Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)(academic.oup.com)
academic.oup.com
Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)
https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article/47/1/zsad253/7280269
261 comments
That’s because this is in UK Biobank, a cohort of >500K Brits and collecting actually in such a large cohort is a miracle, let alone for multiple days. All thanks to the people who volunteered into the study. Would it be nice to have even more? Sure. But at that scale, patterns start to emerge.
An issue could be how people choose that week.
As you point out that's a multi day commitment, and if part of the volunteers either adjust the timing of the experiments to match specific weeks (e.g. parents choosing school vacations), or adjust their schedule accordingly, what is measured becomes fundamentally different in nature to what measuring longer periods would bring.
I'm with you on how we don't have a choice regarding to the quality of the study, it's just crazy hard to get any data at scale. But we can look at it as a very flawed "best of what we can do" and not take the patterns too seriously.
As you point out that's a multi day commitment, and if part of the volunteers either adjust the timing of the experiments to match specific weeks (e.g. parents choosing school vacations), or adjust their schedule accordingly, what is measured becomes fundamentally different in nature to what measuring longer periods would bring.
I'm with you on how we don't have a choice regarding to the quality of the study, it's just crazy hard to get any data at scale. But we can look at it as a very flawed "best of what we can do" and not take the patterns too seriously.
Note the study had 60977 samples, not >500K.
I was referring to the size of UK Biobank. Yes, only a fraction participated in actigraphy. The same is true of imaging, blood biomarkers, etc.
There’s a health research programme currently underway in the UK that’s looking to recruit up to 5 million people. I believe they’re currently at around the 1 million mark.
https://ourfuturehealth.org.uk/
https://ourfuturehealth.org.uk/
I almost volunteered for this but was concerned that they were liberally using the NHS branding to disguise that they’re private
Yes. Any statistics buffs here who can tell me:
Is 500k brits for 1 week as good as 5k brits for 100 weeks.
Effectively with so much data aren't you getting a superposition anyway.
Is 500k brits for 1 week as good as 5k brits for 100 weeks.
Effectively with so much data aren't you getting a superposition anyway.
A superposition of?
In statistical mechanics there's a concept of "ensemble average" and its provable that if you have a system, the average state of the system over say a 100 realisations ("ensemble average") run for 1 second each, is equal to the the average of one system run for a 100 seconds - under some assumptions of course.
I don't know enough a about human biology to make a statement about whether any of those assumptions will hold true, but maybe someone else will.
In statistical mechanics there's a concept of "ensemble average" and its provable that if you have a system, the average state of the system over say a 100 realisations ("ensemble average") run for 1 second each, is equal to the the average of one system run for a 100 seconds - under some assumptions of course.
I don't know enough a about human biology to make a statement about whether any of those assumptions will hold true, but maybe someone else will.
I would also say it's geospecific. Like if there is a nationwide trauma of sorts (politics, etc) it could influence a group to not be representative of the population at large.
That's not the scenario here. An ensemble average requires those 1 second periods to be randomly sampled from the overall runtime. You can't just measure the first second after starting for all samples, or even the 7th second after starting, and say anything statistically sound about the average of the whole runtime.
The weeks that were measured in this study were not random. How far from random is the big question.
The weeks that were measured in this study were not random. How far from random is the big question.
Humans age, so obviously not. Interesting analogy, though
I mean the data lacks any person's sleep history, but if there is a cohort of bad sleepers, as a group you get a collective pseudo-history (because altough study is done at the same time they are in different life stages) that is no-one's history but might track the average well for that cohort AND take into consideration more than a week.
In the similar way sampling the height of 1000 of 1M people will give you a good estimate of the average.
In the similar way sampling the height of 1000 of 1M people will give you a good estimate of the average.
And that's fair - it should just thoroughly be discussed and qualified not to release false research.
How is this false research? Most other studies rely on self-reported measures of sleep. This is using objective measures.
> It's hard to argue a causative effect between one week of bad sleep and death potentially 10+ years out.
Statistically—absolutely, I agree with you, but controls and sample sizes can always be improved.
Narratively—it's also not difficult to see: "gunk builds up in brain; gunk requires regular removal; sleep removes gunk; stable sleep removes gunk better than unstable sleep"
It's difficult to blame people for emotionally attaching more to the latter than the former.
Statistically—absolutely, I agree with you, but controls and sample sizes can always be improved.
Narratively—it's also not difficult to see: "gunk builds up in brain; gunk requires regular removal; sleep removes gunk; stable sleep removes gunk better than unstable sleep"
It's difficult to blame people for emotionally attaching more to the latter than the former.
It seems easier to see: "some people have lots of difficulties in their lives that makes them have an irregular sleep schedule; some people have lots of difficulties in their lives that makes them die early"
I agree - an obvious connection would be "Lower income jobs tend to have less control over their schedule", be it shift workers, hourly service jobs or similar. There also may be links to worse healthcare due to lack of insurance in those jobs.
It might just be another "Poorer people don't live as long" correlation.
It might just be another "Poorer people don't live as long" correlation.
The source data is from the UK so it has nothing to do with the health insurance attached to specific jobs. Healthcare is covered via general taxation in the UK.
Interestingly enough, even in countries with tax funded healthcare people with lower income and socioeconomic status tend to receive worse healthcare (fewer expensive interventions, etc).
I'm aware of the UK system, having been born and lived there for over 25 years :) I didn't note that the data was from UK persons, but the general point likely remains, if not as strongly.
While true health insurance isn't attached to jobs in the same way, there's still uneven access - the town I grew up in closed it's local surgery a decade or so ago, so it's about a 30 minute drive, or over 2 hours on a rather indirect bus. Not everyone has a car, or can afford to take pretty much an entire day off work to get there. Assuming you can actually get an appointment, too. Richer areas often are better served, and richer people have better access to transport and time flexibility.
And my job came with BUPA membership, which can also make some things easier, it's not the hard barrier to any care in the same way as the American system.
And while the paper said that it corrected for Socioeconomic status, knowing the /scale/ (and possible error) in that correction relative to the claimed meaningful difference would be useful in studies like this. It feels like the sort of correction should be detailed more than just saying they did it.
But I guess the paper isn't really claiming causation, merely correlation in that it's a predictor of mortality. Though many commenters here seem to assume.
While true health insurance isn't attached to jobs in the same way, there's still uneven access - the town I grew up in closed it's local surgery a decade or so ago, so it's about a 30 minute drive, or over 2 hours on a rather indirect bus. Not everyone has a car, or can afford to take pretty much an entire day off work to get there. Assuming you can actually get an appointment, too. Richer areas often are better served, and richer people have better access to transport and time flexibility.
And my job came with BUPA membership, which can also make some things easier, it's not the hard barrier to any care in the same way as the American system.
And while the paper said that it corrected for Socioeconomic status, knowing the /scale/ (and possible error) in that correction relative to the claimed meaningful difference would be useful in studies like this. It feels like the sort of correction should be detailed more than just saying they did it.
But I guess the paper isn't really claiming causation, merely correlation in that it's a predictor of mortality. Though many commenters here seem to assume.
They at least tried: "Results were adjusted for age, sex, ethnicity, and sociodemographic, lifestyle, and health factors."
I wonder if lifestyle or sociodemographic includes having specifically young children. That seems like a specific known temporary sleep disruption.
Interesting, I initially thought this factor was probably negligible, because the cohort was aged "62.8 ± 7.8 years" (either before or after the 7-year observation period). I still think it's small, but perhaps not negligible.
I estimate that some 2-4% of the group could be heavily involved in caring for grandchildren, sorting themselves into the irregular category. It's well-known that school-aged children pass flu to grandparents [2], and then grandparents die, just in time for the 7-year post-birth observation window. The absolute death rate due to flu is 10^-4 to 10^-3 per year, which would be visible on the paper's mortality time course chart.
Estimation details:
* some 20% are grandparents (and very few are parents) of young children [0] * 20-50% of grandparents care for grandchildren regularly [1]
So maybe 4-10% of the cohort as an upper bound. If the birth rate is 12 per 1000 per year, and babies cause sleep disruption for about two years to two persons, then that's about 4% also, but perhaps mostly not the same age group.
[0]: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5eeb975b86650...
[1]: https://www.ageuk.org.uk/latest-news/articles/2017/september...
[2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00255...
Going to sleep now.
I estimate that some 2-4% of the group could be heavily involved in caring for grandchildren, sorting themselves into the irregular category. It's well-known that school-aged children pass flu to grandparents [2], and then grandparents die, just in time for the 7-year post-birth observation window. The absolute death rate due to flu is 10^-4 to 10^-3 per year, which would be visible on the paper's mortality time course chart.
Estimation details:
* some 20% are grandparents (and very few are parents) of young children [0] * 20-50% of grandparents care for grandchildren regularly [1]
So maybe 4-10% of the cohort as an upper bound. If the birth rate is 12 per 1000 per year, and babies cause sleep disruption for about two years to two persons, then that's about 4% also, but perhaps mostly not the same age group.
[0]: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5eeb975b86650...
[1]: https://www.ageuk.org.uk/latest-news/articles/2017/september...
[2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00255...
Going to sleep now.
The cogort was 40-69 yo.
I am 40 and it's very common for people my age to be having babies. I would wild-ass guess that 10% of American 40-somethings have babies these days. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/motherhood-deferred-us-median-a...
Also: "people in poor health don't sleep well". That's really hard to fully control for, because a lot of problems will affect mortality at sub-clinical levels that don't satisfy diagnostic criteria and won't appear on your medical records.
I would presume that they somehow controlled for this most obvious confounding factor. almost every experiment I find that they are naysayers (as important as they are) that assume someone just simply plotted a chi-squared distribution.
> presume
Okay
Okay
The issue is that almost all human behavior is correlated and, even if you have an easy-to-see [sic] method of action, e.g. “brain gunk”, that doesn’t automatically negate a nearly-infinite set of other possible causes from correlated behavior. Just a random example: those with high stress probably sleep poorly. You can think of a number of possible explanations that link high stress to shorter lifespans: more likely to commit suicide, more fat retention, less time for healthy activities, etc.
Sure, but things that make narrative sense can easily fall down when examined - that's why the statistics are important and not just a rubber stamp. See for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean
No disagreement here, but equally you can't be surprised when people can grapple with the narrative easier than statistics. If you want the statistical understanding to propagate you need a narrative.
99% of people die from causes other than "brain gunk".
I think the parent is talking about Alzheimers, which is the accumulation of brain gunk.
Alzheimer's is the fifth-leading cause of death among Americans age 65 and older.
Alzheimer's is the fifth-leading cause of death among Americans age 65 and older.
Brain gunk could accelerate those causes, no?
Eh, you gotta be careful with One Weird Trick medicine.
