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Short Sleepers Might Be Benefiting From a DNA Mutation
An anonymous reader writes: As someone definitely not in that category, I envy people who can get along with little sleep. I have sometimes secretly believed they're exaggerating. Maybe not. The BBC reports on DNA research that says there might be a genetic basis for the very low sleep needs that some people have. The article says that UC-San Francisco researchers "compared the genome of different family members. They discovered a tiny mutation in a gene called DEC2 that was present in those who were short-sleepers, but not in members of the family who had normal length sleep, nor in 250 unrelated volunteers. When the team bred mice to express this same mutation, the rodents also slept less but performed just as well as regular mice when given physical and cognitive tasks." If it's stuck in the genes, though, I guess I'll still want more hours in a row if I don't want to start hallucinating. So how many hours do you need? I seem to get along with six or seven, but sleep past noon on the occasional weekend day. Update: 07/09 19:24 GMT by T : The latest Freakonomics podcast has some interesting things to say about the economics of sleep, and hours-per-night is a big part of it.
Five hours seems to do it for me, but I've had many partners where they couldn't function on any less than 7-8. Annoying case, it is...
I really can't sleep more than 6 hours. And I usually wake up automatically (before my alarm clock) around 4AM. I've been this way for decades (back in high school I could sleep in).
If I get less than 5 then I suffer that day. It seems like my sleep needs are just being met, and if I fall behind at all then I feel like crap that day and need to go to bed early that night (and then I just wake up earlier the following morning, but rested).
I perform best, by far, before noon, but that could be the nature of the work (mind grinding).
I do enjoy a nap in the afternoon when I can get it (Saturday afternoon sometimes). There's actually not much nicer than a good afternoon nap.
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6 hours for mental refresh, longer if after a full day of physical activity.
geeks these days are always trying to pretend that they're somehow special. it's simply not true.
...and 8+ is ideal. But between being a full-time developer and running marathons, I figure whether it's due to the lack of a genetic mutation or simple necessity is, bluntly, irrelevant. If I get fewer than 7 hours of sleep, I suck at everything, physical or mental.
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
I agree to this. Until high school I used to sleep 7 to 8 hours every night. During my bachelor studies I was studying, working part time, and doing some graphics programming until late at night. After a few years like that, I got used to sleeping 4 to 7 hours per night. Now I can't go to bed before 2AM, or I'll be like O_O
Disagree. I was in the military so the early mornings and short sleep schedule were part of the job. I never got used to it even after years.
If I have fewer than nine, I'm always groggy getting up, and it's slow going for the first half hour or so. With six to eight, I'm okay once I get going, but I feel pretty tired getting out of bed.
NFL coaches are legends for being workaholics, and many seem to get ridiculously small amounts of sleep. What to they do with their time? A lot of it is spent reviewing game videos of their own team and those of opponents, very slowly with lots of stop action, to assess as precisely as possible the strengths and weaknesses of different players, team units, and schemes. Then they have to come up with plays and new variations of plays, and new practice drills. And of course, people management.
But that's because I can't help tinkering with all my gadgets around the house.
I prefer 7-8 hours a night.
That being said... In college, I learned how to survive on little sleep. I kept doing this all through my 20s and 30s. Now I've gotten to the point where it's physically draining, but going wthout sleep is mostly a matter of willpower and caffeine. I start hallucinating after about 24 hours without sleep, but this can be solved by taking small 5-10 minute naps from time to time. I found out the hard way that eventually you burn out from going without sleep for long periods of time, but it doesnt' require special genes.
These days, I just do a better job of setting expectations and agreeing to longer project schedules so I can get the job done without killing myself.
People who don't sleep much may annoy their partners and have fewer babies. Similarly, there is no selective pressure against Parkinsonism, diabetes, or heart disease, since people rarely die from them before having children.
...genetic basis for the very SLOW sleep needs...
Please get more sleep...and I can recommend the fast kind.
I've been a different sleeper for years. I used to think I was an insomniac; I would have trouble with not being ready for bed, then would lay there for hours, then finally get a few hours of sleep as I thought I *had* to get 8 hours to be healthy. I averaged between 3 and 5 hours of sleep a night for many years. It was cyclical though; sometimes it would be multiple weeks of 3, then multiple weeks of 5. I used to get upset that I wouldn't get 8 hours of sleep ever. I was still dreaming, and waking up recharged and refreshed.
