Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 336 posts

Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance

#261

Post by forgotmypw17 »

licebmi__at__ wrote: post #246
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #115

I'd like to share my sleeping practice which I've developed after several years of focusing on it and trying to recreate the pre-industrial (and possibly pre-farming) sleep patterns my ancestors had for millions of years before the last few thousand. Whenever I feel tired, I lay down to rest. Whenever I am sleeping, I allow myself to sleep until I am "fully slept", meaning I can lay there for a while, still physicall…

It seems like yo do enjoy your lifestyle, but man, sleeping more than 8 hours, even when sick, seems impossible for me. I do have some kind of FOMO, not really about being hyper productive but to be conscious, I could consider a perfectly well spent day even if I just lazed in bed, but i would need to be able to even think about stuff, watch the ceiling or just feel the sheets on my hands. With how little time I have…

What if you could be twice as efficient, aware, productive in your waking hours, but it "cost" you another 2 hours of sleep? Would you do it then?

Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance

#262

Post by forgotmypw17 »

hermitmaster wrote: post #213
hutzlibu wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have small children and I try to live and sleep the same style. Which is of course now much harder, but it still somewhat works with taking shifts with the mother. I still lack sleep though, but I heard this is normal with small kids...

While I can’t categorically say it gets better with time, it has for me. I have an 18 month old and an almost three year old. I’m back to quasi-normal sleep now. I do wish we had kids when we were younger (I’m 37), but we weren’t planning on having any.

Thank you for sharing, encouraging to hear.

Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance

#263

Post by forgotmypw17 »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #227
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a creative person by nature, blessed with being allowed to figure out how things work by taking them apart when I was a child. I didn't hear "No" very often. Eventually, I found myself working on software maintenance at a bank, a job I become attached to because I thought I wasn't worth much without a degree. I worked there for 5 years. In corporate, my three role models have been Wally, Costanza, and Gibbons, so…

> I rode out six months on unemployment, also eating through my savings. > I realized that with five years at the bank on my resume, it will be much easier to find another job, so I did that. What are you saying here? You had the five years on your resume all the time you were struggling and on unemployment.

first, bank for 5 years.

then ~2 more jobs, about a year.

then unemployment with half-hearted minimal job searching and spending the savings.

then back to the workforce for a few more years.

Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance

#264

Post by forgotmypw17 »

drclau wrote: post #135
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #115

I'd like to share my sleeping practice which I've developed after several years of focusing on it and trying to recreate the pre-industrial (and possibly pre-farming) sleep patterns my ancestors had for millions of years before the last few thousand. Whenever I feel tired, I lay down to rest. Whenever I am sleeping, I allow myself to sleep until I am "fully slept", meaning I can lay there for a while, still physicall…

How do you handle noise? Do you live in a house or apartment building?

I want to add: if tired enough, noise doesn't matter. I've slept on subway platforms with trains going past a few meters away, and tight enough to not notice my shit get stolen ))

Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance

#265

Post by pedalpete »

ShamelessC wrote: post #170
pedalpete wrote: post #111

Though the subjective measure of this study is better than nothing, in the coming years we'll be able to use sleep data for more concrete evidence. At https://soundmind.co , we're building a headband focused on improving Sleep Performance, by monitoring your sleep state and using sound to alter sleep state. There is amazing research around improving sleep quality, by improving sleep maintenance (aka reducing waking d…

You could probably sell a similar product with zero scientific research behind it and people would buy it. So please do post back when you publish results! Very curious to see if something like this could help me have better sleep. Are there at least preliminary papers you can cite as the basis for this idea? because it sounds super interesting.

Yeah, we're REALLY conscious of not selling snake oil. Life's too short to make useless crap. We've got a background in commercializing research and met in health-tech at CSIRO (Australia's science and technology research agency).

I want to write about efficacy of what we're doing, and how we approach that, as well.

Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance

#266

Post by pedalpete »

jakequade wrote: post #178
pedalpete wrote: post #111

Though the subjective measure of this study is better than nothing, in the coming years we'll be able to use sleep data for more concrete evidence. At https://soundmind.co , we're building a headband focused on improving Sleep Performance, by monitoring your sleep state and using sound to alter sleep state. There is amazing research around improving sleep quality, by improving sleep maintenance (aka reducing waking d…

I've signed up, because what you've said here sounds interesting - but good lord that website is hideous. I would _never_ give a site like that my email. Consider at least showing your product/research/something that's not a stock image of... a Lion? A sunset? Waves on the beach?

Thanks Jake, I took a look at your profile, we're also Sydney based!

TBH, I'm a bit surprised as many people give us their email address as do. We really want this to be a waitlist, for people that want the product. We took a page out of SuperHuman on design.

In many ways, it's different strokes for different folks. Your response is the opposite of what we've heard from others, who love the design.

We're still in design of the final product, and have prototype units. If you want to see ugly, we've got that!

How would we show our research? The stock imagery seems to be working, so we'll stick to that until we have something more professional to show.

Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance

#267

Post by 14u2c »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #241
14u2c wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are trivializing problems that many people struggle with. From my understanding hyperfocus is not at all "being able to focus on a task at hand" but rather being unable to focus on anything other than a specific task. Often this task is often NOT what should be worked on during the allotted time.

>should by whose perspective?

It could just be the tasks and goals one sets for one's self. Or as basic as hyper focusing on coding to until you realized all grocery stores have closed for the night and you don't have any food in the house.

Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance

#268

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

zascrash wrote: post #210
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #115

I'd like to share my sleeping practice which I've developed after several years of focusing on it and trying to recreate the pre-industrial (and possibly pre-farming) sleep patterns my ancestors had for millions of years before the last few thousand. Whenever I feel tired, I lay down to rest. Whenever I am sleeping, I allow myself to sleep until I am "fully slept", meaning I can lay there for a while, still physicall…

I used to think that our body know better. But I realise it doesn't do what is better but rather what it is used to do. I felt I had to eat sweets frequently, drink coca-coca everyday and 3 meals a day etc. My body felt terrible when I didn't. I stopped listed to what my body wanted and consciously stop those things. First week it was really painful. Second week I got used to. Third week I completely changed. Now I h…

Personally, I think processed food is literally poison. This is based on my experience living across the street from a 7/11 eating primarily processed prepackaged foods, whatever hot garbage wrapped in plastic they had under the heat lamp multiple times a day for a month.

Now I mostly eat spinach, lentils, organic granola, yams, brown rice, occasional fish. Cognition is better, sleep is better, energy is higher. I don't personally believe the body can get used to processed foods, I think it's much more likely that one might simply forget what it felt like to eat a normal diet and feel regular all the time.

Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance

#269

Post by watwut »

dorkwood wrote: post #127
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #115

I'd like to share my sleeping practice which I've developed after several years of focusing on it and trying to recreate the pre-industrial (and possibly pre-farming) sleep patterns my ancestors had for millions of years before the last few thousand. Whenever I feel tired, I lay down to rest. Whenever I am sleeping, I allow myself to sleep until I am "fully slept", meaning I can lay there for a while, still physicall…

This is similar to my "drink when you're thirsty" method for remaining hydrated. There's a whole industry built on the premise that we're unable to regulate our own water intake without the help of apps and special water bottles. I've not found that to be the case myself.

When I drink only when I am thirsty, I can go whole day with drinking only one cup of water. When that happens, my head hurts a lot in the evening, at which point is it too late to drink. I also dehydratated myself a couple of times when doing sport.

Apparently, "drink when you're thirsty" does not work for me.

Re: Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance

#270

Post by m4x »

watwut wrote: post #269
dorkwood wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is similar to my "drink when you're thirsty" method for remaining hydrated. There's a whole industry built on the premise that we're unable to regulate our own water intake without the help of apps and special water bottles. I've not found that to be the case myself.

When I drink only when I am thirsty, I can go whole day with drinking only one cup of water. When that happens, my head hurts a lot in the evening, at which point is it too late to drink. I also dehydratated myself a couple of times when doing sport. Apparently, "drink when you're thirsty" does not work for me.

I'm the same. I rarely feel thirsty and can happily go all day without drinking any water. Even when dehydrated, I don't feel thirsty. Remembering to drink is a constant chore.
Post reply on HN