Expert Says You're Deluding Yourself If You Think You're Productive On Six Hours of Sleep (chicagotribune.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Chicago Tribune: Getting through the workday on little sleep is a point of pride for some. But skimping on shuteye could be shortening your life and making you a less than stellar employee, according to Matthew Walker, founder and director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley. "Underslept employees tend to create fewer novel solutions to problems, they're less productive in their work and they take on easier challenges at work," said Walker, author of "Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams," out Tuesday. Operating on short sleep -- anything less than seven hours -- impairs a host of brain and bodily functions, said Walker, who is also a professor of neuroscience and psychology. It increases your risk for heart attack, cancer and stroke, compromises your immune system and makes you emotionally irrational, less charismatic and more prone to lying. When asked, "What do you say to people who sacrifice sleep to work?" Walker said: "I often ask the question in return, 'Is the reason you've still got so much to do because you haven't gotten enough sleep and so you're inefficient while you're working?' We know that efficiency and effectiveness are increased when you're getting sufficient sleep and it will take you longer to do the same thing on an under-slept brain, which means you end up having to stay awake longer. So goes the vicious cycle."

Comments

Bullshit

[AuMatar]

People are different. They have different needs for sleep. If I sleep for more than 6, I feel like utter shit. Headaches and lethargy all day. I work best on about 6, and am function on down to 4. Above that I'm less productive.

Re:Wow, that's clueless with the power of an Ox

[Solandri]

because the wage stagnation that started in the 80s and's been going strong since decimated their wages

It actually started in the 1970s with the Arab Oil Embargo. But people wanting to blame it all on Reagan like to pretend it started in the 1980s.

That's why Reagan is generally considered a pretty good President (among those who lived through the 1970s and 1980s). Yes growth was stagnant. But compared to what was happening before under Ford and Carter, it was a marked improvement. It's a little amusing to hear people complain about how terrible things are today. It's damn rosy compared to stagflation and the interest rates approaching 20% which eventually got us out of it.

So what do I do?

[Ol Olsoc]

I've always slept arounf 5 hours a night, unless I was sick - which happens about once every 5 years.

I go to bed, fall asleep, and then 5 hours later I wake up feeling refreshed and rested. So should I drug myself in order to get the "correct" and healthy amount of sleep? Or do I go to a doctor and tell him that some expert told me I was killing myself. so I need treated for insomnia. I really don't want to just lie in bed for three extra hours.

I call Bullshit. I know what I feel like when I'm tired, I know what I feel like when I have had enough sleep.

Re:Reagan was a terrible president

[Galactic Dominator]

Don't forget Reagan's war on the family farm. Mission Accomplished!

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED2809...

Re:In all fairness....

[TheRaven64]

There's a lot of wiggle room in that phrase. The first is the 'well regulated' part. At the time the constitution was written, 'regulated' meant more or less the same as 'efficient' (as in, a well-regulated machine is one that runs well). The second is that most militias were fairly informal in times of peace and were, often, more of a deterrent than an actual force. Native tribes would be less inclined to attack if everyone in a town owned a gun, and the fledgeling Federal government would be less inclined to send representatives to try to enforce overbearing laws if they'd run into an armed militia (even in theory).

That said, if you want to reduce gun ownership in the USA, then the easiest (and completely legal) tactic would be to class all gun owners as members of a militia and call them up at random to fight in whatever foreign wars are going on at any given time. I bet gun ownership would drop off pretty quickly if people realised that owning a gun meant that they might actually have to be somewhere that people would shoot at them...