That sleep impairs learning is something I notice as well. For someone who can't sleep well, it feels like a cognitive enhancer. What I find hard to reconcile nowadays in my life is how to go out with friends, stay up until 4, wake up at 12 and then go to bed around 11 again (only being awake for 11 hours). When this happens I can be assured that I can't sleep well, but I have to go to bed around that time to have a shot at getting 8 hours of sleep.
If I was on a night out usually I wake up quite early, like around nine. Then I feel the hangover of course but I don't go to bed again, instead have my coffee and start working. That day I feel tired and less energetic but I know of course that this is from the nice night out. When I arrive home at night I'm longing for bed but don't go to bed anytime sooner or later than I'm used to go, which is around half past 11. Then I sleep in within a short amount of time after having read a few pages in a novel. That's my hangover day novelty.
It's important to remember that late night LED screen usage (and overall usage of high-contrast displays like in tablets and phones) prevents generation of melatonin which promotes sleepiness.
It's great that iOS/macOS now have night shift (and I've been loving F.lux for years), but it would be intersting to see how sleep patterns have been impacted by overall tech adoption.
I travel regularly to tribal places!
Some of them dont have electricity and they sleep at around 8pm and wake up early at 5 am. But the people who go to cities and come back sleep really late!
The shift has been very dramatic and the more technology is adopted there seems to be an increase in discontent in an
otherwise peaceful life.
On a side note: Earlier the tribals used to negotiate when there was a fight or crime,But once the police station opened the people seem to netgotiate less and use a third party to resolve the issue
Yep. And we all have different levels of sensitivity to blue light. I'm super sensitive, so if I'm doing anything on screens at night it pretty much completely shuts down my melatonin production. If I'm coding, working, reading, or watching something on a device I literally won't become sleepy. And when I do go to bed I'll lay there for a long time before I can fall asleep.
Bottom line is that in order to go to sleep and get 8 hours, I have to be avoid device usage at night.
I think the article is interesting, but the headline is wrong. Sleep is a status signal, but it isn't new and it isn't positive. Think about how many idioms and colloquies connect sleep with sloth, licentiousness and shame.
No, the status symbol of sleep is how little of it you've had.
Admittedly it'd probably be harder to sell sleep deprivation than something that ostensibly helps with the problem.
Both are status symbols - how little sleep you are getting but still managing to perform is an often macho status symbol at a certain middle class level. You are living the life and doing big work on very little sleep because you are just that tough and smart. wooooo.
however it is only a middle class status symbol. And in quite a lot of middle class jobs it seems required that you do this to stay in the middle class, because if you do take the time to sleep how will you keep up with the Jones'
On the other hand if you're poor there is no status symbol associated with getting little sleep, it is just something you often have to do.
And if you're rich there isn't any need for you to brag about how you stayed up late on the Andersen case for 4 nights this week, and got that out the door yeah.
When you're rich you can afford to sleep as much as you want, and that is the real status symbol.
The "lazy" things are more for those that sleep or laze around a lot during the day, or regularly sleep in for hours. There's no shame in the regular ~8 hours of sleep a day, besides maybe some nocturnal folk that claim to not sleep as much and instead DO ALL THE THINGS at night. They've got their own issues.
I used to hear this kind of humblebrag all the time in consulting: “I was up working until 4am and only got 2 hours of sleep.” Or, “I didn’t go home last night.” Or college: “I pulled an all-nighter finishing that project.” Extend that to pride in working 80+ hours/week for a startup or eating lunch/dinner at your desk.
It’s associated with being “a hard worker” or “a go-getter”. I associate it with poor productivity or time management, bad planning or scope management, unrealistic leadership expectations, and/or weak-willed individuals (e.g., unwilling to push back).
>I associate it with poor productivity or time management, bad planning or scope management, unrealistic leadership expectations, and/or weak-willed individuals (e.g., unwilling to push back).
Nailed it. It's the same individuals who browse Facebook all day at work that talk about being at work 10+ hours a day.
For anyone seriously interested in the nature of sleep (and consequences of lacking it) this is mandatory read "Good sleep, good learning, good life" by dr Piotr Wozniak http://super-memory.com/articles/sleep.htm
As i understood from a recent trip to Chichén Itzá, Mexico. The maya indians already had classes where the ones with status only had to sleep drink eat and watch the stars. So there (and then) it was a status symbol already too.
