HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

> However, take some of the science positions in the book with a grain of salt. The author is notorious for being directionally correct in his opinions,

I've read it and I agree. Although he does admit in the beginning that there basically is not much conclusive facts about sleep, hence his motivation for writing the book. It's implied that what he is saying is fact, and its a lot more correlation than I think panacea.

> It's also commonly known that people get less sleep than they think they do.

A few things IIRC from the book:

- The specific number is irrelevant as long as its "around 7~9"

- If you're lying down / resting this still "counts" (its not as impactful, but still beneficial)

If people don't want to read the book, the JRE podcast is actually pretty good at summarizing whats in the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

Good high level points about what to do to get to sleep (5 things):

https://youtu.be/pwaWilO_Pig?t=3011

⬐ mike_d

> the JRE podcast is actually pretty good at summarizing whats in the book

Anyone who expects to learn something from a Joe Rogan podcast should understand that it is for the most part, a podcast where people go to have their ideas go unchallenged: https://www.vice.com/en/article/9kv9qd/the-joe-rogan-experie...

⬐ depressedpanda

I hope the irony here -- citing a Vice article when complaining about ideas going unchallenged -- is not lost on anyone.

⬐ mbesto

So let me get this straight. The entire basis for "we should understand that ideas go unchallenged" is because a Vice article told you that? An article that doesn't do anything other than cite a few instances where JR lets interviewees go unchallenged? Honestly, that article is terrible. I would expect something more conclusive to say something like "we fact checked 100 of JRE's guests and found 47 of them to be factually incorrect in what they were saying"

I mean I generally agree that he doesn't necessarily challenge his interviewees but to say you don't learn something from JRE is kind of off IMO.

Anyway, that's besides the point because I've both read the book and watched the podcast. Additionally I've checked some of the sources and they're consistent with what the author has communicated. In a world of sound bites, I'm simply offering that this soundbite is better than single sentence headliners but not as good as reading a whole book or even further, reading a book and every source.

Matthew Walker, study senior author, on Joe Rogan (2018): https://youtu.be/pwaWilO_Pig

Matthew Walker of Why We Sleep fame, on Joe Rogan https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

Joe Rogan interview with Matthew Walker - a sleep expert - where they talk about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

Watch this Joe Rogan interview with Matthew Walker - a sleep expert - for answer that doesn't counter science on alcohol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

Also interesting to see him on Joe Rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

Oh yes, definitely. Another one from these experts is Valter Longo with his book "The Longevity Diet". All three of them were interviewed by Rhonda Patrick https://www.youtube.com/user/FoundMyFitness/videos for people who like to watch/listen before reading. Matthew was also a guest in Joe Rogan Experience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

⬐ leethargo

I found only one point in which Satchin Panda and Matthew Walker were disagreeing:

Satchin said that there were no (genetic) sleep types among humans (who prefer to get up and go to bed early, or late) referencing a paper in which a group of students went on a hiking and camping trip where they all synchronized to the same rhythm after a few days of exposure to all natural light.

Matthew, on the other hand, says that there are definitely variations in sleep time preference in humans, with a genetic base and recommends to find out so that the ideal time windows for work and sleeps are chosen. Does not give a reference, sadly.

Not sure what to make of it, really.

Surprisingly, the Joe Rogan interview covers most of the book and is pretty funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

If you have a long commute, I can recommend it.

⬐ kuroguro

Great episode! The part about memory centers sort of reminds me of GANs. Discriminate during day, generate during night.

I remember listening Rogan's podcast on the subject of sleep with Matthew Walker, who is a professor of Neuroscience at Berkley. Hopefully I'm not making stuff up as it's been a while, but he talked about a study where each subject was given a task to learn while their brain activity was being recorded. The study found that the same areas of the brain that flared up during the learning and memorization processes were also very active during sleep, as if the brain was replaying the same activity over and over again.

