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What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep

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Re: What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep

#71

Post by Immortalin »

monochr wrote: post #52
pavel_lishin wrote: post #36

> * “Cells don't sleep,” he said in his most quoted anti-sleep rant. “Fish swim in the water all night. Even a horse doesn't sleep. A man doesn't need any sleep.”* > Yes. Even when my kids sleep crazy amounts of hours I get annoyed. Teenagers can sleep probably for 12 hours straight, and I get so annoyed because I think they are wasting their lives. Why are you wasting your life sleeping? There are so many things tha…

This is the typical great man myth that gets promulgated by their publicists to make them seem more than human. As a rule they are either out right lies or greatly exaggerated, other myths of this type is Kennedy reading 1000 words per minute, Napoleon listening to reports, reading a letter and dictating laws all at the same time, or Stalin single handedly designing the first five year plan.

For speed readers, 1000 wpm is actually pretty standard.

Re: What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep

#72

Post by 1123581321 »

chillacy wrote: post #69
nicholasdrake wrote: post #40

i used to need 8-10 hours but after reading tim ferriss' 4 hour body i nap 20 minutes 2/3x a day at my desk and only need to sleep 4/5 a night which is saving me 4/5 hours a day of sleep time.. i don't feel fabulous when i wake up lol, but i feel the same as if i had slept more.. http://www.4hourlife.com/2012/04/29/become-uberman-sleep-lik... only problem is culturally workplaces aren't very accepting of polyphasic s…

From what I understand, polyphasic sleep has fallen out of popularity lately due to lack of evidence that it actually works better than a "normal" schedule. Even this author you linked to only does a light 20 min siesta.. barely even biphasic (if you're not hitting REM sleep in your nap). Counterpoint: http://greenminimalism.com/2013/06/15/is-polyphasic-sleep-he...

I think it's merely been relegated to its proper place. I think both 'sides' in the debate now will often agree that segmented sleep provides more hours in a 24-hour period in exchange for fewer daylight hours and reduced ability to do difficult mental work in those hours. Another way to look at it is that some people should sleep a lot and work for short, concentrated periods and others should work a lot and sleep in short, concentrated periods, and each of those two patterns is suited to a different type of work. At least, that's what I've seen in the community/meta-community.

Re: What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep

#73

Post by aswanson »

monochr wrote: post #52
pavel_lishin wrote: post #36

> * “Cells don't sleep,” he said in his most quoted anti-sleep rant. “Fish swim in the water all night. Even a horse doesn't sleep. A man doesn't need any sleep.”* > Yes. Even when my kids sleep crazy amounts of hours I get annoyed. Teenagers can sleep probably for 12 hours straight, and I get so annoyed because I think they are wasting their lives. Why are you wasting your life sleeping? There are so many things tha…

This is the typical great man myth that gets promulgated by their publicists to make them seem more than human. As a rule they are either out right lies or greatly exaggerated, other myths of this type is Kennedy reading 1000 words per minute, Napoleon listening to reports, reading a letter and dictating laws all at the same time, or Stalin single handedly designing the first five year plan.

Stalin designing the first 5 year plan doesnt sound impressive. It sounds like an idiotic idea resulting from an idiot, with predictably idiotic centrally planned results.

Re: What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep

#74

Post by 1123581321 »

Sevzi wrote: post #12

The chemicals modafinil and armodafinil subjectively let me get away with a bit less sleep without the various consequences of caffeine. Used with enough sleep, they enter the realm of transhuman cognitive enhancer.

They let you get away with less sleep in the short term, but your body will pay it back by doing deep sleep instead of healthy cycles. Pardon the extreme laymanism, but mod lets you pull long days in the same way that getting excited does. There's no currently known drug that pushes your need to sleep past the end of your life if you're more than days away from it. I will be interested to see what genetic therapies can accomplish, though.

Re: What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep

#75

Post by ashark »

nsajko wrote: post #65
ashark wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rarely sleep well if I know I have to get up at a certain time (say, if there's an alarm set). The slightest disturbance is magnified—a moment of wakefulness can turn in to half an hour, followed by another hour of half-sleep half-waking before I'm finally back under (maybe, if I'm lucky). Going to bed early just increases the chances that this will happen at 2AM and I'll be unable to go back to sleep at all, which…

Maybe you should try an anxiolytic?

