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

In all fairness....

[Vermonter]

I'm no more productive with 8 hours of sleep than I am with 6.

Re: In all fairness....

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who sacrifice liberty for security or comfort deserve neither.

Re:In all fairness....

[DontBeAMoran]

I've always felt like crap if I didn't sleep nine hours. At least now it's nice to have a study to confirm what I already knew.

Re:In all fairness....

[Kevin Oldman]

I don't need more that six_fdsff*@five doLLaRs!?? Get oUtta herE

Re: In all fairness....

[BronsCon]

That's why I always swing from behind.

Re: In all fairness....

[Jesus H Rolle]

The right to swing my fist ends where the other manâ(TM)s nose begins.

Your right to swing your fist ends well before my nose begins.

Re:In all fairness....

[antdude]

What about REproductive? ;)

Re:In all fairness....

[Archtech]

Is that you, Wally??

Re:In all fairness....

[stealth_finger]

I'm no more productive with 8 hours of sleep than I am with 6.

Just productive enough to not get fired.

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...

Re: In all fairness....

[robert.piskule]

Just my 2 cents, but it says for the security of the state, not the country. The idea being to keep the federal government in check, not the protection of the country as a whole. While I agree that your idea would work, I don't think it fits with the 2nd amendments intended purpose.

Re: In all fairness....

[stealth_finger]

Just my 2 cents, but it says for the security of the state, not the country. The idea being to keep the federal government in check, not the protection of the country as a whole. While I agree that your idea would work, I don't think it fits with the 2nd amendments intended purpose.

What's happening now doesn't fit with it's purpose either but there you go. There are no more injuns to defend from and the federal government just flat out cannot be kept in check by an armed populace unless the intention is for battle with government which just no.

Re: In all fairness....

[TheRaven64]

Just my 2 cents, but it says for the security of the state, not the country.

State is a synonym for country. It's only in the modern USA, where the union has increasingly become viewed as a single entity that this is a distinction - it certainly wasn't at the time that the constitution was written and it still isn't in most of the English-speaking world. I'd have to re-read it, but I don't believe that 'The state' was used to refer to individual member states anywhere else in the constitution, they were always explicitly referred to in plural form.

Re:In all fairness....

[Big Hairy Ian]

I rarely get more than 6 hours of sleep because I can't normally sleep any longer

Re:In all fairness....

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

6 hours? More importantly can you run a country on 3 hours of sleep?

Re: In all fairness....

[Terwin]

What's happening now doesn't fit with it's purpose either but there you go. There are no more injuns to defend from and the federal government just flat out cannot be kept in check by an armed populace unless the intention is for battle with government which just no.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure,” -Jefferson 1787

So yes, battling with the government was indeed one of the things that the original founders deemed not only appropriate but necessary.

Re: In all fairness....

[stealth_finger]

What's happening now doesn't fit with it's purpose either but there you go. There are no more injuns to defend from and the federal government just flat out cannot be kept in check by an armed populace unless the intention is for battle with government which just no.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure,” -Jefferson 1787

So yes, battling with the government was indeed one of the things that the original founders deemed not only appropriate but necessary.

I always took that to mean battling foreign powers that might want to take your freedom/land (in much the same way America came to be in the first place but anyway) like the nazis etc. Otherwise you can basically just say the door is open for anyone to shoot the government for being tyrants and basically every president you've had would fall under that in one way or another depending who you ask. If it's encoded that the populace is allowed to rise up with deadly force, who decides when that's going to happen, obviously not the government, can anyone take it upon themselves or do they need to arrange a well regulated militia first? I can't see the federal government doing anything but coming down on that like a ton of bricks really, can you? I also can't really see anyone getting away with shooting Trump (or whoever) and then saying it's in the constitution. Can you, or anyone, say what it actually means? Obviously not otherwise you still wouldn't be arguing over it while scores of people lay dead just waiting for the next massacre.

I just wish that America, as a country had the balls to stand up and say "yeah we like the guns too much and the massacres are worth it" instead of hiding behind an intentionally vague statement written a long time ago pretending there's nothing can be done. They seem to think this amendment is set in stone while ignoring what amendment means, fucking amend it. As a country, you really need to take stock and grow the fuck up.

Re:In all fairness....

[sls1j]

I'd love the unintended consequences of this. We'd reign in foreign meddling pretty quickly.

Re:In all fairness....

[MercTech]

I've always considered the distance between source and commentary when it comes to news to be inversely proportional to the reliability.
So NYT commenting on a Las Vegas incident has a significant chance of including, as the Bodacious Bombast in office would put it, "Fake News".

Try a network affiliate in Las Vegas for a more rational and timely source of information.

http://www.ktnv.com/
http://news3lv.com/
http://www.fox5vegas.com/

Re:In all fairness....