Edit: adding link to the podcast if anyone's interested - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

Great JRE podcast episode with Matthew Walker (Professor of Neuroscience, Founder of the Center for Human Sleep Science): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

It's not a talk, but worth a mention. Joe Rogan interviews Matthew Walker, a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Founder and Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science and author of the book "Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

To get up to speed on how dramatically sleep affects our cognitive performance, listen to this excellent interview with Matthew Walker (Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at UC Berkeley, and Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

https://podtail.com/en/podcast/the-joe-rogan-experience/-110...

⬐ mrhappyunhappy

I’m always sleep deprived (typing this up at 1:30am) but I’ll watch that tomorrow. Just wanted to say, as a chronically sleep derived person I typically feel like crap, everything aches. One day I got 9 hours of sleep and I felt amazing. No aching, total clarity, just felt like a new person. I’ll probably drop dead soon, off to bed now but will watch the video tomorrow! Thanks.

Try to sleep 8 to 9 hours every day. In this JRE podcast [0], Matthew Walker, a sleep expert, claimed that sleeping poorly can decrease your performance by 30%.

Strive to maintain a good work-life balance. Burnout sucks. Your health and family are more important than work. A workplace that doesn't consider this to be the case is likely to be toxic.

As for actual software development advice... Beware blanket statements. They can help you develop a low-resolution model so you don't suffer from paralysis, but real-world problems tend to be complex and messy.

Here's an example: if you were building a traditional web app, many software engineers would probably suggest using something like PostgreSQL. That doesn't mean other database technologies don't have their place. However, PostgreSQL is able to adequately serve a large category of problems with relative ease, so it often makes for a sensible starting point. Once you become more familiarized with that domain you'll develop a higher-resolution model and you can begin to evaluate other technologies more effectively. Much of software engineering is about figuring out what tradeoffs to make.

Another example in traditional web apps is using cookies for auth. Using cookies for this purpose is well documented and pretty much supported everywhere. There's plenty of known problems with using cookies for this purpose, but the alternatives also have their own set of issues to deal with.

My final example: testing. Testing your code is great and it can be very useful, especially when refactoring or developing new features. But going for 100% code coverage is usually more trouble than it's worth. It's also very easy to end up writing a bunch of useless tests. You want to focus on the actual problem and not waste anyone's time.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

⬐ audiosyncrasy

I'm currently in the process of changing careers into software development. I have a family of 5, a full-time non-tech job, and I just landed my first part-time coding job.

I definitely don't want to burnout, but I also know that I will need to work very hard for a short period of time until I can exit my current full time job and secure a full time software development position.

Do you have any advice on how to strike a balance between working very hard and knowing when you're burning out?

⬐ Flow

> Strive to maintain a good work-life balance. Burnout sucks. Your health and family are more important than work. A workplace that doesn't consider this to be the case is likely to be toxic.

Good advice.

It's likely burnout will really change you for the rest of your life if you don't react early enough.

It's a bit sad when you realize you'll never again be that guy you grew up and identifies as. But you also have to realize that was a person with habits that wasn't sustainable and now you have to live with that.

Joe Rogan Experience [0]. I love that he sits down with people and actually has long in-depth conversations with them. Here's a few interesting ones:

* Let's start with his Elon Musk discussion [1]. It came out 2 weeks ago and it already has 14m views. They basically discuss a bunch of his ideas along with things such as AI and the future of humanity. It's fascinating to get a peek into the kind of person he is.

* His discussion with Matthew Walker has been one of the most enlightening ones for me [2]. He's a sleep expert, and in the podcast they go over different myths relating to that. There was recently a HN post [3] where some people were quoting him and his book.

* Another big favorite of mine was his discussion with Paul Stamets [4], a mycologist (i.e. a mushroom expert). They discuss some of the effects of different kinds of mushrooms, including psilocybin mushrooms (colloquially known as magic mushrooms).

* I loved his discussion with Gary Johnson [5], the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate for 2016. How many other presidential candidates would you imagine would be willing to sit down and answer hard-hitting questions for +2 hours? He also had a discussion with Larry Sharpe [6], the Libertarian Party's candidate for governor of New York in 2018. Full disclosure: I recently joined the Libertarian Party. Listening to these podcasts pushed me to learn more about their movement.

