Sleep is more important than food • Hacker News Board

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#121

Post by silverlake » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 10:30 PM UTC

mjfern wrote: post #35

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…

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…

I've asked many doctors about this. They insist that they are not effected by sleep deprivation. They claim it is safer to have the same doctor for 24-48 hours rather than hand off a patient to a new, fresh doctor.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#122

Post by lawnchair_larry » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 10:33 PM UTC

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?

I find that listening to interesting music helps. This stimulates my brain just enough to prevent my mind from wandering. Otherwise, yeah, I end up thinking about my unfinished business, or think of "one more thing to try real quick" and then lose hours.

Contrary to some advice, I fall asleep pretty well with the TV on or something. If there is nothing stimulating at all, I just toss and turn and think about what else I'd rather be doing. I need a "light distraction" to put myself on idle, or I will start to actively invent my own.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#123

Post by jacques_chester » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 10:43 PM UTC

danielsoneg wrote: post #41

dean wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've had similar experiences. If I am very tired I don't get "coder's block", but the code is often rubbish.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#124

Post by jacques_chester » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 10:45 PM UTC

haploid wrote: post #20

nopassrecover wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it affects peak physical performance, it seems reasonable to suspect it affects peak mental performance (as studies seem to suggest). High functioning executives might get by on little sleep, but would they perform better on more sleep? Are hours clocked more important than output at the executive level?

No, it doesn't seem reasonable at all. Athletic activity causes actual physical microdamage that takes rest time, nutrition, and hormones to repair. The elevated secretion of human growth hormone during REM sleep is a significant reason why athletes perform better on more sleep. No such analogue exists for the human brain. Mental activities, at worst, deplete neurotransmitter levels. I have seen no evidence to sugges…

Training involves neural adaptation, a large part of which occurs while sleeping.

The systems of the body are not neatly partitioned into modules.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#125

Post by jacques_chester » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 10:47 PM UTC

Jach wrote: post #90

Just take some melatonin and force yourself to sleep in 30 minutes. (Plus it makes 7 hours feel like 8 hours.) If you're still unconvinced: http://www.gwern.net/Melatonin.html

Experiment with doses, however. I found that I could be groggy on rising if I took the standard 3mg.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#126

Post by atrevisan » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 10:52 PM UTC

Isn't Red Bull the same thing as sleep?

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#127

Post by pinchyfingers » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 10:54 PM UTC

jonmc12 wrote: post #100

jey wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The research is voluminous and has been around for a long time. Articles like this make the results easy for us normals to digest. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=sleep+deprivation&hl...

I think this is what surprises me - this is hacker news, not normals news. How interesting is a safe interpretation of the research that conforms to what I was taught in 2nd grade? Its like someone posted an article extolling the virtues of the food pyramid or something. Even my doctor has a more liberal interpretation of the research than this particular author (and he is probably more qualified to make this interpr…

I'm no longer surprised by the number of dumbass articles from HBR, New York Times, and the like. In fact, it's boring me and I think I'll take a nap :-)

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#128

Post by MicahSeff » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 11:30 PM UTC

kylek wrote: post #46

mjfern wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Seeing as I have an inability to get more than five or six hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, polyphasic sleep has always appealed to me. My life is a constant struggle against sleep deprivation and running a startup for the past year hasn't helped matters one bit.

Still, it's rather hard to see a way for a sleep schedule like this to be viable for most people unless it becomes the dominant way that people find their rest (which is hardly likely).

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#129

Post by mikecarlton » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 11:40 PM UTC

Can't think straight because you're too tired? !Try a power nap! A 15 minutes nap in the afternoon (use the timer on your iphone to not oversleep) and you'll be good as new.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#130

Post by adriand » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 11:54 PM UTC

ylem wrote: post #24

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm someone who sleeps on average 6 hours/night. When I have experiments, then I sometimes drop down to 4 hrs/night. I've found that I can manage with 4 hrs/night for about a week (it has gotten a bit harder with age)--BUT I know that I'm not as effective or creative when dealing with such little amounts of sleep. I also know that I'm more prone to make errors and try to develop habi…

I'm with you on this. Like most people, I would like to consistently get 7-8 hours of sleep a night, but I've got two young children, a packed work schedule, and volunteer commitments. These days I'm operating on about 5 hours of sleep per night and I'm functioning fine. If I wasn't up at 5:00 am to get a couple of hours of work in before my kids are up at 7, I'd be falling behind right now.

I'm probably making more errors than I would normally but they're mainly minor. By about 8:00 pm I get pretty fatigued and I may nap for 10 minutes at this time, to recharge for the evening.

The work I am doing is challenging but for the moment doesn't require a lot of creativity, so the tradeoff between the sheer amount of work I can get done versus the decrease in errors is worth it to me at the moment.

I do exercise pretty consistently however (approx. 4 times/week for 30 to 45 minutes) and I find this invaluable in terms of keeping me less stressed and more productive.