How much can an extra hour's sleep change you?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24444634

by nickpyett • 13 years ago

106 87 13 years ago

bbc.co.uk

Peroni• 13 years ago

I will. As soon as my son becomes a teenager I have every intention of remaining asleep beyond 7AM. Until then, I'm at his unlimited, energetic mercy.

arethuza• 13 years ago

Oddly, our teenager did the "sleep in" thing for about six months, now he bounces out of bed at 6:45 most mornings and 6:00 when he is going to rugby training!

statusgraph• 13 years ago

Probably a pretty girl in his first class :)

esw2• 13 years ago

I'm right there with you. Thanks to my infant and a merciless cat, it's been a couple of years since I've slept past 4:30am. I try to get to bed early as often as possible, but it's hard to simply 'give up' and go to bed at the end of a long day when you've finally got a moment to yourself.

cgs• 13 years ago

Kick the cat out of the bedroom. Best thing I did to improve sleep quality.

chrismonsanto• 13 years ago

Do you have an automatic feeder for the cat? I use the Crown Majestic (search on Amazon) and it works pretty well--my cat stopped sniffing my face at 6am...

junto• 13 years ago

I'm in the same boat. Two children both under four and two cats. I used to be a real night owl. Now I'm in bed at 9:30 pm almost every night.

Cats are better now. We have confined them away from our bedroom At night and we used a water spray (fine mist) which put them off scratching at the door. After a week or so of getting wet they stopped scratching.

Tried the old water spary trick on our oldest child when she kept waking me up at 5 am. Didn't work. Made her cry.

Just kidding! :-)

frogpelt• 13 years ago

I often wondered about sleep recommendations that focus on the amount of time. I realize that if you try to sleep for seven hours instead of six you are likely to get more sleep. But my problem is that not every person is getting the same quality of sleep in that period of time. If I sleep seven hours I may be getting as much rest as another person who sleeps six or a person who sleeps eight or nine hours.

Sleep is another of those things that is not one-size-fits-all and I guess having a sleep study done is the only way to find out for sure what you need individually.

crazcarl• 13 years ago

There are some products out there that attempt to measure sleep quality via leaving your phone on the bed, or wearing a bracelet. I'm not sure of the accuracy, though.

I hope these will get even better (maybe a non-intrusive headpiece that can measure brainwaves?) in the future.

pa5tabear• 13 years ago

I have the Sleep Bot app and it measures movement and sleeping time and graphs the data. It doesn't give any analysis, however.

Do you have advice for a better analysis of my sleep each night?

joonix2• 13 years ago

Doesn't matter for me. I hardly get much deep sleep due to anatomical issues essentially blocking my airways. I can't afford the surgery (even though I have insurance) nor will my government contribute to it (even though it would increase my productivity multiple times over, meanwhile they throw trillions at universities offering useless degrees).

But yes, we have a culture that doesn't value sleep. I know of people who schedule emails to be sent in the middle of the night just so they appear to be working all the time. Construction can begin at 7AM in NYC, waking up hundreds of people in surrounding buildings. Gas leaf blowers emit one of the most stressful drone sounds out in the suburbs, causing stress to dozens of neighbors, so one man can clear a pavement of dead leaves quicker.

And just this morning over Manhattan, a helicopter hovered at 6AM for at least an hour. An hour, sitting there, hovering, for God knows what reason, awaking possibly thousands of people early, causing possibly millions in lost productivity today.

peacemaker4• 13 years ago

You can really feel the anger in your comment and it resonates with me. I am a light sleeper and constantly amazed at what we as a society deem acceptable when it comes to noise at certain hours.

Why does the fire truck needs to blast its horns at 3am on a Tuesday going down a large empty street? There is no need and in some countries that would be against noise pollution laws. Doesn't seem to matter here.

Leaf blowers and lawn mowing at 7am on a Sunday are also a major annoyance yet I understand that some people, especially older people, like to get up early and who am I to complain that they do?

They say having a major lack of sleep is comparable to being intoxicated yet there are no protections in place to prevent it. Instead we wax on about "pulling an all-nighter" like it's a competition on who can be the most sleep deprived.

