Sleep is more important than food • Hacker News Board

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#171

Post by hoag » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 7:35 PM UTC

forensic wrote: post #158

hoag wrote: post #145

Preparing for the California Bar Exam was a fascinating experience for me. Not only was it the most mentally challenging endeavor I had ever undertaken, it proved to be the most psychologically challenging as well. Fortunately, our two bar prep professors were not only licensed attorneys, but also Ph.D.s in neuropsychology. Part of our rigorous training therefore was not simply learning the law, but actually learning…

You're assigning your success to disciplined sleeping habits which seems very strange. I would ascribe your success to proper nutrition, proper mnemonics, adequate sleep, and lots of studying. Getting enough sleep (and not too much) is important but what is the advantage of keeping it within those tight boundaries? The natural human sleep cycle is often running on non-24 hour cycles and the science I've seen indicate…

I am certain that disciplined sleeping habits had a lot to do with it: absent the discipline, I would have often gone to bed around two or three in the morning, gotten less sleep -- or less quality sleep -- and, were I to have maintained this haphazard schedule, would have never been able to have set my biological clock to the necessary 10-6 sleeping schedule required for the three days of the exam itself. Beginning at 8AM, we had to be there by 7-730 or so, and I had to allow time for an adequate (light) breakfast.

Obviously I didn't mean to exclude the value of the actual studying, I'm just saying that studying -- without proper sleep and sleeping schedule -- would have lead to physical and mental and fatigue. And the nature of the bar exam material makes it virtually impossible to adequately perform on a sleep-starved mind.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#172

Post by sarahmccrum » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 5:49 AM UTC

I used to sleep 8 to 9 hours a night, and often could have slept more, until I learned how to relax and recharge my energy. Now I need around 4 to 6 hours (absolute max) and I never feel tired, even if I work late, 7 days a week etc etc.

Over the last 12 years, when I have worked with many people with a wide range of sleep problems, I have discovered that the problem is not in fact that we do not get enough sleep. I think that with the expectations we put on ourselves these days it is almost impossible to get enough sleep. I found that sleep (and food and the other methods we use) is simply not powerful enough to recharge our batteries properly.

Probably 50 years ago it was enough to eat 3 meals a day, sleep 8 hours a night, have weekends and a few weeks holidays every year and so on. My grandfather used to work in the City of London (financial district) and they went to the office in the morning, had a long, sociable lunch and didn't do much else for the rest of the day. Look at bankers and other financial people today and there is simply no comparison. So I believe it will become more and more essential for people to find ways of recharging their energy that are much more powerful than sleep, holidays etc. That's why we are seeing an increase in the number of people meditating, doing yoga and lots of other practices that build energy levels as well as rest.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#173

Post by mleonhard » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 7:02 AM UTC

jonmc12 wrote: post #45

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). Why the upvotes? is it because everyone is tired?

It looks like a PR piece for a company called The Energy Project. The HBR blogger forgot to remove their link at the end: "For more tips on sleep and other forms of renewal visit our web site." (links to http://theenergyproject.com/tips).

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#174

Post by DennisP » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 8:07 PM UTC

hoag wrote: post #145

Preparing for the California Bar Exam was a fascinating experience for me. Not only was it the most mentally challenging endeavor I had ever undertaken, it proved to be the most psychologically challenging as well. Fortunately, our two bar prep professors were not only licensed attorneys, but also Ph.D.s in neuropsychology. Part of our rigorous training therefore was not simply learning the law, but actually learning…

How do you force yourself to sleep?

"How to store and recall so much data on demand" sounds interesting too.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#175

Post by dlo » Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 12:44 AM UTC

brd wrote: post #2

"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…

> ... seen studies about less sleep improving lifespan...

Sleeping less than your own individual sleep need probably does not improve life span. The participants in the studies you're referring to who slept vastly more than others were those with sleeping disorders, some with extremely bad sleep apnea. They felt the need to sleep more because the quality of their sleep was so poor. But of course, having a lot of poor-quality sleep is not equivalent to having fewer hours of good-quality sleep.

The contribution I would like to make to this discussion is that each person's sleep need is individual.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#176

Post by jakegottlieb » Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 12:47 AM UTC

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…

There is no way they both are and I believe sleep is needed. The problem with learning late at night is that it takes longer; you may be sacrificing any sort of social life getting the right amount of sleep and rigorously studying. I guess there is always that sacrifice.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#177

Post by peter_l_downs » Sun, Mar 13, 2011, 8:58 PM UTC

SageRaven wrote: post #111

peter_l_downs wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unfortunately, not yet at my school :(