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The effects on cognition of sleeping 4 hours per night for 12-14 days

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Re: The effects on cognition of sleeping 4 hours per night for 12-14 days

#71

Post by janee »

rkagerer wrote: post #33

Was his assessment basically just playing video games? I've noticed that's an activity I can do proficiently for an extended duration on very little sleep (along with things like "bulk" coding) but there are others I'm awful at unless I'm well rested (eg. complex planning, creative efforts like songwriting) and I've found my communication skills start to become impaired when I'm really sleep deprived. I'd be curious…

I had this same thought reading it. Anecdotal but my experience with prolonged sleep deprevation was a noticeable decline in my design capabilities.

I'm actually refactoring some of the code/sub systems I created during that time now and some solutions are very wacky...creative, but a super weird way to approach it.

Sleep deprivation might not have been the only contributor, but there a noticeable change in our code base during that time and I distinctly remember worrying about my sleep

Re: The effects on cognition of sleeping 4 hours per night for 12-14 days

#72

Post by watwut »

rkagerer wrote: post #33

Was his assessment basically just playing video games? I've noticed that's an activity I can do proficiently for an extended duration on very little sleep (along with things like "bulk" coding) but there are others I'm awful at unless I'm well rested (eg. complex planning, creative efforts like songwriting) and I've found my communication skills start to become impaired when I'm really sleep deprived. I'd be curious…

Lower communication skills on sleep deprivation are apparent to other people much sooner then to the sleep deprived person. Same goes for drop mood regulation skills. This effect is even larger as other people adjust to drop in those communication and mood regulation skills (e.g. will avoid communication and definitely wont even try harder or more stressful topics.).

I have this as repeated observation from time when I lived with sleep deprived gamer.

Re: The effects on cognition of sleeping 4 hours per night for 12-14 days

#73

Post by lolc »

biophysboy wrote: post #44

Guzey had another blog post on Matthew Walker's sleep book posted on HN a while back. I thought it was a bad faith critique, from my own biophysics perspective. We had some back and forth, guzey seemed nice & respectful enough, but I still had my misgivings about the critique. Sleep is very much an open question. HN seems to really love maximizing cognition and the overall efficiency of their life. That said, if you…

I found the critique very convincing. What do you disagree with?

> Sleep is very much an open question.

Walker's book is very much at odds with that statement.

Re: The effects on cognition of sleeping 4 hours per night for 12-14 days

#74

Post by sailfast »

snowwrestler wrote: post #31

When I go many days in a row without enough sleep, I find that my cognitive abilities (i.e. what I am capable of doing) does not seem to significantly decline--as judged by things I build and people I interact with. But, my endurance of focus (the amount of time for which I can perform at a high level) does suffer. The weird thing is that it doesn't feel like I can't keep going... it's just that I sort of somehow don…

May be more of the same but I find my filter also declines substantially, so I basically turn into a colossal pain in the rear to deal with. Longer-fused patience or optimistic thinking becomes short fuse rage and negativity. There is no bandwidth to deal with multiple things at once or compartment, and no bandwidth to ingest any signal except the thing in front of you in your mindset.

Not a place I’d recommend if you can avoid it.

Re: The effects on cognition of sleeping 4 hours per night for 12-14 days

#75

Post by koheripbal »

This reminds me of Steve Pavlina who successfully slept 2-3 hrs per day for 5.5 months and reported no ill effects.

source: https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/

We definitely need more people to try variations on this. If you're in confinement, this is actually a great time to try.

Re: The effects on cognition of sleeping 4 hours per night for 12-14 days

#78

Post by lolc »

karpierz wrote: post #28

It seems like the author tested rote activities that were well within their comfort zone; I'd be curious to see how well they'd perform when trying to learn something new or work at something that they hadn't practiced before.

Given that sleep deprivation is commonly assumed to lead to worsening reaction times, rote tasks should show an effect. It is interesting they didn't.

Apart from that, I agree that there is more to sleep deprivation than reaction performance. For example, some of my most creative moments were in highly sleep-deprived states. But how am I supposed to measure that?

Re: The effects on cognition of sleeping 4 hours per night for 12-14 days

#79

Post by koheripbal »

thealfreds wrote: post #58
T-hawk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What type of video games? That matters a lot to me. I can play a turn-based game like Civilization completely fine on little sleep (measuring the quality of play objectively, like by productivity or victory within a certain number of turns.) Soft real-time games like say a Mario platformer are a little worse but playable if I'm tired. Hard real-time games with very tight and sensitive timing like Guitar Hero or high-…

Games requiring long term focus, chess for example, I personally have difficulty playing when sleep deprived, even though it is turn based. I find I play at ~200 rating points lower on low sleep.

The real question is whether this penalty goes away once you adjust to your new sleep schedule.
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