Once you get past painfully obvious problems, everything not currently easily fixed by modern medicine tends to be "well it's really complicated" sets of problems; there's not one Cancer, your blood pressure can be elevated for many reasons, syndromes like chronic fatigue are almost certainly a mix of dozens of problems binned together by common symptoms but will have different causes and treatments.
Anyone saying they have one treatment to fix dozens of problems is a huckster, and trying to come up with a medical Theory of Everything to explain large swaths of disease is your origin story for how you become a huckster.
Once you get past painfully obvious problems, everything not currently easily fixed by modern medicine tends to be "well it's really complicated" sets of problems; there's not one Cancer, your blood pressure can be elevated for many reasons, syndromes like chronic fatigue are almost certainly a mix of dozens of problems binned together by common symptoms but will have different causes and treatments.
Anyone saying they have one treatment to fix dozens of problems is a huckster, and trying to come up with a medical Theory of Everything to explain large swaths of disease is your origin story for how you become a huckster.
The difference between panaceas and this is that the idea for extending life isn't to add something, but not to fuck an essential part of life.
If you think of life as the careful coordination of millions of parts, then there will be a million of things that if you fuck up you will die.
If you think of life as the careful coordination of millions of parts, then there will be a million of things that if you fuck up you will die.
Which is the model that matches acceleration of death rates as we age.
The reduction of death rates which is not due to panaceas but to fixing specific causes of death, one by one, yes.
I meant more like this: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7272078/
Like it breaks down at an exponentially increasing rate. Hard to keep up with that.
Like it breaks down at an exponentially increasing rate. Hard to keep up with that.
Oh interesting. Yes I agree that such a model of accumulating damage would show a logarithmic scaling with life expectancy.
...or those causes could accelerate brain gunk buildup.
"Obviously there's an implication that people with terrible sleep regularity in that one week snapshot had terrible sleep regularity chronically, which in turn had a causative effect on mortality"
You got it.
"but we have to make a couple of deductive jumps to get to that conclusion"
This is always the case unless you assume reality is as big as what you can perceive.
"I'd really like to see the same study with longer term sleep data."
You can say this of literally 100% of the studies, it will never be enough. I understand it when authors put this at the end of a study because they want more funding and because their subject is all they think about. But for reasonable human beings you gotta make a common sense jump and allocate resources to other subjects. Yes, regular sleep has good effects on health, the burden of proof of that was already 0, this study is a nice added touch, there will be no double dessert, move on.
You got it.
"but we have to make a couple of deductive jumps to get to that conclusion"
This is always the case unless you assume reality is as big as what you can perceive.
"I'd really like to see the same study with longer term sleep data."
You can say this of literally 100% of the studies, it will never be enough. I understand it when authors put this at the end of a study because they want more funding and because their subject is all they think about. But for reasonable human beings you gotta make a common sense jump and allocate resources to other subjects. Yes, regular sleep has good effects on health, the burden of proof of that was already 0, this study is a nice added touch, there will be no double dessert, move on.
Every deductive leap comes with uncertainty in establishing a causal chain. I don't I'm being overly reductive about the nature of evidence when I say that.
There is a specific question that needs to be addressed: With a one week window into sleep habits, are we selecting for people who are chronically poor sleepers, with those poor sleep habits leading to disease?
OR
Are we selecting for people who are chronically ill for other reasons and those chronic illnesses prevent them from getting regular sleep?
For example, people with sleep apnea have terrible sleep, and they have lower life expectancy than the general population. However, the cause of that lower life expectancy is not the poor quality of sleep; it's the cardiac effects of abnormal breathing over a long period of time.
If a person with decades of excellent sleep habits developed sleep apnea in the last 5 to 10 years of their life, the accelerometer will capture their irregular sleep and the death registry will capture their early deaths. That doesn't mean poor sleep habits killed them.
There are many other such chronic illnesses that can be confounded this way. Heart failure. Obstructive lung disease. Dementia. All can lead to irregular sleep. Add them together and you've captured a large segment of the population with ~10 years left to live.
The authors address this relationship in the conclusion and supplementary materials, but they appear to approach it entirely from the framework of poor sleep being causative of cardiovascular disease. Well yes, there's evidence that poor sleep can cause cardiovascular disease, but it's also well established (as I explained) that it can happen the other way around. If you want to cement a full chain of causality, you need a longer time window. Capture a young population with a low burden of chronic disease, show that poor sleep habits came first (i.e. within a certain age window), then cardiovascular disease, and then shorter lifespan. That would be the ideal data, even if difficult to acquire.
There is a specific question that needs to be addressed: With a one week window into sleep habits, are we selecting for people who are chronically poor sleepers, with those poor sleep habits leading to disease?
OR
Are we selecting for people who are chronically ill for other reasons and those chronic illnesses prevent them from getting regular sleep?
For example, people with sleep apnea have terrible sleep, and they have lower life expectancy than the general population. However, the cause of that lower life expectancy is not the poor quality of sleep; it's the cardiac effects of abnormal breathing over a long period of time.
If a person with decades of excellent sleep habits developed sleep apnea in the last 5 to 10 years of their life, the accelerometer will capture their irregular sleep and the death registry will capture their early deaths. That doesn't mean poor sleep habits killed them.
There are many other such chronic illnesses that can be confounded this way. Heart failure. Obstructive lung disease. Dementia. All can lead to irregular sleep. Add them together and you've captured a large segment of the population with ~10 years left to live.
The authors address this relationship in the conclusion and supplementary materials, but they appear to approach it entirely from the framework of poor sleep being causative of cardiovascular disease. Well yes, there's evidence that poor sleep can cause cardiovascular disease, but it's also well established (as I explained) that it can happen the other way around. If you want to cement a full chain of causality, you need a longer time window. Capture a young population with a low burden of chronic disease, show that poor sleep habits came first (i.e. within a certain age window), then cardiovascular disease, and then shorter lifespan. That would be the ideal data, even if difficult to acquire.
Too much word. Sleep good, regular sleep good. No more think, more do.
It is easy to say that good quality sleep is good for a person. But what if I literally never get that type of sleep. What should I do? How concerned should I be? How much focus and effort should I put into this? Should I take the Ambien I'm prescribed or should I try to go for the best natural path - because I really, really don't have good experience with Ambien. And it's almost like it's the best modern medicine can offer.
How to fix is an entirely different topic.
My bet is no drugs, and have faith in your agency.
My bet is no drugs, and have faith in your agency.
FWIW it’s mentioned in the study explicitly as a limitation:
> There are several limitations in this study. First, the single week of data collected for each individual provides only a snapshot of their sleep–wake patterns, and future work should collect sleep–wake data over a longer timeframe and include multiple weekend-weekday transitions. It is nevertheless interesting that even a snapshot of sleep behaviors is predictive of mortality for a follow-up period of several years.
> There are several limitations in this study. First, the single week of data collected for each individual provides only a snapshot of their sleep–wake patterns, and future work should collect sleep–wake data over a longer timeframe and include multiple weekend-weekday transitions. It is nevertheless interesting that even a snapshot of sleep behaviors is predictive of mortality for a follow-up period of several years.
The other problem is that irregular sleep may correlate with lower income, which correlates with a lot of things that lower life expectancy.
I would expect that P(bad sleep this week | bad sleep chronically) > P(bad sleep this week | not bad sleep chronically). It's a question of inferential power: what is the minimum detectable effect size with such an indirect measurement?
Yep, longer tracking period would better establish if consistent irregularity (or lack thereof) impacts mortality risk.
Another hypothesis that seems plausible to me is that what we’re really measuring when looking at sleep is mental health, and mental health is a strong predictor of mortality 10-15 years into the future.
You are already correct, but the actual factor here is trait Neuroticism (negative emotion personality dimension), which is very roughly speaking a combination of genetic factors and your ACE score. ACE score is shockingly good at predicting mortality, having one over 6 makes people die on average 20 years earlier.
Yeah that’s kind of what I’m after: ACEs mess up people’s sleep and cause early deaths. That makes sleep patters a strong predictor for all cause mortality, but the causal relationship is really ”ACEs cause both poor sleep and early death”.
I found the best way to ensure sleep regularity is by having a fixed wake-up time. If you don’t have one and you begin to set your alarm clock to early hours, the first weeks doing so will feel like hell. But eventually all will be worth it. The sleepiness during the day will disappear and, at night, your body will naturally want to get some rest early.
Another strategy is to fill your day with deep work and exercise, so as to ensure maximum tiredness at night.
Nowadays, my sleeping patterns are mostly regular thanks to these protocols. Every day about 9pm, I feel sleepy, and my bed begins to look very enticing. I follow this pattern for my daily well-being, but it’s nice to know it reduces my mortality risk, too.
Another strategy is to fill your day with deep work and exercise, so as to ensure maximum tiredness at night.
Nowadays, my sleeping patterns are mostly regular thanks to these protocols. Every day about 9pm, I feel sleepy, and my bed begins to look very enticing. I follow this pattern for my daily well-being, but it’s nice to know it reduces my mortality risk, too.
I think you have a key component in good sleep but there are 2 more imo.
The first is that phones and light break our natural sleepiness triggers and the second is that we don't exercise our bodies enough because of our sedentary lifetstyle.
I used to struggle with terrible insomnia and I still get bouts of it time to time but I've also found it's related to my laxing my 3 rules.
If I have a good workout about 5x a week, I turn off my phone and the lights 30 minutes before bed and take a good long shower in the dark and I have a regular alarm set at 7am that goes off 7 days a week, I'm almost guaranteed a good nights sleep every night. It also had the added affect of ridding me of my night terrors and sleep walking I used to have frequently but I'm 90% certain that was correlated to me using my phone in bed and it causing my brain to enter a weird state where it never really turned off.
The first is that phones and light break our natural sleepiness triggers and the second is that we don't exercise our bodies enough because of our sedentary lifetstyle.
I used to struggle with terrible insomnia and I still get bouts of it time to time but I've also found it's related to my laxing my 3 rules.
If I have a good workout about 5x a week, I turn off my phone and the lights 30 minutes before bed and take a good long shower in the dark and I have a regular alarm set at 7am that goes off 7 days a week, I'm almost guaranteed a good nights sleep every night. It also had the added affect of ridding me of my night terrors and sleep walking I used to have frequently but I'm 90% certain that was correlated to me using my phone in bed and it causing my brain to enter a weird state where it never really turned off.
I'm going to "yes, and" this with just one more thing that may seem obvious: almost any amount of alcohol is enough to throw that pattern out of whack.
The older I get the more reluctant I am to make the trade. Few glasses of wine with friends is hard to pass up though :)
The older I get the more reluctant I am to make the trade. Few glasses of wine with friends is hard to pass up though :)
I do none of those things and have great sleep.