I've learned over time that it's almost impossible for me to get 8 hours of sleep unless I've worked for multiple days in a row. I've done data center moves or had a crisis with production where I was up for somewhere around 48 hours or more, but when I went to sleep I would only sleep 8 hours before my body would wake me. I would then sleep again "for the night" in a shorter range of time (something like 16 hours of being up rather 20), but then I'd re-regulate after that.
I do kind of wish I slept more though. I don't think my brain feels as awake as it could if I had slept more.
I might require seven hours, but my younger brother needs twelve.
16hrs of napping a day plus athletic abilities of felines? Plus aren't we all more happy dreaming anyway? There was one of scenes in Inception that group of sleep drug subjects preferred dream reality from awake one... what's reality anyway...
I rarely sleep more than 4 hours at a time, though I'll often have a nap for an hour or two in the afternoon.
I discovered that when I tried to sleep the eight that was supposedly required, I would either wake up at 0300 and not be able to get back to sleep for an hour and a half, or I'd sleepwalk. I read a book a few decades back that suggested that by gradually decreasing your nightly sleeping time, you could find the amount of sleep you really needed (it was some decades back, sorry I can't remember the title now) and I tried what it suggested. Found that I'd wake up decently rested at 7 if I went to bed at 2.
On weekends, I wake up at 8 without the alarm clock. Weekdays, even holidays and when I forget the alarm clock, I'm up at 7. Habit.
My wife hates it.
Short sleep might restore the muscles and other organs and prep them for another day. But "doing physical and cognitive tests" as well as well slept mice says nothing about the long term memory of such short sleepers.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I have three little kids, the youngest not yet one year, so I'm unable to get all the sleep I'd like. I make do with about 8 hours a night, sometimes only 6 or 7. But on the very rare occasion that I'm away from the kids, I naturally sleep between 9 and 10 hours (and feel much more awake in the morning.)
Of interest might be my kids' sleep times: 9 hours for the six year old, 10 hours for the four year old, and 7 hours plus multiple naps for the infant.
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Like most abilities, getting only a few hours of sleep and feeling fine the next day is an acquired skill.
Disagree. I'm fairly disciplined in my sleeping habits these days but if I get less than 7-8 hours I am absolutely going to feel it and my performance will degrade some. I won't be a vegetable but I won't be feeling fine either.
Yes, it requires time, discipline and willpower, but blaming your genes for being a lazy bum is not an excuse.
Good sleep hygiene requires some discipline but no amount of discipline is going to let me get away with sleeping only 4-6 hours per night. Some people clearly can including some in my family but speaking only for myself I cannot get away with that little sleep for more than a day or two and I feel the effects immediately. I know for a fact that most people need more sleep than just a few hours and no amount of discipline will change this.
Like most abilities, getting only a few hours of sleep and feeling fine the next day is an acquired skill. Yes, it requires time, discipline and willpower, but blaming your genes for being a lazy bum is not an excuse.
This would seem to be refuted by all of the literature I've ever read on the subject, as well as my own experience. I used my discipline and willpower to sleep less, and all it did was make me a low-functioning zombie at work. After a few months, I had to give up and get my 8 hours every night.
But even assuming that you can train yourself to be a more efficient sleeper, there must be a limit to that as well, which may vary by person. So some people may "enjoy" 8 hours but only "need" 5, and others may "enjoy" 10 and "need" 8.
I will go along with the idea that you can get better sleep quality and thus require less total sleep, but there is still a wide genetic variation in the amount of good-quality sleep that particular individuals need. Even if I get perfect-quality sleep, I still need 8 hours. I wish I didn't but at this point in my life I know better than to get less. Based on what I've read, there are other people who only need 6 hours or less of perfect-quality sleep, and I can never be like them. I'm no expert on the subject, but I've never read anything that seriously claims you can train yourself to need less sleep (as opposed to increasing the quality of your sleep).
