Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

Post by joering2 » Mon, Apr 17, 2017, 10:43 PM UTC

colmvp wrote: post #105

joering2 wrote: post #56

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), sh…

Post by ghthor » Mon, Apr 17, 2017, 11:01 PM UTC

JimboOmega wrote: post #124

Puts wrote: post #112

Maybe looking for the reason we sleep is the wrong way to look at it? What if being asleep is the default state for any organism? Sleeping require much less energy. The only reason to be awake is to eat and reproduce. For any animal there is probably an optimal ratio between sleep and hunt/reproduction where sleep is the most favorable.

But sleeping makes you much more vulnerable to predation, and really doesn't save much more energy vs. quiet/restful wakefulness. Just think of how disoriented you are when something wakes you up in the middle of night - that's a definite biological cost if that thing is something threatening to you. And of course, never mind creatures that have gone as far as the 50/50 brain adaptation (IE Dolphins), they simply hav…

Post by bmelton » Mon, Apr 17, 2017, 11:06 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #86

eckza wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is entirely possible that it would evolve differently, perhaps given that not everyone would be available during the 'dark' hours you might see a society evolve into dual function, where 8 hours were for 'working' and 8 hours were for 'community/family' with 8 hours split into two 4 hour segments as 'transition times'.

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 17, 2017, 11:08 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #99

kristofferR wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a massive difference between using stimulants to be more productive and using stimulants to skip sleep.

Is there?

Post by coldtea » Mon, Apr 17, 2017, 11:18 PM UTC

smallgovt wrote: post #126

Puts wrote: post #112

Maybe looking for the reason we sleep is the wrong way to look at it? What if being asleep is the default state for any organism? Sleeping require much less energy. The only reason to be awake is to eat and reproduce. For any animal there is probably an optimal ratio between sleep and hunt/reproduction where sleep is the most favorable.

This strikes me as the type of comment that sounds artificially 'deep' but has no constructive or logical basis. What does 'default state' even mean in this context? The fact is we naturally sleep sometimes and we're awake at other times. If you're suggesting there's no reason for sleep other than conserving energy, that's patently false. The (assumed) primary motive here is to find a way to sleep less. We already ha…