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Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

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101–110 of 177 posts

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#101
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It begs the question: is a few days of codeine or valium the brain equivalent of a "lemon juice / cayenne" cleanse?

Begs the question?

relatively common idiom (which may or may not be used correctly here :) : https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/305/what-does-th...

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#102

It's interesting that in almost every sleep related article I've read on HN, the overwhelming majority of people who respond about their personal life say that they hate getting up 'early'-for various definitions of early. Surely there are programmers who like getting up early?

I love being up early but find maintaining an early schedule extremely difficult.

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#103
post #58
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, "toxic" and "toxins" are incredibly vague. I loathe the use of those words, as they are both scary and nearly meaningless.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicology A widely used scientific term.

Quite so. And the words "toxic" and "toxin" are used for every single snake oil solution/problem out there in relation to health. It's become a great example of a failure over time in scientific communication and how the common usage of terms has been rendered useless in meaning for the common person.

It's a tragedy, but it's what's happened.

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#104

This should worry all the people taking adderall and modafinil to be more productive.

I take modafinil on a daily basis each morning, and have a regular sleep pattern of 7-8 hours a night.

It even helps with going to sleep earlier, because I feel depleted by 10 PM, so there's less incentive for me to stay up and waste time that I could use resting for the next day.

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#105

It always amazes me to read articles like this. How come I don't need more than 3 hours of sleep a day and its been like that for over 15 years now? I sleep "late hours". I go sleep around 8am and wake up around noon. I don't eat breakfast just coffee. I work most of the day on different projects, eat quite large dinner at 8pm, then every day go for 45 min to the gym, around 10pm and then 20 min walk. After that its…

I remember my friend mentioned to me she might have a mutation in the DEC2 gene (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2884988/) because she usually goes to bed around 2 am and wakes up at 6-7 am, and has been doing it throughout her life. And she says she's fine and like you doesn't feel tired if she only gets 4-5 hours of sleep.

Interestingly, if she gets the standard number of hours of rest (say, 7-8), she gets really groggy and it totally disrupts her ability to function throughout the day!

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#107
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

s/technology/science

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws

At some point, people on HN will get over their fear of words like "toxins" and embrace the Tao Te Woo as the advanced science it is.

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#108

It's interesting that in almost every sleep related article I've read on HN, the overwhelming majority of people who respond about their personal life say that they hate getting up 'early'-for various definitions of early. Surely there are programmers who like getting up early?

There a lot of programmers in my company who are in super early and leave by 2-3pm. But I think most of them do it out of necessity because either they have kids or they have long commutes.

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: toxin meant arrow long ago, for taxus, (bark tree ?) which bow were made of. The funny part is that that tree is .. toxic, it embeds alcaloids which can kill. The taxus philogenetic family was often a symbol of death for cultures, and people commited suicide using its "effects". Lastly, those familiar with oncology probably know paclitaxel/taxol; which are molecules derived from these alcaloids for their cy…

just a footnote to your fine comment: the origin of that particular drug is the Pacific Yew https://dtp.cancer.gov/timeline/flash/success_stories/s2_tax... this same tree, as you indicate, was also used by Native Americans for making hunting bows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_bow

I think the original taxol was made from Pacific Yew, but the synthesis is from another kind yielding a precursor molecule.

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#110
post #55
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect (but do not know) that you enjoy your sleep because of its restorative effect. If you could obviate the need for the restorative effect, and instead just always feel newly restored, would you still enjoy going to sleep for no reason? Personally, I dislike the need for sleep. I put it off for as long as I can manage, and try to get as little of it as I can get away with. For me, I have a hard time functionin…

Oh my god, think of what this would do to commerce, in terms of a capitalist society. Suddenly, you can take a drug that decreases your need for sleep by 50%. People only need 4h of sleep per night now, for a full nights' sleep - 3h, if you're willing to skimp a little, 2h isn't unheard of (in the way that only getting 4h of sleep a night, now, isn't unheard of either). Suddenly, there's a significant advantage in th…

There's a Doctor Who episode that sort of goes there a little, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_No_More_(Doctor_Who) . It isn't one of the better episodes and the main plot is rather ridiculous but it does touchy upon your argument tangentially.
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