The military has studied this quite a bit, and there has been no way to achieve a statistically significant reduction in sleep requirements over long term studies.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
7.5 is about perfect for me on an ongoing basis. I'm just as productive / alert after 6 for periods of a 5-10 days, but then it starts catching up with me. My wife needs 9, and anything less than 7 for more than a single night is asking for trouble.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
1) Pick some rare advantageous trait (e.g. short sleepers, super multitaskers)
2) Post a story about it on Slashdot
3) Observe the large number of posters who claim to have the trait
Optionally:
4) Cross-correlate these posters against list of posters claiming to possess a different rare advantageous trait in previous Slashdot discussions
#DeleteChrome
I need about 1-2 more hours than I get.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
No sense in missing an opportunity to get those lazy Americans a few extra hours of productivity, amirite?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Down to the minute - I find I'm most rested if I sleep *exactly* 8 hours. I can go a long time on 7 before it starts catching up to me (which is good, because that's how much I often get these days, because my brain has now decided that I really want to get up when the sun comes out even though no I totally don't), but I'm happiest if I can consistently get 8, exactly.
I was amazed to learn that before the advent of artificial lighting the common human sleep pattern the world over was to sleep in two ~4hr shifts with an hour or two break in between in the middle of the night. The commonality of this is evidenced partly by various allusions to it in literature--as if it were simple, common knowledge. Some articles mentioned that some people go to the doctor thinking they have a sleep disorder when they continually wake up in the middle of the night, only to learn that their body is simply reverting to its own natural sleep cycle.
Good science fiction story form 1993 by Nancy Kress about finding the genetic basis of the need for sleep. Among the ideas in the story is that sleep is only needed to dial back metabolism at night, thus conserving energy. Evolutionarily useful when calories are scarce -- not so much now. When the genetic need for sleep is removed, a group of super-productive people is created. Food for thought...
Sleeping is a very complex process, and the duration of sleep could be genetically altered by compressing various stages of sleep, e.g. making the transitions more efficient, etc.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
It takes about nine months for that mutation to gestate. As soon as it manifests, blammo, goodbye sleep.
Thyroid levels and other hormones affect this. I'd be shocked if the mutated gene didn't affect the metabolizing of one or more of those hormones. I'm falling off a cliff of being able to function normally on 8 hours of sleep as my thyroid levels (affected by medical issues early in life) are finally falling below the normal range.
Sounds to me like you have been genetically favoured with a low requirement for sleep but are also predisposed to laziness thus requiring will power to take advantage of it.
I have sleep apnea - and consequently spend an inordinate amount of time in bed not asleep (having been woken up by lack of breathing, etc.). I've had a FitBit and a MS Band - both tell me that I am actually sleeping anywhere from 1.5 - 3 hours even though I am in bed for about 7 hours a night. On one of my best weekend nights I had 59 minutes of "restful sleep", 5 hours of "light sleep" while in bed for 9 hours. Wake ups were only 19 times that night! Generally it is much worse.
Completely disagreed. I forced myself to six hours a night, and drove myself into a depressive episode. After I recent, I examined details of exercise, diet, stress levels, then tried the same experiment and again got the same result. I need 8.5 a night.
Nope. Getting up early in the morning is an aquired skill. Anyone can learn to do that, and work early morning shifts. But that just forces them to bed earlier in the evening too. Some need 6 hours, some need 8 hours - anyone have some amount of sleep they need.
Dicipline can make you quit wasting time in bed, and jump out when the clock rings. You can even train yourself to wake up 5min before the clock rings. But dicipline can't reduce your need for sleep.
That's a really bold, totally untrue assertion.
Oddly the time I get up also makes a difference. I've found that if I set my alarm for 6 AM, I'll usually wake up a few minutes before the alarm goes off and be ready to go. If I set it for 6:30, I won't want to get out of bed at that time. I figure I'm usually cutting off a deeper sleep cycle at 6:30, which makes it harder to get going. At least that's my hypothesis.
I've found a 20 minute power nap when I'm feeling really tired can keep me going another 4-6 hours, too. I read a study a while back that put forth the idea that you could get by indefinitely on a 4-hours-up cycle with a 20 minute nap between each cycle. Life circumstances usually make that difficult to test, and I'm almost completely positive that strategy wouldn't work for me anyway.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I sleep (typically) from 9:30pm to 6:00am when I have work the next day. I also bike commute and don't eat breakfast, so I need the sleep when I'm not eating before the ride.
On Friday and Saturday nights, though, I tend to go to sleep around 10:00pm and wake up around 4:30am or 5:00am. Weird, I know, but for some reason, I wake up with the thought in my mind, "This is my time! I'm not sleeping through it!"
It's been awhile since I saw it, but I was struck by one thing in particular. One of the researchers talked about a period of 4 hours during the sleep when participants usually could not remember dreaming, but apparently they were. They could be awakened during this time and recall their dreams. The researcher would also disturb the sleeper somehow without completely waking them up but it would still disrupt their sleep somehow. When the subjects woke up they believed they had gotten a good night's sleep and felt fine. But cognitive tests showed they were not operating at maximum potential.