* He had a discussion with Mikhaila Peterson [7], the daughter of Jordan Peterson, which many might find interesting. She had been suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and other medical issues all her life, and switching to a carnivore diet made all the symptoms go away

[0] http://podcasts.joerogan.net/

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPr5-27vSI

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18050090

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQIuHGbKckY

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSmggQZno6w

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF_7688Zk6s

⬐ timonoko

Netflix should take best of Joe Rogan podcasts in the repertoire. When properly translated, they have worldwide audience. Joe Rogan standups are actually of lesser value, because they mostly deal with domestic issues in America.

It'll likely be the nth time Matthew Walker is cited here, but in his interview with Joe Rogan, he mentions this is likely a societal trend rather than a biological need:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig&t=3294

> Joe Rogan: Yeah, I've heard this recently, that people - that you should have two sleeps. The idea of two sleeps.

> Matthew Walker: Yeah, it's actually a little different than the idea of two sleeps. So there was a time in the sort of Dickensian era where people would sleep for the first half of the night, maybe sort of 4 hours or so. Then they would wake up, they would socialize, they would eat, they would make love, then they would go back and have a second sleep. If you look at natural biological rhythms in the brain and the body, that doesn't really seem to be how we were designed. It certainly seems to be something that we did in society, but I think it's more of a societal trend than it was a biological edict. However, we do seem to have two sleep periods. Those tribes will often sleep about 6.5, 7 hours of sleep at night. And then especially in the summer they'll have that siesta like behavior in the afternoon. And all of us have that, sort of this - what's called the post-prandial dip in alertness, just means "after lunch" - and if I measure your brainwave activity with electrodes, I can see a drop in your physiological alertness somewhere between 2 to 4 pm in the afternoon [irrespective of diet].

Every single person here, if your serious about diving into the science of sleep, should read Matthew Walker's book: Why We Sleep: https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501...

His interview on Joe Rogan is a good summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

He covers everything from why we sleep (obv), naps, melatonin, etc. I've just finished it and really enjoyed it.

⬐ prostoalex

Kevin Rose also did a podcast with Matthew Walker shortly after the book came out https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/matthew-walker

⬐ thisacctforreal

I think lots of people reading hn have picked it up in recent weeks, I just finished the first two chapters myself :)

⬐ wepple

+1 was recommended to me a couple of weeks ago on HN. Most useful book I’ve read this year, easy.

⬐ drakonka

I am reading this right now as a chronically sleep deprived person and it is terrifying - no less than 7 hours for me from now on.

⬐ rofo1

According to the author, with 7 hours of quality sleep, you are still sleep deprived; after 24 days, you would be sleep deprived in amount equivalent to someone not sleeping 1 full night.

⬐ drakonka

Most of the "oh crap this is really bad" examples provided so far (I'm not done with the book) seem to have been for 6 hours or less, I figured 7 hours is a reasonable absolute minimum. I will aim for eight. However at this rate I'm afraid the more paranoid I get about not getting enough sleep the more difficult it becomes for me to fall asleep. I've never had issues sleeping, but this book coupled with having just moved to an apartment with a train nearby that's taking some getting used to is making me lie in bed and think about needing to sleep for longer before actually drifting off to sleep.

⬐ selimthegrim

Seconding this. His data on agents of sleep disruption/degradation of sleep quality were eye-opening.

⬐ aoner

Thanks. Saw this book being recommended multiple times here so just bought it :)

⬐ atomical

Joe Rogan is one of the biggest propagators of pseudoscience. It's not a good sign when a guest appears on his show. Joe usually tries to rope them into talking about his two favorite health topics: cholesterol and testosterone.

⬐ dokem

Eh, I've listened to hundreds of his episodes. Some are good for a laugh, some have interesting guests and I learn a thing or two, some I can't make it through. Not everything has to be a text book. What exactly is the problem? I find the unedited, uncensored, long form, 1 on 1, conversational style very appealing - Joe is just a chatter box to keep the guest talking.

