Calculate When You Are Most Awake

cjellibebi writes "Scientists have devised a formula that works out what times of the day you are most tired. Using their website, you can work out your alertness profile for any given day. It is also discussed on this BBC News article."

Comments

Its an Advert for caffiene pills YHBAT

[Anonymous Coward]

you have been astro-turfed

next on slashdot, scientists devise a new compound said to give men a huge wang

Re:Guess what they recommend

[Caseylite]

From http://www.mypharmacy.co.uk/alternative_medicines/ medicines/p/pro_plus/pro_plus.htm:

Each tablet contains the active ingredient: 50mg caffeine anhydrous Ph. Eur.<br>
Also contains: sorbitol and magnesium stearate.

So a nap and caffeine will alleviate tiredness? I'll stick to coffee.

Don't Think This is Going to Work for Me

[value_added]

Set the beddy-bye time to 11:00pm and your wakeup time options are between 11:00pm and 12:00pm? I woke up at 3:00 in the afternoon fercyrinoutlound!

For anyone who may be confused by the term knackered:

Main Entry: knackered
Pronunciation: 'na-k&rd
Function: adjective
Etymology: English slang knacker to kill, tire, perhaps from knacker, n.
British : TIRED, EXHAUSTED

Maybe someone who's really English (i.e., not the fake Canadian type like myself) can expound on the etymology. IIRC it has something to do with killing old horses.

On an more related note, I have noticed that I read Slashdot when I start to tire of whatever it is I'm working on (or not working on). I believe it has something to do with the rhythm of 20-minutes of focused attention followed by a few minutes of wandering thoughts we all have.

At least that's my theory.

Re:Don't Think This is Going to Work for Me

[Gilesx]

The "knackers yard" was a place they took tired old horses to be killed and have their bones made into glue....

Science? Try advert

[ansak]

I don't know how scientific the whole thing is, but it's all a protracted (but low-key) advert for some kind of "pep" pills. And as if that weren't enough, the layout doesn't work for Firefox (non-portable HTML), and it's very easy to confuse its text generator.

Just walk on, folks...ank

Re:Science? Try advert

[jc42]

it's all a protracted (but low-key) advert for some kind of "pep" pills

whose sole active ingredient is caffeine.

... doesn't work for Firefox ...

Doesn't work with any of the 8 browsers on my PowerBook, not even IE.

A quick check shows that it's a frameset, and the URL in the main frame gets a "refused" reply.

Re:Guess what they recommend

[Tandoori Haggis]

Packets of sugar feee mints containing Sorbitol carry a warning about potential laxative effect.

Just as you said...I'll stick with coffee!

Re:Guess what they recommend

[julesh]

In the UK, I believe it would be illegal to offer them by mail order. You would have to go to a pharmacist's shop to get them.

Real Book Recommendations

[ChuckDivine]

I will, perhaps foolishly, jump in with two real book recommendations.

The shorter of the two is Stanley Coren's "Sleep Thieves." It goes quite heavily into the various consequences of sleep deprivation. It's quite scary.

The longer of the two -- and probably more informative on the biology of sleep -- is William Dement's "The Promise of Sleep." Dement is viewed by many as the leading sleep researcher in the United States.

It will take you much longer to read this books than take the linked for test, but you'll be much better informed. You might even be able to marshall substantial arguments against a PHB's death march.

Both books also have tests to take to find out how sleep deprived you are. There are also recommendations for treating this condition.

Both are available from your favorite book seller.

Re:Real Book Recommendations

[xenephon]

Two others: Why we Sleep, by James Horne, and Why we Nap (edited) by Claudio Stampi. The first is a good overview of sleep research in general, and specifically addresses some of the claims that are made about the purposes of sleep. Horne looks at several arguments (he agrees with some, and disagrees with others) but more importantly gives pointers to the research which supports or refutes each claim.

The second is a book dealing with polyphasic sleep and chronobiology. Some of the findings presented there seem to have been missed by much of the sleep research community.

Both books are fairly technical, but this is news for nerds, right?

On a related note, sleep research is an area in which there are a lot of (widely) divergent views, all with some amount of data to back them up. Anyone who doesn't acknowledge this fact is not giving you the whole story. As a couple of examples, a number of hormones are released in different amounts thoughout the day (and night). In some cases, this is linked to sleep, but in others, the rhythm is linked to other zeitgebers without being directly related to sleep. Since most people sleep at night and are awake during the day, researchers have to be very careful to separate the two.

Also, experimental methods can be very important. Some of the methods used to limit sleep (or one particular phase of sleep) have caused other trauma which may have been responsible for some of the results. And finally, much research has been done on rats or other small mammals, and then extrapolated to humans. The problem is that humans (unlike rats) have a big enough brain to relax without sleeping. Since the only way for a rat to relax is for it to sleep, there are a number of effects which are tied to being relaxed which some researchers have instead tied to being asleep. Horne's book covers all of these points in detail (as well as several others).

It's an advert, people.

[Tim C]

ProPlus is the main (only?) brand of caffeinated pep-pills here in the UK; their tag-line is "for relief of temporary tiredness" or somesuch.

Sure enough, in the results they show that I never even make it as awake as "little sleepy", let alone "alert". If that were true, I'd have been out of a job (or dead from lack of attention when crossing the road) a long, long time ago. Funny then that I spend most of my Saturdays dancing from around midnight til 7:30am, and all without any chemical assistance...