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Sleepless in Silicon Valley

economist.com

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Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#91

Post by pmiller2 »

kuzimoto wrote: post #68
rconti wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure. Weight relative to 1 lb or 1kg is essentially the definition of “absolute weight.”

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#92

Post by favorited »

checkyoursudo wrote: post #82
favorited wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sleep researchers and doctors claim that your bed itself should be the bell. It will be easiest for you to fall asleep if you don't spend any time in your bed unless you are actively trying to fall asleep. No reading a book before you sleep, no checking your email in the morning, etc. They prioritize it to the point that, if you are lying in bed trying to sleep at night for more than 20 minutes, you should get up and…

I have been told this before, though the person I heard it from said sleep and sex, not just sleep. :)

Hahah good point, my doctor obviously thinks very poorly of me.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#93

Post by Symmetry »

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)

Sleep is very important in all sorts of ways but Professor Walker was throwing everything at the wall in an effort to convince the reader to get better sleep at times. One chapter talking about how people who get less sleep will naturally want to eat more. Another chapter telling how rats with given constant diets and restricted sleep eventually starve to death. I do trust all his citations to be accurate but I'm also sure that if there was some way in which less sleep was good for you he wouldn't mention it.

But it was a very valuable book in terms of explaining just what sleep does for you.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#96

Post by hawaiian »

DenisM wrote: post #21
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…

Did you really need a $300 device to tell you that a night of drinking will undermine your sleep?

I don't think the product is targeted at people questioning the health effects of their heavy drinking, but rather at people questioning the effects of endurance training, long commutes, or other habits that may be inadvertently causing them long-term harm.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#97

Post by xkcd-sucks »

yocheckit wrote: post #74
beat wrote: post #41

I recently went through a sleep study, and the doctor was openly aggravated by how current trends and devices focus on "deep sleep", when it's actually "light sleep" that we need to regain our mental focus.

Really? Care to elaborate?

REM is "light sleep", one 3 hour-ish sleep cycle is "NREM stage I -> NREM stage II -> NREM stage III -> REM" where REM is considered "pretty close to awake" and NREM stage numbers are "progressively deeper". Deeper basically means lower body temperature, less movement, and slower breathing.

This is on the basis of clustering/pattern matching body movement, body temperature, and some brain wave/MRI crap.

VERY broadly speaking, "deep" NREM stages are important for "body health" while REM is important for maintenence of memories and "mental health".

As with anything in neurobiology, it's "emerging evidence suggests that..." and nobody really knows what's going on. Except all evidence suggests sleeping less is bad for pretty much everything.

The dynamics of sleep state transitions are also pretty meaningful, e.g. time it takes to move from one stage to the next, whether there's "backwards" transitions, etc. For example, sleep deprivation lengthens deep NREM time, lowers latency from wake -> NREM I, and shortens the entire sleep cycle.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#98

Post by davemp »

rootusrootus wrote: post #65
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.

Yeah the HN marketing worked on me and I almost never by non-fiction books.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#99

Post by remarkEon »

pythonpatrol wrote: post #46
remarkEon wrote: post #18

Hmm another sleep article. I'll share what I do. After being in the Army for a while, and waking up at 430 and going to bed at close to midnight for a long time during the week (there's no real "sleep schedule" overseas though) I've been working on tuning my sleep cycle for the seasons to great success. Over the last year I've been slightly altering my alarm each night based on when sunrise is (plus going to bed earl…

Can you detail it more? Sounds like I'd benefit from this way of sleeping.

I should really just build an alarm app for this.

Basically I just look up when sunrise is the night before, and move my alarm back 1-2 minutes for it. In the summer I'll go to bed a few minutes later each night until the solstice, then reverse. All I'm doing is chasing the sunrise and sunset (with an offset for sunset).

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