⬐ atomical

I presented the problem clearly.

⬐ colordrops

You must not listen to him recently. I've listened to maybe 15 episodes and haven't heard either of those yet. He's been a pretty level headed host. It could be that he's better than he used to be because I've only listened to recent episodes, but it's been great so far.

⬐ robbiep

I haven't listened to a lot of Joe Rogan but from what I have listened (maybe last 6-7 episodes) and wearing my Dr hat I feel he fluctuates. He seems to walk a pretty level line but then occasionally drops things that are demonstrably false. More out of ignorance than malice I believe

⬐ kovek

Hi atomical, that's an interesting claim. Can you explain more why you believe that? I have listened through a couple of episodes and those made for interesting discussions.

⬐ astronautjones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4LtdUC14hY

edit: I get that he makes fun of him in later episodes, but that's only gonna pop up if you're watching youtube. for people listening on a podcast app, or with adblocking, or whatever else, they don't see the disclaimers. he's not a journalist and is rarely informed enough to challenge his guests, which totally counteracts his "open-minded" reason for having alt-right, pseudo-scienctific, snake oil salesmen, and bigoted people on his show. he's a dunce for giving his platform over to such obvious hucksters so often, which is only bolstered every time eddie bravo comes on (an idiot if there ever was one).

⬐ icantdrive55

He needs to brush up on The Placebo Effect.

(The Placebo Effecy is so important; I don't know why it isn't taught in grade school.)

⬐ qudat

I completely disagree, at the very least it is not intentional. He's interested in a lot of topics and explores a wide range of topics, he's not going to get everything right. What I will say is that he brings on a ton of interesting guests and they should not be judged because they participate in Joe's podcast.

> It's not a good sign when a guest appears on his show

Why does this matter? I find this line of reasoning corrosive and hypo-critical. Each guest should be judged on the basis of their merits, character, not who they choose to have a conversation with.

⬐ rofo1

That is an excellent book. However, it doesn't contain a lot of practical advice (other than the 12 points at the end of the book, which were released already by National Sleep Association)

Somewhat tangetial, check out "The Circadian Code" as well - a lot of more practical advice in this one. They actually disagree on couple of delicate points, so not sure how can one make up one's mind as to which one's correct (e.g. one thinks there are night owls , one thinks it's a myth; one thinks we need 7 hours of sleep, one thinks that less than 8+ hours of sleep is devastating).

But in general, the message is the same - sleep well, try to fit into your circadian rhythm because all organs have internal clocks and being in rhythm benefits them all; some of them are interconnected, some are dependent on SCN, etc

In particular, the clinical trials with TRE (Time-Restricted eating, as in putting all calories in 8-12 hour intervals daily) seem amazing. Not a single side-effect, and all health markers seem to be improving under it.

One important study on mice concluded that mice that ate their high-fat, high-sugar food in 8 hour intervals (lets say, 8AM -> 4PM) compared to the control group of regular mice that had high-fat, high-sugar food all the time, ate more or less the same amount of calories daily, but the TRE-group had no increase of blood sugar or body fat.

Seems too good to be true, but apparently the study has been replicated..

⬐ thesumofall

Does anyone have links to solid studies that provide some better answers if there is a significant share of people who can live on little sleep? As they tell you that you won’t recognize yourself if you’ve slept enough, I don’t quite trust my instincts

⬐ nabla9

Mice have very fast metabolism. Converting mouse models to humans requires adjustment.

There is some evidence that for humans eating all calories within 4 hour window might have similar effects.

⬐ tigershark

I don’t really think it works in the same way for humans. I have been doing it for decades and I can assure you that my body fat increases if I overeat.

⬐ victor106

End of the day you still have to burn more calories than you take in and also eat less carbs and sugars. I think once you do that any benefits are marginal(based on my personal experience)

⬐ rofo1

Have you been doing TRE in 8 hour intervals? There was a study on this as well, and it turns out a lot of people simply think they are doing TRE, but once they start writing down exactly what they eat and exactly when, turns out it's far away from TRE.