Shutting off your phone and lights early is especially smart. It lets your mind and body transition smoothly into rest mode
I think it makes the biggest difference out of my habits. I kind of picked up on it when I realized that I never struggled to sleep when I went camping out in the woods. My body would instantly fall into sleepiness when it got dark out because I had no artificial light keeping me up as well as no easy access entertainment like TV
In these conditions, your body just knows when to shut down and recharge
I did that for years with jobs that required it and didn’t find that worked for me.
I think I effectively switched from a night owl to an early bird by having something I _really_ wanted to do in the morning that was actually physical (martial arts classes).
I remember the exact day my body switched - I was going in the early morning and my body was not approving of my initiative. Every morning was hell - but then one morning early spring we had a training outside - sunrise, early leaves on the trees in the park, we all got quite sweaty some of the guys started to take our tops off and it looked like a scene from a martial arts movie. I remember thinking this looks so cool - we’re training like our forefather used to.
Next day I woke up exact time I needed no grogginess whatsoever. Have been an early bird ever since, almost 10 years now.
I remember the exact day my body switched - I was going in the early morning and my body was not approving of my initiative. Every morning was hell - but then one morning early spring we had a training outside - sunrise, early leaves on the trees in the park, we all got quite sweaty some of the guys started to take our tops off and it looked like a scene from a martial arts movie. I remember thinking this looks so cool - we’re training like our forefather used to.
Next day I woke up exact time I needed no grogginess whatsoever. Have been an early bird ever since, almost 10 years now.
Older people tend to get up earlier. There is a special place in hell for the Baby Boomers who insisted on a 7:30 start time for our office (though, of course, as the guy who opened every morning, I had to be there earlier). The anxiety that I developed went away when I left and could get up when I wanted to. There are many, many monrings where I lie in bed at 7:30 and think, "I would have had to be a Bukowski quote by now."
That’s a bummer! Have you found out why that didn’t work? Perhaps something like caffeine or allergies was interfering with your sleep?
If haven’t found out, I wholly recommend doing a sleep study if you can. It can shed some light on any obstacles you may be experiencing. I’ve never done one myself, but I know people who got enduring benefits from the insights of their studies.
If haven’t found out, I wholly recommend doing a sleep study if you can. It can shed some light on any obstacles you may be experiencing. I’ve never done one myself, but I know people who got enduring benefits from the insights of their studies.
In my case it's probably a combination of undiagnosed ADHD and "revenge bedtime procrastination".
Came here to post this. I remember once when going back on ADHD meds, a very smart doctor adding 5mg of Dexedrine. At 5pm.
I asked him why he would prescribe a stimulant so late in the day. His reply was simply "it's so you can think of one thing instead of all the things".
Worked for me.
I asked him why he would prescribe a stimulant so late in the day. His reply was simply "it's so you can think of one thing instead of all the things".
Worked for me.
It doesn't work because I fall asleep easily in the early evening or the early morning, and not so much between them. It's not affected by seasonal light, caffeine, exercise, etc. I've never considered a sleep study because once I'm asleep I'm usually fine.
[deleted]
For people failing for a long time at fixed wake-up schedules or still feeling like shit after months of doing it: giving up is fine, and it frees you to explore what works for you.
It might change depending on the seasons, and you might more or less sleep depending on what you're doing at that time.
Waking up at the same damn hour everyday to deal with my kid's school was an utter pain for years, and I got in a better health and shape once I could adjust depending on my daily condition.
It still have a set of fixed alarms, but regularly ignore the first ones as needed, and only wake no-matter-what for the last one for my job. I heard from other coworkers doing the same, and it was a game-changer for most of us.
It might change depending on the seasons, and you might more or less sleep depending on what you're doing at that time.
Waking up at the same damn hour everyday to deal with my kid's school was an utter pain for years, and I got in a better health and shape once I could adjust depending on my daily condition.
It still have a set of fixed alarms, but regularly ignore the first ones as needed, and only wake no-matter-what for the last one for my job. I heard from other coworkers doing the same, and it was a game-changer for most of us.
> For people failing for a long time at fixed wake-up schedules or still feeling like shit after months of doing it: giving up is fine, and it frees you to explore what works for you.
Another piece of anecdata from someone who used to be like this for years. I first noticed that regular alarm sounds annoyed me and eventually I would get used to turning it off and going back to sleep (that is until I HAVE to wake up). I then figured that if I set up an alarm with a song that I like, it would make waking up more enjoyable. Which I eventually did. The first few weeks, I enjoy waking up and in a sense look forward to it, but after a certain amount of time not only I get used to it and the cycle continue, but I also can't stand that song anymore (RIP rolling in the deep, chainsmoking, ...). I randomly stumbled upon the app sleep for Android that has a feature I didn't know I needed, putting a playlist as an alarm sound (I shuffle it of course). Now every morning, waking up is an adventure, and more often than not I end up singing along. Now months in, I haven't failed to wake up even once. And I don't have any alarms on Sunday, yet I still wake up without it.
That is with the caveat that I know I need between 7:30 and 8h of sleep, and I stop all screens by 10 (night time feature of Android is very helpful in this regard). Except my ebook reader than I use without backlight.
Another piece of anecdata from someone who used to be like this for years. I first noticed that regular alarm sounds annoyed me and eventually I would get used to turning it off and going back to sleep (that is until I HAVE to wake up). I then figured that if I set up an alarm with a song that I like, it would make waking up more enjoyable. Which I eventually did. The first few weeks, I enjoy waking up and in a sense look forward to it, but after a certain amount of time not only I get used to it and the cycle continue, but I also can't stand that song anymore (RIP rolling in the deep, chainsmoking, ...). I randomly stumbled upon the app sleep for Android that has a feature I didn't know I needed, putting a playlist as an alarm sound (I shuffle it of course). Now every morning, waking up is an adventure, and more often than not I end up singing along. Now months in, I haven't failed to wake up even once. And I don't have any alarms on Sunday, yet I still wake up without it.
That is with the caveat that I know I need between 7:30 and 8h of sleep, and I stop all screens by 10 (night time feature of Android is very helpful in this regard). Except my ebook reader than I use without backlight.
Finding what feels natural can sometimes be a matter of listening to those instincts rather than pushing against them
That method nearly wrecked my life and didn’t change my sleep patterns
I agree with this except for the early part. At least personally waking up at about 8 works for me, that way I’m not waking up before sunrise in winter which makes me unhappy quite reliably.
A lot of people are weirdly proud of how early they wake up, and I’ve literally been shamed for waking up late, called lazy etc in a casual sense but that’s nonsense. I just work later.
A lot of people are weirdly proud of how early they wake up, and I’ve literally been shamed for waking up late, called lazy etc in a casual sense but that’s nonsense. I just work later.
One thing I've done is create a "color clock" using a smart bulb that changes color based on a daily schedule.
So at 8:00pm the bulb has a dim orange glow, this changes to dim red glow at 9pm and then turns off at 10pm (sleep time).
Its a really nice relaxing way of ensuring a regular sleep pattern (no longer clock watching etc).
Get a german shepherd dog. They will wake you up at the same time everyday whether you like it or not.
I don’t know about a German shepherd dog specifically. But my experience with dogs is that they will wake me up whether I like it or not… whenever they feel like it, even in the middle of the night. That can be severely disrupting.
Haha, so true—whether it’s a German Shepherd or a cat, you’re definitely getting a "reliable alarm clock" that doesn’t care about weekends or your sleep schedule!
Alarms aren't foolproof though. I often shut them off in my sleep or sleep through them, so I have to keep the phone on the other side of the room AND change the alarm every week or two to prevent adaptation, and that still doesn't help if I can't fall asleep for whatever reason and end up sleeping through due to sheer exhaustion. What I've found that actually works well is alcohol; if I'm not tired at sleep-time, take a swig of 130 proof absinthe and I'll be asleep before long.
> What I've found that actually works well is alcohol; if I'm not tired at sleep-time, take a swig of 130 proof absinthe and I'll be asleep before long.
I’d be wary of relying on alcohol to sleep, because the relaxation that it offers is somewhat distinct from a good night’s sleep.
Alcohol has been known to disrupt “REM sleep”, thus making your sleep phases inconsistent. In the long run, it might leave you with even poorer sleep quality.
I’d be wary of relying on alcohol to sleep, because the relaxation that it offers is somewhat distinct from a good night’s sleep.
Alcohol has been known to disrupt “REM sleep”, thus making your sleep phases inconsistent. In the long run, it might leave you with even poorer sleep quality.
I set an additional alarm one hour before I need to wake up specifically so that I can get the feeling of going back to sleep. It has really helped.
I have found that vibrating alarms on wrist watches to be very effective. For over 5 years I've been setting a vibration alarm on my watch and another backup alarm on my phone. I never slept through the vibration alarm. Granted YMMV
Sleep for Android has some neat modes to try to prevent this. Even just the fact it colours the snooze button green and the dismiss button red is incredibly thoughtful and works well. My just woken up brain can somehow understand "red bad". If you're on iOS the alarms are caveman style. My partner sets like 20 alarms on her phone, it's hilarious.
Just here to confirm. I have facetime setup at 5am in the morning with my family across the pacific. I've also started to exercise regularly. It's been 2 months and my sleep pattern is exactly like yours, and I feel exactly like you do.
I do a version of this where what I have is a fixed wake-up time WINDOW.
The window is 90m, to account for 90m sleep cycle. I set the alarm to whichever multiple of 90 falls within the wake up window.
As a result, I sleep somewhere with 7h to 7h30 consistently, with the odd ~6h sleep day or ~9h in special circumstances (being sick).
The window is 90m, to account for 90m sleep cycle. I set the alarm to whichever multiple of 90 falls within the wake up window.
As a result, I sleep somewhere with 7h to 7h30 consistently, with the odd ~6h sleep day or ~9h in special circumstances (being sick).
There's an Android app called "Sleep" where you set an alarm window and put your phone on the corner of your bed, and the alarm only goes off when it detects you're a little active already and not in deep sleep (using the accelerometer to detect movement). If it doesn't detect enough activity it'll go off regardless at the end of the window.
It has a bunch of other features as well (rating how well you slept and detecting patterns to give advice, a snore detector, etc) but that alarm is the one I use it for.
It has a bunch of other features as well (rating how well you slept and detecting patterns to give advice, a snore detector, etc) but that alarm is the one I use it for.
Most people have to wake up at a fixed time for work and school their entire lives. I don't think that's what sleep hinges on, else everyone would have good regularity and we'd take it for granted.
It's your behavior and attitude towards going to bed.
It's your behavior and attitude towards going to bed.
I do much better with no alarm clock and being in situations where i don’t need one. Allowing myself to naturally wake up and being in situations where variable times to naturally wake up are ok are very much better for my brain and overall health.
