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Engineering Sleep

minjunes.ai

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Re: Engineering Sleep

#111

Post by wslh »

bsamuels wrote: post #88
wslh wrote: post #71

COVID affected my sleep, but I wouldn't classify it as “long COVID” Does anyone have interesting insights or resources about this? I’ve found a references, but HN is one of the best resources to ask for this. It seems to improve over time, and I don't have any trouble napping during the day. However, my main issue is fragmented sleep: I wake up a few times at night but can fall back asleep easily. I used to sleep con…

had the same thing coincide with covid, but much harder to fall asleep once disrupted. Melatonin only seems to last for an hour or so, so I would take one to go back to sleep after a disruption

Thank you very much for the tip. I will try it out for a month, and let you know how it works.

Re: Engineering Sleep

#112

Post by codr7 »

ranprieur wrote: post #104

> it’s not a desire but a necessity. Speak for yourself. I love sleep and wish I could sleep more. Sometimes I think the only purpose of being awake is to get food and shelter for more sleep.

Same, but waking up is very painful, I just want to go back to wherever.

Re: Engineering Sleep

#113

Post by thepuppet33r »

I did a lot of sleep hacking in college, trying to sleep as little as possible so that I could spend time with friends, play video games, and (ostensibly) study.

Now that I'm working a job where I do overnight deployments, often work 12-14 hours days, and have a couple of kids who don't sleep well, I hate my past self for not sleeping while he could. You never know when circumstances will drive you into unplanned sleep deprivation. Doing it to yourself for low-to-mid-level time gains isn't worth it.

Re: Engineering Sleep

#114

Post by pedalpete »

I work in the sleep space, particularly enhancing slow-wave sleep - the synchronous firing of neurons which define deep sleep, the most restorative and vital component of sleep.

Only focusing on the amount of time asleep is a significantly limited viewpoint, but I believe this will change in the coming years as we gather more knowledge of sleep and access to EEG data about our brain activity during sleep increases.

Only measuring sleep time is like measuring the health of a persons diet is by measuring how much time they spent eating, but of course, looking at macronutrients, calories, is the right way of doing it.

I'll be writing more about this in the coming months, but my current thinking is that the concept of "can we sleep less" isn't the correct approach, and can be dangerous. At AffectableSleep.com - we increase the efficiency of deep sleep, and much of the research (https://affectablesleep.com/research) focuses on enhancing deep sleep in sleep deprived individuals (I'll post more research soon). This doesn't mean we should be sleeping less. A lack of quality sleep is already an epidemic in society, and massively underreported because the focus of the sleep industry has been the amount of time asleep, not the restorative functions of sleep.

Our goal isn't to help you sleep less, and we will need to be very clear in our marketing, but rather to ensure the sleep you get is as restorative as possible.

Of course, like any technology, some people will use it for negative purposes, which I believe would be to just "get by" on less sleep, rather than optimize your health through better sleep.

You can find out more at https://affectablesleep.com

Re: Engineering Sleep

#115

Post by dahart »

ajsisbckjx wrote: post #79
londons_explore wrote: post #73

It's notable that almost every animal sleeps in some way, even organisms that are away from sunlight (ie. creatures that live underground). If you sleep 30% of the time, that's 30% of the time you aren't eating, mating, etc. Also, during sleep you are more vulnerable to predators. One would expect evolution to get rid of sleep in creatures who don't rely on sunlight cycles. So, there must be some really good evolutio…

> So, there must be some really good evolutionary reason for sleep. Is this how evolution works? Might it be that animals sleeping is good on the macro level but bad for the animal?

Parent is suggesting that sleeping must be good on the macro level. That does imply that it must also be good for the animal, right? In order to statistically benefit the population, the benefits to any given animal must statistically outweigh the costs. It can’t be all bad for all animals and still be good for the whole.

But sleep can be partially bad for some animals, they can be more prone to becoming prey while sleeping (though Google tells me sleep also prevents nighttime activity where predators have the advantage). There are definitely evolutionary adaptations around sleep to make it safer, sleeping in trees, sleep patterns & duration, hypnic jerk, etc.