Generally sleep is poorly understood, but it seems to be an almost universal phenomenon and need in the animal world. Muck with it at your risk.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Why say this? Why?
You think that sleep doesn't count for something?
You think it is outside the realms of sleep?
A nap IS sleep.
You will nap for as long as your body feels is necessary, unless you get woken up by environment.
20 minutes in, your brain has been cleared of a reasonable number of transmitters that have gathered up over the day and left you tired.
110+-20mins will be a full sleep cycle for the average person.
Really though, if there was a way to give this to people through gene therapy, holy crap. Work hours would become even more awful than they are now.
Animals - and apparently some humans - can function completely by taking short naps (10-20 mins) repeatedly throughout a 24 hour period without having an hours long sleep session. This phenomenon is termed polyphasic sleep.
It is also interesting to note that the practice of lucid dreaming (having conscious awareness during a dream while it is happening) happens during REM sleep - which increases in frequency and duration throughout the night (or sleeping time) - with the majority of REM sleep occurring with in the last couple of hours before waking.
Thus, one method for inducing lucidity involves waking up a couple of hours early and staying awake for an hour or so and then returning to sleep, quickly entering into the REM state. Napping is also very conducive to lucid dreaming and REM sleep.
This makes me wonder if people with the DEC2 gene would have a better chance of entering REM sleep (and thus have more opportunity to become lucid) than someone without the gene. Logic would seem to dicate so.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
As with most things, I suspect there's a certain amount of this you can "learn" and beyond that is where genetics comes into play. Even as a kid when my twin sister went to bed I was allowed to stay up and read for 3 more hours until my parents went to bed. For about 6 years I was sleeping 3 hours per night but it wasn't enough and I'd come home after work and crash for a 40 minute nap. My former room mate used to ask how I got so much stuff done but he slept 10-12 hours a night, which is the opposite end of extreme. I now sleep about 5 or 6 hours per night (when exercising regularly 6-7 hours when I'm not regularly exercising) and it's perfect for me. Any more than that and I actually feel more lethargic. I wouldn't say I'm a "short sleeper" in a genetic sense but I definitely enjoyed the productivity I had when I was trying to be one.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
That's risky
Yes Ms. Thatcher, we hear you. This study shows you're full of shit.
I rarely need more than 6 hours. On top of that I'm an insomniac that goes up to 3 days without sleep and it really isn't until that last couple of hours before I get to sleep that I even feel like I'm tired. Even more is that if I tell myself before I go to sleep that I need to wake up at 5 and that isn't before the 6 hours I would normally sleep, I'll wake up a half hour before that time, the time it takes me to fully wake up and get cleaned up. That latter I attribute to discipline, one of those people that doesn't need an alarm clock.
Doctor's have been stumped on what the cause of my insomnia is so it's possible it could be a side effect of something like what's discussed. Have been for all sorts of tests both physical and psychological trying to determine the cause and all the doctors could conclude was that ordinary causes have an effect but aren't the cause.
Similar here. I usually get about 7 to 7.5 hours of sleep during weekdays, but I'm all in for 9 hours on weekdays if I can do it. Too much is a bad thing too, but 6 hours is just not nearly enough for me. I wonder what a long term study - something like 25 years- would reveal? Do people who "need" less sleep tend to age quicker, or become more susceptible to any autoimmune deficiencies, or cancer, etc.. ?
I believe those who say and live by the motto, "I'll sleep when I'm dead" will find themselves getting that sleep a little sooner than they anticpated.
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I'm experimenting. I sleep 6-9 and 2-6, or try to; I'm a late chronotype, which means those 10pm-2am hours are fantastic and otherworldly, but those early morning hours... let's just say I am fucked up as hell if I stay up until 1am and sleep until 6am, but can stay up until 5am and sleep until 10 and feel refreshed and god-like. I tend to sleep 6-10 and then want to sleep 2-10 anyway.
Shortening that first sleeping span seems possible, if I can get more REM. I've seen strategies of napping 20-30 minutes 3 times for REM and taking a 3 hour deep sleep segment; I've also considered trying to take 2-3 solid hours of sleep, and then throw some cholinergics and a deep sleep suppressor for the 4 hour segment, in order to buffer more REM into the second span.