[RightSaidFred99]

Yeah, because the framers thought they had to make sure the national fucking guard could exist so they put in the second amendment. I bet that "right to breathe" or the "right to form police at the state and local levels" amendment came really close to making it in too!

Your argument is mentally bankrupt. That phrase is parenthetical and the idea that they put the second amendment in to guarantee that which any idiot would realize is something states can do is risible. Protip: If a store owner puts up a sign that says "Due to thefts by local teenagers, backpacks will no longer be allowed in this store." does that mean you, a 40 year old, can bring in a backpack? No, it doesn't. Stop lying.

If you want to change the Constitution then change the Constitution. Your weasel words and sophistry fool no one.

Re:In all fairness....

[MercTech]

An enabling clause and an active clause with the enabling clause stating WHY the active clause is necessary doesn't seem to be much wiggle room to me.

And, if you dig into older federal regs, ALL able bodied men between the ages of 18 and 45 are subject to militia duty. That is how forced recruitment was justified during the Civil War. And, that is why one has to register for the draft.

Statistically, you may find that gun ownership increases after a stint in the military where you actually get training on firearms. Yeah, a few hours at the range punching holes in targets at a distance can be fun. Running a tactical fire course is lots of fun.

Re:In all fairness....

[Swave An deBwoner]

The New York Times link I posted shows the layout of the murderer's hotel suite and the location of a bunch of firearms and ammunition within it. It also describes some of the arsenal:

Police officials confirmed the authenticity of the photographs of the scene at the gunman’s hotel suite.

From his perch on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, the gunman, who was identified by the police as Stephen Paddock, used rapid-fire weapons to shoot at concertgoers at a music festival.

At least three AR-15-style rifles were visible on the floor and on the furniture, along with at least a dozen high-capacity magazines, which can hold up to 100 rounds. (A standard American infantry soldier's magazine is 30 rounds.)

Are you saying that it's fake? Or do you just not like NYT no matter what they publish?

Re:In all fairness....

[stealth_finger]

What the fuck are you rambling about? What I'm saying is the National Guard are a well regulated militia where as every Tom, Dick and Harry are not. There may be some technical definition that any American that could serve in military is militia but as far as I can tell that doesn't affect the sales of guns really. Also, it's the second amendment, what's to say it can't be, you know, amended to be a bit more clear and say that or say it is the right of every American...? Just admit you have a boner for guns, there's nothing more to it or you wouldn't hide behind some vague statement with your fingers in your ears and move on.

Re:In all fairness....

[stealth_finger]

What lies did I tell? I asked three questions and made an observation. There was no scope for truth or lies in my entire post.

I'm increasingly tired of people just making shit up.

Re:In all fairness....

[RightSaidFred99]

what's to say it can't be, you know, amended to be a bit more clear and say that or say it is the right of every American...?

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

You mean amended to be exactly the same? Who do you think "the people" are, Canadians? Note it doesn't say the right of militias, the right of National Guard members, etc... It's incredibly clear.

It's only through willful misinterpretation and sophistry that people pretend the parenthetical clause is the meat of the sentence when it really doesn't get much more clear than the bolded part.

Re:In all fairness....

[stealth_finger]

It literally says a well regulated militia, That might have been clear way back when but today it means nothing. Even if you argue Joe Public is militia he's definitely not well regulated. The bolded part is part of a sentence and as much as you don't like it follows on from the first part. If they were separate statements, that would be incredibly clear and you would be correct, as they are not the two things are related and the people in mention are the people in the previously mentioned well regulated militia. Amend it to define well regulated militia in relevant terms of today or put on two lines.

Re:In all fairness....

[david_thornley]

The Constitution does not normally explain itself, and I I have to consider the introductory clause, the reference to a well-regulated militia, as meaning something. The National Guard is a well-regulated militia. The Unorganized Militia of the US contains all able-bodied men from 18 through 45 (IIRC), plus women in the National Guard, but I can't say it's well-regulated. I never got any formal statement that I was a member, I was never told of any rules, and I didn't even own a firearm. (I do own a nice sword now, and that does count as "arms".)

If whoever wrote the Second Amendment had wanted to say that all individuals had a right to keep and bear arms that wasn't supposed to be infringed, the person who wrote it could have left the "militia" part out entirely. There is no explanatory text attached to the right to free speech, or the right to not have soldiers quartered in one's house, or the right to a jury trial, or anything else listed in the Bill of Rights.

I like being more productive

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always known this, and wished bosses were smarter about it. Meaning, when I'm working on a weeks or months-long project, who cares if I come in an hour later, especially if it means I'm far more productive?

Re:I like being more productive

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially with the current traffic. I need to be at work at 8 in the morning. But to arrive at 8, I've to leave at 5:30 which means I've to get up at 4:45-5:00.

