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Sleep is more important than food

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Re: Sleep is more important than food

#111

Post by SageRaven »

peter_l_downs wrote: post #77
winestock wrote: post #3

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…

As a highschool student, I can tell you that the problem isn't limited to just the top universities; most of my friends and I get around 6 hours of sleep a night, and it's definitely not enough. Some nights I've gotten as little as 2 or 3 hours, but I disagree that this is the best way to learn material, because I don't remember a) any of the material I was studying or b) anything I may have learned in class the next…

Teenagers are a special subset of the sleep problem. In recent years, there have been studies that suggest teens tend to naturally stay up late, which clashes with the hours of compulsory education. Some districts have altered hours for these students, where classes start later in the morning, and the results have supposedly been very positive with respect to both grades and student retention.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#112

Post by TorbjornLunde »

“If you leave items in your working memory, they'll make it harder to fall asleep, and you'll end up ruminating about them if you should wake up during the night.”

Avoiding thinking about things when you go to bed is something I am struggling quite a bit with. I will sure try out to write down my thoughts.

Any other advice to avoid your mind thinking too much when it should be winding down?

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#113

Post by esoteriq »

gaius wrote: post #84
esoteriq wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it have to be? There are only 133 Medical Schools in the U.S. and there is a marked shortage of doctors in some areas, most notably general family doctors. The only area that learning how to deal with sleep deprivation would be a benefit is surgery and critical care areas (ICUs). But then again, if you could schedule things better and get more doctors in, maybe these doctors don't have to learn how to function o…

The shortage is purely artificial; the AMA keeps a cap on numbers to make sure pay stays high.

Yes, but that doesn't refute my point. My point was sleep deprivation doesn't make better doctors or even encourage better doctors to stay.

Frankly, I'm surprised that as many doctors make it through - the working conditions are pretty terrible. Maybe the pay makes up for it, but you only get paid well once you get out of your residency or fellowship.

Better conditions will probably produce better doctors, not subpar doctors.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#114

Post by dkarl »

makmanalp wrote: post #54
dkarl wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can't agree with this more. However, whenever I refuse to do work I get stamped on the forehead with "lazy". For example, I figure out that the homework in a class is 25% the grade but there are 25 of them, so each is worth 1%. I understand the topic so I figure that it's a waste of my 4 hours to do the work for 1% extra. Bam, "you're so lazy".

Keep dotting your i's and crossing your t's until you're out of school. Honestly, if you're above the work, you should blow through it without too much trouble. It's designed to be doable in a reasonable amount of time for someone who is in the same position as you except that they are just coming to terms with the material. You should be able to do it in half the time. If not, then you benefited from the practice.

Once you're doing real work, turning down work will not make you lazy; it will be an opportunity to say, "Sure, I might be able to assist you with that, but you will have to talk to and about the impact on my work on and ."

"Oh... no chance of my project taking priority over those. Shoot, and I really need it done this quarter."

"I think can do the job for you. He might need a little guidance, but if he does, I will be happy to make myself available to answer his questions and point him in the right direction."

"Wonderful, thank you!"

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#115

Post by jleader »

kscaldef wrote: post #88
cj wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to have a life outside of school (job, side projects, social life) it's very hard to stay ahead of work without losing sleep even with excellent time management. Certain classes are worse than others and it doesn't usually depend on the content of the course, but the people teaching it. I'd blame the culture of the faculty above the school, although the school likely influences said culture.

Very few Caltech students have jobs. The faculty contributed from what I could see, but primarily in indulging procrastination by students. It was quite common for students to hand in the majority of a terms problem sets in the last week, and the professors would accept them even if there was a stated class policy that late assignments would not receive credit. (Of course, I acknowledge that this was particularly one…

From my experience as a Caltech undergrad, there was a "tragedy of the commons" in some of the larger classes. A student had a choice of doing the work early entirely on their own, or waiting until their classmates had started working on it, and being able to exchange advice, compare approaches, or verify answers with those classmates. Thus there was a fairly strong dis-incentive to always being the first to dig deeply into an assignment, unless you were so much smarter than your classmates that their cooperation was useless to you.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#116

Post by jleader »

makmanalp wrote: post #110
tedunangst wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does this lazy stamp actually land? Surely your school doesn't actually put a little (* lazy) on your transcript? You seem to know you're not lazy and there's no way the lazy stamp is actually going to be transmitted to anybody who cares, so why do you care?

Good point. I'm not too worried. I'm rather curious as to if I start prioritizing important things that need to be done vs things that can be postponed at work , am I going to suffer? I'm guessing the answer is yes.

Depends whose opinion on importance you're using for prioritization.

If you postpone things that aren't important to you, but are important to your boss, that's not going to go well. If you postpone things your boss doesn't care about, in order to do a better/quicker job on something the boss considers important, that'll probably make your boss happy.

(Note, I'm using "boss" as short-hand for "your boss, and all the other interested parties, customers, etc. who can affect your boss's opinion of you".)

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#118

Post by colanderman »

TorbjornLunde wrote: post #112

“If you leave items in your working memory, they'll make it harder to fall asleep, and you'll end up ruminating about them if you should wake up during the night.” Avoiding thinking about things when you go to bed is something I am struggling quite a bit with. I will sure try out to write down my thoughts. Any other advice to avoid your mind thinking too much when it should be winding down?

Read a boring book, or listen to familiar music. Works well for me.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#119

Post by huherto »

gordonbowman wrote: post #64

I was hoping to see some sleep hacks in the comments here. The author cites a few in the article: 1) Naps 2) Go to bed earlier 3) Start winding down at least 45 minutes before 4) Write down what's on your mind Does anyone here have any other sleep hacks to share?

1)Wake up EVERY day at the same time. 2) Goto bed when your body tells you.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#120

Post by tedunangst »

makmanalp wrote: post #110
tedunangst wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does this lazy stamp actually land? Surely your school doesn't actually put a little (* lazy) on your transcript? You seem to know you're not lazy and there's no way the lazy stamp is actually going to be transmitted to anybody who cares, so why do you care?

Good point. I'm not too worried. I'm rather curious as to if I start prioritizing important things that need to be done vs things that can be postponed at work , am I going to suffer? I'm guessing the answer is yes.

Depends if they are paying you to prioritize. If they're paying you to do what you're told and you don't, that doesn't usually end well. If you're responsible for priorities, you just have to never screw up, that's all.
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