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Do we really need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night?

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Re: Do we really need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night?

#11

Post by pqs »

r_singh wrote: post #10
pqs wrote: post #7

I work in Academia. I sleep after lunch every day. I have lunch in 30 minutes and then I sleep 20 minutes. I have an sleeping mat and a pillow in my office and I sleep on the floor. It really boosts my afternoon productivity, specially now that I have a baby and wake up several times during the night. During the weekends I sleep a little longer. I've been doing this for many years and I struggle a little bit when in…

This is so cool, love the pillow, mat + floor idea to nap anywhere. It might be perceived as a little weird by some colleagues at first, but once they get the utility, I guess they'll get used to it. I nap on my chair (it reclines upto 75-80 degrees) for about 18-22 minutes every day after lunch and it refreshes me like nothing else!

I close the door. Fortunately I have my own office. They don't need to know. I live in a country where this is accepted behaviour, even though it is not common anymore in this context.

Re: Do we really need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night?

#12

Post by pqs »

r_singh wrote: post #10
pqs wrote: post #7

I work in Academia. I sleep after lunch every day. I have lunch in 30 minutes and then I sleep 20 minutes. I have an sleeping mat and a pillow in my office and I sleep on the floor. It really boosts my afternoon productivity, specially now that I have a baby and wake up several times during the night. During the weekends I sleep a little longer. I've been doing this for many years and I struggle a little bit when in…

This is so cool, love the pillow, mat + floor idea to nap anywhere. It might be perceived as a little weird by some colleagues at first, but once they get the utility, I guess they'll get used to it. I nap on my chair (it reclines upto 75-80 degrees) for about 18-22 minutes every day after lunch and it refreshes me like nothing else!

Yes, 20 minutes is the sweet spot.

Re: Do we really need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night?

#13

Post by bitL »

I've tried multiple different sleep approaches in order to maximize "awake" time, but defaulted back to exactly 8h/day - my body simply takes 8 uninterrupted hours and wakes me up precisely without any alarm clock. While experimenting, I saw energy/cognitive decline (tested) after a while, correcting when going back to 8h, so multi-phase sleep is definitely not for me.

Re: Do we really need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night?

#14

Post by colechristensen »

drej wrote: post #5

I'm halfway through Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep. And it's terrifying. The medical implications of insufficient sleep are rather worrisome. https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/295665/why-we-sleep/97801419...

I read it, I liked it, I felt like it was not written very objectively.

There did not seem to be nearly enough self-doubt or testing alternate situations.

And it shouldn't be terrifying. You no longer have to worry about animals trying to eat you, finding enough food to eat yourself, dying of infection, or physically defending yourself on a day to day basis.

If the worst thing that's wrong with you is sub-optimal sleep, you've got life pretty good.

We're getting down to solving more and more subtle problems. Sleep, the biological contents of your digestive system, and environmental exposures look to be the big health problems on the table to solve in the next few decades.

Re: Do we really need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night?

#15

Post by meerita »

pqs wrote: post #7

I work in Academia. I sleep after lunch every day. I have lunch in 30 minutes and then I sleep 20 minutes. I have an sleeping mat and a pillow in my office and I sleep on the floor. It really boosts my afternoon productivity, specially now that I have a baby and wake up several times during the night. During the weekends I sleep a little longer. I've been doing this for many years and I struggle a little bit when in…

Same here. I need to sleep after lunch and after that I feel like I am 100% operative. Otherwise the attention diminishes over the day.

Re: Do we really need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night?

#16

Post by jgtrosh »

unhammer wrote: post #4

It is important that people realize sleep cycles do exist, but this seems a bit strawman-ish. If someone says "you need about 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep" I would rather take that as meaning things like "don't get up after just 5 hours" and "don't get up and check ebay auctions in the middle of the night even if it just takes 10 minutes", not "don't panic if you naturally wake up at 4am". ----- Btw, on > Historica…

s/don't panic/panic/

Re: Do we really need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night?

#18

Post by easytiger »

pqs wrote: post #11
r_singh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so cool, love the pillow, mat + floor idea to nap anywhere. It might be perceived as a little weird by some colleagues at first, but once they get the utility, I guess they'll get used to it. I nap on my chair (it reclines upto 75-80 degrees) for about 18-22 minutes every day after lunch and it refreshes me like nothing else!

I close the door. Fortunately I have my own office. They don't need to know. I live in a country where this is accepted behaviour, even though it is not common anymore in this context.

Has to be France

Re: Do we really need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep a night?

#20

Post by manmal »

colechristensen wrote: post #14
drej wrote: post #5

I'm halfway through Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep. And it's terrifying. The medical implications of insufficient sleep are rather worrisome. https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/295665/why-we-sleep/97801419...

I read it, I liked it, I felt like it was not written very objectively. There did not seem to be nearly enough self-doubt or testing alternate situations. And it shouldn't be terrifying. You no longer have to worry about animals trying to eat you, finding enough food to eat yourself, dying of infection, or physically defending yourself on a day to day basis. If the worst thing that's wrong with you is sub-optimal sle…

Sub-optimal sleep can absolutely ruin you, in the long run. E.g. it's been suggested that a significant portion (a third, IIRC, have to find that article) of chronic fatigue incidents are due to non-restorative sleep. Definitely a problem worth solving if you have it.

If you lie in bed awake once per week or so, you surely don't need to fret about it. It just must not become part of your lifestyle - if it does, get a checkup.

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