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Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

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Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#51
post #38

If there is one thing in this world I'd like to see, it's the worker's right for an afternoon nap: I really would become highly anxious if deprived long-term of my siesta. I've been lucky in most of my environments to find somewhere to close my eyes and sleep for 10-15 minutes - I just need somewhere to lie down or recline and something to block the light: if I'm tired enough sound doesn't bother me. Some people tell…

I'd like to think afternoon naps would be a good thing at work, but my worry is that employers would mandate 30-60 minutes of unpaid nap time at the workplace. Thus we'd end up extending the already bad 9-6 days (because 9-5 is now seemingly a thing of the past) and pushing it up to 9-7.

You're right: in general, corporate structures do not trust the worker to independently handle her own time and energy.

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#53

What if one always finds oneself waking up spontaneously, in a moderately alert state, after about 5-6 hours' sleep and can then only achieve fitful, unrefreshing sleep for the rest of the night? In my youth, in the absence of an alarm, I would consistently get 8-9 hours of deep, unbroken sleep, but since my early 20s, I've found it impossible to get more than about six hours in one block. If I do succeed in returnin…

How is your exercise? Are you limiting your intake of artificial light?

I've experimented with all the commonly suggested stuff: blue-light blocking, sublingual melatonin (dosed appropriately and timed according to the phase response curve), exercise, meditation, etc., simultaneously and in isolation, and nothing extended my sleep significantly.

I suspect if I went through a grueling few weeks of sleep restriction, I would eventually see an increase in the duration of my sleep, but I'm content for now to stick with my biphasic protocol.

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#54

I believe I'm one of the "short sleepers" they mention in the article. I've bought wirstband mostly to track my sleep patterns. Even though article says that devices like fitbit are not accurate enough in tracking different phases of sleep, my goal was largley to see how much time do I spend sleeping. In the last four months, I average out at 6,1hrs. 90% of the time I will wake up before the alarm and will sleep the…

You mention you bought a wristband. Tracking my sleep is one of those things I want to start doing. Do you have any recommendations? I don't particularly want to remember to put it on every night. I know Nokia launched a mattress pad recently ( https://health.nokia.com/gr/en/sleep ) but I'm concerned about how reliable this is if I don't sleep exactly on top of it. (Plus I don't know how this could actually tell anyt…

The easiest win for your sleep might be removing the TV from your bedroom

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#55

I believe I'm one of the "short sleepers" they mention in the article. I've bought wirstband mostly to track my sleep patterns. Even though article says that devices like fitbit are not accurate enough in tracking different phases of sleep, my goal was largley to see how much time do I spend sleeping. In the last four months, I average out at 6,1hrs. 90% of the time I will wake up before the alarm and will sleep the…

You mention you bought a wristband. Tracking my sleep is one of those things I want to start doing. Do you have any recommendations? I don't particularly want to remember to put it on every night. I know Nokia launched a mattress pad recently ( https://health.nokia.com/gr/en/sleep ) but I'm concerned about how reliable this is if I don't sleep exactly on top of it. (Plus I don't know how this could actually tell anyt…

I was looking for something cheap with as much packed features as I can get and settled on Huawei Band Pro 2 (https://consumer.huawei.com/en/wearables/band2). You can get it for 70 bucks, and it tracks your sleep, heart rate and even has built in GPS if you want to jog or cycle.

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#56
post #14

In addition to this, the JRE podcast with Matthew Walker has tons of fascinating insights into sleep (and how essential it is for health, longevity, etc.). Highly recommend just about everyone listen to it: Joe Rogan Experience #1109 - Matthew Walker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

The bit that really stuck with me from this podcast was how overworked some medical professionals are, especially those in residency. Which ends up contributing to them making mistakes with their patients, including deadly ones. Shift work is already extremely taxing on the human body, on top of the large amounts of stress nurses and doctors are already under; but on top of that , we're working the newbies 80 hours a…

I think the same about consulting.

Most people work insane hours there.

I'm pretty sure they could provide the same output in better quality if they learn to work 6 to 8 hours on one thing. ( And learn how to priotize)

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#57
post #45

I believe I'm one of the "short sleepers" they mention in the article. I've bought wirstband mostly to track my sleep patterns. Even though article says that devices like fitbit are not accurate enough in tracking different phases of sleep, my goal was largley to see how much time do I spend sleeping. In the last four months, I average out at 6,1hrs. 90% of the time I will wake up before the alarm and will sleep the…

I’m the same way. Exercise and eating healthy just makes my body want even less sleep. When I’m firing on all cylinders, eating right and working out, I can get away with 5.5-6 and feel better than I ever do trying to push up past 7 by going back to sleep in the morning. I my experience, the most important thing is, wake up when you wake up. Don’t go back to sleep because you feel like you should, or the alarm has 20…

How much do you exercise? Because when I exercise to the point that I am really tired, sweating and have sore muscles next day, I sleep more then normally. The theories I read on internet seem to confirm the same - your body rebuilds when you sleep, exercise is sort of damaging it (it is damage good for you, but I dont know better term), so if you exercise you should sleep more.

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#58
post #52

The article claims that catching up on sleep during the weekend doesn't work. This is most likely wrong information, as shown in this very recent study [0]. [0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jsr.12712

As far as I can tell your linked study says that "possibly, long weekend sleep may compensate for short weekday sleep" in terms of mortality but says nothing about qualify of life.

You can catchup/reset but the days you don't sleep enough you'll do worse.

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#59

> Bose just released an earbud that you can sleep with, for example Wait, what? These are 249.95$. Why not just use simple earplugs? In Germany, we have Ohropax, made from wax, which sell for less than 3€ for a set of 12: http://www.ohropax.de/en.html

Ohropax are the best. I discovered them in Vienna. Thanks to the internet, you can now get them anywhere :)

Re: Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist

#60

I believe I'm one of the "short sleepers" they mention in the article. I've bought wirstband mostly to track my sleep patterns. Even though article says that devices like fitbit are not accurate enough in tracking different phases of sleep, my goal was largley to see how much time do I spend sleeping. In the last four months, I average out at 6,1hrs. 90% of the time I will wake up before the alarm and will sleep the…

I've noticed that I have much more energy throughout the day when I get up as soon as my body wakes up. If I decide to sleep in because it's too early, I will usually have less energy.

I have to assume getting up at the end of a REM cycle is far better than starting another you cannot finish.

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