I've always believed in the law of thermodynamics myself - counting just the calories, but I keep an open mind for now until someone can refute it. The blood sugar thing makes sense to me with what I know about melatonin suppressing the insulin - that's a fact. But the rest of the conclusion.. who knows.

⬐ coldtea

>I've always believed in the law of thermodynamics myself - counting just the calories

Counting just the calories ignores second order effect, and diet is all about second order effects.

If one could absolutely stick to counting the calories and eating the specified amount, of course one would lose weight.

But e.g. a diet of only having 1500 calories of broccoli for 1 year, and one would be ill from lack of tons of nutrients and vitamins (and they'd have stopped much earlier anyway).

E.g. if one eats certain kinds of foods, your appetite increases and it's more likely to overeat. Not giving one's self some foods they like, also makes it easier and more tempting to break a diet. And lots of other factors (exercise, hydration, nutrition, and so on) unrelated with counting calories, that still affect what we eat and how we process it.

⬐ barrkel

One / your / it / we: make up your mind on pronoun and stick with it!

⬐ coldtea

Maybe focus on the content?

Any disparity is just on this single sentence: "your appetite increases" (as opposed to "their" or "one's").

"Their" as used across the comment is not meant as the plural possessive. It's instead used as a gender-neutral pronoun (a common use) to avoid repeating "one's" or using "his/hers".

It, in "your appetite increases and it's more likely to overeat" etc., refers to the situation/possibility (as in "If they sky's cloudy it's more likely to rain"). It is normal to use different pronouns to refer to different entities.

Finally, the "we" at the end is perfectly fitting. It's a generalization, beyond what each individual does.

⬐ barrkel

It was really distracting to read. The mix - and there was a they in there too - broke focus. Sorry.

⬐ coldtea

No problem!

Though "they" was used as a gender neutral pronoun -- not to change the subject from "one" to some group. E.g. as in: "if one drinks milk, their bones would benefit".

⬐ barrkel

I think once you've chosen "one", you need to stick with it: "if one drinks milk, one's bones would benefit".

⬐ clumsysmurf

I think I'm a night Owl with DSPS. For the past few weeks I have been trying to shift my schedule to wake at 4:30AM, go running, eat within 6 hours (Time Restricted Eating), and repeat - but my body is rejecting this like an allergy - I just feel awful.

I felt best running in the evening a little before sunset, getting back and eating within 6 hours, and going to bed around 2-3AM.

I had to change my schedule because we have bad Ozone problems in Phoenix AZ, so O3 around sunset was terribad — not worth running (if it was for health, anyhow).

Which book do you recommend? I feel like I'm fighting my body; since I began "waking" at 4AM (I think I'm already kinda awake) I can't sleep for more than 1-2 hours and get tired around 2PM. If I fall asleep at 2PM then I REALLY sleep, for many hours, and wake around 8PM.

Its a total mess.

I'm doing everything I know how: be in the sun early, melatonin, activity early, calories early, TRE, avoid blue light before bed, but my body still seems to reject the early bird protocol.

⬐ rofo1

I recommend you to read "Why We Sleep", however try not to be discouraged when you think about your sleeping pattern and what the science says it damages, and how it is devastating, detrimental to your health and so on. It can be overwhelming a little. If I had to choose one, this is the book I'd recommend.

I've only got my experience with sleep deprivation and the methods I use to fix it. I had severe sleep deprivation and now I sleep 8 hours on average, with quality sleep.

I am a very light sleeper, on top of having problems falling asleep. This is what I did:

1) limiting the noise - I installed new windows and added new door that leads to my bedroom; I have a fan that I put next to me, put it on the highest speed and it absorbs any noise left. You can achieve this with a "white noise app", too.

2) completely dark room - I cover the windows outside, and then inside too (just in case any light escapes).