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Depression and laziness are in your head; sleep requirements are in your fucking biology. You can treat your depression and laziness with cognitive therapy; you can treat your sleep requirements with drugs, maybe, and that's not proven yet.
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I used to sleep long at the weekends, but for the last few years (since maybe age 37) I find that if I sleep much more than 8 hours, I get a migraine that feels more or less like a hangover minus the body temperature fluctuations. At worst, I have to stay in bed until the late evening until I can function normally again (i.e. keep my eyes open without throwing up).
For a long time, because I'd only get it on a Saturday, and more usually after a bit of drinking, I just thought my hangovers were getting worse. But after cutting out the alcohol it was still happening, and I realised that the alcohol was just making me sleep longer, and it was the sleep that was the problem.
So now I just stick to the workday routine, and all is well. I've since discovered others get this too to some extent (headaches rather than migraines), noticeably moms who have to do kid stuff on a Saturday morning.
As an amateur athlete, I understand well the importance of getting enough quality sleep. The question I have here is, if you have this 'genetic mutation' and naturally sleep fewer hours, does your body fully recover, day-to-day, or are you perpetually feeling sleep-deprived regardless? To put it another way, is your body recovering/recharging/(re)building faster and more efficiently, therefore less need for sleep, or are you just incapable of sleeping 8-10 hours at a time? If it's the former, then I'd sign up to have my DNA resequenced to have this trait, if such a thing were actually possible.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
If I get fewer than 7 hours of sleep, yes even 6 hours, for more than 7 days in a row, I start to get dizzy spells, numbness of limbs, muscle twitching, migraines, strange distortions to my vision, hearing strange sounds, confusion of where I am, I can feel my pulse throughout my body, random weakness in that may cause my legs to give out, my head to suddenly tip, or my hands to lose grip.
I assume this is bad, so I make sure I get at least 7+ hours. Of course I can handle 1-2 days of almost no sleep with almost no issue if I'm "caught up" on sleep.
I'm guessing you are fairly young compared with me if you have the flexibility to sleep odd schedules like that. I used to do all sorts of weird sleep experiments too but such things aren't really compatible with most jobs and family responsibilities. I know it's possible to do successfully do some very unusual sleep schedules but it's hard to reconcile those with societal expectations. My work hours aren't especially flexible and my wife would be pissed if I was asleep between 6-9pm every day. I'd basically never see her.
Sleep is interesting and I REALLY wish I could get away with sleeping less. I consider it 1/3 of my life utterly wasted but there isn't really much I can do about it.
Until they live with me, or work with me. I sleep between 2-5hrs a night and average about 4/night per any given week. Given that I'm bipolar too I cycle a small bump into the mania section monthly and usually don't sleep at all 1 - 2 nights per month. None of which has any ill affect on health or functionality. When I get distracted by a project or my art, I will often just work a straight 18 - 20hrs without even thinking of sleep (food gets low priority too then). As a child I never napped past 6 months and by the time I hit 1st grade my bedtime was (begrudgingly) 10 - 11pm. By the end of first grade my parents gave up enforcing it and set the rule: "If you're grumpy or in a bad mood of any kind in the morning or have to be forced out of bed, you get an 8pm bedtime." I'd be up prior to my family any weekday morning.
As much as I have tried I am unable to reset my internal clock and find mornings tedious. My natural rhythm is to goto bed about 6am waking at 9 - 10. I am functional in the am, but get creative about 2pm and stay in that cognitive mode until sleep. I drop into REM almost instantly, less than 10 min. Been used in a few sleep studies because that REM mode is apparently rare. I suspect it's why I don't sleep much.
I sleep 9.5-10 hours when uninterrupted. If I get less than 7.5 then I need an afternoon nap. I envy people who can get by with less, for the cumulative extra hours spent awake add up to a lot.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
When I was under 7, I needed the normal 8-9 hours of sleep.
During the summer of my 7th, we moved a fairly long distance - and I stayed up until 4AM, then slept til 7AM.
AFTER that, I found I couldn't sleep until 3AM or so, woke at 6 as usual, and had a "normal" day. I would read 4 to 5 books a night.
I got classed as a borderline epiliptic, and was put on sedatives to make me sleep a more normal period, which I still do, mostly. After 18 I was off the drugs (finally!), but still sleeping relatively normally, though there were times I have pulled a 23 hour shift, then returned for a normal day following a 3 hour sleep.