Re: Engineering Sleep

#116

Post by [deleted] »

pedalpete wrote: post #114

I work in the sleep space, particularly enhancing slow-wave sleep - the synchronous firing of neurons which define deep sleep, the most restorative and vital component of sleep. Only focusing on the amount of time asleep is a significantly limited viewpoint, but I believe this will change in the coming years as we gather more knowledge of sleep and access to EEG data about our brain activity during sleep increases. O…

[deleted]

Re: Engineering Sleep

#117

Post by FooBarWidget »

pedalpete wrote: post #114

I work in the sleep space, particularly enhancing slow-wave sleep - the synchronous firing of neurons which define deep sleep, the most restorative and vital component of sleep. Only focusing on the amount of time asleep is a significantly limited viewpoint, but I believe this will change in the coming years as we gather more knowledge of sleep and access to EEG data about our brain activity during sleep increases. O…

Your /research link doesn't work.

It seems your company produces a deep sleep headband. I'm interested in these sorts of products because I want more deep sleep (for myself, and for family) while lifestyle factors (mostly kids) make that very difficult.

The last product I tried was the Philips deep sleep headband (which, unfortunately, never appeared in Netherlands, I had to import it from the US even though Philips is a Dutch company).

The main problem I had was that the headband is not compatible with ear plugs. Without ear plus, I get woken up very easily, either by outside traffic or by people in the household going to the toilet. The sound insulation in my house is terrible, and it cannot be improved short of tearing down all the walls and rebuilding them. So now I use a pair of really good ear plugs, and I also put a noise cancelling head phone over that to block out extra sounds.

Would it be possible to combine a deep sleep headband with a good ear plug? Or better: would it be possible to combine with that, and also noise cancelling headphones?

Re: Engineering Sleep

#118

Post by righthand »

kthejoker2 wrote: post #96
righthand wrote: post #72

> Getting a bad night of sleep now and then is annoying, but not a health risk. However, chronic poor sleep may increase the likelihood of developing dementia, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity and even cancers of the breast, colon, ovaries and prostate. [0] [0] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi... Is it entirely possible that yes you can get 2 hours less sleep, but you're at higher r…

There's a whole section in TFA called "too good to be true?" Which calls this out but says we don't have enough data to know

> Instead, the risks are concentrated in medium to long term health of individuals who undergo therapy. As of now, we simply don’t have enough data to profile risk factors. More experiments are needed to know if “FNSS for all” is too good to be true.

> Which calls this out but says we don't have enough data to know

I don’t know if that is true, that section to me reads as we don’t know if there are long term effects with FNSS therapy because they haven’t been study yet, specifically to the therapy. Not necessarily how FNSS or FNSS therapy is related to other sleep health studies.

Re: Engineering Sleep

#119

Post by mettamage »

euroderf wrote: post #92
stared wrote: post #44

> Familial Natural Short Sleep (FNSS), a benign mutation that allows them to sleep 1-2 hours less than the recommended 7-9 hours, without experiencing the negative effects of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is one concern, but there’s a more subtle impact on cognitive functions (working memory, creativity, deep focus), overall health (particularly the endocrine and immune systems), and long-term health outcomes…

> I noticed a stark contrast: many of my math friends consistently slept 9–10 hours a day. I'm curious, in order to reach this duration, did they need to do some kind of exercise at some point in the day, to gain physical fatigue ? Or could they sleep this long whilst being (I exaggerate here) couch potatoes ?

Being able to just sleep 10 hours every day seems like an unfair advantage.

Re: Engineering Sleep

#120

Post by [deleted] »

thepuppet33r wrote: post #113

I did a lot of sleep hacking in college, trying to sleep as little as possible so that I could spend time with friends, play video games, and (ostensibly) study. Now that I'm working a job where I do overnight deployments, often work 12-14 hours days, and have a couple of kids who don't sleep well, I hate my past self for not sleeping while he could. You never know when circumstances will drive you into unplanned sle…

[deleted]
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