3) I fit my meals within 8 or 9 window as a part of TRE (Time-Restricted Eating) - my first meal is around 9AM. It does not have to be perfectly accurate (8:45, 9:15 acceptable)

4) strength training every day (assuming you are cardiovascularly fit); I do sprints as well (twice a week or so)

5) zero alcohol - it is one of the strongest REM suppressors

6) zero caffeine - very important. The average half-life of caffeine is 6 hours. That means that after 6 hours, you still have 50% caffeine in your body.

7) write down the following, and try to look at them from time to time: when you eat, what you eat, calories/macros breakdown, when you go to bed, when you fall asleep (approximately), when you wake-up, and a summary of the previous afternoon and night time - what you think is the reason for the sleep (or lack of) on the day of

8) try to fit in with your circadian rhythm. On average: we are at our peak 10AM-3PM - try to fit strenuous activities in this period (including heavy strength training - since I am a remote developer, I can do this).

9) I walk around 8-10 km every day, part of it in the morning, part of it around 20:00

10) try to limit blue light at night - some ideas: dim lights, orange/red glasses filter, orange/red light bulbs.

----- These were the major things that I did, and some combination of them seem to work. I don't know which ones precisely. Some things that didn't work for me:

1) some natural remedies like valerian tea, etc. - it made me worse, actually. 2) meditation - just doesn't work (for me). A lot of people swear by it.. 3) nothing of this sort: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fall-asleep-fast/

Try to learn something from what you eat - but be brutally honest with yourself and write down everything that contains calories that you eat. I noticed that I sleep worse on the day I eat more sugars (and I hardly eat sugar at all!).

Hope this helps someone.. I know how hard it is without sleep.

Walker also covered many of the ideas in the book on Joe Rogan's podcast - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

Matthew Walker, a sleep expert, says sleep aids like Ambien are counter-productive. https://www.drugrehab.com/addiction/prescription-drugs/ambie... "Dangers aside, Ambien and other hypnotics don’t necessarily provide you the kind of sleep your body actually needs. In his book, “Why We Sleep,” Matthew Walker, director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, argues that the sleep people get from taking hypnotics doesn’t have the same restorative quality as natural sleep. In an interview with New York Magazine, Walker explains that drugs like Ambien simply “switch off the top of your cortex, the top of your brain, and put you into a state of unconsciousness.” The drugs actually sedate you, he says, and “sedation is not sleep.” The good news for those who desperately crave sleep is that a variety of techniques and methods can help you achieve a blissful state of slumber without prescription medications. Here’s a look at some good ways to reboot your sleep cycle. ..."

Discussed at length in his book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep

Also mentioned in this review: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/10/better-th... "At last comes an explanation: According to the new book Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker, the director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, the sleep people get on sleeping pills like Ambien is not true sleep. Drugs like these simply “switch off the top of your cortex, the top of your brain,” he explained to New York Magazine, “and put you into a state of unconsciousness.” That’s not sleep; that’s cryogenics. According to Walker, sleeping-pill sleep doesn’t have the same restorative powers—and there are lots, from an immune boost to emotional resilience—as good, old-fashioned zzzzs. Sleeping pills don’t even seem to work all that well. It’s true that some people say they fall asleep faster and sleep better on pills. But, as Walker writes, there’s little difference between the amount of time it takes someone to fall asleep with the help of a pill, compared to a placebo. Even a newer drug, suvorexant, only helps people fall asleep four to eight minutes faster, according to one study he describes. In addition to causing daytime grogginess, Walker argues, Ambien impairs memory and increases the risk of cancer and death. “Do you feel differently about using or continuing to use sleeping pills having learned about this evidence?” he asks the reader. This reporter does. Luckily, there is a better way. Walker recommends something known as CBT-I, or cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. A major part of it is proper “sleep hygiene”—well-known advice like keeping the bedroom dark and cold, using your frigid cave-bed only for sleep and sex, and turning off anything that emits light a few hours before bed. ..."

Note that, as Walker explains in this interview with Joe Rogan, if you are not dreaming at night due to alcohol or drugs, your brain may start making you dream when you are awake, leading to hallucinations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig&feature=youtu.be...