We live in a strange world.

joonix2• 13 years ago

Yes. I actually got into confrontations with the leaf blowers once (the manager, and the property owner). I also called the police because they are clearly violating the city's own noise ordinance. Nobody cares, the owner called me and told me that it doesn't matter because the work day starts at X a.m. What about people who work odd shifts, or students?

Resistance is futile. I just started using wax earplugs and find they make a huge difference and actually drown out a lot of noise.

mhurron• 13 years ago

There is no need and in some countries that would be against noise pollution laws.

Emergency vehicles are exempt from those laws, as they should be. Safety is more important than your sleep. Trains blow their horns at crossings for the same reason.

Also, I have to laugh at your indignation at someone mowing their lawn at 7am because they are awake but you aren't right after complaining about an empty street at 3am because everyone is asleep.

gte910h4• 13 years ago

My city cites noise rather reliably (Atlanta). 12am grinder during the week? ticket

8am chain saw on the weekend? ticket.

lelandbatey• 13 years ago

Only on reading this thread have I learned that I am a very heavy sleeper. I've always taken for granted that low level noise is easy to sleep through. Now I feel:

1. Bad that I've caused as much noise as I have at some times.

2. Very sorry for those of you that have to deal with easily disturbed sleep.

frankzinger• 13 years ago

I am also a light sleeper. I lived in the centre of the city for almost three years. I used to get woken up at all hours. I started off with earplugs, but those hurt my ears. Eventually I started shutting my windows and curtains and putting a powerful fan on and it really works well.

Edit: a bonus one gets with the fan is that it also cools you off during summer when a shut window might have caused problems otherwise. (Aircon is uncommon here.)

pfortuny2• 13 years ago

I am with you.

In my neighborhood, the trash collecting on Sundays takes place (for whatever "reason") at, believe it or not, 6:15AM. Then the recycling people appear later on, at 8:15AM.

I guess they are trying to get people motivated during the week-end?

dragonwriter• 13 years ago

More likely, they have a finite number of trucks and staff, and any reasonable arrangement of them is going to result in someone's neighborhood getting hit at 6:15AM on Sunday, and you just got lucky.

AndrewDucker• 13 years ago

Particularly when aircraft noise is correlated with heart disease risk:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131009100602.ht...

makeset• 13 years ago

That said, there is a special place in hell for people who move next to an airport and then complain about the noise. The special place next to hell's airport.

nashequilibrium2• 13 years ago

I wonder what are all the scenarios that lead to this pattern "sleep deprived ---> low energy levels ---> less activity ---> weight gain ---> heart disease ---> death". Another issue i wonder is about will power, if self control is mentally taxing, therefore your diet should be affected as well.

CamperBob2• 13 years ago

I wonder how they took exhaust emissions out of the equation? Aircraft noise is disturbing as hell when you first encounter it, either because you moved under a flight path or because the flight path moved over you, but in my experience you just don't hear it anymore after a few weeks. It's one of the easier environmental sounds to tune out.

gshakir• 13 years ago

"I know of people who schedule emails to be sent in the middle of the night just so they appear to be working all the time."

Why do they do it? Sounds unethical. What sort of industry they are in?

nashequilibrium2• 13 years ago

In LA the trash get's collected at 5am, it feels as though i have the trash cans next to me that's how loud it is. To top this off, they building an off ramp nearby, so i wake up at 1am but i can hear this drilling in the distance very faint, it doesn't disturb me, but i can hear it. I started thinking about those people living right there, how the hell are they sleeping, these guys are drilling 1am in the morning!

grannyg00se• 13 years ago

To me it seems we have a culture that doesn't value well-being in general. People might say that they do, but the entire culture is set up against it. Sleep is just one more neglected aspect of well-being. We also have ridiculous working hours, insane commutes, pathetic diet and exercise habits, and a health record to show for it. Keeping busy at one's job is valued above most else.

drzaiusapelord2• 13 years ago

Keeping busy at one's job is valued above most else.

I also hate how our smalltalk starts with "What do you do for a living?" That's a fair question, but its depressing when that's the first one and all we really talk about.

Its a puritan's overworked culture serving the elites. This shutdown is about this as well. We really need to have European-style vacation time and healthcare. I hope my generation gets it right and the status quo of the baby boomers is seen as the horrific thing that it truly is.

guiomie• 13 years ago

I've removed commuting of my daily life. I can now enjoy between 1 hour to 2 hours a night more sleep because of this... feels great to sleep 8-9 hours every night.