Everyone needs to sleep, drink and eat, it's just that these guys didn't need to do anything else. The status symbol in that case is to have no obligations and a lot of spare time.
Donald Trump claims to sleep 4-5 hours per night. According to reports, he also watches cable TV news for several hours every day (including Sean Spicer's press conferences -- which is a strange thing for a president to do, as the whole point of having a press secretary was to free the president's time to do something else than meet the press).
Perhaps Ivanka could convince him to watch less TV and sleep some more...? An article equating sleep with status symbols is certainly a good start.
Some people honestly just need 4-5 hours of sleep. I used to work for Zillow and their CEO Spencer only sleeps 4-5 hours a night. It's all he needs and all he's ever done, according to people who have worked for him for a long time.
But these people are the exception not the rule. I think the reason they tend to be successful is because they are up before everyone else and have time to get a lot accomplished before they are thrown into the day with everyone else's schedules pulling on them.
> I think the reason they tend to be successful is because they are up before everyone else and have time to get a lot accomplished before they are thrown into the day with everyone else's schedules pulling on them.
Whenever the daydream talking point "what superpower would you have?" comes up, my answer is to not require sleep. I love sleep and I get seven to eight hours of it every night. But imagine what you could do with another eight hours of waking activity every single day. I think you're right that people who can get by on less have an advantage. But I'm not one of 'em.
I'm not experienced in this but from what I've read you could just take stuff like modafinil and sleep way less while being productive longer so it's not really a daydream scenario - there will probably be trade-offs but it's achievable.
The "4-5 hours a night" story is so prevalent among government and business leaders that I've always assumed that they are A) lying, or B) medicating to reduce their sleep needs.
President Obama was reported to have regularly taken Modafinil to reduce jet lag while on international trips. He's also reported to only sleep five hours a night. Why not just medicate to increase your productivity for a few years?
Because Modafinil is a Schedule IV controlled substance, and "I want to be a productive superman like President Obama" probably won't fly with your doctor?
Modafinil is not a long term solution. Sleep deficit that you would build up would have to be "paid back", or it would become detrimental to your health.
I'm not sure it's a 1:1 relation, eg. say you cut 12 hours of sleep during the week but sleep extra 6 hours on the weekend or something along those lines - cycling on-and-off according to your schedule.
As I've said I haven't tried it yet will do some research before I do, right now I'm trying out other stuff and it wouldn't be wise to mix so many unknowns.
> Donald Trump claims to sleep 4-5 hours per night.
This might go some way to explaining why he comes across so batshit insane and authoritarian. Lack of sleep correlates with reduced empathy, increased aggression and loss of impulse control.
Margaret Thatcher too come to think of it. She claimed to only sleep four hours a night because any more was 'a waste of precious time'.
Leisure as a status symbol of the upper classes is nothing new though - it's what's required for the Good Life according to Aristotle, and it's long been the aspiration of the English upper class: a marker of nobility.
The famed Keynes biographer, Robert Skidelsky (The Right Honourable Lord), has an intriguing book with his son, Edward Skidelsky: How Much Is Enough? Money and the Good Life.
Starting point is an essay by Keynes from 1930, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren, in which Keynes predicted that 100 years from then, economic progress would have improved productivity and real incomes so much that everyone (in the developed world) would only have to work 2 days a week and be free to enjoy their leisure otherwise.
Now, it's still a few years until 2030, but it doesn't really look like that prediction will come true - and the book is an examination on why.
Makes you think. (And sleep. And take time off :-)
Keynes was right on the fundamental analysis, but wrong on how much people appreciate the luxuries that the extra money from working three days more than you need to can buy (plus, something about the satisfaction that many people derive from working). Most people lower middle class and up could easily get by on 2/5 of their current salaries if they made the necessary adjustments to their lifestyles -- including moving to a low-cost probably non-urban area. But that's simply not an attractive proposition to most people.
Now, of course, there's a chicken-and-egg thing going on where two-day-jobs largely aren't on offer, but I'd argue that's largely because there just aren't that many takers. Especially in IT, especially if you're above-average successful, it's conceivable that you could find and negotiate a two day a week remote position -- but even among the population that probably could do that, it just doesn't seem a lot are, or are even trying.
