Myths About Sleep

http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/7-myths-about-sleep

by ssn • 17 years ago

45 8 17 years ago

webmd.com

bkj123• 17 years ago

nice read

theblackbox3• 17 years ago

Why does this community have a minor obsession with sleep? I'm asking out of genuine curiosity.

nazgulnarsil2• 17 years ago

because a lot of programmers are the type who reject their natural sleep rhythm any time it becomes an inconvenience to getting work done. since this is fairly often (lots of articles have been written on why people doing creative work stay up late, won't rehash here) they wind up with chronic sleep problems when others demand that they conform to a schedule (read: the rest of the world).

my take: One of my MAIN goals for making a lot of money is to get to the point where I can just sleep whenever I feel like sleeping.

theblackbox3• 17 years ago

okay so to take this further, what motivations are there for breaking the "natural sleep rhythm" that are prevalent in the world of creative entrepreneurs (hackers) but not so in the "rest of the world"

You gave the exact answer I was expecting, but I'm not convinced this suffices. It /IS/ an obsession... my late night coffee binges are the stuff of legend (mostly because I rely entirely on natural stimulants when my other friends take more unorthodox steps to maintain.... "consciousness")... but WHY is this so? My stimulated friends are there for the simple pleasure of being wrecked on particular drugs, does the brain of a hacker/creative entrepreneur expect a similar payout? you mentioned being motivated by money... so by breaking (or taming?) the natural rhythms of sleep, does one invest some abstract personal commodity in the hope of future security? What could motivate this?

[ASIDE: notice that I'm trying to _START A DISCUSSION_.... voters/recent posters would do well to take that into consideration as for some reason it has been overlooked of late]

tocomment• 17 years ago

I think this one is no longer a myth:

3. Some people function perfectly on four hours of sleep.

I read about a gene that some people have that lets them do this: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/813/2

berntb• 17 years ago

Thanks for the tip but we'll have to wait a decade, at least, for therapeutic gene therapy.

Myths About Sleep

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