A very small fraction (<<1%) of the population has a genetic variant that may allow them to survive with less sleep according to Matthew Walker, who runs a center for sleep research at UC Berkeley. It is discussed in his book or you can watch him talk about it here: https://youtu.be/pwaWilO_Pig?t=5581

Wishing you the best in getting the benefits of less sleep without any health consequences. You might want to contact him to discuss.

The Joe Rogan podcast with the author is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

Read it based on the thread you posted. I feel like it's a book everyone should read and wished I had read it sooner.

Joe Rogan interviews the author here, great vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

If you haven't seen this, I recommend watching it as it explains the nightmares.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

That would be Joe Rogan. Link to the podcast is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig.

Matthew Walker, the author of Why We Sleep, was on the Joe Rogan Experience recently.

I've been in material cognitive decline over the past year or so and I'm nearly certain it's due to my abhorrent sleep patterns. This episode really helped me prioritize a fix over other things that would normally result in a night of 3-5 hrs in bed or on the floor (who knows how much actual sleep).

It's a great episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

⬐ shiny

I preferred his interview on the Kevin Rose podcast: https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/matthew-walker

Incidentally a previous podcast covered a lot of the same ground, plus much more: https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/Serge-Faguet

⬐ hobolord

that was the last podcast I listened to, and it was so informative. As I've grown older I've definitely been prioritising my sleep more. While in school I was getting maybe 6h on average for 4y, but now I aim for 8 or 9h of sleep.

This guy was the Joe Rogan Experience. Very interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

In addition to this, the JRE podcast with Matthew Walker has tons of fascinating insights into sleep (and how essential it is for health, longevity, etc.). Highly recommend just about everyone listen to it:

Joe Rogan Experience #1109 - Matthew Walker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig

⬐ wilkystyle

Great episode! I just posted another comment about Matthew Walker on the Kevin Rose podcast. There was definitely overlap with JRE #1109, but some new things, too.

Link: https://www.kevinrose.com/single-post/matthew-walker

⬐ sk1pper

Also overlaps with JRE and probably the one you linked, but I really liked this Rhonda Patrick podcast with Dan Pardi too.

https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/dan-pardi

Also can be found on Rhonda's Apple Podcasts channel.

⬐ sk1pper

The bit that really stuck with me from this podcast was how overworked some medical professionals are, especially those in residency. Which ends up contributing to them making mistakes with their patients, including deadly ones. Shift work is already extremely taxing on the human body, on top of the large amounts of stress nurses and doctors are already under; but on top of that, we're working the newbies 80 hours a week!?

According to Matthew Walker, this phenomenon started with one influential guy who thought it was important for the residents to "prove themselves" by working these insane hours, and it's just kind of stuck since then. Scary stuff, and basically no reason for it.

⬐ Bombthecat

I think the same about consulting.

Most people work insane hours there.

I'm pretty sure they could provide the same output in better quality if they learn to work 6 to 8 hours on one thing. ( And learn how to priotize)

⬐ perilunar

Medical residents do stupid work hours, and medicine is the one profession ought to know better. Pilots and truck drivers are legally restricted in the number of hours they can work, and doctors should be also. We know the effects of sleep deprivation, but doctors are 'special'.

There is no reason for it that I can see, apart from a general shortage of cheap, early-career doctors, due to their stupid guild-like methods of limiting inputs. That and their stupid machismo of proving themselves, as you say.

⬐ prostoalex

> William Halsted, the first chief of surgery at Johns Hopkins in the 1890s and a founder of modern medical training, required his residents to be on call 362 days a year (only later was it revealed that Halsted fueled his manic work ethic with cocaine), and for the next 100 years the attitude of the medical establishment was more or less the same.

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/magazine/the-phantom-mena...

Highly recommend this [1] podcast to understand what sleep actually does and how sleep deprived our modern society is.

[1] https://youtu.be/pwaWilO_Pig