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Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

dealbook.nytimes.com

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Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#71

Post by rubicon33 »

socrates1998 wrote: post #36

Honestly, I think a bigger issue is what time we actually go to sleep. I think a lot professionals just don't get to sleep on time for the required 7-8 hours. If you get up at 6 or 7 in the morning, that means you are deep asleep by 10 or 11 pm. I just don't think a lot of sleep deprived people are doing that. At least that's alway been my experience.

This.

What's missing from this article, is a discussion about ideal sleep TIMES. Not everyone is meant to sleep from 10-6. Yes, you can fudge your sleep cycle and you can adjust, but only so much.

I'm naturally a night owl. With no alarm clock, and no obligations, I will "naturally" fall asleep at 3am, and wake up at 11.

In times of my life when I've been able to do this, the 8 hours that I would get then FAR TRUMPED the 8 hours I get now. It's night and day.

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#72

Post by vanderZwan »

rayiner wrote: post #52
viraptor wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of us have forgotten what it really feels like to be awake.” This may be one part of it. Some time ago, I'd definitely tell you I'm fine with little sleep. You can do it if you sleep very little every night. It's quite easy to adapt to, for example during university exam times But then after some years you realise you're not actually fine. You just don't remember how different is it to sleep longer. I'm still…

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...

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#73

Post by mercnet »

blrgeek wrote: post #3

Naps save me every time. Just when my work starts flagging and quality starts dropping, a 20min nap makes me feel almost as fresh as I am coming into the office in the morning. Most others at work feel awkward about taking naps - even with me evangelising naps :o)

When I was at my company's office in China, I envied my coworkers that took naps after lunch. They would just tilt their head back and relax/nap. I tried it but my head always falls forward waking me up.

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#74

Post by vanderZwan »

AhtiK wrote: post #53
japhyr wrote: post #50

I like to run long distances, half marathons and mountain runs. When I'm in shape, I can run reasonably fast; I can get close to 7-minute miles on hilly half marathons, and place in the upper quartile in mountain runs. I have gone through some times in life where it's been really hard to sleep properly. My kid is three years old now, and he still interrupts my sleep patterns. I'm a teacher, and I never sleep enough d…

Strangely I feel dizzy without alarm clock and it takes a bit too much time to get to high energy. With alarm clock there's a certain rush to jump into action. I wish I had the same rush without an alarm clock.

I know I'm going to state something obvious, but have you tried going to bed earlier?

I've honestly met people who try to get up earlier, but don't realize the easiest way to get up early (in the longer term, of course) is to catch sleep early.

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#75

Post by vanderZwan »

rubicon33 wrote: post #71
socrates1998 wrote: post #36

Honestly, I think a bigger issue is what time we actually go to sleep. I think a lot professionals just don't get to sleep on time for the required 7-8 hours. If you get up at 6 or 7 in the morning, that means you are deep asleep by 10 or 11 pm. I just don't think a lot of sleep deprived people are doing that. At least that's alway been my experience.

This. What's missing from this article, is a discussion about ideal sleep TIMES. Not everyone is meant to sleep from 10-6. Yes, you can fudge your sleep cycle and you can adjust, but only so much. I'm naturally a night owl. With no alarm clock, and no obligations, I will "naturally" fall asleep at 3am, and wake up at 11. In times of my life when I've been able to do this, the 8 hours that I would get then FAR TRUMPED…

> I'm naturally a night owl.

Many people are unnatural night owls, thanks to blue light sources in the evening - perhaps that applies to you too. Have you tried f.lux?

http://getflux.com/

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#76

Post by TylerE »

jonathanjaeger wrote: post #9

I would much rather have less sleep + a 15-20 minute nap in the evening than no nap and an extra 45 minutes sleep at night. Luckily at 7pm it's not hard to take a power nap at the office in the conference room on a bean bag chair. I wish most offices made it easier for people to take naps as it's proven productivity would rise.

I would much rather not be in the office at 7PM.

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#77

Post by [deleted] »

rubicon33 wrote: post #71
socrates1998 wrote: post #36

Honestly, I think a bigger issue is what time we actually go to sleep. I think a lot professionals just don't get to sleep on time for the required 7-8 hours. If you get up at 6 or 7 in the morning, that means you are deep asleep by 10 or 11 pm. I just don't think a lot of sleep deprived people are doing that. At least that's alway been my experience.

This. What's missing from this article, is a discussion about ideal sleep TIMES. Not everyone is meant to sleep from 10-6. Yes, you can fudge your sleep cycle and you can adjust, but only so much. I'm naturally a night owl. With no alarm clock, and no obligations, I will "naturally" fall asleep at 3am, and wake up at 11. In times of my life when I've been able to do this, the 8 hours that I would get then FAR TRUMPED…

[deleted]

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#79

Post by robg »

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.

Sure! It took me a decade as a neuroscientist to realize that sleep is the inverse of stress. That's physiologically speaking - stress is the sympathetic system; sleep is the parasympathetic system.

We're seeing a type of high stress sleep. We don't know what it means or why. But the aim is to continue to drill in - a kind of citizen science of how sleep and stress interact. What questions would folks what to see answered?

I discovered wearing our watch that naps are stress relieving for me. Others see the same effect during meditation, and I wonder if that too is a form of sleep, physiologically speaking.

EDIT: Since it got buried below, this study will turn out to be a huge inflection point in terms of how sleep is understood and taught. Sleep appears to wash away toxins that collect during the stressful day. Sleep seems to be a form of garbage collection. http://www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2013/ninds-17.htm

Re: Sleep as a Competitive Advantage

#80

Post by bonobo »

rqebmm wrote: post #34

Sleep and I have a rocky relationship. I'm terrible at falling asleep, and even worse at waking up, but boy have I learned to value it. I can't nap, because I literally can't sleep anything less than 4 hours. Friends and relatives have tried yelling/shaking/banging pots and pans, but the only thing that will wake me is cold water to the face. However, I've found taking a few moments to meditate can do wonders when I'…

I usually say that I don't have trouble sleeping, my trouble is with changing states :)

I seldom go to bed in time because I hate to lay there trying to get asleep. Wanting to make more use of my day also doesn't help; I don't get home before 7:30pm, and I don't want to just dine and go to bed...

Then comes the morning and I just can't wake up, even after 9, 10hs. I put my alarm clock far away from my bed because I used to just turn it off and keep sleeping. It doesn't help that much though: I "wake up", walk to it, turn it off and go back to under my sheets. "Wake up" as in I'm walking but I'm not totally conscious. It's like I'm drunk, I'll always find a nonsense reason to justify going back to bed, like "hell, I need to go back to my bed now, or it will get too light and float away"

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