Havoc• 13 years ago

To me it seems we have a culture that doesn't value well-being in general.

It seems very much up to the individual to fight the battle. i.e. pay for gym, make an effort to go & pay for healthy food etc.

Mithaldu4• 13 years ago

I hardly get much deep sleep due to anatomical issues essentially blocking my airways. I can't afford the surgery (even though I have insurance)

I have snore-caused sleep apnea, are you referring to that? If so, a CPAP device could help you. It's a small cube you put on your nightdesk with a tube and a face (or nose) mask attached to it that allows you clear breathing, but increases pressure in your respiratory system so you won't snore as easily. I live in germany and my insurance covered it, but even if yours doesn't, 1k$ isn't too much for such a thing:

http://www.thecpapshop.com/resmed-s9-autoset-cpap-machine-wi...

gte910h4• 13 years ago

Have you had a sleep study done? It's 2 doctors office visits, 2 nights in a funky hotel room type lab, and they will often prescribe a machine called a CPAP if you really do have obstructive sleep problems.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/cpap/

They're a little uncomfortable at first, but they get the job done.

r00fus2• 13 years ago

I just spoke with my doctor regarding CPAPs recently, and the price has gone down considerably since I looked into it a few years ago… I hear it's less than a thousand

I don't need one (mild hypopnea) yet, but it's nice to know that options exist.

I had a coworker who, years ago, had sleep apnea (would fall asleep at keyboard at work), who subsequently got a CPAP and it's a night and day difference. I'm really glad for his improvements.

drzaiusapelord2• 13 years ago

Sleep apnea? I have it too and couldn't stomach the CPAP machine. I read my sleep report and it turns out I didn't have any symptoms on my side. So I trained myself to sleep on my side and the symptoms went away. I wish my doctor told me that was an option before spending thousands on treatments, not to mention the time and stress of it all.

If side sleeping doesn't help, I know there are DIY oral appliances you can buy. They're usually marketed just for snoring, but have the same effect on SA. You need to boil it, put it in your mouth so it gets an impression of your teeth, let it cool and wear it at night. It keeps your mouth open enough to help with airway issues. Might as well try it. I think its $20.

larrys• 13 years ago

Would suggest to anyone concerted with noise (not you I understand you have another issue as well) to get custom fitted ear plugs.

Can be done by an an Audiologist.

Make sure to also use the lubricant as well (helps with comfort and importantly blocks more sound). Price I paid was under $100. Bought a 2nd pair. They are great much better than the temporarily sound plugs (not to mention cheaper in the long run).

crazygringo• 13 years ago

As to the sounds -- it's not a perfect fix, but combinations of ear plugs / ear-plug-style-headphones / white noise can do wonders, both during sleep and in noisy offices, or when helicopters/leaf blowers/etc. are going.

When construction in Manhattan starts at 7am on Saturday, it wakes me up, but I put the ear plugs back in and turn on white noise and I'm fine. When I'm at work and there's a helicopter or union strike or noisy coworker, I throw in the in-ear headphones (they form a seal) and turn on the white noise app on my phone. It totally sucks we have to do these things, but they can help a lot.

MasterXen• 13 years ago

I heard the hovering helicopter too (it was yesterday morning IIRC); it was around until at least 8am. I was so surprised by the continual sound (rather than passing-by) that I even googled how long a helicopter can hover for on a full tank.

mike_esspe• 13 years ago

Properly installed double glazing will block almost all sound, why not install them?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulated_glazing

r00fus2• 13 years ago

I have double-pane glass with an Argon spacer, and live close to a minor road that gets daily traffic (school/commute times). Plenty of sound gets through; the most effective sound insulating filler (Sulfur hexaflouride) is no longer available due to being a highly potent greenhouse gas.

jbrooksuk• 13 years ago

My FitBit tells me that my average sleep time is 7.5 hours. That's pretty good for me since I'm a light sleeper. My girlfriend moving in bed wakes me up.

Worse than that is that if I do have a lie in, or I sleep longer than 8 hours — yes, I recorded sleep before my FitBit — I'd end up with headaches all day and night, worsening my sleep the next night. 7.5 hours seems to be my perfect sleep duration.

