For Hackers Who Don't Sleep

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/health/01mind.html?_r=2&ref=science

by bearwithclaws • 17 years ago

63 36 17 years ago

The research described is about the adaptive benefits of sleep to species as a function of their ecological environment. This has no implications for the differences between individuals, even though the article desperately tries to make it seem that way.

If you're suffering from insomnia, get help. Don't be a smart-ass and fool yourself into thinking you're supremely adapted to your environment.

RyanMcGreal• 17 years ago

I wouldn't say I suffer from insomnia...

ewjordan• 17 years ago

Right with you there. However, I do suffer from the people around me bitching about my sleep problems because they see me up at 7 AM after a long night of coding. If one more "helpful" printout with an "FYI" scribble on it mysteriously appears on my desk explaining how to fix a chronic sleep problem I swear I'm going to scream...

But "insomnia" probably isn't the right word for me. I get my eight hours like clockwork, I just take it whenever it suits me. A lot of people think that's a problem, but if it is, it's certainly not mine. I don't have a 9 to 5 for a reason (many, in fact), and I'm going to enjoy the benefits of that as long as I can.

There's just something so productive about that midnight to sunrise stretch that's impossible to replicate during the day...

thaumaturgy2• 17 years ago

Most of this article pretty much flies in the face of everything that I've read on the physiologically restorative powers of sleep, including things like links between insomnia and alzheimer's.

As a "hacker" that hasn't slept well or regularly for about 15 years now, I'd dearly love to be able to fix my sleep lack-of-patterns. Sleep has become one of those imaginary, wistful things that sounds wonderful but is out-of-reach.

delackner• 17 years ago

This is an honest question: how much exercise do you get? More general question: Any insomniacs out there that also happen to get cardio (running, yoga, whatever) at least 3 times a week for at least 30 minutes each time?

thaumaturgy2• 17 years ago

I get more than the average joe, but not as much as I need. I'm 30, and still childishly vault railings and fly down stairs and swing around corners on poles and the like.

But, no, I haven't been getting enough serious cardio exercise; thanks for the reminder. Thinking back to my time as a climbing instructor, I think my sleep patterns were a lot better. Still irregular, but better.

crayz2• 17 years ago

Yes. I've been training for long-distance cycling for about a month, and did at least 8-10 hours total last week. Although a strenuous workout will generally get me asleep sooner (and for longer) than normal on the day I do it, it doesn't seem to have any permanent effect on my sleep patterns (I'm a serious night person - I like to stay up until it starts getting light out - and seem to have a natural 25/26 hour circadian rhythm)

fendale• 17 years ago

Yes, 3km swim sets 4 or 5 times a week. Doesn't seem to help mesleep at all. It does make me knackered, but sleep is still elusive!

skolor2• 17 years ago

While its no more than an anecdote, I've found this to be true. I only seem to have trouble sleeping when I'm working on a project that keeps me thinking all day long. When I am, I sleep light, waking often, and frequently only sleep 5-6 hours and wake rested. On the other hand, after finishing the project, or in a lull when I'm waiting on something (parts to arrive, someone else to get back to me or the like), I tend to sleep deeply and need upwards of 10 hours a night.

On the other hand, I will once in a while get an opposite period, I'll be working on a project and not be able to get by without at least 10 hours of sleep, or I won't have anything to do and not be able to sleep more than 4 hours at a time.

Sleep just generally seems to not be worth losing sleep over...

dcheong• 17 years ago

For non-subscribers:

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/0...

rms• 17 years ago

Or just clear your NY Times cookies.

gaius• 17 years ago

As an aside, it bemuses me how someone does this for every NYT article posted here, when a repeated theme on HN is the death of old media.

Like the NYTs content, why not register? They need all the help they can get.

jws• 17 years ago

The last time I started to register I read the terms and they wanted me to bind myself to terms that they could unilaterally alter and still bind me!

I sent them a note and received a nice phone call from a person that assured me they would never do that. Very impressive customer service, but thank you, no.

To be fair, this was probably 10 years ago and they may have a new policy.

ars2• 17 years ago

I registered years ago, I can't even remember how long ago (5 years+ I'd guess, maybe even 10). I have not gotten a single email from them.

I don't understand why they want the registration, but at the same time it's not problem to do it.

sho3• 17 years ago

This Dr. Siegel guy makes no sense:

"as Dr. Siegel put it, sleepers are less vulnerable to harm than they would be if they were out on the street late at night"

Circular reasoning. If people didn't need sleep, there'd be just as many people on the street as during the day and it wouldn't be any riskier.

"argues that sleep evolved to optimize animals’ use of time, keeping them safe and hidden when the hunting, fishing or scavenging was scarce and perhaps risky"

... so if all the animals are asleep at night, we should be awake then, right? We can just walk up and bop them on the head from behind, Halo-style. Why don't lions hunt at night if it's got anything to do with that? Moreso, why does any creature at the top of its food chain need to sleep?

It's hard to imagine any scenario when asleep humans are more safe at night than awake humans. Even if there were giant nocturnal monsters all over the place, they could just hide .. in the same place they would be so safe sleeping, say.

Very unconvincing.

rtp• 17 years ago

Circular reasoning. If people didn't need sleep, there'd be just as many people on the street as during the day and it wouldn't be any riskier.

No, what he is saying is that when you're sleeping in your bed, you are in a situation that are far less risky than being out on the street, driving your car, etc. How many people, statistically, die in their sleep, compared to "out on the streets" (especially when it is dark)?

sho3• 17 years ago

That's not how I read it. But if so, if the safety of sleep is indeed an evolutionary pressure, why don't we sleep more? And why do we have to close our eyes and lose consciousness to get the benefit of this safety?

joubert2• 17 years ago

>Why should lions get 15 hours a night and giraffes just 5 — >when it is the giraffes who will be running for their lives >come hunting time?

Lions also have to run for their lives come hunting time.

billswift• 17 years ago

When you're running for your dinner, you get several tries.

When you're running for your life, you win or die.

joubert2• 17 years ago

You need to look at it from the genetic point of view, not the individual organism point of view.

Catching prey / avoiding being caught, is a matter of life and death for the gene pools on both sides.

Hence the "crazy" arms races amongst prey & hunter.

radu_floricica3• 17 years ago

That one's pretty obvious. Giraffes are herbivores, so their caloric input is both less efficient and linear with time. Most herbivores spend a huge percentage of their time grazing.

Lions on the other hand need to be in tip-top shape only a few hours per day to cover their calories.

edw519• 17 years ago

Why should lions get 15 hours a night and giraffes just 5...

Lions are carnivores who eat huge amount of raw meat intermittently. They need lots of rest to save energy to digest that meat.

Giraffes are herivores who must continuously eat just to get enough calories. They don't have much time to sleep.

What's so difficult to understand?

olliesaunders2• 17 years ago

That one of many possible explanations. Science relies on reductionist proof.

sethg• 17 years ago

Jerome Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, argues that sleep evolved to optimize animals’ use of time, keeping them safe and hidden when the hunting, fishing or scavenging was scarce and perhaps risky.

IIRC a character from "Beggars in Spain" (a Nancy Kress novella that she later expanded into a trilogy) makes a similar argument for why her clever genetic hack for creating children who never need to sleep will have no negative side effects. It seemed like an audacious handwave when I read it; I had no idea it had the backing of a Real Scientist.

olliesaunders2• 17 years ago

My take-away from this: We don't know anything, for sure, about sleep yet so do what comes naturally.

For Hackers Who Don't Sleep

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