This is a fantastic way to give yourself an early heart attack.
I think a solid rhythm is important!
what helped me was to use an alarm clock.
but to go to sleep!
but to go to sleep!
In my case, having a bedtime alarm would only leave me anxious and frustrated if I went to bed and failed to sleep at that time.
But I have tried something similar: setting an alarm to decompress before sleeping. No phone, no TV — just some quiet music playing or some books to read.
I still set this night alarm, but it is much easier to ignore it than to ignore my body’s natural tendency to lose steam after waking up early and having done so much during the day.
But I have tried something similar: setting an alarm to decompress before sleeping. No phone, no TV — just some quiet music playing or some books to read.
I still set this night alarm, but it is much easier to ignore it than to ignore my body’s natural tendency to lose steam after waking up early and having done so much during the day.
actually, I should correct my comment. Not alarm! but notification.
What helped was notifications leading up to bedtime. two hours, one hour 30 minute, "get to sleep". It sort of gives you context to wind down.
What helped was notifications leading up to bedtime. two hours, one hour 30 minute, "get to sleep". It sort of gives you context to wind down.
for me the best way is to not worry about sleep at all. After many decades of abusive relationship with sleep. I've had enough. If it comes it comes, if not then thats ok too.
I stop reading this 8 hr nonsense or fearing an early death from not sleeping. whatever.
I stop reading this 8 hr nonsense or fearing an early death from not sleeping. whatever.
Have you ever heard the saying “correlation is not causation” ? Couldnt it be that you already had a good enough health to push you to adopt a better sleep schedule ?
I wonder how this translates if the irregularity is by choice. I can certainly see why people working back to back night and day shifts, or otherwise frequently being at a sleep debt that was compensated for later, would die younger.
But as a freelancer, my sleep schedule is more or less my own. I go to sleep when I'm tired and usually try to sleep as long as I want to. Sometimes that's 11pm-10am, sometimes 6am-11am. It can oscillate throughout the week, but I try to average 16 hours of sleep in any given 48 hour period.
Maybe this is incredibly unhealthy, but I've believed for a long time that it's kept me younger and healthier than being forced into a sleep rhythm that isn't what my body wants.
But as a freelancer, my sleep schedule is more or less my own. I go to sleep when I'm tired and usually try to sleep as long as I want to. Sometimes that's 11pm-10am, sometimes 6am-11am. It can oscillate throughout the week, but I try to average 16 hours of sleep in any given 48 hour period.
Maybe this is incredibly unhealthy, but I've believed for a long time that it's kept me younger and healthier than being forced into a sleep rhythm that isn't what my body wants.
As someone whose natural sleep cycle seems to be closer to 26-28 hours, and whose preferred sleeping hours in a 24-hour cycle are 6am to 2-3pm... I commend you.
Sincerely, someone forced into a "normal" schedule by kids school start times and, well, everything else too, I suppose.
Sincerely, someone forced into a "normal" schedule by kids school start times and, well, everything else too, I suppose.
Hah. I've often thought that my actual rhythm is for a 25-26 hour day. I was going to write that but it seemed like too much to explain. As I go to bed later and later, eventually I find myself awake past sunrise, which is usually the day when I'll intentionally have a short sleep and snap back to an early bedtime that night.
Kids would definitely screw up this aspect of my lifestyle lol. But kids give you immortality, and here I am just wondering if I'm gaining or losing a couple years.
Kids would definitely screw up this aspect of my lifestyle lol. But kids give you immortality, and here I am just wondering if I'm gaining or losing a couple years.
Just as a secondary data point. Without medication I have about a 32:12 hour cycle. Up for at least 30 hours and sleeping for about 12. I can function on 5 but I'm grumpy about it for a while. Always been that way. Completely inverted as well. Up all night and my body tries to convince me to sleep during the day but I'm just not able to for another twelve hours.
I got fired from several jobs because of it. My folks weren't understanding so I genuinely believed that I was willingly staying up and well... Needless to say I have no professional network and most of my friends thought I was a massive flake and those connections fell apart, too. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Even diagnosed with insomnia I still feel massive guilt about not being able to sleep like a normal person. I just ruin everyone's plans around me. If I need to be up I have to hope my medication works (when employed) and if it does I need an hour to wake up enough to feel safe doing anything major like cooking or driving.
Sorry for the ramble. Appropriately I've been up for like 34 hours and am hoping these OTC meds kick in.
Hope y'all have a great weekend.
I got fired from several jobs because of it. My folks weren't understanding so I genuinely believed that I was willingly staying up and well... Needless to say I have no professional network and most of my friends thought I was a massive flake and those connections fell apart, too. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Even diagnosed with insomnia I still feel massive guilt about not being able to sleep like a normal person. I just ruin everyone's plans around me. If I need to be up I have to hope my medication works (when employed) and if it does I need an hour to wake up enough to feel safe doing anything major like cooking or driving.
Sorry for the ramble. Appropriately I've been up for like 34 hours and am hoping these OTC meds kick in.
Hope y'all have a great weekend.
Hey, I feel that. Lots of people think I'm a flake. And I use the word "inverted" frequently to describe my state to my friends/girlfriend/clients when it gets too far outside social norms ;)
Just a piece of unsolicited advice: I learned to make a virtue out of it. I'm a solo software dev and I have to maintain big pieces of code that run 24/7. Well, my virtue is that I've been available 24/7 to my clients for the last 20 years. And one of the results of that has been that they've never abandoned me and gone to larger companies to deal with software issues. My own schedule is so variable, it doesn't really matter if I'm asleep or awake or what time zone they're in; if it's not urgent, it goes into my inbox, but if it's urgent, I usually answer the phone immediately. Part of this has been adding layers of support forms so I don't have to wake up to every phone call. But the people who have my cell number get through right away.
The result of that is that I basically get paid $300 every time I have to wake up, which is soul-soothing enough to prevent me from being angry. And the rest of the time I can sleep whenever I feel like it.
Being on a 32:12 hour cycle could have massive rewards. Clients are extremely appreciative, especially if you break your sleep for something important. Like, don't be afraid to tell your clients about your sleep cycle. Getting through admitting that was probably the biggest breakthrough of my career. My girlfriend loves that I'm still up working and make her breakfast at 4am when she's headed for work some days, or make her dinner when she comes home at night others. It's always a surprise, I tell her. You just have to find people who appreciate the energy you bring.
Yes, the "straight world" of people with 9-5 jobs and kids absolutely abhors this lifestyle and thinks it's irresponsible and flakey. But then again, they don't get paid $300 for waking up in the middle of the day ;) My friends (and girlfriends) are lyft drivers, waiters, coders, night shift workers, and other people who spurn daylight society. We are legion.
Just a piece of unsolicited advice: I learned to make a virtue out of it. I'm a solo software dev and I have to maintain big pieces of code that run 24/7. Well, my virtue is that I've been available 24/7 to my clients for the last 20 years. And one of the results of that has been that they've never abandoned me and gone to larger companies to deal with software issues. My own schedule is so variable, it doesn't really matter if I'm asleep or awake or what time zone they're in; if it's not urgent, it goes into my inbox, but if it's urgent, I usually answer the phone immediately. Part of this has been adding layers of support forms so I don't have to wake up to every phone call. But the people who have my cell number get through right away.
The result of that is that I basically get paid $300 every time I have to wake up, which is soul-soothing enough to prevent me from being angry. And the rest of the time I can sleep whenever I feel like it.
Being on a 32:12 hour cycle could have massive rewards. Clients are extremely appreciative, especially if you break your sleep for something important. Like, don't be afraid to tell your clients about your sleep cycle. Getting through admitting that was probably the biggest breakthrough of my career. My girlfriend loves that I'm still up working and make her breakfast at 4am when she's headed for work some days, or make her dinner when she comes home at night others. It's always a surprise, I tell her. You just have to find people who appreciate the energy you bring.
Yes, the "straight world" of people with 9-5 jobs and kids absolutely abhors this lifestyle and thinks it's irresponsible and flakey. But then again, they don't get paid $300 for waking up in the middle of the day ;) My friends (and girlfriends) are lyft drivers, waiters, coders, night shift workers, and other people who spurn daylight society. We are legion.
I appreciate it. The issue I have is that while clients love being able to get a hold of me out at all hours my employer fires me for being five minutes late.
I use the term inverted to describe my circadian rhythm but people who don't see me physically suffer from being awake for days don't get it. My folks think I'm making it up and my friends get it but also don't.
I use the term inverted to describe my circadian rhythm but people who don't see me physically suffer from being awake for days don't get it. My folks think I'm making it up and my friends get it but also don't.
For a bit of alternate perspective, I had a happy life until a night shift worker moved in next to me, and began setting off alarms, cooking and leaving at variable times while experimenting with their sleep. They explained how they could sleep through everything. Completely oblivious to why the building wanted them to leave(I'm not saying this is the same for you).
Maybe that is what this study is capturing.
Maybe that is what this study is capturing.
I lived in an apartment and with my grandparents as an early adult. I do my best to keep all my noises down to a minimum and I live in my own home. When I get new speakers I walk the perimeter to see the levels I can set it to without it being heard. I've got good hearing, though, as a result. My televisions and computers are constantly at single digit volume levels.
I can't imagine subjecting anyone to disturbances while sleeping.
Unfortunately, while I'm medicated I can't help sleeping through alarms so my last partner refused to cohabitate at night. I understood but it didn't help things.
I can't imagine subjecting anyone to disturbances while sleeping.
Unfortunately, while I'm medicated I can't help sleeping through alarms so my last partner refused to cohabitate at night. I understood but it didn't help things.
Have you tried magnesium l-threonate, sub-milligram melatonin, or CBN? The first two have been very effective for me and the latter seems promising, but I don’t have that much trouble getting to sleep so I’m curious if they’re effective for someone with real difficulties.
I take 1mg melatonin and at no less than 50mg doxy succinate a night to try to sleep. Maybe a few days every few weeks it just won't work so I'm stuck being awake for hours while feeling super tired and groggy and then I'll be awake again the next night like I got a full night's sleep.
I have no idea what CBN is. Not intentionally tried the magnesium but I can keep an eye out. I'm between jobs so I can't really afford to get up and buy things too often but I'll add it to my list to look for.
I have no idea what CBN is. Not intentionally tried the magnesium but I can keep an eye out. I'm between jobs so I can't really afford to get up and buy things too often but I'll add it to my list to look for.
IIRC first generation antihistamines are not good for your brain when taken chronically in higher doses, I would definitely look into those effects.
CBN is a federally legal cannabinoid that is reportedly pretty good for sleep, not causing intoxication or interfering with REM like THC does.