If I could start at 10 in the morning, I would only drive 45 minutes and could leave home at 9 and could sleep until 8:15. I wouldn't even need an alarm clock because I wake up around 7:00. This would mean I could even go out for a walk, or do some exercises. I could spent some family time and even bring my children to school.

But nope, 8:00 is set in stone. And all bosses think like this, which is why the traffic is so dense before 8:00 and why people spend more and more time in their car.

Re:I like being more productive

[sexconker]

I like how the "9-5" job standard is actually "8-5" now.

A few decades ago it really was 9-5. And on that a regular Joe could afford a house, a car or two, a spouse who stayed at home, 2-3 kids, a dog, and retirement.

Re:I like being more productive

[Anonymous Coward]

Long commutes suck and waste so much time, productivity, and life. Forever I've thought that it should be _MUCH_ easier to move closer to a job. For instance, the laws should let people out of apartment leases when jobs change. You should be able to keep a mortgage and apply it to a different house.

Re: I like being more productive

[Anonymous Coward]

But they didn't have an iPhone x and Verizon bill

Re:I like being more productive

[youngone]

Are you a communist?
Longing for the days when shareholder value was not being extracted from each worker in an efficient way!
You're probably one of those people who kneels during the national anthem too!

Re:I like being more productive

[NicknameUnavailable]

The mix of companies counting and not counting lunch hours plus the labor standards being set at 40 hours a week they increased it to fill out a full 40 hours accounting for the federally-mandated 1-hour lunch break. Meanwhile sticking to that with rush hour as the GP suggested means you get about 2-4 hours of personal time a day if you get ready like mad in the morning and pass out 8 hours prior - just enough time to have dinner and a beer before passing out. Nobody can live like that, hence you end up missing sleep and the author of TFA is a fucking sheltered retard for believing the issue is lacking productivity when people don't get enough sleep - either that or a shill aiming for a slave population which works and gets just enough rest to be efficient without any personal development or personal life whatsoever.

Re:I like being more productive

[bill_mcgonigle]

A few decades ago it really was 9-5. And on that a regular Joe could afford a house, a car or two, a spouse who stayed at home, 2-3 kids, a dog, and retirement.

Do you mean before they abandoned the gold standard in 1971 and inflation went through the roof? Wall Street has profited handsomely - government is working as intended.

Don't you and your wife and the haggard teacher at daycare all feel more fulfilled?

Re:I like being more productive

[stealth_finger]

I like how the "9-5" job standard is actually "8-5" now.

A few decades ago it really was 9-5. And on that a regular Joe could afford a house, a car or two, a spouse who stayed at home, 2-3 kids, a dog, and retirement.

8-5? more like 7-5 here.

Mine's 8.30-5 but on fridays it's 9-4 so thats nice.

Re: I like being more productive

[vtcodger]

Landlines per se weren't all that expensive. At least not in North America. Mostly about the same as today in current dollars. But non-local calls -- any call to places beyond walking distance -- were expensive. Long distance costs were outrageous. International calls were well beyond outrageous.

Re:I like being more productive

[houghi]

And here I am in communist Belgium with their stupid Unions. Where I work the IT SCRUM meeting is at 10 and you need to be there. Some start a lot earlier, so they can go home earlier. Some start at 10, and they walk right into the meeting.

Other departments will have flexible hours as well from 7:30-10 to start. Depends a bit on the department how flexible they can be. Some are extremely flexible, others are not flexible at all. e.g. call center is not flexible as there needs t be a predictable amount of persons available. Legal wants to start early and leave early, so they start at 8. I prefer to work late, so my hours are:
10-14 15-18:30, yes an hour lunch, so I can go and eat in peace and quiet. During my 15 minute break in the morning and the afternoon I do a bit of /.

Downside is that I have no idea what to do with my 35 paid holidays. I am also forced to use metric and can't take a gun to work.

Traffic? Company pais my public transport, so I am 50 minutes door to door of wich 30 minutes is a train that is not full at all (because I start later) and the rest is walking to/from the train.

Re:I like being more productive

[zifn4b]

I like how the "9-5" job standard is actually "8-5" now.

Wow, that sounds great! There is actually a place where you can work 8-5? For me it's more like this, I remember a time when you didn't have to be on call 24/7 and big chunks of the population were not on anti-depressants and high blood pressure medication. But, don't worry folks, everything is FINE! If you whine, you're just a slacker!

Re: I like being more productive

[guruevi]

Itâ(TM)s called being salaried. I come in when I want and leave when I want, as long as the work gets done nobody cares.

I do get my 8 hours of sleep and an approximate 40h of work in per week.

Re:I like being more productive

[timftbf]

Even without the traffic, it can still be about the commute.

