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What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

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Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#151

Post by mirimir »

wildduck wrote: post #105
makz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One day I could not compile something. After fighting it several hours I decided to go sleep. A few minutes before waking up I dreamed that the solution was to set an environment variable. I even saw the specific variable and which value I had to set. I woke up and immediately tried it. It worked.

That's the exact reason why we should have beds at work and not have regular working hours. People should just work and sleep whenever they want as long as they make meetings and project deadlines.

That works for me. In the last months of collecting data for my PhD thesis, I pretty much lived in the lab. This was basically biochemistry, so there was lots of "do this, wait some hours, do that, wait some hours, ...".

So I just napped when I could. At night, on the couch in the break room. During the day, on the cot off the women's restroom. And conveniently, there was a shower for staff who cared for research animals.

Now, living in a small apartment, my ~12 m^2 room includes desk, bed and storage.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#152

Post by rootw0rm »

motivic wrote: post #9

In case you feel sleep is a waste of time, it could actually be surprisingly productive to sleep. Once thing I noticed in grad school is that your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them. And often I would "dream" up a clever solution to a homework problem during my sleep. J.P. Serre, one of the most brilliant mathematician still living today…

So many times I'd be at home in my office, crunching 12 hours straight on a problem, only to finally give up and go to sleep. Without fail I'd jump out of bed an hour later, test my solution, and go back to sleep a happy man.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#153

Post by dkersten »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #109
kerkeslager wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed extra inspiration on bathroom breaks as well, but as a control I tried just getting up and walking outside and back, and that seemed to have the same effect for me.

There's something going on during that context switch. It feels like because all of the data about a problem is being unloaded into long term memory, when you return to the problem, you parse the entire data as once instead of adding to it in pieces. It almost feels like a puzzle except the second time looking at it, you're looking at the whole thing you've solved versus just the piece you last added.

I feel Luke ta a mixture of context switch and some idle time/downtime. I find walks great for letting my thoughts drift and work through things, same goes for train journeys. I think perhaps as you say, the switch unloads the information into your subconscious and then the downtime let’s it get to work.

I really liked Rich Hickeys talk on Hammock Driven Development which is basically this exact subject: load everything into your brain and then go snooze on a hammock while your mind gets to work.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#154

Post by jeffshek »

mikelyons wrote: post #79
jeffshek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the different stages of sleep play a part here ... Salvadore Dali apparently liked to keep an object/pen in his hand that would drop and wake him up. Still can't find enough real examples of polyphasic sleeping working, but love to know how well people of that retained content.

Have you read Steve Pavlina's account of transition to and from polyphasic sleep?

Yep! It's been hard to ignore the other things people questioned about his attempt though ... I'm leaning toward trying biphasic, but still not sure yet.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#155

Post by wildduck »

nashequilibrium wrote: post #73
makz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One day I could not compile something. After fighting it several hours I decided to go sleep. A few minutes before waking up I dreamed that the solution was to set an environment variable. I even saw the specific variable and which value I had to set. I woke up and immediately tried it. It worked.

Just had one of these moments two days ago, the only other thing that comes close is when I go for long walks.

For sure. It also help to go to park or nature or go for a swim!

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#156

Post by koonsolo »

Zarath wrote: post #132
motivic wrote: post #9

In case you feel sleep is a waste of time, it could actually be surprisingly productive to sleep. Once thing I noticed in grad school is that your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them. And often I would "dream" up a clever solution to a homework problem during my sleep. J.P. Serre, one of the most brilliant mathematician still living today…

While I understand why you'd write something like this, I think that this sort of thinking is the reason people get poor sleep nowadays anyway. This obsession with "efficiency" and "productivity". Even if it is more productive to get sleep, I believe that thinking about it in terms of hygiene or in terms of quality of life is much healthier. Maybe you disagree but not every minute of life should be devoted to doing t…

You have a valid point. But on the other hand, this is ycombinator news, and so entrepreneurs trying to get that last bit of productivity by doing an all nighter might think more long-term about this.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#157

Post by wildduck »

dvcrn wrote: post #122
wildduck wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the exact reason why we should have beds at work and not have regular working hours. People should just work and sleep whenever they want as long as they make meetings and project deadlines.

I for my part would never want to sleep at a bed in my office. I'd rather go home. I also live in Japan and a lot of places here have beds in the office but all it does is squeeze more time out of people and make them stay longer

For sure going home is good. I'm just saying instead of staying awake and do bad work, it is better to just let people sleep when they need to.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#158

Post by koonsolo »

dkersten wrote: post #149
motivic wrote: post #9

In case you feel sleep is a waste of time, it could actually be surprisingly productive to sleep. Once thing I noticed in grad school is that your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them. And often I would "dream" up a clever solution to a homework problem during my sleep. J.P. Serre, one of the most brilliant mathematician still living today…

I’ve experimented with nootropics and I came to the conclusion that the best way to improve your mental ability is: Sleep Exercise Diet And then everything else like nootropics In that order. That is, they certainly work and help but they’re a micro-optimisation so there’s not much benefit if you’re not doing the macro ones first and sleep, in my opinion and anecdotal experience is at the very top of that list.

This is also my experience that sleep has the most impact. Not only does it impact my mental ability, it also impacts my mood, and therefore my productivity of wanting to work.

I don't know about the order or exercise and diet, but they are definitely on there.

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#159

Post by Smaug123 »

klenwell wrote: post #51
motivic wrote: post #9

In case you feel sleep is a waste of time, it could actually be surprisingly productive to sleep. Once thing I noticed in grad school is that your sub-conscious is passively working on the problems you encountered even if you are not actively thinking about them. And often I would "dream" up a clever solution to a homework problem during my sleep. J.P. Serre, one of the most brilliant mathematician still living today…

This is also covered in Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep where he cites several controlled studies demonstrating the role of sleep in learning and outlines the neurobiology behind it: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep I used to see sleep as a waste of time. A few years ago I started to recognize its importance in overall well-being and adjusted my schedule and commute accordingly. Reading Walker'…

On the other hand, while Walker may be right about everything he says (anecdotally I'm extremely aware of how important sleep is day-to-day), I found his book to be very poor evidence of what he's trying to persuade us of. His writing is that of one who has bought unquestioningly into a cult. The evo-psych digressions about "wise Mother Nature" are nothing short of ridiculous; the one that sticks in my memory is that he seriously considers the possibility that Nature gave teenagers an offset sleep cycle from adults so that they could start exploring the world on their own for a few hours each night. (One much simpler possible explanation is that it gave the tribe someone who was naturally on guard duty for more of the night, but of course this is testable by looking at non-tribal animals and I haven't tested it.)

Re: What Happens to the Body on No Sleep

#160

Post by dkersten »

eyegor wrote: post #50

I'm sure that it must be true based on how other people act on little sleep, but for me the effects this article claims are blown way out of proportion (or just seem wrong). > longer than 48 hours and you’re looking at behavior that mimics psychosis—incoherent rambling, disconnection from reality, prone to outbursts Does anyone else here have experience staying awake this long? In college I frequently stayed awake fo…

I find that as I age, the effects of lack of sleep get more and more severe. When I was 20, I could do 48 hours without sleep without any noticeable negative effects, but now, 15 years later, I suffer even if I get sleep in a night but just not enough (where enough seems to be around the 9 hour mark if I really want to be at my best the next day; and I’m a firm believer of waking on a multiple of 90 minutes to wake during a light sleep cycle. 7.5 hours isn’t bad but 9 is better)
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