I'd always though of it a strictly a sleep disorder, but maybe treating it as a more general anxiety thing would work. Good idea.

Re: What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep

#76

Post by Swizec »

Shivetya wrote: post #24
lmnm wrote: post #10

I've always been fascinated by discussions surrounding the varying amount of sleep necessary for different individuals. I feel like "unlocking" the secrets of these folks who can get by on such little sleep would do wonders for humanity, though I'm unsure if that is even within our abilities. As for a personal anecdote, I've experienced both ends of the sleep spectrum: in the past couple years I've had two 4-month lo…

I have found I sleep less the more I exercise and I don't have to exercise that much to affect my sleep pattern. At minimum I do 45 minutes of elliptical while watching netflix; current revisiting doctor who. If I am really into it I use the resistance machine. While I know its different for many people that is the route I follow and at times I was worried about getting too little. I just find that daily exercise imp…

> I have found I sleep less the more I exercise

In my experience this doesn't scale infinitely. Once I reached the average of 1.5 hours of strenuous exercise a day[1] I started needing more sleep than I did without the exercise. Sure, it keeps me mentally more engaged and productive, but I most definitely sleep more than I do when I'm working out less.

[1] I do 3 boxing sessions of 1.5h per week, run about 30km per week, and do about 3 hours of lifting per week

Re: What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep

#77

Post by meowface »

kybernetyk wrote: post #60
ashark wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a friend who can get by on ~5 hours/night pretty much indefinitely, without feeling the kind of awful brain-numbing fatigue and dangerous (for e.g. driving) levels of tiredness that I do with more than one night in a row of less than ~7 hours of sleep. A full 8-hour night is sleeping in to him. The key to understanding why this is so great is to compare the extra time not to the total waking time that others…

>That new TV show that's supposed to be really good? He's seen it. All those Criterion movies you've been meaning to watch? He's seen them all. Twice. This year's Oscar nominees? Yes. Even the documentaries and shorts. Video games? All of them that matter and most of the ones that don't. That one comic book series you heard good things about? He's read it. Thanks. After reading that I don't feel too bad for not being…

As someone who needs a lot of sleep every night to be functional, how could a "short sleeper" ever feel anything but privileged? It seems to have tons of pros and almost no cons, with the exception of being careful when living with people who need more sleep.

Do you actually feel any disadvantages from needing less sleep?

Re: What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep

#78

Post by meowface »

legohead wrote: post #54

occasionally I'll need to stay up really late, or for some random reason I'll wake up really early (sound outside wakes me up), and I'll actually feel more refreshed with 3-4 hours sleep than a full night. is this a common experience? I've never purposely tried sleeping only 3-4 hours.

You may feel better, but as the day progresses your critical thinking skills are going to be negatively impacted, in many cases without you realizing it.

Re: What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep

#79

Post by meowface »

jbardnz wrote: post #3

I am not a short sleeper, in some aspects I wish I was. The advantages seem huge as you would be able to be a lot more productive. I wonder though if the personality traits of restlessness and not being able to switch off are common among all short sleepers?

It's possible there is one, but I think I'm a counter-example. I have anxiety issues and also am restless and have great difficulty "turning off", but I need 8-9 hours every single night to be functional at all. Unfortunately, the anxiety just results in insomnia and me feeling terrible when I wake up and even more terrible all day long. I sure would love to have the anxiety and insomnia without the "feeling awful" part after getting insufficient sleep.

Re: What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep

#80

Post by meowface »

Sevzi wrote: post #12

The chemicals modafinil and armodafinil subjectively let me get away with a bit less sleep without the various consequences of caffeine. Used with enough sleep, they enter the realm of transhuman cognitive enhancer.

It certainly varies a lot by person. Modafinil only really works for me if I take it once a week, max twice. Otherwise I seem to build some sort of tolerance.

Also, when it wears off I very often get awful tension headaches and "mind fuzz", kind of like from caffeine but much worse. Unlike caffeine though, I can go a good 9 hours feeling energetic and only feel the pain once I get home and am done with the day, which is an advantage I suppose.

Interestingly, I also seem to get fairly powerful euphoria for about 2 hours after it kicks in, which to my understanding is unusual. (And yes, I'm sure what I'm taking is really modafinil.)

I only take it in "emergencies".

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