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Engineering Sleep

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Re: Engineering Sleep

#81

Post by necovek »

ozozozd wrote: post #13
necovek wrote: post #2

How about — instead of making sleep more "efficient" — we engineer our lives to provide decent amount of sleep and not stress over having more and more of the waking hours to do stuff. After all, we live in the age of abundance . (Though I admit I might not be the best person to ask for this as I am on the lower end of how much sleep I need)

We could be sleeping less to do more fun stuff, no?

I never said we couldn't and I did not refer only to work: it's still the wrong goal in my mind.

"Fun" is usually defined as something providing instant gratification (through hormonal response), though there is fun in retrospect too ("I was scared like shit, that was fun"). And while it's nothing to sneeze at and we should always have some, you can achieve the similar with different medications or narcotics (if the goal is "have more fun").

But I wouldn't optimize for that: we can achieve plenty in our lives, including having plenty of fun, by just being ourselves.

As in, get the sleep you need. Do the work you must and the work you enjoy. Have the fun you want.

While our lifetimes are short, they are not that short. Even if we got 10% more of the waking hours, that won't be the thing that makes your life worthwhile or not. If you spent the other 90% making it worthwhile, that'll do.

But if you must, go for it!

Re: Engineering Sleep

#82

Post by necovek »

djtango wrote: post #15
ozozozd wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could be sleeping less to do more fun stuff, no?

Don't know why you got downvoted for this. My whole life I have been shaving my sleep time to try to cram more of what I want to do into my day. I used to wake up an extra couple of hours before school so I could squeeze in extra gaming time. On holiday I regularly sacrifice sleep to extreme levels to do more. This isn't some kind of box ticking behaviour with its roots originating from toxic hustle culture, simply t…

I hear you, but the thing is, what do you achieve by "cramming" more "doing" in? Do you also switch to those nutrient rich powder meals to save an extra hour or two prepping and eating food too?

Are not all of those things that could be optimized away an opportunity to let yourself feel, relax and simply be?

The examples you bring up (like waking early to do something for someone you care about) has nothing to do with the topic of engineering for consistently reduced sleep, imho.

Re: Engineering Sleep

#83

Post by JumpCrisscross »

makeitdouble wrote: post #78
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it not a survival advantage? “All organisms occupy a niche, and the better adapted to that niche, the more ‘fit’ and the more likely that organism will reproduce, passing on the characteristics that fit that particular niche. While we may simplistically think of each organism occupying a single niche, realistically nearly all occupy at least two. Daytime and nighttime are different and distinct niches, creat…

The night niche doesn't require artificial lighting though. Moonlight can be enough to have a decent understanding of one's surroundings, and then there's more than vision to navigate and be active. We wouldn't need a full species level evolution to be good at night life.

> Moonlight can be enough to have a decent understanding of one's surroundings, and then there's more than vision to navigate and be active

Decent for us. Great for our predators and prey.

> We wouldn't need a full species level evolution to be good at night life.

The point of the article, which granted is a hypothesis, is that the adaptations it would take to be good at night would make us no more than good during the day. Nature has clearly selected against jack of all trades species.

Re: Engineering Sleep

#84

Post by jlpom »

hgomersall wrote: post #14
worksonmymach wrote: post #5

Why is it not a survival advantage? Probably because we didn't work 18 hour days, the extra wakeness would just be used for rest. Night shifts that anyone can do are still needed if you need tribal watchers, and normal 8hr sleeping people can wake upnand fight when needed. In terms of the gene, I am suprised how rare it is (90 families?) given I have met someone who needs only 4hr sleep. Another point is less sleep d…

There's a plausible hypothesis that sleep is the thing that evolved precisely to stop us doing things for any more time than is strictly necessary. That is, sleeping is safe.

I don’t think any serious biologists agree with it. There is a hard physiological need to repair cellular damage from metabolism, UV (this a big deal in unicellular species), etc. If this theory was correct, and it is possible to do it entirely while awake, there would be species (apex predators in particular) that would have evolved without the need for it, like everything that is not a hard requirement. But this is not the case.

Re: Engineering Sleep

#85

Post by JumpCrisscross »

londons_explore wrote: post #73

It's notable that almost every animal sleeps in some way, even organisms that are away from sunlight (ie. creatures that live underground). If you sleep 30% of the time, that's 30% of the time you aren't eating, mating, etc. Also, during sleep you are more vulnerable to predators. One would expect evolution to get rid of sleep in creatures who don't rely on sunlight cycles. So, there must be some really good evolutio…

> during sleep you are more vulnerable to predators

Marine mammals sleep unihemispherally [1]. Land mammals can burrow, et cetera, which explains why predation and injury risk decrease during sleep. (Counterfactual: "large animals that are not at risk for predation, such as big cats and bears, can sleep for long periods, often in unprotected sites and appear to sleep deeply" (Id.).

