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

guzey.com

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

#331

Post by Melting_Harps »

take_a_breath wrote: post #327
rxhernandez wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if recognizing your cognitive decline is a cultural issue or something else; it couldn't be more clear that I am unable traverse many layers of abstraction when I havent slept enough; it was also apparent to everyone in my physics undergrad that they couldn't handle statistical mechanics with sleep deprivation.

Wearing sleep-depravation as a badge-of-honor seems like an American quirk.

> Wearing sleep-depravation as a badge-of-honor seems like an American quirk.

Not entirely an American thing, given the the common sight of a salaryman asleep on a train or cafe all over Japan. But given those 2 were the Largest Economies in the World for the last decades, and only recently JP was surpassed by CN in the middle of the last one, it makes sense.

Having done it myself, I think its definitely an experience people should have in their Lifetime outside of University or raising a child it really makes you more empathetic towards other people in difficult situations later on in Life. We on HN may choose startup life for one reason or another, but I know left with a better understanding of the Human condition afterward and come to see that its worth encouraging people who want to strive at something and actually put the work in.

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

#332

Post by toyg »

globular-toast wrote: post #315
toyg wrote: post #304

This is one of those posts I wish I could downvote 1000 times. It's the brogrammer equivalent of fake news: 22-yo kid "makes science" with a sample of 1, some videogames, and a few charts. You are 22 year old. Your body is at peak condition, built to go out and hunt for days on little food and little sleep. Of course it will work more or less fine for a few weeks.

It's not meant to be science. It's a geek experimenting with his body. Hacking your sleeping patterns is a classic that all geeks do at some point in their journey.

I suspect the author would disagree with your assessment, seeing how precisely he laid out the entire piece to appear as science.

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

#333

Post by guzey »

toyg wrote: post #329
cthor wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the limitations you mention are already explicit in the text. You have any other studies demonstrating lack of cognitive decline in 22 year olds on 4 hours sleep? Otherwise, you're just poo pooing on someone having actually having done the damn experiment. Yeah, n=1, but it's better than your n=0.

There are plenty of studies on sleep, all with larger samples and more rigorous approaches.

Can you link to some pre-registered studies of impact of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance?

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

#334

Post by guzey »

rdgthree wrote: post #256
guzey wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/

Immensely frustrating how many people are citing his book in a thread about one of your own blog posts, of all places. I was so glad to see your post about it at the time, and this experiment is an interesting follow up. "Why We Sleep" is everything wrong with "science" today, and as a person who also isn't a huge fan of sleeping, I'm desperate to understand the real drawbacks to a lack of sleep. That dumpster fire o…

Thanks!

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

#335

Post by jrootabega »

guzey wrote: post #233
jrootabega wrote: post #5

> However, for the entire duration of the experiment I had to resist regular urges to sleep and on several occasions when I did not want to play video games was very close to failing the experiment, having at one point fallen asleep in my chair and being awakened a few minutes later by my wife. I don't really believe this, and I find this interesting and impressive,but this sounds like a George Costanza scheme after…

I'm not sure why you don't really believe this. I didn't really have to mention this, did I?..

No I meant I didn't believe it was a scheme

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

#337

Post by ChefboyOG »

YMMV, but I've found anecdotally, that qualitative aspects of my sleep have an outsized impact vs. the # of hours, to a point of course.

For instance, in my teens/early twenties, I (like many) was able to sleep quite a bit less. Lots of late nights traipsing around the internet, lots of midnight projects.

In my mid-twenties, I suddenly found that I needed much more sleep. If I didn't get at least 8 hours, I woke up completely drained. Other adults I spoke to confirmed that this was normal.

Then, I switched apartments and got a new bed. Suddenly, I was waking up much easier, even with few hours of sleep.

This pattern has repeated a few times throughout my life. I'll notice I'm waking up more tired than usual, and then something will change—a new room with more natural light, a better mattress, the loss of something I didn't realize was stressing me—and I'll suddenly need less sleep.

I'm sure none of this is shocking to anyone, but the key thing for me was that even when my sleep quality was apparently deteriorated, I didn't notice it. I still fell asleep easily, I still had dreams, I was still comfortable in my bed, etc. The sleep cycle, it seems, just wasn't as restorative due to other factors.

I have a little pet theory that some of the "Super CEOs" we hear about who get by on 4-5 hours of sleep a night are:

1. Slightly exaggerating the rigidity of their superhuman schedule (I used to work in media, and I've worked with an outsized number of people who have public reputations for this kind of stuff. Anecdotally, I've found that nearly all exaggerate and sometimes outright lie.)

2. Adept at compartmentalizing stress and environment, to the extent that they're able to get quality sleep regardless. This skill would naturally track other responsibilities in their life as well.

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

#338

Post by Piskvorrr »

toxik wrote: post #292
wayoutthere wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the other part to remember is that the author of the article is 22. I didn't need sleep either when I was his age. I don't mean he's naive, just that a 22-year-old can abuse their body without too many negative consequences. As someone in my late 30s, I definitely feel it when I only get 4 hours of sleep.

I don't know what type of drugs you guys were eating in your 20's but if I pulled an all-nighter, I was absolutely ruined the next day and a bit the day after that. Even in my teens.

To pile on the anecdata: an all-nighter in my 20s was something feasible, even going through the next day (as in, day+night+day feeling fully awake, then resume usual behavior with normal night's sleep, and no further effects); at 25, this became harder, with a crash in the afternoon, at 30, an all-nighter meant sleeping through the next day, and currently just not getting at least 6 hrs of sleep will crash me the next afternoon. sigh

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

#339

Post by biophysboy »

lolc wrote: post #73
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.

I guess it depends on what you mean by convincing. If by convincing you mean Walker played fast and loose with some of his data presentation, then I'd have a hard time disagreeing. He was also pushing the marketing circuit hard back when that blog post went up (NPR, Rogan, etc). Which can make him feel like a snake oil salesman. So I understand the suspicion

But if by convincing you mean that guzey brought us back to square one - that is, sleep might not be as important as we think - then I don't think its a convincing critique.

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

#340

Post by biophysboy »

texascloud wrote: post #158
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…

It's so strange to see "independent researchers" attempt to poke holes by any means in an argument meant to protect people from the ill effects of sleep deprivation, yet provide zero non-anecdotal evidence to support lack of sleep being beneficial. Discounting Walker's argument with "he's not thorough" and then providing a "study" done by one person with no professional research experience appears fine for HN

Eh, I understand the motivation though - I think a lot of people on here are young, driven programmer-types who resent sleep because they see it as inefficient. I think they're mistaken, but the drive to experiment on yourself is understandable if you're in that cutthroat world.
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