I have not tried it, although I do regularly use THC (also not good for the brain) for sleep that, along with a meal, reliably gets me asleep very quickly, although unfortunately without noticeable dreams and with a distinct laziness in the morning, but with these negatives somewhat mitigated when magnesium l-threonate is added.
CBN is a federally legal cannabinoid that is reportedly pretty good for sleep, not causing intoxication or interfering with REM like THC does.
I have not tried it, although I do regularly use THC (also not good for the brain) for sleep that, along with a meal, reliably gets me asleep very quickly, although unfortunately without noticeable dreams and with a distinct laziness in the morning, but with these negatives somewhat mitigated when magnesium l-threonate is added.
Oh, I'm definitely less sharp than I was ten years ago. I struggle with learning new info now. Unfortunately, $10 a month to sleep is affordable. I will look at CBN but CBD doesn't really move the needle much for other issues. I'll check it out all the same. Anything I can do to be rid of them would be great. I've got a prescription for sleep aids but without a job I don't have health insurance and thus cannot afford it. I don't qualify for low income programs, either, so I'm just screwed. Mess with my brain so I can function or be a zombie over half of my waking period.
Sorry that that’s the situation you’re dealing with. Yeah CBN seems to be about 2-3x that price, although there is a tincture[0] from harbor city hemp that contains 600 standard doses for $80, but that would be absurd to get without experiencing efficacy first. There’s a small chance a local smoke shop or hemp shop (will have more reliable/safe products than former) would have something for a better price. You’ve probably already done this, but pharmacies offer various discounts that you could ask about as well.
https://harborcityhemp.com/product/ultra-potency-cbn-tinctur...
https://harborcityhemp.com/product/ultra-potency-cbn-tinctur...
I do appreciate the information. I cannot afford the doctor's visit much less prescription even with a discount. This is what my country wants for me so I'll just deal until I am productive enough to deserve healthcare again.
Experiments where people aren't told what time it is end up with them gravitating towards a 25-26 hour day. So you're totally normal.
Wikipedia [0] criticises these experiments and says they didn't account for electric light, which apparently lengthens the cycle. So to rephrase, people with any access whatsoever to electric light favour a 25-26 hour day. You're still totally normal, but it explains you may have better outcomes with annoying interventions like "no artificial light in the last few hours of the evening".
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm
Wikipedia [0] criticises these experiments and says they didn't account for electric light, which apparently lengthens the cycle. So to rephrase, people with any access whatsoever to electric light favour a 25-26 hour day. You're still totally normal, but it explains you may have better outcomes with annoying interventions like "no artificial light in the last few hours of the evening".
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm
I actually experimented with that. I allowed myself two candles, which I found was enough to read by and plenty for navigating my house.
Soon, all night time electric lighting seemed batshit crazy. Dozens of times too bright. Of course we all can’t fucking sleep. It’s so wildly much brighter than necessary.
I gave it up after a few weeks because it’s pretty much impossible to keep up if you’re ever around other people in the evening (and I have a family, so…) and they’re not entirely on-board, or just need to get stuff done at night because life is busy (again: I have a family) and everything about modern scheduling and activities assumes you can do things for hours after sun-down.
But, the experience did convince me that 95% of “night owls” and serious trouble sleeping are just the obvious and natural consequence of crazy-bright nighttime lighting and hyper-stimulating electronic home entertainment (which all also emits light, so I was shunning that stuff after dark too during my experiment). We have a sleeplessness epidemic? Gee I wonder if it’s because we light up our houses like a carnival and then put a world’s fair x100 at our finger tips. Like, yes, of course it’s that.
I’ve since discovered that low-dose weed gummies also get the job done with no side effects (aside from allowing me an hour or so of giggly TV watching right before bed, if I want it—oh no, what a tragedy), for me, and are far more compatible with modern life. Kinda lame to have to medicate my way out of the human body and mind of course not being able to cope with what we all do to them after dark, through.
I’ve used the analogy on here before, but imagine some 18th century emperor or king complained to his physician that he’d been lighting up his palace and grounds every night as bright possible and hosting a weeks-long 24/7 festival featuring the world’s finest entertainers (including the rather lewd sorts), intellectuals, travelers and philosophers, jesters and players, and, well, for some reason he’s having trouble falling asleep at a decent hour. LOL fucking yeah, dude, no wonder.
But we do that and then go “man I wonder if maybe I need a better pillow or to get more vitamin D” or whatever. Seriously?
Soon, all night time electric lighting seemed batshit crazy. Dozens of times too bright. Of course we all can’t fucking sleep. It’s so wildly much brighter than necessary.
I gave it up after a few weeks because it’s pretty much impossible to keep up if you’re ever around other people in the evening (and I have a family, so…) and they’re not entirely on-board, or just need to get stuff done at night because life is busy (again: I have a family) and everything about modern scheduling and activities assumes you can do things for hours after sun-down.
But, the experience did convince me that 95% of “night owls” and serious trouble sleeping are just the obvious and natural consequence of crazy-bright nighttime lighting and hyper-stimulating electronic home entertainment (which all also emits light, so I was shunning that stuff after dark too during my experiment). We have a sleeplessness epidemic? Gee I wonder if it’s because we light up our houses like a carnival and then put a world’s fair x100 at our finger tips. Like, yes, of course it’s that.
I’ve since discovered that low-dose weed gummies also get the job done with no side effects (aside from allowing me an hour or so of giggly TV watching right before bed, if I want it—oh no, what a tragedy), for me, and are far more compatible with modern life. Kinda lame to have to medicate my way out of the human body and mind of course not being able to cope with what we all do to them after dark, through.
I’ve used the analogy on here before, but imagine some 18th century emperor or king complained to his physician that he’d been lighting up his palace and grounds every night as bright possible and hosting a weeks-long 24/7 festival featuring the world’s finest entertainers (including the rather lewd sorts), intellectuals, travelers and philosophers, jesters and players, and, well, for some reason he’s having trouble falling asleep at a decent hour. LOL fucking yeah, dude, no wonder.
But we do that and then go “man I wonder if maybe I need a better pillow or to get more vitamin D” or whatever. Seriously?
Weed gummies used to work like a charm for me, up until my late 30s, but in the past few years even the low-THC ones leave me extremely groggy the next day. Although I get a great sleep, it isn't worth it anymore for how long it takes me to come back to full function. I keep them around for emergencies when I need to go to sleep.
I keep my lights very low in the hours before I go to bed, and use candles, and mostly read books rather than electronic devices. But one thing I'd point out is that - I live fairly far north. At this time of the year, there is very little direct sunlight at all. Whole days can be as dark as 6am, and the sun will be setting before 5pm soon. There is a balance, in the winter, when without bright electric light you could never really wake up. And sometimes it feels like living on a space station, because if you're a night owl that's the only light you get. I've had modestly good results from using a "happy lamp" during the darkest days. Just pointing out that - although I agree with you about clamping down on carnival lights at night - there is an opposite extreme which can cause people to go into a sort of seasonal hibernation.
I keep my lights very low in the hours before I go to bed, and use candles, and mostly read books rather than electronic devices. But one thing I'd point out is that - I live fairly far north. At this time of the year, there is very little direct sunlight at all. Whole days can be as dark as 6am, and the sun will be setting before 5pm soon. There is a balance, in the winter, when without bright electric light you could never really wake up. And sometimes it feels like living on a space station, because if you're a night owl that's the only light you get. I've had modestly good results from using a "happy lamp" during the darkest days. Just pointing out that - although I agree with you about clamping down on carnival lights at night - there is an opposite extreme which can cause people to go into a sort of seasonal hibernation.
Many years ago, at college, I stayed in town for a summer rather than going back home or elsewhere. I had a coding job with no fixed hours (and working in a windowless basement), and no friends in town. So I tried the “sleep when I want” experiment. IIRC I settled into about a 26-hour cycle.
I used to do this as well sort of, my schedule would shift by a few hours every day. I found that it had a significant impact on my mental health when I was sleeping through the day though, and it made it difficult to participate in various aspects of society like work, education and in person social things. I was eventually able to “fix” it by taking melatonin as a supplement to fix a short term schedule and being super anal about not letting people pressure me into playing games late or staying out late. I basically reframed sleeping hygiene as a primary health concern and that worked for me.
Anyway if your schedule doesn’t impact you in a negative way then go for it
Anyway if your schedule doesn’t impact you in a negative way then go for it
> I've often thought that my actual rhythm is for a 25-26 hour day
To be fair, we're all like this. The average length of Circadian Cycle is closer to 25h than 24h when isolated: https://www.circadiansleepdisorders.org/info/cycle_length.ph...
To be fair, we're all like this. The average length of Circadian Cycle is closer to 25h than 24h when isolated: https://www.circadiansleepdisorders.org/info/cycle_length.ph...
I was all ready to agree because I always feel I want >24h, but that link is actually correcting earlier studies finding 25h to say no it is more like 24h on average (once isolated from screens)?
I really hoped I’d grow out of wanting to sleep ~3-11am but it’s just never happened. No matter how tired I am during the day, I get a second wind around 8pm and have to force myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour during the work week because I won’t get sleepy, even if I stay away from screens.
Unfortunately I really enjoy night time, so I regularly completely fail at that task. I can’t remember the last time I woke up feeling rested, and yet here I am on Hacker News at 1:48am. At least I can sleep in tomorrow.
Unfortunately I really enjoy night time, so I regularly completely fail at that task. I can’t remember the last time I woke up feeling rested, and yet here I am on Hacker News at 1:48am. At least I can sleep in tomorrow.
Getting up at 11 sounds workable though. I have a colleague that regularly starts at 11, may be having sleep issues (they mentioned something but I don't know if that's always the reason), nobody seems to mind. My problem is that, during holidays, 13:37 seems to somehow be a very common time for me to get out of bed (suspiciously often around that minute, making me think it's a bias rather than coincidence)... so more like going to bed when the sun and birds would otherwise get annoying to fall asleep with
People speak of teenagers having a different sleep cycle but I'm now suspecting that, rather than that you'd grow out of your body's schedule, it's just that you don't complain to your toddler and expect them to understand and shift your job of entertaining them to later in the day. Same story at work; also a factor most teenagers don't have in the same way. So you suck it up and fall into a new rhythm that kinda works too
People speak of teenagers having a different sleep cycle but I'm now suspecting that, rather than that you'd grow out of your body's schedule, it's just that you don't complain to your toddler and expect them to understand and shift your job of entertaining them to later in the day. Same story at work; also a factor most teenagers don't have in the same way. So you suck it up and fall into a new rhythm that kinda works too
Looking back, I think that I was chronically exhausted as a teenager. I was always on 5 or less hours of sleep. At that age, you have the metabolism to wake up and have a full day without feeling sleepy. But I've always wondered about why militaries deprive their recruits of sleep, except right before battle, or why school systems do - and I think it's simply that people are more malleable when they're chronically tired. Yes, you can get used to it, and your adrenaline will still kick in when necessary. But you're not performing as a fully cognizant human being. Teenagers, however, don't need to be fully cognizant of anything anyway... so it all works out.
