Summary:
The recent Time post titled "30 Crazy Things You Didn't Know About Sleep" (see http://time.com/70415/30-crazy-sleep-facts/) citing an advertisement from Sleepy's mattress retailer got me pondering about sleep, deprivation, and efficiency. I am consistently over-committing myself, as well as frequently procrastinating, and whenever it's time for something to give, it's almost always my sleep. I was the guy in high school that everyone hated because while they were all studying, I was hanging out, or volunteering with some cool project, or *cough* inebriated. I went to a magnet school with mandatory study hours, yet I made a point to never use them for studying. So when I still managed to pull off decent grades, I was despised unilaterally.
What my cohorts didn't know is that I was only sleeping about 3 hours per night, and regularly pulling all-nighters. Even to this day, I generally only reserve 4-5 hours of sleep for myself, and at 25, I am beginning to feel the effects. So when I learned from the Time posting that "'pulling an all-nighter' can reduce your capacity for studying and remembering new facts by 40%" I couldn't help but be intrigued.
Round 1:
I went digging and found a September 2013 blog post on US News and World Report by Steven Holbrook detailing what risks are involved in your up-all-night-long extravaganzas. The author starts with a familiar sounding story of his own all-nighter experience at University of Alabama that ended in oversleeping (and hence by the very definition, not an all-nighter), then launches into some "facts" about the effects that these binge sessions of wakefulness may have on you. Holbrook first tells us about an undergraduate study at St Lawrence University that showed students who frequently relied on all-nighters as a study method had an average GPA of 0.2 points lower than those who reported never having tried. Holbrook goes on to say that memory is worsened, study methods less effective, and strokes become more prominent with age for the sleep deprived sorts (although I must point out the causation-correlation fallacy here...). Nevertheless, in the presence of these "campus tales of yore" I demanded science. So my Quest in Defense of Sleeplessness continued ...
Round 2:
After following the source-chain through a couple of similar posts in the blogosphere, I finally chanced upon what may be the scientific root of all of these claims of the evils of sleep deprivation. It's a 20 page article based on a bunch of seemingly solid analysis on a 2007 research project published in Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment. The article was blissfully devoid of the logical fallacies of some of the other things I'd read (such as correlation fallacy, anecdotal bias, and bandwagon bias, among others). What first drew my eye was that the researchers differentiated between acute sleep deprivation (such as that which occurs during an all-nighter) and long-term sleep deprivation (such as what occurred during the last two months of Michael Jackson's life--see: http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/21/showbiz/jackson-death-trial/). Not too surprisingly, although finally validating all the claims, the researchers found that both long-term and acute sleep deprivation had negative impact on attention, working memory, long-term memory, and "other cognitive functions;" albeit long-term sleep deprivation seems to have markedly worse impacts.
So... go figure, my wife has been right all along. Now, if we can just convince all these banks of the world that they will actually optimize their investment by allowing 1st years to actually sleep a little more! -- That and physician residency programs...
Anyway, feel free to post any comments or personal stories as you see fit!
I think that a lot of analyst banking work can be done without full capacity/attention - probably not worth it for a bank to let its analysts get more sleep ha.
The sleep thing is an ongoing debate. Although I think it's generally agreed that sleep deprivation has negative long-term effects, I read an interesting article/study that seemed quite legitimate and claimed that 5 hours of sleep per night is actually better for you than 8, which I quote to my girlfriend every time she says I'm not sleeping enough haha.
I think the key is how much REM sleep you have, and you can be fully functional on just a couple of cycles I believe - no sleep expert by any means. Check out TIm Ferriss(?)' thoughts/writing on sleep - pretty interesting stuff.
this depends on your age, preference, and level of fitness. I slept 10-12 hours a night as a teenager, now I sleep 5.5-7.5 during the week and rarely more than 8-9 on weekends, but I know some people that cannot function on less than 9 (my girlfriend) and others who are fully functional after 4.
bottom line is, if you're consistently getting 4 hours of sleep a night, it will come back to bite you in the ass eventually.
Wow... didn't know that. Great info, thanks! As a side note, sleeping after being sleep deprived gets me some really intense dreams. Anyone else experience that?
During high school, I hardly slept. Maybe 5 hours a night or so (my all time 'record' was 6 or 7 hours for an entire 6 day span - hardly good for me). Now, I get around 5-7 hours a night and I'm fine. I'm usually pretty good off of 4 even, although I know that I'll tend to get grumpy later in the day. On the weekends, I'll get a bit more - maybe 8 or 9, but that's about it. I've never been one to sleep 12+hours like people I know [on the weekend, obviously!]
I think the hardest part about sleep studies is the control of the variables. For instance, at that college study - it could just be that some students had a poorer work ethic than others and therefore didn't do a great job on their assignments/studying and consequently had a lower GPA.
