I agree for the most part. However, try going for a regular run (say 5km) once per week, same day, and track your times. Let's say you hit about 30 minutes first time, and get it down to around 20 mins over a couple of weeks. Now try greater sleep deprivation than normal one week and watch your time plummet.
I find the same sort of result with coding on little sleep. While it feels like I'm "high functioning" while coding at 4:00AM, a code review in the light of day after a good night's sleep often reveals that I wasn't.
I've begun to suspect this is because we don't notice all the little issues we'd notice if we were more awake - at 4AM, the code is Flying, because I'm not stopping to realize how crappy the code is.
No, those schools have cultures that promote such behavior. I was a grad student and TA at Caltech and observed that the undergrads had horrible time management skills. Procrastination and heroic effort at the last minute were the norm. (I'm not specifically picking on Caltech undergrads, BTW. I'm fairly sure this is typical at most schools.)
"Procrastination and heroic effort at the last minute were the norm." This may be true, but there are also plenty of students who work from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to bed and still don't have enough time to get all of their assignments done. The problem is that functionally there isn't really any difference between having a 3.5 GPA and a 2.0 GPA, so at some point most people figure out that w…
Perhaps they should have gone somewhere else where they had time to sleep and think instead of just studying all the time. I know that where I work, the folks who are willing to grind the hardest on assigned work are rarely the ones you turn to for difficult and responsible work. The very best people are the ones who work extremely hard at self-directed work and sometimes push back against assigned work, but they are very, very rare, much rarer than people who are willing to grind day and night on whatever you assign them. The best person for difficult assignments is usually someone who refuses to overwork himself or herself.
"Sleep is important" has been a recurring theme for the last couple of years but I am one of the few that don't buy into it at all. Maybe I fall into the 2.5% but if I sleep 8+ hours I feel overslept and groggy. I function moderately to exceptionally well on 6 hours of sleep and often times end up getting more like 3-5 hours of sleep. I've read articles about high functioning executives that barely sleep at all and s…
> I've ... seen studies about less sleep improving lifespan The surveys I can find associate "normal" amounts of sleep with better lifespan, and both abnormally high and abnormally low levels of sleep ( 9 or 10 hours, depending on the study) with various negative outcomes. E.g. this meta-analysis pools prospective studies looking at heart attack and stroke rates: http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011…
Depending on where you look the golden rule for longevity seems to be 6-7 hours of sleep. The interesting thing about 7 being the more common number is that 7 doesn't fit into the commonly held belief that sleeping in sync with 90 minute REM cycles is more healthy/effective. Example of study saying 6-7 hours: http://www.worldhealth.net/news/six_to_seven_hours_sleep_bes...
I'm surprised this article is at the top of HN. 1) It is not the announcement of a research study, rather it is just referencing previous hbr blogs and sleepfoundation.org's general guidelines for sleep. 2) It offers no unique advice. 3) The title is basic linkbait (ie, its not really about food vs sleep).
Schools such as Caltech and MIT have rigorous curricula that proverbially requires constant study every day of the week just to stay in the middle of the pack. Naturally, most students cut back on sleep. Proponents of this approach are aware of this, even boast about it, saying that this is the best way to learn the material. On the other hand, numerous studies -- including the link at the top of this page -- conclud…
Even more disconcerting is the sleeping culture/routine throughout medical residency and fellowship; arguably, the most important stages of medical education, where doctors in training learn the hands-on skills to practice medicine. Despite the importance of learning during this stage, individuals are routinely sleep-deprived: "20% of all residents reported sleeping an average of 5 hours or less per night, with 66% a…
One thing that I wanted to try (but never had the schedule to support) is polyphasic sleep (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep). The idea that sleeping 15 minutes every 4 hours (on a very strict schedule) to keep your mind close to a waking-REM-type sleep. Granted, every few weeks you would have to crash HARD (20+ hour rest).
Even more disconcerting is the sleeping culture/routine throughout medical residency and fellowship; arguably, the most important stages of medical education, where doctors in training learn the hands-on skills to practice medicine. Despite the importance of learning during this stage, individuals are routinely sleep-deprived: "20% of all residents reported sleeping an average of 5 hours or less per night, with 66% a…
One thing that I wanted to try (but never had the schedule to support) is polyphasic sleep ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep ). The idea that sleeping 15 minutes every 4 hours (on a very strict schedule) to keep your mind close to a waking-REM-type sleep. Granted, every few weeks you would have to crash HARD (20+ hour rest).
I also considered experimenting with this in college. I never ended up doing it, though.
Schools such as Caltech and MIT have rigorous curricula that proverbially requires constant study every day of the week just to stay in the middle of the pack. Naturally, most students cut back on sleep. Proponents of this approach are aware of this, even boast about it, saying that this is the best way to learn the material. On the other hand, numerous studies -- including the link at the top of this page -- conclud…
Even more disconcerting is the sleeping culture/routine throughout medical residency and fellowship; arguably, the most important stages of medical education, where doctors in training learn the hands-on skills to practice medicine. Despite the importance of learning during this stage, individuals are routinely sleep-deprived: "20% of all residents reported sleeping an average of 5 hours or less per night, with 66% a…
To some extent the sleep deprivation is a weeding process/learning experience in and of itself. Being able to perform under stress/lack of sleep is a good quality in a doctor.
Even more disconcerting is the sleeping culture/routine throughout medical residency and fellowship; arguably, the most important stages of medical education, where doctors in training learn the hands-on skills to practice medicine. Despite the importance of learning during this stage, individuals are routinely sleep-deprived: "20% of all residents reported sleeping an average of 5 hours or less per night, with 66% a…
One thing that I wanted to try (but never had the schedule to support) is polyphasic sleep ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep ). The idea that sleeping 15 minutes every 4 hours (on a very strict schedule) to keep your mind close to a waking-REM-type sleep. Granted, every few weeks you would have to crash HARD (20+ hour rest).
The problem with this is that everyone is on the regular sleep 8 hours per-night schedule and you wouldn't be able to do this if you were working a regular job.