I have a reasonable 9-5:30 working day, with an hour for lunch, so 37.5 hour working week, which most of the time is what it actually is.

However, I need a 5:45 alarm to be up at 6. I'm a slow mover in the morning, so that lets me shower, make and eat breakfast, feed the pets, prepare lunch, make my wife breakfast, get dressed, any other bits and pieces that need doing to be out the door around 7:30. I drive to the station to make a train around 8, to be in the office around 9.

Coming back, if I leave on the dot, and the trains aren't delayed / cancelled, I can be home between 7 and 7:30. Cook a meal, sit down and eat it, deal with the pets again and any other chores - and if I'm going to try for 7 hours sleep, I really need to be stopping whatever else I'm doing and at least getting ready for bed around 10. That's quite a squeeze on getting much else in, and it doesn't take much disruption to transport to throw the whole thing off - it can be 9 before I get in, and still have to start cooking and all the rest.

8 hours sleep? Just wouldn't be possible.

And as someone's commented further down, a "life" that's nothing but work, eat, sleep, rinse, repeat, isn't a life you can sustain indefinitely for your mental health.

Re:I like being more productive

[houghi]

This is how it is in Belgium and my hours:
10-14 and 15-18:30
Those are mu working hours and what the company pays. The hour lunch, they do not pay and I leave and do nothing for the company. Some people will have 30 minutes lunch (minimal amount by law) and a few more. So lunch is never company time.

We sometimes have a lunch meeting (2 times a year) and I could officially still take my hour break, but I do not want to be an asshole and the sandwiches they bring are nice. As long as it is an exception, nobody has an issue with it.

The 15 minute break in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon are paid by the company and you can do what you want. Many will vape or some or just stand outside or do some personal surfing. This is paid company time.

My travel time is also 2 hours per day. That is about average, yet some will go to 4+ hours. I have plenty of time to go out with friends during the week and go to a nice restaurant or have a few beers. Weekends are free. But most of the time it is: coming home, prepare some food and do some online stuff or reading.

However I do not do that 52 weeks per year, 40 years in a row. I have 35 paid holidays and that makes a HUGE difference. That is 7 weeks per year or more than 1 week per 2 months. I HAD to take some holidays, otherwise I would lose them and pay so much taxes on top of taxes that I would be working for free. So going to Spain for 10 days in November.

What happens if 2 people can't do their job in 40 hours, but it should be 60? That is 120/40=3 people doing their job.

Disadvantage is that the CEO does not earn 300x as much as I do. Terrible, I know. He gets perhaps only 10 times as much. Poor guy.

Re:I like being more productive

[Hodr]

I guess I see what point you are trying to make, I just don't think you are half as clever as you believe you are. Especially if you are comparing your programming job (I have never worked a an IT job that didn't have flexible hours) with say, a service industry job in the US.

But for the counterpart, as a software dev in the States.

I mostly work from home, and while the official target is 80 hours a pay period no one really cares (or checks) as long as you participate in the vtc/web conferences and get your work done.

If I do choose to go in to work, its about 3 miles (5k) so I can walk or ride my bike or take my car and be there in no time.

I get all Federal holidays (10 days) plus 8 hours per pay period of vacation (26 days) , 4 hours of sick (13 days). So 36 days paid vacation plus whatever sick I choose to use (If I don't use it, it carries over until I retire or change jobs, then it gets paid as cash).

And I also cannot take a gun to work and am sometimes forced to use metric.

Re:I like being more productive

[nine-times]

Yeah, it's 8am to 5pm, or 9am to 6pm. And they still call it an "8 hour work day", because they don't count your lunch hour. But then they get angry at you if you actually take a full hour for lunch.

Re: I like being more productive

[Mitreya]

Long distance costs were outrageous. International calls were well beyond outrageous.

Last month, I had to call a Canadian hotel on my cell (T-Mobile). It cost $1/minute!
I gotta have a chat with them, they might not know it's 2017.

Re:I like being more productive

[rhazz]

I just don't think you are half as clever as you believe you are

I am also forced to use metric and can't take a gun to work.

That statement alone confirms he is clever.

Re:I like being more productive

[Osgeld]

8-6 here

Re:I like being more productive

[gnick]

Do you mean before they abandoned the gold standard in 1971 and inflation went through the roof?

That's not the only thing that was happening with the economy at the time. We had a major manufacturing bubble for a couple/few decades after WWII while all of our competitors were busy rebuilding their infrastructure. Eventually, those countries became competition again. So the situation where a married couple with 3 kids landed in a 4 bedroom house with 2 cars while one person worked an entry level manufacturing job didn't just fall apart - It was an anomaly that it was ever realistic.

Re: I like being more productive

[gnick]

Itâ(TM)s called being salaried. I come in when I want and leave when I want, as long as the work gets done nobody cares.