Either way - we definitely all need sleep. I'm just trying to defer it on to a later version of me :)
www.sleepyti.me - while there isn't a lot of conclusive science behind the whole 90 min sleep cycles, I do find when I wake up at a time suggested on there, I tend to wake up fully awake.
I am a notorious lover of all things sleep. I can pretty much fall asleep any where. In high school, I used to get incredibly sleepy so I would study in places/on surfaces where I couldn't possibly fall asleep. All came to a screeching halt when I fell asleep on a tarmac floor while attempting to revise in my garden. No where was anti-sleep for me.
I have come to the conclusion that my diet and lifestyle had a massive impact. I played high school rugby, soccer and football. If I wasn't in the gym, I was eating to bulk. Eating made me very tired. Now a days, with college football over for me, I can function well on 6 hours of sleep but do find myself going at around 8/9. Really does make me question my choice of careers but I figured that bar in Argentina isn't going to open it self. I will come back to this post in 5 years time and see how I have progressed. Takes before selfie
I sleep 5-6 hours/night usually without too many issues.
I am currently trying to train my body to sleep less, as I have averaged roughly 8 to 9 hours a night my entire life. I would like to get down to 6.5 to 7 hours a night without damaging my immune system. Does anybody have any suggestions or recommended methods?
I did the same thing. what worked for me was more cardio, drinking less alcohol during the week, and better diet. specifically for diet, I'd eat most of my carbs at dinner, instead of protein. I've read that high protein dinners will lead to sleeplessness, but everyone's body is different. I have a high metabolism so I can eat carbs at night and not gain an ounce, but my recommendation would just be have a balanced diet and play with it. the few truths across the board are eat your fruits & veggies and if you're trying to lose weight, watch your calories.
as for cardio, running & biking gets boring for me. swimming is fantastic (best sleep you'll ever get) but it's more time consuming. start doing circuit training, men's health has a free workouts app on iPhone, try the spartacus workout. also, when you're doing your own circuits, go hard for the whole thing, then rest until your heart rate gets down to 120-130bpm (assuming you're in your 20's).
it took me about 3-6 months to get used to it, but I now work 12 hour days on 6-7 hours of sleep and I have more energy than when I worked 9 hour days with 8 hours of sleep.
Do you do your cardio before or after work?
7-8 hours of sleep per night is what most people need. A small percentage of the population functions normally on 6 hours or less (lucky fucks).
Some recent developments show that a lack of sleep for an extended period of time may cause irreparable brain damage. The new belief is that sleep is when your brain cleans out all the toxins and bullshit that accumulates during the day (thus, brain activity doesn't decrease all that much at night). Can't remember where I read it - just stuck with me as sounding legitimate when I did.
Yeah... it is pretty great getting to use 18-20 hours each day for non-sleep activities! My wife needs 8-9, but I can get by on 5 for a long stretch without too many problems (probably due to the excessive coffee and Redbull... but hey, I like the edge...) Those extra 3 hours make a huge difference in how much I can get done in one day.
How does inebriated sleep play into this in the long term? We all may get more sleep on the weekends to make up for the week but are generally intoxicated when we fall asleep, and I know that affects REM.
I've never really done the whole all-nighter thing. I always try and make sure that I get around 6 hours of sleep. (Same goes for when I take my exam tomorrow morning) I function completely fine at 6, and have a bit better short term memory over the past few hours with 6 (often do best on my exams with this much), but with 8 I find that I am very alert although not always the top of my game. Sleep is odd haha
I was the same in high school. Played way too many games until 4am in the morning, and then woke up at 7am to go to school. Didn't do anything until the night before it was due, then pulled an all-nighter. I could handle it back then, and I had seemingly infinite energy. Did the same in college, although it was more like staying up until 5am and then waking at 9am.
And then I started work. And all of a sudden I was tired ALL THE TIME. If I don't get my 7 hours of sleep, I'm a groggy, whiny bitch. It's actually not so much the amount of sleep you're getting, but when you're waking up. Humans have sleep cycles of approximately 1.5 hours, so I try to time my sleep so I can wake up when I hit the 7.5 hour mark. Let's say, for example, you take a nap and wake up at 2.5 hours in, a full 30 minutes before your cycle completes. You're going to be super groggy because you woke up right when you were entering the deepest phase of your sleep. That said, it's better to get 4.5 hours of sleep and wake as your cycle completes vs. 5.5 hours of sleep when you're entering the deepest phase.
See: http://sleepyti.me/
bolded the parts you should keep, no need to thank me just pay it fwd
Why do we get to wake up later the older we get? School starts later as you get older and then you can take all evening classes in college if you want. Don't kids need more sleep than 20-year-olds?
I guess the argument is that kids should be going to bed earlier...
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