I have never slept for 8hrs, not even close. I sometimes wonder how people can sleep for that long and what their jobs and life's must be like. After 5-7hrs I usually wake up feeling totally refreshed and ready to go (even better after my first coffee ;))
The myth of the eight-hour sleep
21–30 of 168 posts
Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
I only found out recently (well into my adult life) that I am hyper-sensitive to caffeine. One cup of coffee in the morning will keep me up till 3 am at night. This tricked me into thinking that I'm an extreme night owl, and it kept me from ever getting really good sleep. Now, I've quit caffeinated beverages entirely, and I get tired around 11:30 pm every night, and I sleep fantastically well. I wake up naturally aro…
Thanks Charlie! How did you find out that you were hyper-sensitive? In my case, I don't drink colas, but I love that hot coffee in the morning...
Ideally, you should keep a sleep journal for 30 days before you try to change anything about your sleep habits. As to the actual experiment don't drink any tea/coffee/colas for 30 days and see how it effects your sleep patterns.
PS: And I do mean zero for the full 30 days if you have any caffeine you have to start over.
Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep
#23For a long time I've wanted to cut myself off and figure out a natural sleep cycle. Normally (for better or for worse), I sleep 5-6 hours a night during the week, then get 8-9 on the weekends, but that's definitely shaped to the work week. Also, maybe interesting - two 4 hour sleep cycle with a couple hours between is what happens naturally to me after a night of too much drinking. I wonder if there's some reason for…
I believe I've read that all the alcohol processing eventually makes your blood sugar drop very low which is when you wake up (if you're like me, around 6-7am after going to bed at 3). Then of course, you're not very rested from little sleep (and not very high quality sleep) so you probably go back down for a few more hours.
Following Carnival last night, I suffered this horribly. Thanks for the explanation.
Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep
#24Just get rid of your alarm clock, and wake up when your body tells you to.
Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I only found out recently (well into my adult life) that I am hyper-sensitive to caffeine. One cup of coffee in the morning will keep me up till 3 am at night. This tricked me into thinking that I'm an extreme night owl, and it kept me from ever getting really good sleep. Now, I've quit caffeinated beverages entirely, and I get tired around 11:30 pm every night, and I sleep fantastically well. I wake up naturally aro…
Similar here, but I've found that as long as I don't drink caffeine after 3pm, I sleep well. Any later than that and I wake at 3am or so. Made such a difference when I discovered this... I lost a serious amount of grumpiness.
I must be seriously broken. I can even enjoy a cup of coffee at the bedside and still sleep. Not that I do that often.
Falling asleep for me is easy. I pretty much always wake up about four hours later. Then sometimes I remain wide awake for another few hours. After which I'm ready for sleep again. The second bout is pretty glorious. This does mean however, that I need to pretty much put 11 hours aside each night, if I want to play to my bodily demands.
My other half rather annoyingly insists everyone should wake when they rise. Which just isn't good for my mental health - or my programming for that matter!
Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep
#26Not that I know anything about this, but isn't it possible that having this segmented sleep could possibly be bad for you? Just because our ancestors slept as such doesn't mean it's necessarily good for you, does it? (That's not to say it couldn't be good, just that I don't understand why the article seems to imply that it necessarily must be good.)
Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep
#27Oh my God. This could change my life. One lifelong problem I've got is sleeping. I have great trouble falling asleep, and my sleeping patterns are very uncommon: some days I sleep 12 hours, some 5, but I'm usually very tired because of this. However, I used to think I had a "gift" of being really creative and having my best ideas just before sleep, just waking up, and during insomnia episodes. However, I've discovere…
You're definitely not alone. Extraordinary insight and creativity, rich, vivid, inspired and out-of-the-box thinking, are typical for "twilight" states, when you're floating between waking state and sleep; not fully awaken to the outside world, but not fully unconscious either. The only problem is replicating and maintaining these states.
It is sometimes possible to remain fully aware in what is essentially a full-on dream state. This is the best of both worlds, combining the rationality and critical thinking of the waking state, with the unbound creativity of the dream. It's like opening up the firehose of new ideas, while remaining in control.
I am fairly certain that at least some of the unusual claims made by people who practice meditation a lot (such as having access to a higher "wisdom", etc.) are based on gaining a measure of control over these states. For this reason, I think it's worth exploring some of the traditional meditation systems, seen as empirical "brain hacking" techniques. I'd love to see more research done in this field; some of Sam Harris' work is relevant.
Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep
#28Sleep is weird. If I wake up in the middle of the night and go back to sleep... I feel like ass the next day. If I get less than eight hours I'm pretty tired the next day.
But science says that shouldn't happen!?
Not enough evidence to suggest that there's any kind of regularity to how humans "should" sleep yet.
Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep
#29There is only one study in this article, and it involves how a group of people adapted to a 14-hour sleep pattern. Other than that, there are no studies of importance here, nothing that confirms concretely that this kind of segmented sleep is effective for humans. It is based on historical hearsay but cannot make a prescriptive judgment. The evidence purely anecdotal. Please be careful in reading things like this that you do not immediately form a blind belief or justification.
Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep
#30There is only one study in this article, and it involves how a group of people adapted to a 14-hour sleep pattern. Other than that, there are no studies of importance here, nothing that confirms concretely that this kind of segmented sleep is effective for humans. It is based on historical hearsay but cannot make a prescriptive judgment. The evidence purely anecdotal. Please be careful in reading things like this tha…
Also, don't Spanish people and sailors sleep in segmented blocks? Not exactly newsworthy, then.