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Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

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Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#151

Post by tripzilch »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #130
johnward wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can never take short naps. I always end up wanting to sleep the rest of the day.

Have a cup of coffee just before you take a nap. The caffeine will kick in at around the same time your 20-min alarm goes off.

Caffeine doesn't actually work like that. It's not a timed on/off switch. Like most drugs it'll gradually ramp up in effect, stay at max for a while and then taper off again.

So if it's "kicked in" when the 20 min alarm goes off that means the last 5 min of that 20 will have been restless because the caffeine was already working.

Caffeine is the great antagonist of sleep quality anyway. Just drop it for a month, see how that feels. Then see how much it fucks up your sleeping quality as you take even two cups of strong coffee (which is great fun because the caffeine will actually work full power, it's amazing, but your sleep after that night will suffer).

This "coffee power nap" thing is a very nice story, but it's based on nothing. People that have success with it are finding the benefits of having a nap despite their caffeine usage.

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#152

Post by thedevopsguy »

pyre wrote: post #90
incision wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>' You just don't remember how different is it to sleep longer.' Exactly. Not too long ago the combination of child, work and school forced me to completely re-evaluate how I was spending my time and what is actually important to me. One big change I ended up making was getting to bed at the same time every night and clocking a consistent 8 hours. Within a week or so the difference was remarkable in both my mood and…

> At least 8 ounces per waking hour for me. That's 3.8L per day [(24 hours - 8 hours sleeping) * 8 fl oz = 3.8L]. Recommended intake is 2-3L[1]. Just be careful of water poisoning... [1] http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healt...

Ecstasy and water poisoning are related. Ecstasy makes users extremely thirsty. Water poisoning related deaths at raves have been reported. About 6 L is enough to put a lot of people in a very dangerous place.

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#153

Post by aninhumer »

jusben1369 wrote: post #21
general_failure wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I found that I need to train my body to sleep. If I go for a week or two with little sleep, the body seems to readjust to the pattern and refuses to sleep more.

Did you read the article though? You may not be sleeping due to your training it but you're at a competitive disadvantage to your peers.

I don't think general_failure was saying it was a good thing, just that once they're on a short sleep schedule, they find it difficult to get more than that even when they try.

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#154

Post by garrickvanburen »

AhtiK wrote: post #105
garrickvanburen wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. It took me years to realize simply going to be easier was, not only the obvious answer, but also the cheapest & most sustainable. https://garrickvanburen.com/archive/how-i-learned-to-get-up-...

hah! Thank you for the link! Your experience definitely rings a bell -- I'm now a father of a 6 months old and I did my fair share of experiments with Zeo a few years ago. By the way, there is a special firmware going around for Zeo that if installed will store the data unencrypted and also enables sending "real-time" info to the serial port located at the back of the device (I managed to read this data successfully…

Thanks. In my 18 months with the Zeo, I went through at least 5 headband sensors. In that time I wore it all the days I was home - which was most days.

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#155

Post by irremediable »

rayiner wrote: post #5

The key takeaway is this: > The research is overwhelming that the vast majority of us require seven to eight hours of sleep to feel fully rested, and only a small percentage require less than seven. I'm sometimes envious of people I meet that can function well with little sleep, but I resign myself to the fact that I wasn't dealt that particular card. You can't compete with those folks by simply trying to ape their h…

I find it interesting that I'm someone who does well on 7-8 hours of sleep, and most of my friends consider me to be someone who hardly sleeps at all. If you're feeling unlucky that you need 7-8 hours, just remember that a lot of people need 9-10 hours. ;)

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#156

Post by irremediable »

Encosia wrote: post #141
pyre wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least 8 ounces per waking hour for me. That's 3.8L per day [(24 hours - 8 hours sleeping) * 8 fl oz = 3.8L]. Recommended intake is 2-3L[1]. Just be careful of water poisoning... [1] http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healt...

Unless I'm mistaken, water poisoning is only a credible threat when you consume exclusively those high volumes of water and nothing else to raise the salinity of the water in and around your cells. Over the course of a day, most of us get (much) more than enough sodium from other sources to eliminate any risk of water poisoning from 3.8L of water per day.

Yeah -- similarly to you, I'm pretty convinced that water poisoning is only a worry if you're unwell (mentally and/or otherwise) or do unusual things like water-drinking competitions.

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#157

Post by zo1 »

vanderZwan wrote: post #72
rayiner wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In grad school, I made it a point to cut-off my studying to get a consistent 7-9 hours of sleep in the days leading up to each exam. It worked enormously better for me than my sleep-deprived cram sessions in undergrad, and I think some of my classmates suffered for prioritizing taking another pass over the material instead of being well-rested.

Considering the brain needs to sleep to fixate memories, your approach is better. Of course, assuming you can fall asleep - if you can't because you feel you haven't studied enough...

"Considering the brain needs to sleep to fixate memories, your approach is better."

There are two other components to this that you're glossing over. Sleep helps with long-term memory. So if your plan is to study-ahead and be prepared for the exam, fine. But then the second component comes in to play. People that are cramming for the exam are doing so because they didn't study ahead. For that second group of people, sleep is actually the last thing they need. What good is remembering something long-term, if you never actually "learned" it in the first place. And let's be honest, people that are cramming for exams, are not the type to have learned the content before, either. (Though I generalize a bit there)

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#158

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #5

The key takeaway is this: > The research is overwhelming that the vast majority of us require seven to eight hours of sleep to feel fully rested, and only a small percentage require less than seven. I'm sometimes envious of people I meet that can function well with little sleep, but I resign myself to the fact that I wasn't dealt that particular card. You can't compete with those folks by simply trying to ape their h…

[deleted]

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#159

Post by robg »

enraged_camel wrote: post #145
dang wrote: post #69

Robg, who posted this, is a longtime HNer whose current startup makes a watch that monitors your stress level. He wears the watch all the time and told me that one of his biggest lessons from it so far was about sleep. Rob, do you want to repeat that here? I thought it was interesting; maybe others would too.

I was super-interested in the watch, so I went to the website. The price seems... high, to say the least. The first question that popped in my mind was "why is this so expensive?" and the FAQ doesn't seem to address that. I get the sense that it is not aimed at mass market, at least not yet. It would be great if there was a mailing list I could subscribe to that would alert me when it becomes affordable.

Thank you for the feedback. Honestly, that is the point. We're building for high data quality first and foremost. That means low volumes with a focus on materials and manufacturing. Longer-term it means validation and medical applications.

Please follow us on twitter @neumitra and you'll hear about upcoming products when available. We try hard not to spam people.

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#160

Post by vanderZwan »

zo1 wrote: post #157
vanderZwan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the brain needs to sleep to fixate memories, your approach is better. Of course, assuming you can fall asleep - if you can't because you feel you haven't studied enough...

" Considering the brain needs to sleep to fixate memories, your approach is better. " There are two other components to this that you're glossing over. Sleep helps with long-term memory. So if your plan is to study-ahead and be prepared for the exam, fine. But then the second component comes in to play. People that are cramming for the exam are doing so because they didn't study ahead. For that second group of people…

I know sleep is crucial for long term memories, but I also thought a lack of sleep affects all forms of recollection?
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