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Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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

#281

Post by hutzlibu »

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.

Well my toddler is 16 months and things did really already improved a lot in terms of sleep, but the new baby is coming any minute now ... so I expect less of it in the next time ;)

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

#282

Post by runeks »

Ragib_Zaman wrote: post #232
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.

The thirst mechanism becomes less reliable with age, so older people may find those products beneficial. But yes, for most healthy young to middle aged people, "drink when you're thirsty" is generally fine. Maybe with the added subpoint that if your urine is often colored, try to drink a little more.

> Maybe with the added subpoint that if your urine is often colored, try to drink a little more.

Honest question: why? Are there studies that point to coloured urine as the cause of disease?

It's clear to me that coloured urine is associated with disease (since the body excretes waste products via urine), but not that it can be the cause of it.

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

#283

Post by runeks »

kombinar wrote: post #38

Interesting. I found after some trail and error that I'm more rested and perform better on less than recommended 8h of sleep. My sweet spot is somewhere around 7h. Fitbit "magic" sleep score also seems to confirm that (better sleep score on less sleep). I also found that stress is the biggest factor in getting good night sleep. When stressed I can sleep 8h and still feel bleh. I wonder if 8h of sleep is the cause of…

> I wonder if 8h of sleep is the cause of the better performance or they both are a result of less stressful life, better health or something else.

This illustrates well the problem with these kinds of studies. How do we know that stress isn't causing both little/poor sleep and e.g. decreased cognitive performance (as opposed to little sleep being the cause of a decrease in cognitive performance)?

It's not like we can create a control group where stressed people are forced to get 8 hours of good sleep every night.

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

#284

Post by Baeocystin »

claudiawerner wrote: post #278
Baeocystin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need more sleep. That's it. That's the story. There's nothing wrong with you. Trying to set additional alarms, or worrying about how you used to record your dreams... Not relevant. Your body isn't done resting. Stop interrupting it before its done, and you'll find that 8ish hours of uninterrupted sleep is more restful than the quasi-sleep you're getting now.

>Stop interrupting it before its done, and you'll find that 8ish hours of uninterrupted sleep is more restful than the quasi-sleep you're getting now. Probably true, but I value my free time and I want as much of it as possible. That means staying up late. Spending that time sleeping makes me feel like I live to work, and not work to live.

>Probably true, but I value my free time and I want as much of it as possible. That means staying up late.

Staying up late enough that it will impact your following day due to curtailed sleeping is just robbing Peter to pay Paul.

As an unrepentant night owl, this fact doesn't make me happy, but that doesn't stop it from being true. If you want the best possible hours, as many as possible, step one is getting enough sleep at the right time, so that you feel your best during the day. As much as we may wish it were different, that's the way it is.

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

#285

Post by Broken_Hippo »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #268
zascrash wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 do…

We've eaten processed food for generations, though - and lots and lots of very questionable food that could literally be poison.

Sausages are processed foods, but they kept us alive over the winter. Salt pork anyone? Dried fish? Weevil-filled grains that hopefully stay dry during the winter and foods in root cellars.

I'll add that plenty of processed food is an absolute miracle. Frozen vegetables, for example. You weren't simply eating processed food. You were eating low-quality food that wasn't exactly healthy.

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

#286

Post by forgotmypw17 »

runeks wrote: post #282
Ragib_Zaman wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thirst mechanism becomes less reliable with age, so older people may find those products beneficial. But yes, for most healthy young to middle aged people, "drink when you're thirsty" is generally fine. Maybe with the added subpoint that if your urine is often colored, try to drink a little more.

> Maybe with the added subpoint that if your urine is often colored, try to drink a little more. Honest question: why? Are there studies that point to coloured urine as the cause of disease? It's clear to me that coloured urine is associated with disease (since the body excretes waste products via urine), but not that it can be the cause of it.

I think it's just an indicator of more concentration of non-water things, correlated with not drinking a lot of water, and slower urine production.

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

#287

Post by Ma8ee »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #275
Ma8ee wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, sleep was always essential, but we didn’t have artificial lights and didn’t spend most of our days sitting on our asses. Both are things that probably disturb our natural sleep clues.

Sure... But I'm not giving those up for now. Not sleeping enough for optimal function, I'm not as attached to.

I didn’t suggest that you shouldn’t sleep enough, just that our feelings about how much we need to sleep might not be reliable, in either direction. Maybe we would benefit from sleeping even more than we do because we rarely are physically exhausted at the end of the day.

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

#288

Post by tubularhells »

justsomeuser wrote: post #181
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 always seem to need between 12 and 15 hours sleep, which makes life difficult as I do not fit into the normal 9-5 schedule. I do not understand how people can live off 7 hours of sleep each night. It seems a big advantage though - they have 5 hours more per day.

And a higher risk of cancer, dementia, diabetes.

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

#289

Post by getlawgdon »

tacistbce wrote: post #78
pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #5

I have a very weird problem/issue, maybe someone can help. In my school days I used to maintain a dream diary, where I would note down every dream I had after waking up. I stopped doing that when I got into college, but dreams never stopped and I never stopped analysing and trying to remember the dreams. Fast forward to present time (10 years from school), whenever I want to wake up i.e. after 6-7 hours of sleep I ca…

This is just my opinion, and I know it's an unpopular one. I believe any kind of conscious dream processing is unhealthy. Our dreams is already the results of some kind of processing, so feeding them back as more experiences that need to be analyzed is confusing and tiring for your brain. You said that you've been doing it since your school days, so perhaps you don't remember, but dreams are made from a different mat…

Is this based on anything other than a feeling? You've equated remembering or reflecting with processing and processing with dysfunction, which makes no sense at all because memories are a core function.

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

#290

Post by Rivosa »

risyachka wrote: post #195
Rivosa wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 24h sleep I advise anyone reading this and experiencing similar sleep pattern or fatigue to visit their doctor. This could be anything from diabetes, iron difeciency, Vitamin D difeciancy, and whole other things that could be wrong. Please don't use someone's else experience as the whole truth.

I believe you should visit a doctor only if this happens at least with some pattern. If you sleep 24 hours twice a year and all other time you sleep 7-9 - it is a reason to see a doctor?

I'd say yes. 24 hours sleep is just insane. Unless you had a long travel journey with several flights and a lot of stress. If however, you had a normal day before and you slept 24h several times, then yes go see a doctor. At least do a blood check to be sure.
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