Sleep is more important than food • Hacker News Board

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#161

Post by billybob » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 12:40 PM UTC

silverlake wrote: post #121

mjfern wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more disconcerting is the sleeping culture/routine throughout medical residency and fellowship; arguably, the most important stages of medical education, where doctors in training learn the hands-on skills to practice medicine. Despite the importance of learning during this stage, individuals are routinely sleep-deprived: "20% of all residents reported sleeping an average of 5 hours or less per night, with 66% a…

I've asked many doctors about this. They insist that they are not effected by sleep deprivation. They claim it is safer to have the same doctor for 24-48 hours rather than hand off a patient to a new, fresh doctor.

"I've asked many doctors about this. They insist that they are not effected by sleep deprivation. They claim it is safer to have the same doctor for 24-48 hours rather than hand off a patient to a new, fresh doctor."

Absolute bunk. Doctors are the last people in the world who should "insist they are not affected by sleep deprivation." Their whole job is to make decisions based on medical evidence. It doesn't affect you? Prove it. Show me a study looking for correlations between medical errors and sleep deprivation. Show me a study measuring alertness at the end of an 80-hour work week. Don't give me anecdotes. Give me proof. To do otherwise, as a doctor, is hypocritical.

Here's my anecdote: my wife is a resident, and she comes home from a 30-hour shift so tired, she's nervous about driving and sometimes feels like she has the flu.

Is she just weak? Should other doctors look down on her?

Not without a rock-solid study to prove their point. Instead, doctors seem to have a hazing mentality - "I survived this, so you should have to, too." But it's really a question of medical fact: how do medical work schedules affect patient outcomes? Any doctor who doesn't see that is being dangerously irrational.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#162

Post by billybob » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 12:43 PM UTC

plastics wrote: post #156

silverlake wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've asked many doctors about this. They insist that they are not effected by sleep deprivation. They claim it is safer to have the same doctor for 24-48 hours rather than hand off a patient to a new, fresh doctor.

The problem with sleep deprivation is that unless you have an objective way of measuring your (mental) performance you're usually not able to realize when it declines, because your're self monitoring capabilities decline as well. A simple test, that worked very well for me, was testing my reading speed (I know it is only a weak indicator for mental acuity, but it is easy and fast to test). Under perfect conditions (w…

"due to the amount implicit knowledge that a doctor gathers during a >24h time period about his patients that can't be transferred in a handoff."

While this may be true, the process of the handoff could be vastly improved. My wife is a resident, and the quality of info she gets during a patient handoff varies drastically, from detailed notes in a computer, correlated to medical history, to scrawled notes on paper. Sometimes she has to start from square 1.

Maybe the reason handoffs are harmful is because they're done poorly. And maybe they're done poorly because the doctor who's handing off is freaking exhausted.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#163

Post by webuiarchitect » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 12:53 PM UTC

pinchyfingers wrote: post #127

jonmc12 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is what surprises me - this is hacker news, not normals news. How interesting is a safe interpretation of the research that conforms to what I was taught in 2nd grade? Its like someone posted an article extolling the virtues of the food pyramid or something. Even my doctor has a more liberal interpretation of the research than this particular author (and he is probably more qualified to make this interpr…

I'm no longer surprised by the number of dumbass articles from HBR, New York Times, and the like. In fact, it's boring me and I think I'll take a nap :-)

And the moment you say something like this; they down-rate you. Great going, HN.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#164

Post by eli » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 1:24 PM UTC

webuiarchitect wrote: post #163

pinchyfingers wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no longer surprised by the number of dumbass articles from HBR, New York Times, and the like. In fact, it's boring me and I think I'll take a nap :-)

And the moment you say something like this; they down-rate you. Great going, HN.

It did nothing to advance the discussion in any meaningful way. If you don't like this article, don't read it. If you really think it's awful and doesn't belong on HN, then flag it.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#165

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 1:46 PM UTC

pdx wrote: post #95

nostrademons wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if any studies have been done on the relationship between sleep and deliberate practice. I find that I need a pretty consistent 8 hours of sleep a night for normal operation. However, I've found that when I'm doing something challenging (say, a startup or a new project at work, or learning a new programming framework), this spikes upwards fast. I need about 9.5 hours when doing something moderately challengi…

I was also thinking of that hypothesis as I read this. It rings very true to me. I believe that people who have trouble sleeping are often people who didn't learn that much that day, and conversely, people who learn on a given day seem to need more sleep. I noticed this with my kids. A few months before they started learning to talk, say, at about 13 months, they seemed to need more sleep, even though they weren't ex…

>A few months before they started learning to talk, say, at about 13 months, they seemed to need more sleep, even though they weren't exercising any more.