For me I think the only way I could make it work would be to be self employed and work a shorter day. My job wants me online from 9am, and my wife keeps a “normal” schedule so starting an 8 hour work day at 11 would seriously cut into our time together in the evening.
I think everyone gets a second wind in the late hours.
I used to have a schedule where I would start nodding off at 8PM and had to sleep, then wake up within 10 minutes of 4AM the next morning. My whole day was on such a routine, I never had to check the time. I could tell by temperature, sun, what I was doing, how I felt (hungry, tired) what time it was. I would be at my highest energy for the first hours after waking up. Then my energy would plunge during midday. Then it would build back up leading into the evening until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. Maybe 4 to 8PM I would be at good energy until I hit the abrupt cliff. I guess I was sort of a morning AND night person. I had to train my body to get on this schedule.
I used to have a schedule where I would start nodding off at 8PM and had to sleep, then wake up within 10 minutes of 4AM the next morning. My whole day was on such a routine, I never had to check the time. I could tell by temperature, sun, what I was doing, how I felt (hungry, tired) what time it was. I would be at my highest energy for the first hours after waking up. Then my energy would plunge during midday. Then it would build back up leading into the evening until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. Maybe 4 to 8PM I would be at good energy until I hit the abrupt cliff. I guess I was sort of a morning AND night person. I had to train my body to get on this schedule.
If you're going 3-11, that's 8 hrs...
I'm the king of getting a second wind, but it's usually alcohol-driven. Curtailing food and booze about 3 hrs before sleep, watching a little Mentour Pilot or reading a book, I'll conk out before I planned to. Avoiding the second wind is a discussion in itself.
I'm the king of getting a second wind, but it's usually alcohol-driven. Curtailing food and booze about 3 hrs before sleep, watching a little Mentour Pilot or reading a book, I'll conk out before I planned to. Avoiding the second wind is a discussion in itself.
Problem is the rest of my life is incompatible with waking up at 11. My job wants to me available from 9am and even if that wasn’t the case my wife—perfectly understandably—would not be too happy with me working until 19:30 or 20:00 as that would massively cut into our time in the evenings. Hence why I wish I’d grown out of it.
+1 for Mentour Pilot, love his videos
+1 for Mentour Pilot, love his videos
Methods that work for me, a lifelong “natural” (lol, nope) night owl:
1) No nighttime lighting brighter than a single-digit count of candles. No glowing screens after dark, either. Within a couple days I was no longer a “night owl”. Go figure, it was all fake, all those years.
2) A few mg of THC edible 90 minutes before I want to be asleep.
1) No nighttime lighting brighter than a single-digit count of candles. No glowing screens after dark, either. Within a couple days I was no longer a “night owl”. Go figure, it was all fake, all those years.
2) A few mg of THC edible 90 minutes before I want to be asleep.
I have found that, when I do succeed in forcing myself into bed at a normal time, I can “brute force” tiredness quicker by reading on my Kobo with low brightness. Honestly the part I struggle most with is actually just going to bed, there’s a strong psychological aspect to it.
As for your two points, they’re not super practical for me, at least not for a big chunk of the year. From now until about February it goes dark around 5pm, so that would effectively mean no lights, video games, movies/TV, or browsing on work days. And while weed will succeed in knocking me the hell out, it’s illegal for recreational use here, and very difficult to get a medical prescription, so it’s not something I have regular access to.
As for your two points, they’re not super practical for me, at least not for a big chunk of the year. From now until about February it goes dark around 5pm, so that would effectively mean no lights, video games, movies/TV, or browsing on work days. And while weed will succeed in knocking me the hell out, it’s illegal for recreational use here, and very difficult to get a medical prescription, so it’s not something I have regular access to.
Do you still get noticeable REM sleep with the THC? In my own experience, albiet with higher dosage and smoked so significantly shorter half life, is that I have subjectively instant sleep latency but I do not dream (unless I take magnesium, in which case I have anxiety-type dreams that I can remember very brief flashed of). Do you notice anything in the morning, like maybe a dull sort of haze?
They work great for me, good sleep quality and no grogginess.
I’d tried prescription sleep aids in the past and did have issues with grogginess. Between that, needing timing to be pretty precise for the grogginess not to be even worse, and having to choose between “glass of wine” and “be able to sleep”, those had enough down-sides that it didn’t really work out (the “still feel shitty in the morning” bit was definitely the worst part)
I’d tried prescription sleep aids in the past and did have issues with grogginess. Between that, needing timing to be pretty precise for the grogginess not to be even worse, and having to choose between “glass of wine” and “be able to sleep”, those had enough down-sides that it didn’t really work out (the “still feel shitty in the morning” bit was definitely the worst part)
Do you drink any caffeine?
Usually just one cup of coffee on weekday mornings, but in general caffeine does not seem to perk me up, keep me awake, or have any noticeable effect besides jump starting my digestive system. I could (and have done, in the past) have a coffee at 2am and go to sleep around 3 no problem.
In my adult life I have ranged between 5-6 cups a day when I used to go into the office and none at all during periods where I just fell out of the habit of making any.
In my adult life I have ranged between 5-6 cups a day when I used to go into the office and none at all during periods where I just fell out of the habit of making any.
>> besides jump starting my digestive system
lol. Same here. Keeping your digestive system on track with your sleep cycle deserves a whole separate discussion. For those of us who've discovered coffee and cigarettes, usually the sight of one or the other is enough to get ya goin'
lol. Same here. Keeping your digestive system on track with your sleep cycle deserves a whole separate discussion. For those of us who've discovered coffee and cigarettes, usually the sight of one or the other is enough to get ya goin'
My buddy refers to it as “the strike” heh. First coffee (or cigarette for him) of the day, you better be near a bathroom.
I’ve been in this situation and the problem is basically that the various internal clocks aren’t getting good quality information to keep them in sync. Light, food, and exercise and the timing of them have a big impact.
After I quit my day job and started freelancing, I actually saw my sleep schedule worsen. It partly had to do with the initial lack of projects and clients, and other challenges of freelancing itself, but what I observed was that my day job's grind or regular schedule also helped my sleep schedule.
However, I eventually overcame those challenges and created my own schedule to work with, and my sleep cycle became better then onwards.
However, I eventually overcame those challenges and created my own schedule to work with, and my sleep cycle became better then onwards.
How did you fill your schedules despite your initial lack of projects?
Interesting, I have a DEC2 mutation and don't need much sleep, but I do sleep very consistently. When I was first working through this discovery, I asked the dr how it was that people who have this have no adverse effects when folks always say not sleeping long enough is bad for your health and he said "well, we don't really know that's true" and kinda shrugged it off.
I recall watching a documentary on Discovery way back, where they followed some multiday ultramaraton competitors. They'd draw blood samples, measure vitals and have them answer mental acuity questionnaires each time they stopped for food or sleep.
The competitors limited themselves to power naps, max 30 minutes though often just ten minutes.
The scientist found that all the physical adverse effects of sleep deprivation were negated by the short power naps. Though IIRC the mental acuity did drop some as the event progressed.
Been at least 15 years since I saw the program so might misrember some parts, but I clearly recall the physical effects of the power naps.
Keep in mind these were quite fit athletes though.
The competitors limited themselves to power naps, max 30 minutes though often just ten minutes.
The scientist found that all the physical adverse effects of sleep deprivation were negated by the short power naps. Though IIRC the mental acuity did drop some as the event progressed.
Been at least 15 years since I saw the program so might misrember some parts, but I clearly recall the physical effects of the power naps.
Keep in mind these were quite fit athletes though.
>The scientist found that all the physical adverse effects of sleep deprivation were negated by the short power naps.
we don't even know if the "brain cleaning so, longterm, you don't get dementia" hypothesis is true, and here you/they are saying "we know it's false for these people".
nah, fam.
we don't even know if the "brain cleaning so, longterm, you don't get dementia" hypothesis is true, and here you/they are saying "we know it's false for these people".
nah, fam.
By physical I meant primarily the body. As I mentioned the cofnitive fuctions did start to suffer somewhat. Though they had quite short naps.
> The scientist found that all the physical adverse effects of sleep deprivation were negated by the short power naps. Though IIRC the mental acuity did drop some as the event progressed.
I assume you mixed these up?
There's two well-known extreme sleep schedules (Uberman 6x20m or Dymaxion 4x30m) that let you subsist on two hours of sleep a day, because you drop into REM sleep immediately. This however only clears up "brain fog". If you would do exercise on these sleep schedules, you would make little progress because muscle repair happens outside of REM sleep.
I assume you mixed these up?
There's two well-known extreme sleep schedules (Uberman 6x20m or Dymaxion 4x30m) that let you subsist on two hours of sleep a day, because you drop into REM sleep immediately. This however only clears up "brain fog". If you would do exercise on these sleep schedules, you would make little progress because muscle repair happens outside of REM sleep.
Pretty sure I did not. But it was related to blood pressure, stress markers in blood and such as I recall it.
> power nap
I assume they weren't drinking coffee at every stop, do you remember what they did before napping ? (the "power" part)
I assume they weren't drinking coffee at every stop, do you remember what they did before napping ? (the "power" part)
Power nap meaning getting up after 10-15 minutes, 30 minutes max.
The idea being that after 30 minutes other processes in the body kick in, so you feel much worse if you woke up after an hour.
That said, they usually did get some food, a bar or some hot stew IIRC. Though can't recall if they did that before or after the nap.
The idea being that after 30 minutes other processes in the body kick in, so you feel much worse if you woke up after an hour.
That said, they usually did get some food, a bar or some hot stew IIRC. Though can't recall if they did that before or after the nap.
I realize this is far off, but I'm hoping that someday I can get gene therapy to get this.
The assumption is what you do when awake those extra hours is more productive (or fun of whatever you are aiming for...) than asleep.
Sleeping you has the disadvantage it cannot keep score. Wake you has "I completed X today and Y yesterday". Advocate for sleeping you!
Sleeping you has the disadvantage it cannot keep score. Wake you has "I completed X today and Y yesterday". Advocate for sleeping you!
also things are recommended for the average population, not the individual - with "conditions"/superpowers like yours, it's absolutely the individual that matters, not the mean.
Do you work out? How often, how long and what type of exercises do you do?
5 days a week, Velodrome 1 hour high intensity. 49/14 + :30 each way to work. I'm tall and skinny.
Interesting, I wonder if it's common for people who don't need much sleep.
I need 5ish hours of sleep(usually less) and I feel that regular workouts (7 days a week, 60 min runs) help me clear brain fog a lot.
