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Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

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Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#52
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50% improvement for sleeping vs not sleeping at all.

That honestly seems conservative. The times I've missed an entire night I've been essentially useless or an actual detriment.

In reality, your "productivity" is likely to be negative, as you will need to spend even more time fixing the mistakes you made trying to program in a sleep deprived state.

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#53
post #44

Struggling to get to sleep? One thing that really helped me was taking care of what I was doing in the hour or two before bedtime. Staying up scrolling through work emails or reddit or news? Your mind's gonna be racing when you get to bed. Now I watch an hour of TV with my phone in another room - a completely passive activity that gives my mind time to settle down.

This exactly makes all the difference for me.

When I do anything even remotely exciting, I have harder time falling asleep. Not only that. I will also wake up 1-2 hours earlier and have very hard time getting back to sleep.

If I do something calming, I have none of this issues.

Watching movies is great. Think about something absolutely unrelated to your stress for 90 minutes.

And yes, my insomnia is stress induced. If I’m on a holiday, which I haven’t been for couple years, I have none of those problems.

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#54

When I was younger, like many people, I thought of all-nighters as a thing to brag about. Now, I see sleep deprivation as a serious health debt that you pay nosebleed compound interest rates on. If you get less than your preferred amount of sleep, everyday living can become more complicated. Simple tasks can become dangerous. Do not walk down stairs without holding the hand rail if you are tired! Also, my sleep track…

> I see sleep deprivation as a serious health debt that you pay nosebleed compound interest rates on. I wish it were that easy! Years and years of sleep deprivation left me dealing with pretty bad anxiety attacks. It's been almost 6 years now and they are mostly manageable. I'm still on medication though, which has other not-so-fun side effects. Don't be stupid like me. Get enough sleep! It's the only part I dread ab…

Oh, it definitely will. Lack of sleep invites panic and anxiety attacks. When well rested they are nonexistent.

After about four years from birth you'll recover though and looking back you won't even remember anything so it's all good.

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#57
post #44

Struggling to get to sleep? One thing that really helped me was taking care of what I was doing in the hour or two before bedtime. Staying up scrolling through work emails or reddit or news? Your mind's gonna be racing when you get to bed. Now I watch an hour of TV with my phone in another room - a completely passive activity that gives my mind time to settle down.

even that is too much excitement for me , dim lights or total darkness and just silent meditation sitting on a cushion for about 30-60 minutes is what it takes.

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#58
post #26

I've bought recently one of those cheap wrist bands. One of the most important features for me was ability to measure sleep quality in terms of "daily hours of deep sleep," whatever that scientifically means. Over the course of several months, I've been able to identify things which affect my sleep quality: * eating late: bad * drinking late: one beer... not really that bad * answering work emails until midnight: REA…

re 'answering work emails until midnight: REALLY BAD' - true for any screen time. Night shift/f.lux or glasses with a blue light filter may help a little with that

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#59
post #12

When I was younger, like many people, I thought of all-nighters as a thing to brag about. Now, I see sleep deprivation as a serious health debt that you pay nosebleed compound interest rates on. If you get less than your preferred amount of sleep, everyday living can become more complicated. Simple tasks can become dangerous. Do not walk down stairs without holding the hand rail if you are tired! Also, my sleep track…

"as a serious health debt" Except, sleep isn't a debt because the loss can't be repaid. This is one of many important things I have picked up from Dr. Matthew Walker who wrote "Why We Sleep" and has been doing the podcast rounds lately. Not to pick on you at all. It sounds like you have made some big realizations and are making fantastic changes. Realizing I can't make up sleep to pay off the "debt" has been eye open…

> Except, sleep isn't a debt because the loss can't be repaid.

sort of?

The impact of missed sleep has a half life. A single night of 4 hours sleep, followed by a year of normal nights sleep will lead to a me that is indistinguishable from the me that slept 8 hours that same night.

I'm all for sleeping properly, but lets not suggest that it is the end of the world any time someone doesn't get their standard n hours

Re: Impact of a Night of Sleep Deprivation on Novice Developers’ Performance (2018)

#60
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you have children yet, but I regret to inform you if you don't that significant sleep deprivation is in your future unless you plan to extensively involve caregivers outside of you and your spouse.

No necessary. We were lucky, but our daugher gave us very little trouble in this regards. She was breastfed, so feeding her at night was a minimum hassle at night and wife barely had to wake up for it. Not sure where on the rule-exception continuum this expierience falls, but my point is that having a newborn does not guaranty you an miserable existance in the zombie mode.

A small percentage of kids are probably hard to deal with when it comes to sleep no matter what you do, but most of the parents I've seen with kids who still often wake them up past the 4-6mo range are training their kids to do it. They can't possibly realize they are or they'd surely stop, but they are. This is usually combined with waiting way too late to start trying to sleep-train.
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