13 months has to be within a month or so of the median age for starting to walk (in my country at least, I know some start much younger) but you say your kids didn't increase their exercise; presumably then they were already walking at that age?

We have 2 boys that have been treated almost identically, obviously there have been differences and only one of them is a first child. However they have so far had vastly different sleep patterns. The one who sleeps least appears to have developed fastest in linguistic terms. His brother, the slower, was certainly no slouch (and without wishing to boast) is pretty close to top of his class for reading despite being one of the youngest.

I meet quite a lot of different parents & babies/toddlers from different backgrounds and find there are a lot of variations in sleep pattern - I don't have anywhere near enough contact with them to establish correlations with development and sleep pattern though.

My kids could be outliers. I'm sure such studies must have been done?!

tl;dr anecdotes are anecdotal and my experience doesn't bear out your hypothesis

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#166

Post by ramchip » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 2:21 PM UTC

Jcasc wrote: post #48

kylek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that I wanted to try (but never had the schedule to support) is polyphasic sleep ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep ). The idea that sleeping 15 minutes every 4 hours (on a very strict schedule) to keep your mind close to a waking-REM-type sleep. Granted, every few weeks you would have to crash HARD (20+ hour rest).

I also considered experimenting with this in college. I never ended up doing it, though.

I'm... not sure what the point of such a comment can be. It's interesting in unintended ways.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#167

Post by oe » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 2:51 PM UTC

jonmc12 wrote: post #45

I'm surprised this article is at the top of HN. 1) It is not the announcement of a research study, rather it is just referencing previous hbr blogs and sleepfoundation.org's general guidelines for sleep. 2) It offers no unique advice. 3) The title is basic linkbait (ie, its not really about food vs sleep). Why the upvotes? is it because everyone is tired?

I'm one of those who normally sleep only 6.5 hours per day. As stupid as it sounds, I need someone telling me that I should sleep more. After reading an article like this I'll start sleeping 8 hours a day, and if the article is right, I'll feel better and more productive.

So the article is useful for me, hence the upvote. I do agree about 3) though.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#168

Post by karlzt » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 3:05 PM UTC

jonmc12 wrote: post #100

jey wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The research is voluminous and has been around for a long time. Articles like this make the results easy for us normals to digest. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=sleep+deprivation&hl...

I think this is what surprises me - this is hacker news, not normals news. How interesting is a safe interpretation of the research that conforms to what I was taught in 2nd grade? Its like someone posted an article extolling the virtues of the food pyramid or something. Even my doctor has a more liberal interpretation of the research than this particular author (and he is probably more qualified to make this interpr…

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1953834

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#169

Post by derekmdurkin » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 3:58 PM UTC

Sleep is very important but you cannot discuss proper sleep or proper nutrition without the other.

There have been numerous studies showing a correlation between a healthy diet and sleep requirements. People who eat healthy have more energy and feel less tired throughout the day. In the same regard people with an unhealthy diet tend to feel more tired and nap more often and for longer periods of time.

Eating foods with a low glycemic index throughout the day will keep you grounded, preventing sugar highs and lows, and overall make you feel less tired.

My personal opinion based on my lifestyle is that my nutrition decisions directly affect my sleep requirements. I think it is most important to begin the day with a healthy breakfast upon waking up. This meal should include plenty of fiber, protein, and omega-3 fats.

Re: Sleep is more important than food

#170

Post by john2x » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 5:18 PM UTC

giu wrote: post #10

A tool I've been using for the past days: http://sleepyti.me/ I'm currently testing it. The last two days I went to bed at a time which the tool suggested; getting up wasn't much of an issue, and I felt some improvements, but it's definitely too early to say that it works for me.

I don't get this. Why are there 4 different suggested times?