Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by licebmi__at__ » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 12:44 AM UTC

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #261

licebmi__at__ wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't think I could buy that. It's not about efficiency or productiveness, it's about being. At this level, I don't even care about accomplishing stuff, just existing is fine. It's more like a fear of the darkness and the lack of consciousness when I'm asleep, that's why I framed it as a FOMO.

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

#332

Post by brigandish » Wed, Dec 02, 2020, 2:35 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #100

georgewsinger wrote: post #3

Oversleep can also be bad along some dimensions: > For cognition only, associations shift to a negative association of sleep duration and cognition for participants sleeping more than 8 hr a day. Though looking at the charts from the study I can say that Nassim Taleb would not be pleased with how weak the correlations seem to be: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/545fd00f-8924-4047...

I get extreme headaches if I sleep > 9.5 hours. They're brutally bad. Sweet spot for me is > 6 but Quantity, at least for me. I average 7 hours of sleep per night and do quite well on it. Used to do 5-6 hours/night and it eventually caught up to me in my 30s, but improving quality via ear plugs + mask + mattress went a lot further than an extra hour of sleep.

Any recommendations on which ear plugs and sleep mask to get? I've moved to an incredibly noisy area and I'm finding my ability to phase this out isn't as good as it used to be.

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

#333

Post by NoahParker » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #308

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our body evolved for an environment without those things that you listed. I think you were right to consciously remove those things from its access. Sleep was always an essential part of the equation, however. Try to imagine how you lived 10K years ago.

If I lived 10K years ago I imagine I would have been frequently sleep deprived. Obtaining food, building shelters, and guarding against attacks were all higher priorities. We don't have any hard data on neolithic sleep patterns.

I think we'd sleep less, but we wouldn't be deprived

Exercise and absence of artificial light would probably have us sleeping much more deeply and much more quickly

In modern hunter-gatherer societies there is also a lot of free time and play, so perhaps there would also be less stress to recover from at night

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

#334

Post by NoahParker » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

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.

Maybe when we had nothing else to do, but I feel modern life is quite distracting. It can be hard for people to get in touch with their feelings, physical needs, etc

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

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Post by bigwavedave » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 8:51 PM UTC

vram22 wrote: post #330

bigwavedave wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She is the best pet I've ever had. Very low-maintenance, doesn't musk, doesn't make noise in the middle of the night, and still shows/craves affection. Did you know snakes yawn? I sure didn't until I got her! Owning a snake has opened my eyes to a lot of amazing things about them :).

Good info. No, I did not know that. Do you know about the Chennai Snake Park? It was founded by an American, Romulus Whitaker. I've been to it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai_Snake_Park

That sounds like an amazing experience! I didn't know about it, but now it's on my list.

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

#336

Post by tacistbce » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 11:21 PM UTC

getlawgdon wrote: post #289

tacistbce wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Remembering and reflecting is processing, your brain doesn't have a read only mode.

My claim is that processing a by-product of processing is confusing. It's blurring the line between what's real and what isn't, and to me this is a dysfunction.