Right now, I'm employed as an hourly "Programmer" and put in exactly 80 hours every 2 weeks. I set my own hours at about 6:30-3:00. When I was salaried, that was not the case. I was expected to be at work from 9:00-3:00 with a 30-60 minute lunch between 11 & 1. Outside that I could work when I wanted. It was explained to me that 40 hours was the minimum number I should charge to my projects during the week. It was expected that I'd charge more. Getting all my work done was secondary. Charging hours to the customer and making money for the company was Job #1.

Re:I like being more productive

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, in those days your boss earned 3 times as much as you. Now he earns 25 times as much, and his boss again much more. Wealth get concentrated more these days, leaving less to go around. Not selling so much to the rest of the world is not the problem. Right after WWII Germany did not 'compete' being bombed to pieces. They also did not buy much stuff from american manufacturers, having no money to pay anything with. To pay dollars you must actually have some first.

Re:I like being more productive

[tsqr]

A few decades ago it really was 9-5.

For whom? I've been a full-time employee for nearly five decades, and it's always been 8-5. Except for when it's been 7-4, that is. 9-5 is eight hours; I've never known anyone who worked at a place that pays for employees' lunch hour.

Re:I like being more productive

[dasunt]

Especially with the current traffic. I need to be at work at 8 in the morning. But to arrive at 8, I've to leave at 5:30 which means I've to get up at 4:45-5:00.

I did that once - had a 90 minute commute (not as bad as yours, admittedly). That was by car. By bus, it took some insane amount of time.

Perhaps your values are different, but I looked at what I was doing and decide I didn't want to live like this. I already had the advantage of living near the urban core, so I limited my next job search to that core. Now, I can leave my house either fifty-five minutes before my job starts and arrive by bus, or forty-five minutes before my job starts and arrive by bicycle, 50cc scooter (no cost to park), or auto.

The way back is even easier - I tend to get home 35 minutes after my workday ends.

My wife is even closer to her job, and can get there under 30 minutes, regardless of traffic.

It's not for everyone. If you value a big, newer house and large yard in the suburbs, or not being able to see your neighbors, you'll hate our lives. But for us, it feels like freedom. Just not being dependent on a car is nice. Being able to reduce our time commuting is wonderful. We're not even using all of our yard, so its small size isn't a drawback but a plus (less time on upkeep), and we do have a two stall garage on our property (most homes around here have either a two stall garage or a one stall garage) for our various toys.

Re:I like being more productive

[anegg]

I've been working "regular" jobs since 1978. None of the jobs I have worked were "9-5"; all required 8 hours of actual work; some had a nominal 30 minute lunch break, others 1 hour, planned into the schedule. Much of my "career" was in one company that gave all of its workers flexibility in start/stop times (and even in the number of hours worked per day), but we had to have 80 hours of actual work in every two weeks.

I was able to afford a house in my first full time job after graduating college with a B.S.; but that was because I was being paid southern California wages while working in Tennessee. Among my co-workers there was always a mix of single-earner and dual-earner families; individual circumstances varied, but there was not a general condition where one spouse worked and the other stayed home.

Retirement is looking pretty likely/good now, mostly because I've had a two-earner household since getting married, my spouse and I share similar economic traits, and we have both (even before getting married) saved the maximum that we could in CODA/401(k) plans at work, put away additional money to boot, only owned two different homes in 20+ years, paid cash for our cars and drove them for 15 to 20 years, don't have cable TV, (mostly) avoided personal mobile phones, and engaged in other "saving by not spending" behaviors.

I've heard stories about the 1950s and 1960s in the US where single-earner households were the norm, everyone had a comfortable middle class lifestyle, and looked forward to a comfortable retirement. I think those stories had about as much reality in them as the idea that just a few decades ago everyone really worked 9-5, regular Joe's could afford a house plus a car or two in a single earner household, etc.

Re:I like being more productive

[anegg]

Long commutes suck (in my opinion). The best way to avoid them is to live close to where you work, which probably involves a trade-off of jobs and income. Once you have a family, moving to be close to work becomes more problematic. Living in/near urban environments brings more job opportunities, at the cost of longer commutes; living away from the coastal areas in the US often can provide a better work/life balance, but perhaps at lower income levels. All of this means that choosing where to live and work involves a lot of trade-offs.

My main take-away from the article is that the author thinks that the amount of sleep an individual gets should be given more weight/consideration when evaluating the trade-offs, both by employers and by employees.

Re:I like being more productive

[apoc.famine]

So why do you work there?

I'm pretty serious - I've got about 0 loyalty to an employer, because almost none of them have any loyalty to me. If the working conditions are good I'll happily work, but once it gets shitty I'm out. I'm a bit underpaid right now, but I'm here because everything else is pretty darn good. I'd like more pay but I don't need more pay - I'm getting enough that I'm doing quite well as it is. And I'm not willing to trade more money for the shitty work life you're describing.