I've never been able to have a lie in, even when growing up with my parents and going through puberty. I'd want to lie in, but my parents would have me up by 8:30 every day. 9AM on rare occasions. I wonder if that's got anything to do with it.

dorfsmay3• 13 years ago

Note that you can use it to your advantage too. Bad allergy? Sleep less, it'll raise your corti??? and reduce the effect of the allergy. Not a long term solution, but works well when you are at the pick of it.

ryusage• 13 years ago

I think it would be the opposite effect actually. Sleeping less, according to the article, seems to increase inflammatory and immune system responses, which are what cause allergies. So sleeping more, presumably, may decrease a person's allergic reactions.

Of course, this whole article is based on a really small sample size...I would take it more as a suggestion than a solid scientific result.

dorfsmay3• 13 years ago

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9415946

Sleep deprivation increase the levels of cortisol which is in part why you tend to put on weight when not sleeping enough. Cortisol is an anti-inflammatory.

I wouldn't be surprised if chronic lack of sleep increase inflammatory, due to some other mechanism, but for sure, short bouts of sleep deprivation has worked wonder for me to stop allergic reactions (I'm talking sleeping less than 4 hours/24 hours period - I usually need between 7 and 9 hours).

lportion• 13 years ago

I find this hard to believe. I have contact dermatitis and it noticeably gets worse when I am not sleeping well.

dorfsmay3• 13 years ago

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9415946

I'm not talking about not sleeping well, I'm talking about sleep deprivation, less than 4 hours, when I normally need between 7 to 9 hours.

Also, we are all slightly different, what works for one person might not work for another (we are all an experience of one).

robg• 13 years ago

With our technologies for stress monitoring, I've been amazed at how much naps seem to reduce stress. You go from being pretty high to pretty low within twenty minutes.

elwell2• 13 years ago

Naps usually leave me feeling like crap with a headache; especially on hot, dry days or if I had just eaten.

cliveowen3• 13 years ago

I don't believe all of this claims about sleep. I sleep 10 to 12 hours a night and I always feel like shit. Even when I had to go to school, I used to sleep 8 hours a night and I was drowsy for most of the day.

skizm2• 13 years ago

I don't believe it when research claims X because of personal experience.

That's a horrible way to look at any research conclusion. Have you considered you are possibly oversleeping? 7.5 hours might be a magic number (exactly 5 rem cycles) as opposed to 6.5 which will put you waking up in the middle of a rem cycle. Studies can be faulty for a whole bunch of reasons but dismissing a body of work because your little n=1 experiment didn't sync up with their conclusion is just willful ignorance.

cliveowen3• 13 years ago

I don't see how one can oversleep, if you don't need anymore sleep you just wake up, that's how it works.

Mithaldu4• 13 years ago

Have you talked to a doctor about that? Specifically an expert in respiratory issues might be able to help.

cliveowen3• 13 years ago

I have no trouble breathing whatsoever.

gte910h4• 13 years ago

Talk to a sleep specialist.

You may be suffering from any number of medical problems interfering with a good night's sleep.

Things like CPAP machines are transformative for sleep depth

MichaelGG• 13 years ago

10 to 12 sounds excessive. Sometimes I sleep 14+ hours a day. It's usually because of another problem, and oversleeping often drives a depressive state. Going a day without sleep, or getting 3 hours, usually makes me very hyper.

You should consider doing some research or consulting with a doctor.

landakram• 13 years ago

I know there's a lot of research in the effects of sleep deprivation on health, but the study referenced in the article had only 7 participants, segmented into two groups. Doesn't that seem like a really small sample size?

jbkkd• 13 years ago

Agreed. Although seemingly true, this article makes you wonder twice whether this has any scientific basis.

ExpiredLink• 13 years ago

So we asked seven volunteers ... The volunteers were randomly allocated to two groups.

Ahem

dkl• 13 years ago

Deep sleep sounds restful, but during it our brains are actually working hard. One of the main things the brain is doing is moving memories from short-term storage into long-term storage, allowing us more short-term memory space for the next day. If you don't get adequate deep sleep then these memories will be lost.

Compacting garbage collection.

elmilagro• 13 years ago

Yeah, if I drink any form of caffeine, this deep sleep is less effective. I can tell if I am on a caffeine binge working all the time, my days blur into one.

How much can an extra hour's sleep change you?

Related Stories