Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria • Hacker News Board

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#171

Post by kridsdale1 » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:20 PM UTC

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #158

baq wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the brain burns more power when doing mentally exhausting tasks than at idle, so it makes sense to have to recharge mitochondria in there. (the 'more' is not huge, like 5% - so it also makes sense to be tired after a lazy day I guess)

But we're sleepy every night regardless of how much or how little we have done mentally during the day. Doing more work (mental or physical) than usual will make us feel more tired, but the basic need for the 24hr sleep cycle is there regardless. We fundamentally sleep at night based on circadian rhythm (evolved from earth's 24hr day), not based on activity level. We do also feel tired after a strenuous activity, but…

The body expends 2000 calories of energy (via mitochondria) simply to be alive, even if you lie in a hospital bed and are unconscious. You do a marathon’s amount of work every day. You need to sleep to deal with that.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#172

Post by SamBam » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:22 PM UTC

tingletech wrote: post #162

andy99 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true for photosynthesis but don't they still have oxygen respiration (i.e. oxidizing sugar for energy?)

yes, at night they breath oxygen. Maybe they sleep during the day.

Plants respire oxygen continually, day and night. It's a myth that they only respire at night.

Like every other organism except for anaerobes (mostly microbes, some fungi) they need oxygen in order to burn fuel for cellular processes. Plant cells are doing things day and night.

The origin of the myth is simply that they produce more oxygen via photosynthesis than they respire, and so are net producers of oxygen during the day.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#173

Post by searine » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:23 PM UTC

Funded primarily by UK and European taxpayers and foundations via 8 grants, predominantly from the Wellcome Trust, with additional support from EU research council and Swiss science programs.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#174

Post by kridsdale1 » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:23 PM UTC

emsign wrote: post #136

Increasing the count and efficiency of mitochondria is gonna be a big deal. ME/CFS is caused by these organelles not working as they should.

I’m already getting a lot of (subjective) benefit from doing what I can with supplements that target each phase of the Krebs cycle’s bottlenecks, and glutathione production to delay ROS damage (which this paper finger-points at). My mental endurance to do things like program and handle corporate politics lasts hours longer on days when I do this.

Next I need to get a lot better cardio endurance but I have some pulmonary problems to deal with.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#175

Post by kridsdale1 » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:25 PM UTC

storus wrote: post #165

phtrivier wrote: post #8

So, what products would work as "sleep in a pill", at least on the "not being exhausted" part (I suppose the "not getting crazy because of lack of REM sleep" would be different) ?

I would look at PQQ, CoQ10, B-complex, GlyNAC or just glycine, AXA1125, R ALA, DCA, creatine; those are known to improve mitochondrial fitness under various mechanisms. Add 99%-100% dark chocolate and exercise, both of which act similarly to PQQ. Theanine for increasing GABA, primary calming neurotransmitter.

I back this up as a human who is doing 90% of these and has a daily A/B test of perceived energy balance and endurance difference depending on using them.

Thank you for the tip about DCA!

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#176

Post by kridsdale1 » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:27 PM UTC

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #11

phtrivier wrote: post #8

So, what products would work as "sleep in a pill", at least on the "not being exhausted" part (I suppose the "not getting crazy because of lack of REM sleep" would be different) ?

Speculative: Gentle mitochondrial uncouplers that cross the BBB very well, possibly in conjunction with elamipretide, MitoQ, MitoTEMPO, or something similar.

Would these also have a thermogenesis effect? I used that hyper deadly illegal one (can’t remember the name, very yellow) several years ago and got a sauna in my torso (shredded abs too) but didn’t notice any perceptual energy balance change.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#177

Post by gavinray » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:28 PM UTC

emsign wrote: post #136

Increasing the count and efficiency of mitochondria is gonna be a big deal. ME/CFS is caused by these organelles not working as they should.

Anyone interested in this should look up "MOTS-C" and "SS-31".

They're readily available online. Both of them are peptides that enhance mitochondrial function.

MOTS-C in particular is very fascinating.

I have a vial of 20mg I've yet to use.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#178

Post by kridsdale1 » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:30 PM UTC

rafaelmn wrote: post #63

Aerroon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bizarre coincidence. For the past few days I've run across a bunch of accounts of people taking more creatine than suggested (10-20g a day). They seem to all talk about how it makes them work better during sleep deprivation. So the answer seems like it helps.

I mean there are studies that show this as well. Not the improved sleep, but help in sleep deprivation scenarios

It’s a rational expectation. Improves phosphate transport for more efficient or unbottlenecked ATP synthesis.

Everyone should use creatine. It’s not just for bros.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#179

Post by gitremote » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:31 PM UTC

sva_ wrote: post #139

gitremote wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement was "AI frenzy almost convinced me that sleep was the training of our neural network with all the prompts of the day." Prompts are specific to LLMs. Most neural networks don't have prompts. Additionally, prompts happen during LLM inference, not LLM training. There are many non-technical people who claim they have experience "training" LLMs, when they are just an end user who added a lot of tokens to the…

> Additionally, prompts happen during LLM inference, not LLM training. It is pretty common during the fine-tuning phase.

Sure. Foundation models aren't fine-tuned, and companies fine-tune foundation models to optimize user experience. So they are modeling the animal brain on an even more specific type of LLM that happens to be related to being a consumer of AI products.

Re: Sleep all comes down to the mitochondria

#180

Post by parliament32 » Wed, Jul 30, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #47

henryaj wrote: post #21

Given its role in energy transfer, does this suggest creatine might be a good supplement for improving sleep?

That's a bizarre coincidence. For the past few days I've run across a bunch of accounts of people taking more creatine than suggested (10-20g a day). They seem to all talk about how it makes them work better during sleep deprivation. So the answer seems like it helps.

Do you have any links? This is interesting