I need 5ish hours of sleep(usually less) and I feel that regular workouts (7 days a week, 60 min runs) help me clear brain fog a lot.
when you say dont need much sleep, are we talking 6 hours or something more out thre like 4 hours or less?
I go to sleep between 1am and 1:30am naturally and wake up around 6/:30am naturally. Allergy season makes me kinda lethargic, but doesn't change how much sleep I need. 4/5hrs is ok, less than 4 is not ok. I also oddly don't get jet lag.
its a blessing. i think i survive well on 4-5hrs (incl wake up naturally) but def feel suboptimal compared to 7-8hrs.
My problem with regular sleep is that the sum of "good night sleep" + "energy for the day" is > 24 hours. Realistically I think it is about 26 hours on average. If I sleep for a normal amount (7-8 hours) I will generally have about 18 hours of energy. So if I just sleep when I'm tired my schedule is constantly shifting. If I go to bed when not tired I just stair at the ceiling for hours, which feels like a waste.
You might need stronger environmental queues for your body to wake up. The body has both internal and external data to know when you have to wake up - lights, noise levels etc.
If you set up your bedroom “too well” - quiet, light blocking roller blinds etc, then your body can only rely on the internal clock.
I used to have that but since moving to another place without those “niceties” suddenly my body quite easily finds “the correct time” every day.
Also you can experiment with this on long flights to get rid of jet lag. After I land, if I spend the first night drinking and fall asleep, I effectively ruin my internal clock for the night, and then the body has only the environmental queues. Wake up in the morning and my clock is effectively reset. Might not feel great for the day but suffer zero jet lag as I start waking up in the morning at the “correct” time even though I’ve flown halfway across the planet.
If you set up your bedroom “too well” - quiet, light blocking roller blinds etc, then your body can only rely on the internal clock.
I used to have that but since moving to another place without those “niceties” suddenly my body quite easily finds “the correct time” every day.
Also you can experiment with this on long flights to get rid of jet lag. After I land, if I spend the first night drinking and fall asleep, I effectively ruin my internal clock for the night, and then the body has only the environmental queues. Wake up in the morning and my clock is effectively reset. Might not feel great for the day but suffer zero jet lag as I start waking up in the morning at the “correct” time even though I’ve flown halfway across the planet.
My problem isn't really waking up though, it's the going to sleep.
This matches my experience. I think I have a 25 hour circadian rhythm, which has me always wanting to stay up one hour later than the night before.
Whenever I see a study about something that affects longevity, I want to know how much of a difference it makes expressed as a number I can relate to. If you were able to switch from a highly irregular sleep schedule to a very regular schedule, would you live 18 hours longer on average, or 1.5 months, or 5 years? This would be a way to decide how much attention and effort one should to devote to the numerous studies about things that affect mortality.
Looking at the graph in the study, it looks like 0.972 fraction of the very regular sleepers are alive after 7.8 years and 0.945 of the highly irregular sleepers. The difference is 0.027, or in other words 2.7% more of the highly irregular sleepers have died off after 7.8 years. It might be significant in the statistical sense, but it looks like a pretty small difference to me.
I don't know to translate that into a statement like: If you were able to switch from a highly irregular sleep schedule to a very regular schedule, you would live __(x days)__ longer on average. With some hand-wavy reasoning I arrived at something like 10 days longer over a period of 10 years. I.e., a very small amount on average. I'd welcome someone with a statistics background to do a real calculation.
I don't know to translate that into a statement like: If you were able to switch from a highly irregular sleep schedule to a very regular schedule, you would live __(x days)__ longer on average. With some hand-wavy reasoning I arrived at something like 10 days longer over a period of 10 years. I.e., a very small amount on average. I'd welcome someone with a statistics background to do a real calculation.
A confounding factor example would be someone who sleeps regularly and someone who sleeps irregularly, two people who both live the same amount of years... but the irregular sleeper lives their last 10 years with greatly impaired capacity after a stroke. [Note: some of my work involves dealing with elderly people and "impaired after a stroke" is an extremely real, and common, thing.] These 'fuzzy' conclusions may be the best we can do.
Sleep is like drinking water. No one says, "I'm gonna get dehydrated right now and then drink a lot more water later so it's OK." But people do this for sleep. You need to sleep right when you're tired, because being tired is a stress that will need more time to heal the longer it goes. Sleep timing is underrated but it is just as important as quality and amount.
[deleted]
> No one says, "I'm gonna get dehydrated right now and then drink a lot more water later so it's OK."
Err yeah they do? That's 'a night out', 'going out for drinks', 'night on the town', etc.
Sort of get the point, but not a brilliant analogy ;)
Err yeah they do? That's 'a night out', 'going out for drinks', 'night on the town', etc.
Sort of get the point, but not a brilliant analogy ;)
I think the analogy holds if you consider all these behaviors as negative behaviors which they are.
But you're right, people do say it so he's wrong. You could rephrase it as going on a bender and not eating/drinking as healthy is probably just as bad as lack of regular sleep.
I've walked myself into a circle. You're right
But you're right, people do say it so he's wrong. You could rephrase it as going on a bender and not eating/drinking as healthy is probably just as bad as lack of regular sleep.
I've walked myself into a circle. You're right
> Sleep regularity was a stronger predictor of all-cause mortality than sleep duration, by comparing equivalent mortality models, and by comparing nested SRI-mortality models with and without sleep duration (p = 0.14–0.20). These findings indicate that sleep regularity is an important predictor of mortality risk and is a stronger predictor than sleep duration.
Not totally disagreeing with you, but this indicates that it is _more_ important than the latter two when concerned with all-cause mortality.
Not totally disagreeing with you, but this indicates that it is _more_ important than the latter two when concerned with all-cause mortality.
I wish some of the sleeping/eating studies covered the options "sleep when I'm tired" and "eat when I'm hungry."
When remote work is an option, it'd be nice to know the health opportunity cost of RTO. Sadly the cohort is too hard to study outside of nursing home residents.
When remote work is an option, it'd be nice to know the health opportunity cost of RTO. Sadly the cohort is too hard to study outside of nursing home residents.
Related:
How to Train Yourself to Go to Sleep Earlier
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42016904
How to Train Yourself to Go to Sleep Earlier
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42016904
Ah, fuck.
My exact same sentiment. My day got a little darker after reading this.
My reaction was slightly more humorous:
Baymax: Oh no.
Baymax: Oh no.
You beat me to it.
One of the best things I ever did was start going to bed and waking up at roughly the same time every day regardless of weekend or weekday.
in what ways was it one of the best things?
I wake up feeling rested everyday around the same time without an alarm. I also go to sleep fairly easily.
The yo yo of late weekends and spending part of the week trying to get back to an earlier time left me tired much of the time.
The yo yo of late weekends and spending part of the week trying to get back to an earlier time left me tired much of the time.
Irregular weekend sleeping seems to have a knockon effect of hurting weekday sleeping. Just do it the same every time. The weekend shouldn't be different
Does anyone else consistently get 6 to 7 hours of sleep no matter what? It doesn't feel optimal and I feel great on the rare days I get 8 hours, but I can function just fine on less. Also cannot easily fall back asleep if woken up which is really frustrating.
This used to be a problem for me until I stopped drinking alcohol.
I used to think it was related to caffeine or work stress but cutting out drinking seems to have fixed all my sleep issues.
I used to think it was related to caffeine or work stress but cutting out drinking seems to have fixed all my sleep issues.
On my days off, I can sleep 12 hours if I don't set an alarm. And I could easily do more, if I didn't force myself out of bed.
Amazing! Without Advil PM I can’t sleep more than 7. Really goes to show how diverse sleep habits/requirements are from person to person.
Hah, I blame my job. Different shift every few days, always tired.
I'd love to try a fixed sleep schedule, but sometimes I don't get home until 2am, other times I have to get up at 7:30am.
I'd love to try a fixed sleep schedule, but sometimes I don't get home until 2am, other times I have to get up at 7:30am.
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> Does anyone else consistently get 6 to 7 hours of sleep no matter what
6 hours is too little IMO. If I sleep 6 hours for more than a few days in a row, I feel like shit and need caffeine to wake up properly. Then I end up sleeping 10-12 hours on my days off to compensate (and to take a break from caffeine). It doesn't feel healthy.
So, I try to get at least 8 hours consistently. That way, I don't need caffeine at all and function just about fine.
6 hours is too little IMO. If I sleep 6 hours for more than a few days in a row, I feel like shit and need caffeine to wake up properly. Then I end up sleeping 10-12 hours on my days off to compensate (and to take a break from caffeine). It doesn't feel healthy.
So, I try to get at least 8 hours consistently. That way, I don't need caffeine at all and function just about fine.
I usually get 6 hours dead on. Rarely 7 or more. I'm asleep less than a minute after going to bed, and have such a regular sleep duration that I never have to set an alarm. In fact, I haven't used an alarm clock at all in 20+ years. Well perhaps, less than a dozen times.
I am fully awake and ready to go a few minutes after waking up, too. No coffee needed.
I do occasionally take an hour nap here and there, but that is also rare.
I am fully awake and ready to go a few minutes after waking up, too. No coffee needed.
I do occasionally take an hour nap here and there, but that is also rare.
I'm this 100%. Waking up at 5am on a Saturday is such a pain because my brain just won't let me go back to sleep.
I'm a zombie if I have less than 8 hours, that's the absolute minimum. I drank a lot of coffee for years even though that had diminishing returns, until I realized it just concealed my exhaustion instead of helping, so I stopped.
Of course, spending 12-14 hours a day facing brights screens do not help.
Of course, spending 12-14 hours a day facing brights screens do not help.
Same, let me know if you find a solution. My brain just runs wild if I ever wake up leading me to not fall back asleep
I've found that 7 is about ideal for me as a 35 year old male. Anything more or less seems to cause more issues
I feel like shit any time I get less than 8 hours of sleep. Usually I get 9 or 10. However a day nap of 45-60 min does help a lot when I’m at a deficit.
After having a kid Ive wondered how all these sleep disruption means you'll die studies could actually be true. You'd think evolution would have taken care of it at some point
As far as evolution is concerned, you've already had the kid - you passed on your genes. If you survive long enough to make sure your kid reaches maturity, that's all that matters there.
Evolution can't select for anything that happens significantly past the birth of your progeny.
Evolution can't select for anything that happens significantly past the birth of your progeny.
Maybe, but do other mammals suffer from this? Maybe it woukd have been taken care of with some early human-ish species with shorter life spans or something.
> As far as evolution is concerned, you've already had the kid - you passed on your genes
A second child would help with that too.
A second child would help with that too.
