Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 257 posts

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#221

Post by illegalsmile »

adrianN wrote: post #203
asark wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm, found ~2 beeswax candles (dunno if other materials are different brightness) is perfect for reading and getting about the house. I've been looking for a Once you get used to a couple candles carried (per person) and maybe one in the room for general illumination—which only took me a couple days—electrical multi-room illumination at night seems irritatingly bright and kinda insane. Sort of like when you c…

I found red LEDs with USB power (so <2.5W) to be pretty good. They are available for decorative purposes.

Since I haven't replaced my Kindle I do all my reading with a dim red headlamp. I like it better than the paperwhite blue-white light and wish Amazon offered a red light Kindle.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#222

Post by Bartweiss »

sergioisidoro wrote: post #78

I wonder if what people call "catch up sleep on weekends" is just "having 2 days of appropriate sleep". I would love to see an experiment where: Group A: Sleep 5h per day on weekdays, and "catch up on sleep" during the weekends. Group B: Sleep 5h per day on weekdays, and sleep the normal replenishing time on weekends (8-7h). And then compare the effects of the weekend sleep. I'm very sceptical of the "sleep debt" ide…

Yeah, I'm sad this wasn't tested. The subjects definitely moved back towards baseline, but if the extra sleep didn't produce any kind of overcompensation it's not super clear what it did. I know there are two other relevant results here.

One finds that people recover a portion of recent lost sleep and that's it; a week on 5 hours/night and two weeks prompt similar recovery amounts, and 48 hours awake prompts similar recovery to 72 hours awake. Which certainly says you can't "pay off" arbitrary debt.

The other one is from the same authors as this, finding that after chronic sleep deprivation, oral-glucose insulin response recovers within 3 days of 'free' sleep, but IV-glucose response isn't back to baseline after 5 days. Which suggests the added recovery sleep might just be a way to get back on track faster, rather than actually offsetting anything (at least for insulin).

But I don't think I've ever seen a study actually comparing the two conditions.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#223

Post by antisthenes »

stronglikedan wrote: post #205
cmuguythrow wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This used to be me. I now realize that the reason for my grogginess was that I was totally dehydrated after my 10+ hr sleeping marathon. I now sleep with a water bottle and try to drink half of it before going to bed. When I do this I find that I will naturally wake up after about 8.5 hrs, drink the remaining half of the bottle, fall back asleep for 30 min, and then wake up feeling great. Wonder if this could work fo…

I, too, keep water by the bedside and drink some before falling asleep. However, the older I get, the less I drink, so I don't wake up every couple hours to pee. The moral of this story: don't get old.

Can this be mitigated by keeping the room a bit more humid, so you don't lose as much liquid through your skin?

Especially in the winter, waking up in a room with sub 30% humidity is brutal.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#225

Post by presscast »

mruts wrote: post #105
lm28469 wrote: post #85

Sleep is fun, people who regularly lack it will tell you they're "just fine" but they've been lacking sleep for so long that the baseline they're comparing themselves to is already skewed. Take two weeks off, avoid alcohol and other stimulant, avoid artificial light after 8 and wake up without an alarm. You'll see how you feel after that regimen. Your body knows exactly how much sleep it needs. But that's not compati…

I dunno, maybe I’m weird, but without an alarm I can sleep 12 hours. And when I do, I feel like total shit: very tired, groggy, and a little depressed. If I sleep 5-7 hours on the otherhand, I feel much better.

>without an alarm I can sleep 12 hours.

This was the case for me until I started (a) going to bed shortly after dark and (b) leaving the blinds open.

An really incredible thing happened: I started feeling tired around dusk, and awake at dawn.

Note that it's best to avoid/limit screens and LED lights past dark.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#226

Post by ElijahLynn »

This title is untrue according to research done by Dr. William Dement at Stanford. In his book Promise of Sleep he says they did a study where people were put in a room at an earlier than bedtime time, no electronics or devices or lights. They ended up sleeping 1-2 hours longer (closer to 10 hours) for a week and then it started to reach normal levels (closer to 8 hours) over the second week.

The premise of the book Promise of Sleep is "Sleep Debt" and they proved you can pay back Sleep Debt up to about 1-2 weeks worth and the rest is absorbed by the body.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#227

Post by wafflesraccoon »

lm28469 wrote: post #166
GiuseppaAcciaio wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid that this suggestion is a bit glib and simplistic: there are people (my S.O. being one of them) who despite no alcohol, no artificial light after dinner and all doing "all the right things" still can't fall asleep before 2-3am, which then leads to 4- or 5-hour nights all week long. For them, catching up on the weekend is the only solution (albeit an imperfect one).

I think we all agree that these people are the exception to the rule. Just like Elon Musk isn't your typical CEO or Terry A. Davis isn't your typical developer.

Rest in peace Terry Davis, the world wasn't ready for TempleOS.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#228

Post by ElijahLynn »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #226

This title is untrue according to research done by Dr. William Dement at Stanford. In his book Promise of Sleep he says they did a study where people were put in a room at an earlier than bedtime time, no electronics or devices or lights. They ended up sleeping 1-2 hours longer (closer to 10 hours) for a week and then it started to reach normal levels (closer to 8 hours) over the second week. The premise of the book…

From the WP article "While weekend recovery sleep had some benefits after a single week of insufficient sleep..." so here they are admitting there are some benefits from catching up on sleep debt, which is incompatible with the title that it is a lie.

They then go on to "...those gains were wiped out when people plunged right back into their same sleep-deprived schedule the next Monday.", which again is incompatible with the title because they are saying that there is benefit but most just kill the benefit, so weekend sleep catch-up is not a lie, but Carolyn Y. Johnson (or their Editor in Chief) are lying with the title.

That title is click-bait for sure.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#229

Post by Gpetrium »

I think that the real answer is that we do not know the answer yet. It is likely that both aspects are correct to some degree, I'll explain my take as of now:

There is a real cost to sleeping less or sleeping too much and that some will feel the impact more than others also depending on the environment they are in (e.g increased stress, etc).

Depending on the combined variables in conjunction to lack of sleep, some may see positive gains by 'catching-up' on the weekend (think of parents for example), although it is likely that a marginal amount of lack of sleep will continue to accumulate over longer periods of time. This in turn can potentially lead to increased risk of heart attack and other issues.

The lack of sleep scenario can be seeing a little with the same lens as smoking, results can vary from person to person, but on average, it has a real negative impact when done often or under unfavorable circumstances.

Post reply on HN