If more people would ask about the working expectations in their interviews and explain what is and isn't acceptable to them, we'd have far fewer bosses like these in the world. Once I raised my standards and made them clear in interviews, my job options got much, much better.

Re:I like being more productive

[neurovish]

I guess I see what point you are trying to make, I just don't think you are half as clever as you believe you are. Especially if you are comparing your programming job (I have never worked a an IT job that didn't have flexible hours) with say, a service industry job in the US.

But for the counterpart, as a software dev in the States.

You're also an anomaly. I know far many more people in IT who are working 60 hour weeks and drive an hour each way into the office, get 15 days paid vacation that doesn't roll over to the next year, and any sick time comes out of their 15 days of paid vacation.

Re: I like being more productive

[MercTech]

And if you apply the annual rate of inflation to the minimum wage in 1970; you would have had a $42 minimum wage in 2000.

The problem with cellular providers is they don't supply what their advertising says they provide. And the cost of cellular is much higher than some other countries for less service.

South Korea had the best cellular service the last time I looked.

Back in the day when Slick 60 was the latest and greatest; the landline was the most reliable thing in the house. Power might go out for a month but the phone kept working.

    These days with VOIP and fiber; a landline is the first thing that goes down with inclement weather. And the monthly charge is still 1000% higher than in the 70s with lower overhead.

Sleep Science wants more money

[turkeydance]

sleep on it

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

[rsilvergun]

the folks I know losing sleep to work are doing it because the wage stagnation that started in the 80s and's been going strong since decimated their wages so that they work two jobs to make ends meet. Even the folks who don't have two jobs put in extra hours in a desperate bid to move up because companies stopped giving cost of living raises in the mid 2000s.

Sure, the extra work they do might not be the best but good enough is always good enough. People are losing sleep because they're being taken advantage of and made to work longer hours. As an added benefit if you're doing the work of 1.5 employees that's less people your company has to hire, meaning more competition for your job, driving your wages down further and leading to you working harder. See where this thing's going?

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Not me! I get ten hours of sleep because I have zero jobs. Be envious of my abundant leisure time, jobful winners. I do whatever I want whenever I want, and I owe my idle lifestyle to being an unemployable loser.

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

[MoaDweeb]

Yeah, working is a bit suck. However I do have money to buy a nicer type of food than those who exist on welfare.

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.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Should I share my own anecdote?

I''m going to post this anonymously because I'm drunk and I don't want to hold anything back here.

I once started working for a company that had about 8 people on our team both sysadmins and developers including project manager dude who used to be one of us but evolved into a PHB.

We were all both although some were stronger sysadmins and some were stronger developers. All of us did DBA work as well though none of us were dedicated to that task.

It was great. None of us were overworked and we were all feeding off each other's knowledge and learning other skills. We were happy. We shared a primary pager and a secondary pager among 8 people which we rotated weekly.

But we got sold and after various other acquisitions which made us responsible for even more work the sys admins had been split off from the developers and people were let go and. No one on our small team quit although some of the better people in other areas of IT did.

Most of the pager calls were operational or software rather than systems related although even when they were systems related it usually fell on us developers to diagnose that. If a plant was down for whatever reason, they called us first and over time they almost doubled the number of plants we were responsible for while cutting our team down to 2 people (3 if you count our manager, but he didn't get pager calls unless they came down from the C-Suites or if a plant was down for too long. He didn't even seem to know how much time we were spending on them).

Even as they laid people off our new CEO insisted on seeing people in cubicles even though previously if we had been up all night working a pager call was a good enough reason to come in a few hours late at least.

Raises and bonus were so paltry I really wanted to throw my Xmas ("Holiday") bonus check in their face even though I hadn't even gotten anything for at least 2 years before that.

By the time I left I was so burnt out I didn't want to do anything.

Why didn't I leave sooner? Before it was bought out it was really great and I liked most of the people I worked with and we weren't overworked. There's that and it would almost certainly mean moving (probably to another state, but at least to the big city) and I really just didn't ever feel like doing that.

So I basically retired for a while.

--

I didn't even get around to the H1B contractors. We were inundated with them at one point.

They were there for a big conversion project and most left after a while. Some were horrible but a few were very good at what they did and they were hired even as others of us were let go.

I have the ultimate respect for the H1B workers who was left holding the pager 24/7/365 when I left.

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

[NicknameUnavailable]

No, I don't. None of this resonates with my experience. I've been doing great and I started working AFTER the wages stagnated. /shrug

Not knowing anything different isn't living better.

Experts delude themselves if they think they know

[elcor]

They could spend a few month in an Ashram and learn a bit.

