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#41

Post by judofyr » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 8:43 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #34

freddie_mercury wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the absence of any actual evidence? Generally we take self-reported feelings as not especially strong evidence. Maybe all it says is they grew up thinking that "weekend sleeping helped catch-up" and now they only remember the confirming evidence and discard the disconfirming evidence to support their confirmation bias?

Wait, what? Why would self-reported feelings not be taken as strong evidence? It seems to me like self-reported feelings are great evidence, and need particularly strong evidence (e.g. evidence of long-term damage that isn’t felt in the short term, like for smoking cigarettes) to contradict.

> Wait, what? Why would self-reported feelings not be taken as strong evidence?

Because you might be stuck in a local maxima that's close to your global minima. I've been reading "Why We Sleep", and while I don't have the citations here at the moment he mentions that one of the tricky things with sleep deprivation is that people are often not very aware of it themselves. Your body gets used to the new, lower, level and thinks that it's normal.

It should also be mentioned that most people don't try to distinguish between correlation and causation, and as such it can be hard to draw any conclusions. Imagine a person who reports that "I'm so happy when I drink alcohol", but it turns out that he has no social contact (e.g. working at night, sleeping through the day; no friends) outside of the bar setting, and it's actually the social element that he most desires.

I guess it depends on what you mean by the word "evidence", but I wouldn't really say that his self-reported feelings show any strong evidence that alcohol makes him happy.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#42

Post by dasanman » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 8:48 AM UTC

freddie_mercury wrote: post #13

dasanman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if it "feels that way", doesnt that have something to say as well?

In the absence of any actual evidence? Generally we take self-reported feelings as not especially strong evidence. Maybe all it says is they grew up thinking that "weekend sleeping helped catch-up" and now they only remember the confirming evidence and discard the disconfirming evidence to support their confirmation bias?

In the ends its about how you feel, your well being. Right?

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#43

Post by RugnirViking » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 9:09 AM UTC

bitcoinmoney wrote: post #23

Golfkid2Gadfly wrote: post #16

No amount of sleep will make you feel well if your entire life is economically and, therefore, emotionally stressed because your country does not care about you. Provide affordable health care, affordable quality day care, living wages, and housing security, and people will sleep like babies all the time. America will be the richer.

Aren’t you describing Europe though?

A wealthy and statistically happier and more free continent? Yes.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#44

Post by Hattes » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

ferros wrote: post #8

I can’t speak for scientific analysis, but I can say that if I have had a disrupted week of sleep, a weekend catch up ‘resets’ me and serves its intended purpose (for me)

This is my experience as well. When I don't sleep, I feel terrible. If I sleep a long while in the weekend I might have low energy but that feeling of oppressive nausea goes away.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#45

Post by FooHentai » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 9:15 AM UTC

xster wrote: post #22

kuu wrote: post #15

I think the research behind this news is quite weak: only 9 days and not that many participants (18 men and 18 women).

This needs to be top comment. Society's tolerance for bombastic 'journalistic' claims with no consequences is the source of so much of our present issues. Conclusions are cheap.

>is the source of so much of our present issues.

Citation needed. Because hyperbole is no different in meta.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#46

Post by cnaa » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 9:20 AM UTC

kuu wrote: post #15

I think the research behind this news is quite weak: only 9 days and not that many participants (18 men and 18 women).

A thesis that journalism is the continued education for adults was posted recently. I won't name the originator of that idea.

Education here: Your 60 work hours during the week are fine, you don't need more sleep.

Doesn't Bezos own the WP?

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#47

Post by matthewfelgate » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 9:20 AM UTC

benj111 wrote: post #37

For UK viewers, there was an episode of Twinstitute on iplayer that looked at sleep banking v power naps. The results of that seemed to suggest that sleep banking worked better than power naps, so I'm a bit confused why that works, but catch-up sleep doesn't?!

Possibly because power naps don't achieve anything.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#48

Post by pbhjpbhj » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 9:20 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #34

freddie_mercury wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the absence of any actual evidence? Generally we take self-reported feelings as not especially strong evidence. Maybe all it says is they grew up thinking that "weekend sleeping helped catch-up" and now they only remember the confirming evidence and discard the disconfirming evidence to support their confirmation bias?

Wait, what? Why would self-reported feelings not be taken as strong evidence? It seems to me like self-reported feelings are great evidence, and need particularly strong evidence (e.g. evidence of long-term damage that isn’t felt in the short term, like for smoking cigarettes) to contradict.

Because we're really good at fooling ourselves, and we lie to present an idealised version of ourselves.

Example: [Apparently] having coffee in the morning doesn't wake you up, it's that caffeine dependency (and maybe a little dehydration) makes you feel terrible. Coffee temporarily reverse this negative [local maxima].

Coffee appears to wake you up, but it's doing the opposite.

There are many common examples - 'drinking doesn't affect my driving', 'I don't drink heavily', 'advertising doesn't affect me', 'I get enough exercise', 'my diet is healthy', 'I go to church regularly'.

Reports here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5639921/#!po=7...., for example, have measured overreporting of exercise/church attendance at double.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#49

Post by YayamiOmate » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 9:23 AM UTC

kuu wrote: post #15

I think the research behind this news is quite weak: only 9 days and not that many participants (18 men and 18 women).

I wanted to ask whether this is a serious claim or one of those "might alter the risk" articles.

Seems it even worse. Thanks for sparing many people's time with your comment.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#50

Post by CaRDiaK » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 9:32 AM UTC

sebslomski wrote: post #20

I highly recommend reading Matthew Walker‘s Why We Sleep [0] where stuff like the above mentioned is summed up. Great read! [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963

Currently about two thirds through this. I agree that it's a great read, quite fascinating actually. Interestingly, he's conducted similar tests measuring a whole range of properties including; response, recovery, memory, health on hundreds of people and he draws the same conclusion as the article. It's certainly made me more aware of my own sleep habits. Highly recommended reading.