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The myth of the eight-hour sleep

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep

#91

Post by rokhayakebe »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #27
mmwako wrote: post #2

Oh my God. This could change my life. One lifelong problem I've got is sleeping. I have great trouble falling asleep, and my sleeping patterns are very uncommon: some days I sleep 12 hours, some 5, but I'm usually very tired because of this. However, I used to think I had a "gift" of being really creative and having my best ideas just before sleep, just waking up, and during insomnia episodes. However, I've discovere…

You're definitely not alone. Extraordinary insight and creativity, rich, vivid, inspired and out-of-the-box thinking, are typical for "twilight" states, when you're floating between waking state and sleep; not fully awaken to the outside world, but not fully unconscious either. The only problem is replicating and maintaining these states. It is sometimes possible to remain fully aware in what is essentially a full-on…

It is sometimes possible to remain fully aware in what is essentially a full-on dream state

Lucid dreams. I get these quite often, sometimes with full control, most of the time you wake up as soon as you realize you have control.

Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep

#92

Post by lobotryas »

mmwako wrote: post #58
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're definitely not alone. Extraordinary insight and creativity, rich, vivid, inspired and out-of-the-box thinking, are typical for "twilight" states, when you're floating between waking state and sleep; not fully awaken to the outside world, but not fully unconscious either. The only problem is replicating and maintaining these states. It is sometimes possible to remain fully aware in what is essentially a full-on…

Thanks for the insight. As a matter of fact, I do meditate :) From my experience (nothing scientific), to replicate these states, what you need is to shut down your rational mind. You see, everyone has in there mind a small voice going "hey, I like this lamp" or "mmm I forgot to do something". This voice is your rational, conscious part of your "self". However, it's not your entire "self". Meditation aims at quieting…

That sounds pretty interesting. Any suggestion on books or ofher resources for peope new to meditation? How did you get started with meditation?

Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep

#94

Post by jfoldi »

VonLipwig wrote: post #42

I am really into 'do what works for you'. You may find that that sleeping in two 4 hour blocks changes your life. You feel alive! Alternatively you may find yourself more tired. Personally I like sleeping 8-9 hours a night. I find myself fairly alert a few minutes after I wake up and I can start my day. It certainly doesn't feel 'unnatural' to me. I am also a big fan of sleeping when other people sleep so I can enjoy…

You don't feel like you over slept after 9 hours of sleep?

Either way I have to agree with doing what works for you. I always made an attempt to sleep a full 8 hours and failed. I get by on 4-5 hours of sleep a night and feel fine!

Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep

#95

Post by giulivo »

Xurinos wrote: post #29

There is only one study in this article, and it involves how a group of people adapted to a 14-hour sleep pattern. Other than that, there are no studies of importance here, nothing that confirms concretely that this kind of segmented sleep is effective for humans. It is based on historical hearsay but cannot make a prescriptive judgment. The evidence purely anecdotal. Please be careful in reading things like this tha…

I'm going to say something not so geeky but I think babies also sleep in segments and for shorter periods. We mainly adapt their "natural" habits to the society we're living. Is it for the better or not, I don't know.

Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep

#96

Post by ramLlama »

jfoldi wrote: post #94
VonLipwig wrote: post #42

I am really into 'do what works for you'. You may find that that sleeping in two 4 hour blocks changes your life. You feel alive! Alternatively you may find yourself more tired. Personally I like sleeping 8-9 hours a night. I find myself fairly alert a few minutes after I wake up and I can start my day. It certainly doesn't feel 'unnatural' to me. I am also a big fan of sleeping when other people sleep so I can enjoy…

You don't feel like you over slept after 9 hours of sleep? Either way I have to agree with doing what works for you. I always made an attempt to sleep a full 8 hours and failed. I get by on 4-5 hours of sleep a night and feel fine!

My sleep patterns are a lot like the parent commenter. I usually sleep about 7 to 8 hours, but occasionally sleep 9 or so. Do I feel like I've overslept? Sure in that I've "lost" an hour or two that I could have used. But my body doesn't feel like it's overslept. When it does, it tells me. With a half day of headaches.

Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep

#98

Post by ramLlama »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #71
adavies42 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm basically immune to caffeine, afaict. i frequently come home late, drink a diet coke or whatever, and head straight to bed. i've gone back and forth between drinking a six pack of diet mountain dew a day and nothing and never noticed a difference. i can slam two bottles of Bawls (160mg) or eat 3 Fooshes ( http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/candy/6e27 , >300mg total) and still take (and want) a nap. if i gave mysel…

I doubt you're immune, just addicted. You say you can go a day without caffeine. I challenge you to go 3 days with absolutely no caffeine. Absolutely nothing, so no decaf, no chocolate. I bet it makes you feel horrible. If so, you're addicted, like the vast majority.

Not necessarily. When I was in high school, I drank between 4 to 6 cups of coffee a day. It never affected me. The reason for this is twofold: It's just part of the culture in my family in India, and I really liked the taste.

Fast forward a couple years and I am in college. I hate, absolutely detest the taste of any american coffee. I don't know what's missing, but I only enjoy coffee in India. I went from 4-6 cups a day to about 1 cup a week in a couple weeks. Nowadays, I don't drink much coffee at all, probably 2 or 3 cups a month at the most. But when I am in India, I drink as much as I can. :)

While the parent commenter may indeed be addicted, it's also possible that he is simply unaffected by caffeine. I certainly find that true for me.

Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep

#99

Post by japhyr »

freehunter wrote: post #87
japhyr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried this for one semester in college, and never went back to an alarm clock. I decided to face the risk of missing classes, exams, meetings, etc. The result? I got up 1-2 hours earlier most days than I did with an alarm clock. I have been living without an alarm clock for 20 years now; in that time I have overslept maybe 5 times, and on those occasions it was pretty clear that my body was fighting off sickness an…

I tried this, and I ran into a lot of difficulties. First, I assumed that I could go to bed whenever I wanted and I would wake up on time no matter what. This was not the case. Other times I would wake up on time but go back to sleep. And sometimes I just never woke up on time at all. This approach works for many (my grandfather used this his whole working life, but not for me, sadly.

Not setting an alarm made me more conscious of my decisions around sleep. If I had to get up at 5:15 for rowing practice, and I had an alarm set, I stayed up as long as I wanted and told myself the alarm would wake me up. When I got rid of the alarm clock, I could no longer fool myself, so I started keeping a more reasonable schedule.

The other thing that helped at first was repeating in my mind, in a relaxed way, what time I wanted to wake up. I found I'd wake up within a few minutes of the time I wanted to wake up, consistently. Our brains keep track of time, and to some degree it seems we can tap into that.

Re: The myth of the eight-hour sleep

#100

Post by ricardobeat »

will_lam wrote: post #97

This would be an interesting opportunity for Zeo or Fitbit to chime in on this if they were to mine their data, anonymize it and publish something about their users sleep patterns.

There are a few mobile sleep timer apps that could also contribute data.
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