Experts say

[JohnFen]

Experts actually say that if you think everybody requires the same number of hours of sleep, you're deluding yourself.

Re:Experts say

[Anonymous Coward]

This should be marked as Informative, not Funny.

Not me

[PPH]

Getting through the workday on little sleep

Now please turn off my office lights and close the door behind you.

Re:Not me

[DontBeAMoran]

And then they "suddenly die for no reason" when they reach 35.

I'll won't tell Maya if you don't!

[Zero__Kelvin]

This "expert" is deluding himself if he thinks "awake" and "asleep" are real. We are all deluding ourselves with each passing moment.

The consequences would be worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Not getting 8 hours sleep a night has nothing to do with work. It has to do with having a life outside work. In order to get 8 hours sleep a night I'd have to be in bed by 7:30pm and asleep by 8:00pm, because I get up at 4:00am, do physical training for a competitive sport, then go to work by 8:30am. If I make no stops on the way home from work I'm home at 5:30pm. 2.5 hours is damned little time during a weekday to get things done you need to get done at home to prepare for the next day. I can't give up training, and I certainly can't afford anything without working. Even if I gave up my training I'm supposed to call 'work, eat, sleep, repeat' a life? That'd kill me faster than getting 6 hours sleep a night (plus a short nap at lunchtime). It's all well-and-good for some researcher to waggle a finger at everyone and tell them "You're going to DIE, SOON, if you don't get 8 hours sleep a night every night!", but it's not realistic unless you're either independently wealthy and don't have to work, or are so dull that work/sleep/eat/repeat is somehow enough for you.

Re:The consequences would be worse

[Godwin O'Hitler]

Indeed. Conversely to you the thing that dictates how long I sleep is the time I go to bed, not the time I get up.
If I'm having a great evening for whatever reason, getting 8 hours' sleep is way down on my priority list, or rather completely absent from it.

Re:The consequences would be worse

[Anonymous Coward]

You choose to use part of your time outside of work for training, so NO you don't "just have 2.5 hours". No one is holding a gun to your head for said training. And if they are then it's not a competitive sport I'd want to be in.

Re:The consequences would be worse

[Kjella]

Not getting 8 hours sleep a night has nothing to do with work. (...) because I get up at 4:00am, do physical training for a competitive sport, then go to work by 8:30am.

If you work out for like four hours every day I hope there's an Olympic gold medal in your future. Because that's just not normal levels of training even for competitive sports, that's trying to become the world's best. And I know there's some track-and-field events and various other obscure sports where sponsors are hard to come by and people do that as a side gig on top of a day job, but no wonder it takes some sacrifices.

Re:The consequences would be worse

[Anonymous Coward]

You're getting 6-7 hours of leisure time in the day, but you are dedicating 4 of those hours to working out in the morning. You are choosing to use your time split up during the day, but you still get that free time. Stop treating your morning workout as a unavoidable chore, and realize that's what your hobby is.

That doesn't sound so bad.

Re:Whenever somebody writes/says "We know that..."

[sexconker]

Well, we know that ACs make the best posts on Slashdot.

What do we know about creimer?

Well, it will work out

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Six hours of sleep. and 18 hours of delusion, which is dreaming, which happens in sleep.,... so it will work out.

What is 6 hours is your maximum

[manu0601]

What experts say to people for which 6 hours is the maximum they can sleep?

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:Bullshit

[Ol Olsoc]

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.

Exactly. My number is 5 hours, and I also get the headache issue if I've had too much. And with less than 5, I really notice a falloff in prerformance.

Re:Bullshit

[AuMatar]

No, what I describe is normal genetic diversity. I wouldn't be any more effective if I could sleep 8 hours- I just don't need or want them. Just like people have different metabolic rates, different core temperatures, etc people have different needs for sleep.

Re:Bullshit

[zifn4b]

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.

That's evidence of sleep deprivation. If you got proper sleep for a few days, you would feel like a new person.

Re:Bullshit

[rhazz]

What you've described is a sleep disorder.

No, what I describe is normal genetic diversity.

It actually could be either one.

Since discovering the DEC2 mutation, a lot of people have come forward claiming to only sleep a few hours a day, says Fu. Most of these had insomnia, she says.

Re:Bullshit

[bingoUV]

You might say that, but do you have scientific evidence ? You'll have to :

1. Compensate for the placebo effect - what if you have the headaches and lethargy because you think sleeping more than 6 hours is bad for you? One way for doing this is to make you think you slept 6 hours but you actually sleep 8 hours. If sleeping 8 hours is not physiologically possible for you, first that would need to be fixed. If it can't be fixed, the conclusion is that it is unknown how well an 8 hour sleep schedule works for you.