Now, over 60, I can sleep at the drop of a hat for 10-15 minutes - or even all day.
Noticed in college when I was trying to get by on less and less sleep that if I slept an odd number of hours, I felt more rested that if I slept an even number of hours, even if that gave me an extra hour of rest. It was completely an accidental realization, but when I started sleeping 5 or 7 hours instead of 6 or 8 I did notice a difference. It seemed to break down at 3 hours... probably just not enough time. I always assumed it had something to do with hitting a sweet spot in the various sleep stages.
When forced into it (new baby, long crunch times at work) I have found that it is not an acquired skill. After more than even a couple weeks of only getting about 6 hours I end up miserable, constantly groggy, slow to recover from exercise, and with impaired complex reasoning.
Back in college I lived in Alaska. Over summer I worked in a student lab with near constant daylight. I found that my happy spot was to work about 16-20 hours, then sleep for about 10-12. It was not uncommon to sleep for 7-8, get up to eat something, then go back to sleep for another 3-4. It is not that I was being lazy, I was in fact working 60-80 hours every week and loving it.
And nothing to do with all that coffee you're guzzling.
Oh, I can get by on 3-4 hours a night too! Hell I can do it without caffeine. But let's not delude ourselves into thinking we're functioning perfectly fine on this little sleep. The legendary short sleepers the article is talking about don't ever sleep in and they don't set alarms to wake themselves up. You jumble up their circadian rhythm and they'll still be paddling along just fine. They don't wake up tired; they wake up refreshed.
One of the things scientists found when they studied this was that a lot of people (like yourself) claimed to be short sleepers, but were, in actuality, just suffering from chronic sleep deprivation. You grow so used to feeling tired that you acclimate to the feeling. That's all it is. You're definitely not performing at peak capacity.
I normally need 8 to 9 hours when sleeping indoors, but only 5-6 hours outdoors.
That is correct. At least as far as I can observe on myself, my family, friends and from what I read. Assuming it was possible for general population to get people to get less sleep and function properly the armed forces including air force pilots would not have to resort to drugs to keep going without enough sleep. This of course does not mean that with some discipline you cannot forgo sleep for one night but there are limits to this too. There are people that sleep less. Some of them suffer from - everybody is like me (but are to lazy to be as successful as me) delusion.
Could survive with even less. For a short while 1.5-2 hours a night would be manageable even if a bit uncomfortable with a longer brain start up phase.
Got no sleep at all for 96 hours once (no pills involved), still alive.
No. Not exaggerating.
No. Not lying.
Your implication that Depression and Laziness are similar is completely unfounded by the science.
You can be completely manic and be lazy or horribly depressed and while tired, not desire to slack off.
One is a personality trait, the other is a biological condition.
Those statements are true to a point.
Yes, you can treat depression with therapy, to some amount of success
Yes, you can treat sleep requirements with amphetamines.
Yes, laziness is in your head because the term doesn't describe any problem precisely other than catatonia.
There has to be a catch, some cost that undermines the advantage, otherwise it would be more common surely?
Finally a study that goes my way!
I'm guessing the submitter is a lot younger than I am.
When I was in college, I could (and did) easily sleep to noon or 1pm on weekends when I didn't have to work. Now in my mid-40s, I usually wake up around 5am without an alarm clock, and average at best 6-7 hours per night. I would love to sleep more, but I just can't.
Meanwhile, I have a hard time getting my teenage daughters out of bed before 9 or 10am on the weekends. Grrr.
- Necron69
I'm 61 years old and in moderately good health. A lot of people say that I don't look a day over 45. I have slept no more than 5 hours a day, on more than 90% if the days, over the last 45 years. I usually sleep about 3 hours at night (actually, early morning, I work in a bar) and get in a 90 minute nap before going to work. Alert and active daily from 9AM till 7PM and work from 10PM till 4AM. Rinse and repeat. Had similar sleeping patterns over 30 years while I worked a 9-5. My father used to work 2 full time jobs and slept about 3 hours per night. Would leave for work at 5:30AM and come home at 12:30AM, the next day. Made ice cream in the morning and ran an overhead crane in a foundry evenings. Did it for 23 years. I'd bet DEC2 is capable of being passed on. Dad lived to be 93. Hope I have that gene too. Wonder if they'd like a DNA sample.
Can DNA mutation be used to cure Cancer?