Sure but I doubt lack of sleep effects mortality greatly in childbearing years. Assuming you make it to 40-50, that's it. Now you can die whenever and have succeeded
As a parent, you’re underselling the impact of the help of grandparents and siblings on fertility
Sure it can. Knowledge, skills, and wisdom passed on to children and grandchildren well into adulthood significantly increases their chances of successfully passing on their genes to future generations, attract quality mates, and reduce stressors that can be passed down through subsequent generations.
You are thinking in far more modern terms than anything evolutionarily distant enough to affect this issue in a large portion of the population.
Additionally, even if you were looking to predict selection many generations in the future; modern reproduction happens at higher rates the lower in economic disparity you go, so clearly that isn’t the case.
Additionally, even if you were looking to predict selection many generations in the future; modern reproduction happens at higher rates the lower in economic disparity you go, so clearly that isn’t the case.
I was responding to the sweeping statement you made about what natural selection can select for, and it can absolutely select for these sorts of advantages. It will play out differently depending on environmental factors such as economic and other disparities but this just becomes a matter of which strategy is chosen to adapt to that landscape.
Can you give an example of evolution selecting for parental survival past the maturity of progeny? I’m curious about this because I’ve never heard of a species that has that trait.
I never said it is selecting for parental survival. I was responding to "Evolution can't select for anything that happens significantly past the birth of your progeny."
The point is that there many valuable things that parents can pass on after the birth of their children that will increase their chances of success in future generations.
The point is that there many valuable things that parents can pass on after the birth of their children that will increase their chances of success in future generations.
Those are effectively the same thing, I’m not playing semantics. Can you give an example of this happening in nature?
Curious to learn which lifestyle factors correlate with extremely regular sleep patterns. Of my friends who have very regular sleep patterns, they tend to be very stable, long termists, career focussed, good in relationships, at least moderately sociable, fit and healthy (although in no way obsessed) and well rounded. Kinda good at everything but not extreme in any way. I'd guess those factors alone would have a noticeable effect on longevity.
There is likely 100 factors that affects longevity and having a 3% better is pretty huge just for one factor
I sleep when I feel tired and wake up when my body naturally wakes up (never an alarm). However it results in irregularity, although somewhat aligning with a 28-hour cycle. I wonder if that's good or bad.
If you can't help it, this is called Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder (N24SWD) [1]. If it's just because you're not exposed to natural light a whole lot, circadian drift is "normal," though my recollection is that ~25 hours is more common. I guess it gets diagnosed if and when you complain to a doctor that you can't help it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep–wake_disorde...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep–wake_disorde...
Just consider yourself to not live long, that is the reality anyway
When I was younger I went to clubs every Friday and Saturday, dancing till morning, then continuing the exercises at home. Guess that takes a toll.
This is probably correlated with so many other cofounding factors, like employment/stress/substance abuse
Regardless of that reality, circadian rhythms have been extensively studied, and there is more evidence than just this study to support the claim they're making. Patterns and routines are generally beneficial as a rule.
That being said, there is a lot of diversity amongst us, and I'm quite sure that when you factor in (epi-)genetic variation - particularly in the short to medium term - there are some unexpected advantage/cost ratios to wildly different strategies.
That being said, there is a lot of diversity amongst us, and I'm quite sure that when you factor in (epi-)genetic variation - particularly in the short to medium term - there are some unexpected advantage/cost ratios to wildly different strategies.
> Results were adjusted for age, sex, ethnicity, and sociodemographic, lifestyle, and health factors.
Whew, glad we covered all 6 of the known possible confounding variables.
You are willfully taking more away from that than was stated. Such a fallacy is a favorite trope among science denialists, and those who would distort the objectivity of research for misinformed (and/or dishonest) ends. I don’t know what, if any, specific motivations you have, but I think it’s worth pointing out.
Their point was, there are other confounding variables, and therefore the parent comment doesn't negate the grandparent comment. I agree, and I am absolutely not a science denialist.
What do you mean? The commenter just pointed out (in a joking manner) that, even if some confounding factors were taken into account, the result might still be caused by other confounding factors. That's a serious critique, not a fallacy.
The scientific method explicitly requires peer-review and feedback, in part because methodological flaws may have been overlooked by those who designed and/or performed the original study.
Ad-hominem attacks against a person offering good-faith methodological criticism (such as calling them a "science denialist", or accusing them of being "misinformed" and/or "dishonest") is behavior that seeks to defend the results of a study more strongly than it seeks to discover the truth.
If you have a critique of my methodological criticism itself, by all means, please share it, but the entire scientific community would be better off if we could do away with this kind of emotionally-charged quasi-religious dogma that seeks to suppress legitimate scientific concerns through social ostracism.
--------------- Compare and contrast the above with what follows: ---------------
Your post reminds me of the reaction of the Catholic Church to Copernicus's assertions of a heliocentric solar system.
--------------- Notice how sticking to objective, unemotional, and impersonal language in the first section is more conducive to earnest scientific inquiry than the personal attack in the second section?
Ad-hominem attacks against a person offering good-faith methodological criticism (such as calling them a "science denialist", or accusing them of being "misinformed" and/or "dishonest") is behavior that seeks to defend the results of a study more strongly than it seeks to discover the truth.
If you have a critique of my methodological criticism itself, by all means, please share it, but the entire scientific community would be better off if we could do away with this kind of emotionally-charged quasi-religious dogma that seeks to suppress legitimate scientific concerns through social ostracism.
--------------- Compare and contrast the above with what follows: ---------------
Your post reminds me of the reaction of the Catholic Church to Copernicus's assertions of a heliocentric solar system.
--------------- Notice how sticking to objective, unemotional, and impersonal language in the first section is more conducive to earnest scientific inquiry than the personal attack in the second section?
Such a critique is also a favorite refrain among science professionals
[deleted]
Well my sleep is certainly regularly fucked up, so I guess that means I'm dying eventually.
Oh man I took my sleep for granted last month, have been working late and waking up at strange times. Sometimes sleep at 3 am and wake up at 7am then sleep at 11pm and wake up at 6am. Eventually my body totally crashed, interestingly I had a panic attack and heart attack type symptoms at 2am in the morning. Had to rush to ER.
Great, another source of anxiety to make it harder to maintain a consistent sleep schedule.
I know this will not help you, but stressing about sleep is a vicious cycle which does not help.
I used to be much more anxious about sleep — and life in general — but I have leaned that if I don’t sleep that is fine. Life goes on, the body gets what the body needs, and I should focus on living instead of sleeping.
Being active, spending time with friends, going outside for walks, laughing, and taking the world as it comes to me has done more for my sleep than reading studies or buying stuff (outside of a tempurpedic matress and solid oak frame).
I used to be much more anxious about sleep — and life in general — but I have leaned that if I don’t sleep that is fine. Life goes on, the body gets what the body needs, and I should focus on living instead of sleeping.
Being active, spending time with friends, going outside for walks, laughing, and taking the world as it comes to me has done more for my sleep than reading studies or buying stuff (outside of a tempurpedic matress and solid oak frame).
Fortunately, I did learn early on that stressing about sleep, especially as I lie awake in bed, was making things worse.
Agree. Every month there’s some new “discovery” about what can make your life shorter. It makes me anxious and definitely doesn’t help at all. I cannot simply manage so many variables. I try to do a little bit of everything, to be in the middle point of everything as much as I can; that’s my strategy.
I think this is a framing problem. You need to let go of the outcome and focus on what you can do. You can't control the result, but you can do the best that you're capsble of in your current situation, which includes not over-extending yourself.
Cat owners are screwed.
What about people with very young children? Like infants?
Well obviously they would have severely impacted sleep? What are you trying to imply?
Consider it a sacrifice. The cause being noble doesn't make it any healthier
As somebody with Non-24 sleep wake disorder i concur.
very cool that dst has been killing us all this time.
I live in an area that observes DST and since most devices does the changeover automatically I've never noticed the switch. Only notice when other people start moaning about it. Wonder if it affects certain people more than others.
It deeply affects me. I’ve lived in places that have it and currently live where there is no DST. If my state implemented it I would try to negotiate with my workplace to keep the same actual hours so my schedule doesn’t change, if they refused I would consider moving, job or state.
It would still happen with or without DST. The winter and summer phases of sunlight adjust people's sleep schedules. It's just more dramatic with DST
when I worked in UK doing shift work work gave me bonuses and pamphlets on the health costs for working through the graveyard shift regularly. The management initially wanted us to do weekly rotations of 3 shifts we tried for a month and it was undeniably sure fire way to die early. So we decided we'd rather do monthly shifts, it worked mostly ok except heading into winter I didn't get to see the sun for a while.
nowadays I still do some kind of on-call hours, and I think being on call should pay a butt load more honestly.
nowadays I still do some kind of on-call hours, and I think being on call should pay a butt load more honestly.
Subtitling: "Graveyard shift is a work shift running through the late hours of the night through the early hours of the morning, typically from midnight until 8 am."
I was wondering if you actually did some job on a graveyard at night or if there was a second meaning there. Good I looked that up...
I was wondering if you actually did some job on a graveyard at night or if there was a second meaning there. Good I looked that up...
This feels like one of those points that go back to our recent history vs the last 100,000 years of evolution.
Before artifical light, alarm clocks, jobs, screens with blue light etc - we presumably woke and slept fairly consistently, no doubt tied partly to sunlight and temperature. Some people probably slept more than others, as they always have, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot more consistency.
Disclaimer: I know nothing, just interested
Before artifical light, alarm clocks, jobs, screens with blue light etc - we presumably woke and slept fairly consistently, no doubt tied partly to sunlight and temperature. Some people probably slept more than others, as they always have, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot more consistency.
Disclaimer: I know nothing, just interested
im checking hacker news in between astrophotography subs.
looks like i'm in danger
looks like i'm in danger
I think a “correlation is not causation” cautionary note is important here - there are a lot of things that cause fragmented sleep, and also cause death. Stress and underlying disease are two obvious ones.
"Finally, we acknowledge the correlational nature of our findings. Sleep regularity may be both a cause and marker of premature mortality risk."
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Shit, I do sleep 8 hrs a day but regularity is out of the question. Fuck
I am so fucked
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Personal experiences cannot disprove a large scale statistical observation like this.
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i forgot the rule that I don't post against the wind in internet. So I can avoid arguments with random peoples at online.
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your anecdata is not data. this almost seems like a troll post
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i forgot the rule that I don't post against the wind in internet. So I can avoid arguments with random peoples at online.
They look at one week of sleep data and then check mortality records about 10 to 15 years later. It's hard to argue a causative effect between one week of bad sleep and death potentially 10+ years out.
Obviously there's an implication that people with terrible sleep regularity in that one week snapshot had terrible sleep regularity chronically, which in turn had a causative effect on mortality, but we have to make a couple of deductive jumps to get to that conclusion. I'd really like to see the same study with longer term sleep data.