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4948738/

[2] https://www.semel.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/publications/...

Re: Engineering Sleep

#86

Post by Aurornis »

stared wrote: post #44

> Familial Natural Short Sleep (FNSS), a benign mutation that allows them to sleep 1-2 hours less than the recommended 7-9 hours, without experiencing the negative effects of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is one concern, but there’s a more subtle impact on cognitive functions (working memory, creativity, deep focus), overall health (particularly the endocrine and immune systems), and long-term health outcomes…

> When I was younger, I was fascinated by various optimized sleep schedules.

I was also fascinated with alternate sleep schedules when I was younger. Some of the books and biohackers of the time made them sound like magical ways to get more hours out of the day.

Then every single experience report I found that was not coming from someone trying to sell me a book or get me to subscribe to their newsletter, YouTube, or other social media was extremely negative. Nobody who tried these had continued them very long. After going back to regular sleep schedules they felt significantly better. A common report was that they didn’t realize how badly sleep deprived they were until they stopped the alternate sleep schedule and went back to normal sleep.

A lot of the sleep biohacking reports follow a similar trend: People who try alternate methods of minimizing sleep don’t realize the negative effects until they quit. This is also true for people who rely on stimulants (caffeine or stronger) which mask feelings of sleep deprivation but can’t actually reverse the negative effects of sleep deprivation.

Re: Engineering Sleep

#87

Post by thelastparadise »

zkelvin wrote: post #75
exmadscientist wrote: post #30

Hey, discussion of orexin receptor stuff! As someone with clinically-diagnosed insomnia, I've been lucky enough to/unfortunate enough to have to try the orexin receptor antagonist sleep aids for a while. As recent, on-patent drugs, they are very, very expensive ($360/month was the number marked on the receipt slip, not that that means much in the US; I certainly wasn't paying that)... and they work. They really, real…

How long have you been taking them? I've heard that an almost universal side effect is terrifying night paralysis on occasion. Have you experienced that yet?

Yeah, this is is true. I've been taking for 3 months now --best consistent sleep of my life, but definitely occasionally the most terrifying sleep paralysis I've ever experienced, or even heard of.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but ~1-2 nights of absolute terror per week is totally worth it compared to how it used to be (getting maybe ~1 good night of sleep every couple weeks.)

Re: Engineering Sleep

#88

Post by bsamuels »

wslh wrote: post #71

COVID affected my sleep, but I wouldn't classify it as “long COVID” Does anyone have interesting insights or resources about this? I’ve found a references, but HN is one of the best resources to ask for this. It seems to improve over time, and I don't have any trouble napping during the day. However, my main issue is fragmented sleep: I wake up a few times at night but can fall back asleep easily. I used to sleep con…

had the same thing coincide with covid, but much harder to fall asleep once disrupted. Melatonin only seems to last for an hour or so, so I would take one to go back to sleep after a disruption

Re: Engineering Sleep

#89

Post by xandrius »

yapyap wrote: post #56

This paper totally ignores the human aspect of sleeping, there is a habit to it. If we were able to be awake 20 hours a day we may still be miserable because of factors like the sun being down for ane even longer time while we’re awake. I feel like this is one of those inane pursuits for productivity where that doesn’t fit at all, at least not for the thinking jobs. Maybe in a dystopia big companies like amazon would…

Many people spend a lot of time awake during the darker hours and not everyone is miserable. I actually enjoy both, so if I could operate 20h a day without any harm or loss, it would be a net win for sure (and I also love sleeping).

Re: Engineering Sleep

#90

Post by hgomersall »

jlpom wrote: post #84
hgomersall wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a plausible hypothesis that sleep is the thing that evolved precisely to stop us doing things for any more time than is strictly necessary. That is, sleeping is safe.

I don’t think any serious biologists agree with it. There is a hard physiological need to repair cellular damage from metabolism, UV (this a big deal in unicellular species), etc. If this theory was correct, and it is possible to do it entirely while awake, there would be species (apex predators in particular) that would have evolved without the need for it, like everything that is not a hard requirement. But this is…

There must far more to it than that. As soon as sleep is a thing, it can be optimised for different goals. Since animals have widely varying sleep requirements, there's clearly some evolutionary factor that influences sleep length.

That is, though sleep might have physiological requirements, it doesn't mean that the amount of sleep is not influenced by non physiological effects.

I'm constantly amazed by the ability of biologists to be amazed by the reach and ingenuity of evolution.

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