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Sleepless in Silicon Valley

economist.com

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Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#61

Post by an4rchy »

Paywalled, but based on the free paragraphs, I was kinda surprised that it didn't talk about the other factors that may affect sleep.

Currently reading 'Why we sleep' which is a fascinating book about the importance/history/evolution of sleep across species and time. (Highly recommend it -- definitely regretting all the sleepless/low sleep nights)

At a high level, my understanding is that the duration/quality of sleep depends on physiological, mental and environmental conditions.

It sounds like the focus of the article was on environmental (I would definitely love to sleep with zero light/sound).

Similarly, the 5-10 mins meditation may help, but if you're stressed out or have something on your mind, that can still keep you awake or wake you up.

You can make sure not to eat/drink anything by that time (6pm) but effects of caffeine/other foods you might have eaten earlier can impact your sleep quality.

Finally, the right physiological/chemical changes need to occur (melatonin/REM cycles/tired from physically exhausting activities) for you to actually be sleepy. Most people can't just sleep on command, although, you might be able to build/force the habit.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#62

Post by rconti »

jniedrauer wrote: post #14
novok wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why use this over an apple watch or fitbit?

Or a use Garmin watch, and get even more metrics. It's like strapping the elastic stack to your body.

Yeah, I used to have a Hello Sense. I've been using Apple Watches for years, but I never wanted to install a 3rd party app for sleep tracking, nor have to charge during the day instead of at night.

Now I just wear a Garmin Forerunner 945. It seems like it must be more accurate than this Oura thing, though i know almost nothing about it.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#63

Post by rootusrootus »

jchrisa wrote: post #6

My hack is just fall asleep when putting the kids to sleep and wake up whenever I feel like. If I've been pushing hard, sometimes I'll take all 10 hours, other nights I'm up at 4am ready to work.

Hey, someone else who does the same thing as me! Yay! As soon as my wife and I put the kids down, we head to bed ourselves. Then I wakeup whenever, which frequently translates to 4-5am but like you, sometimes lasts until the kiddos wake up.

We're lucky that both of our kids have always been great sleepers, aside from occasional attempts to get up in the middle of the night and come sleep with mom & dad.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#64

Post by rconti »

HansLandaa wrote: post #23
fizwhiz wrote: post #5

Tbh the oura ring has been a game changer for a data nerd like me. I can easily see how some exercise in the day actually impacts my HRV[1] and then the quality of my sleep. Had a heavy night of drinking? Watch what the oura ring reports not just on the same night but even the next night :) Basically if you're thinking of starting your own "protocol" for sleep and would like to A/B test what works and what seems like…

Cool! I have a Whoop. I purchased it before they started the subscription model. https://www.whoop.com/the-locker/team-thrive-average-hrv-on-...

The Whoop might be great, but I just can't get behind any product that used those obnoxious ads (I saw it on Instagram) that hype the product without telling you what it is. Clickbait advertising doesn't work on me, I guess. I might be interested, if they explained it.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#65

Post by rootusrootus »

hrzn wrote: post #22

"Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker is an excellent book for those interested in what science has to say about sleep (disclaimer: it's excessively good for you)

Sometimes I wonder if Mr. Walker is paying people at HN to talk about his book :). Comes up more often than I'd expect.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#66

Post by lukecameron »

adharmad wrote: post #4

Apart from being a snarky article, the author does not propose any actual solutions. So what if a few folks try to hack sleep? Whatever floats their respective boats....

> It is hardly surprising that techies are not getting enough sleep, given the industry’s culture of long hours, and the widespread notion that for a true entrepreneur, everything else in life is secondary to succeeding at work.

This article was very snarky, even for the economist. It seems distinctly below their usual standard of quality with broad generalisations such as the above, seemingly contradicted by an anecdote about Bryan Johnson and others' bizarre sleep practices.

For me this article would have been a lot better if it focused on the sleep tech industry, and applied a more measured and evidence-based approach to its silicon valley criticisms, some of which certainly are relevant and worthy of discussion.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#67

Post by akiselev »

RandallBrown wrote: post #40
DenisM wrote: post #24

Another view on the Oura thing: https://www.medpagetoday.com/practicemanagement/informationt... It's rather skeptical. Choice quote: [...] The SRI researchers studied 41 healthy adolescents and young adults (average age 17). Sleep data were recorded using the Oura ring and standard PSG on a single laboratory overnight. Metrics were compared using Bland-Altman plots and epoch-by-epoch analysis. The ring accurately det…

It doesn't matter so much how accurate it is, as long as it's consistently inaccurate. I don't care if my scale at home is perfectly accurate. I care about knowing that my weight is going up/down.

How would you even know if it is consistently inaccurate? The variability in biological signals might be so high day to day that it could be highly correlated but with frequent pathological cases that make the data useless.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#68

Post by kuzimoto »

rconti wrote: post #60
pmiller2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I care if my scale at home is accurate. I don't want to know if my weight is going up or down, I want to know what I currently weigh so I can decide what I need to do about it.

Your example seems to disagree with your premise. If someone tells me I weigh "9239" this means nothing to me, unless in context of whether it's going up or down, and how it is related to others of my height (and age and gender, perhaps). I don't care that I weigh some multiple of an SI unit, or some fraction of a car. I care about my weight relative to others and my history.

If you care about your weight relative to others, then it has to be accurate, no? Because how would you compare your weight unless you had a bunch of people using your scale.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#69

Post by Havoc »

checkyoursudo wrote: post #7

My sleep tracking now consists of putting my APAP on to counteract my sleep apnea, falling asleep within seconds because I'm like Pavlov's sleeping baby dog because of the machine, and then waking up and seeing what the machine says re: how long it has been pushing air in my nose. It works surprisingly well, actually. If I only got 6.5 hours of APAP last night, then I will pretty reliably go to bed a little earlier t…

Would it be dangerous if the machine fails during sleep? Ie block breathing

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#70

Post by pmiller2 »

rconti wrote: post #60
pmiller2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I care if my scale at home is accurate. I don't want to know if my weight is going up or down, I want to know what I currently weigh so I can decide what I need to do about it.

Your example seems to disagree with your premise. If someone tells me I weigh "9239" this means nothing to me, unless in context of whether it's going up or down, and how it is related to others of my height (and age and gender, perhaps). I don't care that I weigh some multiple of an SI unit, or some fraction of a car. I care about my weight relative to others and my history.

No, it does not. Say I'm 6' tall. "Normal" BMI is between 18.5 and 25, which translates to between 136.4 lbs - 184.3 lbs. Telling me my weight is going up or down tells me nothing about whether I fall into this healthy range. And, depending where I fall (below, within, or above the range), the actions I would wish to take differ. It's that simple.

What instrument do you have that measures your "weight relative to others and your history"? Don't you only want to measure it relative to other healthy individuals? And, if you are particularly underweight or overweight, wouldn't you want to know when you're in the normal range? An instrument that only tells you what direction the change is doesn't tell you any of that.

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