Four or four-and-a-half work weeks are definitely a thing on my side of the pond; atm I have a 40 hour work week, I have colleagues who do 32 (their SOs also work a similar pattern, giving them 2 days to tend to the kids, so they only have to pay for 3 days of day care if that), and my previous job was a 36 hour / week job; if I just worked 40 (easy enough), I got a longer weekend every other week.
Usually, there are benefits tied to being full-time so I imagine part of this is that people would lose 'full-time' status and then their 401k match, health insurance, etc. Flexible working still implies full time.
In almost all jobs that I have had since the 1980s, I have negotiated working 4 days a week for 80% of the offered salary. This takes some sensitivity and flexibility in looking out for the interests of my employers.
There's very few people that would not be deep in poverty if they only received 2/5 of their wages.
I spend 1.25 days a week working just to afford rent (roommates, very crappy construction, no AC, no central heat, semi-decent area... ie can't find anything cheaper unless I were to add at least 2 hours to my commute every day).
These are the types of comments I just can't relate to on HN. I do not have many luxuries in my life (due to lack of funds) and I know I'm hardly doing poorly in modern America.
You're confusing not being able to with not wanting to. You seem to live in a high rent area: that makes sense if you're optimising for career/lifetime earnings - but in this hypothetical you're not, you're optimising for leasure time.
Adding two hours to your commute matters less when you're only doing it twice a week. Also, anyway, I'll bet that you can buy food for a week on less than 0.75 days wages. You could, if you wanted to, if five days of leisure a week was actually your life goal, most likely make a number of changes and achieve that. But it's not going to be a life of very many modern luxuries.
People on two days a week will generally be (money) poor, but they can live, and have a lot more leasure time. But that's the point: they don't want to, they want luxuries more, and that's fine.
Remember that Keynes was writing a century ago: two days a week can buy you a decently comfortable 1910s life, but that looks a lot like poverty today (you mention your lack of AC and central heating - well, Keynes never had any of that) - because we're spending our money on luxuries rather than leisure time.
There's another pertinent book, by the way, Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy by Robert H. Frank, in which he highlights how much the concepts of "normal" and "luxury" are really contingent and depending on our environment. Spending some time in Nepal, or the Philippines, or Kenya makes you appreciate that (and those are relatively thriving countries).
There's really a lot of "Keeping up with the Joneses".
Having said that, in some areas in the USA you really pay ridiculous amounts for a rather basic quality of life (or in HK, London, Munich, etc. for that matter).
Startlingly accurate but rather than everyone living that way, we have a small and shrinking fraction of the population working full time or more, and longer "education" and earlier retirement/ageism than ever. As an economy that's about what we do, we're just not egalitarian about it.
I have been partially retired for almost 20 years, and one of the many benefits is getting 8 solid hours of sleep every night as well as time for exercise.
We all need money to live, but also optimizing for leasure time is important.
56 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] threadHow do other HNers deal with this?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12546989
Source: Safety instructions on a box of melatonin pills.
Always take the smallest dose of whatever you need to supplant in your body, for the effect you need to achieve :-)
Lack of sleep, presumably?
The main thing is regularity. I had a paper round on Saturday mornings once, they made me forget how to sleep in in the mornings.
It's great that iOS/macOS now have night shift (and I've been loving F.lux for years), but it would be intersting to see how sleep patterns have been impacted by overall tech adoption.
On a side note: Earlier the tribals used to negotiate when there was a fight or crime,But once the police station opened the people seem to netgotiate less and use a third party to resolve the issue
Bottom line is that in order to go to sleep and get 8 hours, I have to be avoid device usage at night.
No, the status symbol of sleep is how little of it you've had.
Admittedly it'd probably be harder to sell sleep deprivation than something that ostensibly helps with the problem.
however it is only a middle class status symbol. And in quite a lot of middle class jobs it seems required that you do this to stay in the middle class, because if you do take the time to sleep how will you keep up with the Jones'
On the other hand if you're poor there is no status symbol associated with getting little sleep, it is just something you often have to do.
And if you're rich there isn't any need for you to brag about how you stayed up late on the Andersen case for 4 nights this week, and got that out the door yeah.
