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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.
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.
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.
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?
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...
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)
I had a similar discovery with kids, although I concluded it wasn't so much that I was functioning normally as I just didn't feel the pain or notice the fog anymore. As they've gotten older and I've started getting more sleep, that imperviousness to the discomfort of being short on sleep has disappeared again. (I can remember one night, rocking an angry child at 3 a.m. where I thought to myself, "I slept from 11 to 3, so that's 4 hours. Even if she takes forever to go back to sleep this is already a pretty good night!" Yes, I did immediately realize that sounded pretty absurd.)
Outside of the newborn months, I like 8 if I can get it, but 7 is just fine. 6 leaves me tired, and anything under 5 makes me feel foggy. One very occasional night of 5 isn't too big of a deal as long as I get rest the next night, but two in a row of less than 5 and I feel pretty wrecked.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Sadly, not in my case. If not for those first 3-4 months I would probably have a second kid, but I really became an exhausted wreck until things got more regular and fell into a (mostly) once a night feeding schedule. Our coping mechanism at that point was that we traded nights to get up with him and I was only a zombie every other day at work instead of a constant zombie/a-hole.
The USA really needs to have much better maternity/paternity leave than we do. 2 weeks (burning through all my meager vacation) was not enough. My wife at least was able to get some cat-naps during the day, not so much for me (no, she didn't have it easier, but she did get more sleep from weeks 2-12). It is pretty darn hard to come home after working all day as a zombie and have to take over because your wife is an exhausted wreck, all knowing that the cycle won't have a break until the weekend.