Throwaway as I don't want to admit that I feel permanently cognitively impaired. Anecdotal, but I spent years not sleeping through university and sleeping in airports or on the train. Studied engineering and did a lot of hackathons and events and stuff. I figured out then that I didn't need full cognition or excellent decision making. I needed more hours cranking out work. I spent years sleeping just a few hours and…
Even when I'm "full focused" I still use stuff to automatic check my work (same as you). However I'm bit worried on how you seem functioning on "automatic"... I really do recommend going to a doctor.
If I have some auto checker i start to concentrate my errors into things the checker will find. Make errors that the compiler will find, so that once it compiles it should pass tests at once.
The insane stress levels from being in their situation also affects cognition. So I am not surprised if merely looking at sleep amounts fails to explain differences.
Highly likely this is a confounding factor - and compensating for it is essentially every decent policy for the last 50 years in the West.
There is also a dynamic systems side to sleep rhythms. Quite likely there are stimuli you can randomly experience that shift your sleep cycle into a chaotic regime and then you need a good knock to the light and activity levels to reset to stability.
That sounds counter-intuitive? Have you any literature that backs this up?
Adding to the previous comment, slaves also work much less effectively than employees because slaves have no incentive to try hard, since either way they will stay slaves.
Pretty much this... incentives matter. But if you’re a slave, what’s your incentive to work harder?
As for literature backing this up, Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations talks in detail about slavery in the American colonies.
He gives examples where slavery was only viable in the southern states where they grew tobacco. Maybe one of the reasons why the South were so opposed to the end of slavery vs the North where slavery was expensive
Those in the study were low-income adults in Chennai, India who sleep only 5.5 hours per night on average despite spending 8 hours in bed. The key takeaway was: > increased nighttime sleep had no detectable effects on cognition, productivity, decision-making, or well-being, and led to small decreases in labor supply. I find the result surprising. When I get under 6 hours I see a clear drop off in performance.
They increased the participants sleep from 5.5 hours to 6 hours per night and expected improvements in cognition. This is not how sleep works, AIUI. This is like expecting to get rich after overdrawing your bank account by $140 per week instead of $175 per week.
They employed 452 adults for a one-month data-entry job, which the authors say it's "a relatively cognitively-demanding task intended to be sensitive to sleep deprivation." As a side note, the study also says that short afternoon naps increased productivity.
I'm...extremely skeptical a generic "data entry job" is "high cognitive demand". I can write new applications (atrociously) on basically no sleep, so I'm pretty skeptical "sit at this desk and enter these things" swings one way or the other (or even has much of an ability to quality check - at least the compiler will yell at me when I'm egregiously wrong). I'd be far more interested if these people could be trusted t…
I agree with the claim that they are sensitive to sleep deprivation, though.
recommending Ritalin to someone that has suffered or still suffers from insomnia is bad advice as it is notorious for inducing insomnia.
Recommending Ritalin at all as a first response is dangerous as well...
If you would check again: it’s the third advice, not the first. You cannot get it without consulting a psychiatric MD, and at least in Germany, you have to commit to long term behavioral therapy as well. To make it as clear as possible: I would not recommend popping pills as a solution to the problems faced by the parent comment, but as a viable part of an integrated solution. Fear mongering doesn’t help anyone.
From my own experience: go get therapy, meditation classes and Ritalin! It wasn’t until I turned 26 and got access to all three that I could finally _learn_ what concentration really was. I went through Highschool without having to study a single day, getting very good grades nevertheless - while being on very little sleep with a total lack of a regular rhythm. College didn’t go so well, but other interests and pursu…
recommending Ritalin to someone that has suffered or still suffers from insomnia is bad advice as it is notorious for inducing insomnia.
OP stated he’s 18 months out of insomnia, but the adhd-like symptoms still prevail up to a point where he is suffering so much that he hides his (or her) identity when speaking about it. He describes himself as “permanently cognitively impaired”.
I used to believe in all that fear mongering about stimulants for years, but as long as you stick to your doctor’s prescription, start with low doses and pay as much attention as possible to yourself and how you react - through therapy supported by mindfulness - the risks are very low compared to the risks of having a “cognitively impaired” life. That state, however you label it, does not only hurt your performance at work, it hurts your relationships (healthy relationships are correlated with mental health and longevity), it increases your risk of car accidents (some of them kill) and it exposes you to financial risks. It’s not a good place to be, and I support everyone in that place with a simple message: go to a doctor, get therapy, get medication, be mindful about it.
From my own experience: go get therapy, meditation classes and Ritalin! It wasn’t until I turned 26 and got access to all three that I could finally _learn_ what concentration really was. I went through Highschool without having to study a single day, getting very good grades nevertheless - while being on very little sleep with a total lack of a regular rhythm. College didn’t go so well, but other interests and pursu…
recommending Ritalin to someone that has suffered or still suffers from insomnia is bad advice as it is notorious for inducing insomnia.
I doubt that a study 'Economic Benefits of Meth use on the Urban Poor' would be looked upon so well by the Ethics Board.
Many countries in the WW2 era sold amphetamine based drugs as antidepressants, for "creating the right attitude", making your wife focus on housework, etc. (and other rather disturbing things). Essentially, drugging workers doing low-skill tasks to make them more cooperative or productive or something. I wonder how much research was done at the time and has been done in retrospect.
And still in 2021 most people are entirely unaware that their affectionately named ”morning joe” contains other mind-altering chemicals in addition to caffeine: Harmala alkaloids that slow down the normal breakdown of neurotransmitters and slowly build up in brain fatty tissues, increasing tolerance and lengthening withdrawal symptoms to many months.
>This sort of inflammatory mind set is not helpful It's not inflammatory because it's an accurate description of the capitalist mindset. You wouldn't get a CEO to admit it out loud, but they all believe that in their heart, otherwise they would be replaced by someone who does.
This is not remotely unique to capitalism in the slightest. Those wonderful socialist "democracies" were just as exploitative, Mao, Stalin, Hitler, the lot of them exploited groups for the good of the state.
Hitler was a fascist, not a socialist. He swore to destroy the Soviet Union, pioneered privatisation, violently suppressed workers. And after all, the first taken to concentration camps were communists and trade unionists.