When you're rich you can afford to sleep as much as you want, and that is the real status symbol.
It’s associated with being “a hard worker” or “a go-getter”. I associate it with poor productivity or time management, bad planning or scope management, unrealistic leadership expectations, and/or weak-willed individuals (e.g., unwilling to push back).
Nailed it. It's the same individuals who browse Facebook all day at work that talk about being at work 10+ hours a day.
Perhaps Ivanka could convince him to watch less TV and sleep some more...? An article equating sleep with status symbols is certainly a good start.
But these people are the exception not the rule. I think the reason they tend to be successful is because they are up before everyone else and have time to get a lot accomplished before they are thrown into the day with everyone else's schedules pulling on them.
Whenever the daydream talking point "what superpower would you have?" comes up, my answer is to not require sleep. I love sleep and I get seven to eight hours of it every night. But imagine what you could do with another eight hours of waking activity every single day. I think you're right that people who can get by on less have an advantage. But I'm not one of 'em.
President Obama was reported to have regularly taken Modafinil to reduce jet lag while on international trips. He's also reported to only sleep five hours a night. Why not just medicate to increase your productivity for a few years?
By the way, those few people who need less sleep most likely have certain genetic advantage that the rest of us don't: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetic-mutation-...
As I've said I haven't tried it yet will do some research before I do, right now I'm trying out other stuff and it wouldn't be wise to mix so many unknowns.
This might go some way to explaining why he comes across so batshit insane and authoritarian. Lack of sleep correlates with reduced empathy, increased aggression and loss of impulse control.
Margaret Thatcher too come to think of it. She claimed to only sleep four hours a night because any more was 'a waste of precious time'.
The famed Keynes biographer, Robert Skidelsky (The Right Honourable Lord), has an intriguing book with his son, Edward Skidelsky: How Much Is Enough? Money and the Good Life.
Starting point is an essay by Keynes from 1930, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren, in which Keynes predicted that 100 years from then, economic progress would have improved productivity and real incomes so much that everyone (in the developed world) would only have to work 2 days a week and be free to enjoy their leisure otherwise.
Now, it's still a few years until 2030, but it doesn't really look like that prediction will come true - and the book is an examination on why.
Makes you think. (And sleep. And take time off :-)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/books/review/how-much-is-e...
Now, of course, there's a chicken-and-egg thing going on where two-day-jobs largely aren't on offer, but I'd argue that's largely because there just aren't that many takers. Especially in IT, especially if you're above-average successful, it's conceivable that you could find and negotiate a two day a week remote position -- but even among the population that probably could do that, it just doesn't seem a lot are, or are even trying.
.. which doesn't have the kind of leisure that they want.
Two-day positions are very rare, but I'm seeing four-day arrangements becoming a thing as part of "flexible working".
I spend 1.25 days a week working just to afford rent (roommates, very crappy construction, no AC, no central heat, semi-decent area... ie can't find anything cheaper unless I were to add at least 2 hours to my commute every day).
These are the types of comments I just can't relate to on HN. I do not have many luxuries in my life (due to lack of funds) and I know I'm hardly doing poorly in modern America.
Adding two hours to your commute matters less when you're only doing it twice a week. Also, anyway, I'll bet that you can buy food for a week on less than 0.75 days wages. You could, if you wanted to, if five days of leisure a week was actually your life goal, most likely make a number of changes and achieve that. But it's not going to be a life of very many modern luxuries.
People on two days a week will generally be (money) poor, but they can live, and have a lot more leasure time. But that's the point: they don't want to, they want luxuries more, and that's fine.
Remember that Keynes was writing a century ago: two days a week can buy you a decently comfortable 1910s life, but that looks a lot like poverty today (you mention your lack of AC and central heating - well, Keynes never had any of that) - because we're spending our money on luxuries rather than leisure time.
There's really a lot of "Keeping up with the Joneses".
Having said that, in some areas in the USA you really pay ridiculous amounts for a rather basic quality of life (or in HK, London, Munich, etc. for that matter).
Startlingly accurate but rather than everyone living that way, we have a small and shrinking fraction of the population working full time or more, and longer "education" and earlier retirement/ageism than ever. As an economy that's about what we do, we're just not egalitarian about it.
We all need money to live, but also optimizing for leasure time is important.