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Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

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101–110 of 262 posts

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#101
post #14
post #7

Does anyone else consistently get 6 to 7 hours of sleep no matter what? It doesn't feel optimal and I feel great on the rare days I get 8 hours, but I can function just fine on less. Also cannot easily fall back asleep if woken up which is really frustrating.

On my days off, I can sleep 12 hours if I don't set an alarm. And I could easily do more, if I didn't force myself out of bed.

Amazing! Without Advil PM I can’t sleep more than 7. Really goes to show how diverse sleep habits/requirements are from person to person.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#102
post #13

> We aimed to assess the relationship of objectively measured sleep regularity with risk for all-cause mortality, and mortality from cardiometabolic causes and cancer, in a large cohort (N = 60 977) who wore accelerometer devices for 1 week. They look at one week of sleep data and then check mortality records about 10 to 15 years later. It's hard to argue a causative effect between one week of bad sleep and death pot…

"Obviously there's an implication that people with terrible sleep regularity in that one week snapshot had terrible sleep regularity chronically, which in turn had a causative effect on mortality"

You got it.

"but we have to make a couple of deductive jumps to get to that conclusion"

This is always the case unless you assume reality is as big as what you can perceive.

"I'd really like to see the same study with longer term sleep data."

You can say this of literally 100% of the studies, it will never be enough. I understand it when authors put this at the end of a study because they want more funding and because their subject is all they think about. But for reasonable human beings you gotta make a common sense jump and allocate resources to other subjects. Yes, regular sleep has good effects on health, the burden of proof of that was already 0, this study is a nice added touch, there will be no double dessert, move on.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#103
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems easier to see: "some people have lots of difficulties in their lives that makes them have an irregular sleep schedule; some people have lots of difficulties in their lives that makes them die early"

I agree - an obvious connection would be "Lower income jobs tend to have less control over their schedule", be it shift workers, hourly service jobs or similar. There also may be links to worse healthcare due to lack of insurance in those jobs. It might just be another "Poorer people don't live as long" correlation.

The source data is from the UK so it has nothing to do with the health insurance attached to specific jobs. Healthcare is covered via general taxation in the UK.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whew, glad we covered all 6 of the known possible confounding variables.

You are willfully taking more away from that than was stated. Such a fallacy is a favorite trope among science denialists, and those who would distort the objectivity of research for misinformed (and/or dishonest) ends. I don’t know what, if any, specific motivations you have, but I think it’s worth pointing out.

What do you mean? The commenter just pointed out (in a joking manner) that, even if some confounding factors were taken into account, the result might still be caused by other confounding factors. That's a serious critique, not a fallacy.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#105
post #87

I found the best way to ensure sleep regularity is by having a fixed wake-up time. If you don’t have one and you begin to set your alarm clock to early hours, the first weeks doing so will feel like hell. But eventually all will be worth it. The sleepiness during the day will disappear and, at night, your body will naturally want to get some rest early. Another strategy is to fill your day with deep work and exercise…

This is a fantastic way to give yourself an early heart attack.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whew, glad we covered all 6 of the known possible confounding variables.

You are willfully taking more away from that than was stated. Such a fallacy is a favorite trope among science denialists, and those who would distort the objectivity of research for misinformed (and/or dishonest) ends. I don’t know what, if any, specific motivations you have, but I think it’s worth pointing out.

Such a critique is also a favorite refrain among science professionals

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#108
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brain gunk could accelerate those causes, no?

Eh, you gotta be careful with One Weird Trick medicine. Once you get past painfully obvious problems, everything not currently easily fixed by modern medicine tends to be "well it's really complicated" sets of problems; there's not one Cancer, your blood pressure can be elevated for many reasons, syndromes like chronic fatigue are almost certainly a mix of dozens of problems binned together by common symptoms but wil…

The difference between panaceas and this is that the idea for extending life isn't to add something, but not to fuck an essential part of life.

If you think of life as the careful coordination of millions of parts, then there will be a million of things that if you fuck up you will die.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#109
post #13

> We aimed to assess the relationship of objectively measured sleep regularity with risk for all-cause mortality, and mortality from cardiometabolic causes and cancer, in a large cohort (N = 60 977) who wore accelerometer devices for 1 week. They look at one week of sleep data and then check mortality records about 10 to 15 years later. It's hard to argue a causative effect between one week of bad sleep and death pot…

That’s because this is in UK Biobank, a cohort of >500K Brits and collecting actually in such a large cohort is a miracle, let alone for multiple days. All thanks to the people who volunteered into the study. Would it be nice to have even more? Sure. But at that scale, patterns start to emerge.

Yes. Any statistics buffs here who can tell me:

Is 500k brits for 1 week as good as 5k brits for 100 weeks.

Effectively with so much data aren't you getting a superposition anyway.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#110
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did that for years with jobs that required it and didn’t find that worked for me.

That’s a bummer! Have you found out why that didn’t work? Perhaps something like caffeine or allergies was interfering with your sleep? If haven’t found out, I wholly recommend doing a sleep study if you can. It can shed some light on any obstacles you may be experiencing. I’ve never done one myself, but I know people who got enduring benefits from the insights of their studies.

In my case it's probably a combination of undiagnosed ADHD and "revenge bedtime procrastination".
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