2. Less productive? What if placebo effect is working here? What if you evaluate you productivity as low because you know you slept more than 6 hours ? Productivity will have to be defined more objectively for that statement to make any sense in science.

3. Different levels of how deep you are sleeping could affect your results. You will have to measure that too to be more scientifically rigorous.

Re:Bullshit

[david_thornley]

Have you ever had a sleep study done? You could have apnea, and you'd feel a lot better if you fixed that.

I agree!

[EzInKy]

I'd also be okay with number of hours of sleep required being a legal question to ask on an application. Some jobs simply require more of a person than others.

It's True!

[Neuronwelder]

You need so many hours to reset/repair your brain. And your body needs repair in the additional sleep. If you short yourself you might get away with the brain for a while, but they are both tied together so your thinking will eventually get cloudy. Not to mention the eventual breakdown of the body and/or brain.. Or you can deny all of this and wait till you get older.

Re:It's True!

[Ol Olsoc]

You need so many hours to reset/repair your brain. And your body needs repair in the additional sleep. If you short yourself you might get away with the brain for a while, but they are both tied together so your thinking will eventually get cloudy. Not to mention the eventual breakdown of the body and/or brain.. Or you can deny all of this and wait till you get older.

What you say is true, but it really depends on the individual, despite what this guy says. I've alawys done 5 hours, and unless I have a cold, I'm awake without an alarm, and feel good with 5. I go to sleep when I'm tired, and wake up when I've had enough sleep. I'm old enough, and except for nagging old sports injuries that come back to haunt me as arthritis pain, Im doing just fine.

Re:It's True!

[Neuronwelder]

Well, one thing I learned.. Lack of sleep contributes to arthritis. Two separate occasions with two different doctors though the years said the same thing. Plus I also read it on the Web. And yes, regarding injuries: an old man told me once when I was young, the injuries that you incur when you are young, will haunt you later. My grandfather warned me when I mowed the lawn. (I whipped around the lawnmower like it was a rag doll in my 20's. To get the job done fast) to take it easy on my body. I didn't listen. And I wish I did now. I used to think I was indestructible. Too late now.

Re:It's True!

[Ol Olsoc]

Well, one thing I learned.. Lack of sleep contributes to arthritis. Two separate occasions with two different doctors though the years said the same thing. Plus I also read it on the Web. And yes, regarding injuries: an old man told me once when I was young, the injuries that you incur when you are young, will haunt you later. My grandfather warned me when I mowed the lawn. (I whipped around the lawnmower like it was a rag doll in my 20's. To get the job done fast) to take it easy on my body. I didn't listen. And I wish I did now. I used to think I was indestructible. Too late now.

I have a long litany of Ice Hockey injuries, and the generalized wear and tear that that involves, especially since I played long past the age when most people have stopped. Sleep or no sleep, I was a prime candidate. I still get a lot of exercise, since that's a drug-free way to keep mobile and oddly, avoid some of the pain. But I wouldn't change any of that. But oh yeah, The old injuries do come back to haunt us.

Work is not why I'm not sleeping enough

[Kris_J]

Any article that thinks that working less gives you more sleep is ignoring the majority of life. I do my 38-40 hours of work, rarely more, and I'm lucky if I get an average of 6.5 hours of sleep per day. I'm not partying, I'm just trying to maintain my health and my house.

Reagan was a terrible president

[rsilvergun]

a momentary blip in oil production shouldn't have caused 50 years of declining wages. Trickle down economics did. Here's a good list of reasons Reagan stunk on ice. And yes, I'm aware Clinton carried on Reagan's legacy to win the presidency. I never said I liked him either. A Republican's a Republican. Even with a D next to their name.

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:Reagan was a terrible president

[NicknameUnavailable]

It's more globalism than anything else - trickle down economics is shit, but it was stable for awhile. The issue is the people doing the trickling realized they could outsource things more cheaply and started lobbying for open borders, free trade, etc to build global corporations which move to wherever the cheapest labor is at a given time. Nations have borders for a reason, it's more than just for defense.

Re:Reagan was a terrible president

[zifn4b]

a momentary blip in oil production shouldn't have caused 50 years of declining wages. Trickle down economics did.

I'm not disagreeing that trickle down economics doesn't work well, but the opposite doesn't work either. If you raise taxes on corporations, they just hire less people, pay lower wages and cut down benefits. What is the solution?

Re:Reagan was a terrible president

[zifn4b]

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

Reagan can't take credit for that, it started way before him. It was called: The Industrial Revolution. Read history. When mass production came into play, they had to convince farmers to move out of rural communities to come work at factories in the city.

Re:Reagan was a terrible president

[Galactic Dominator]

Sure he can. Read history. It's true enough technology contributed to a world-wide decline of family farms, however the impact in US was much higher during Reagan's terms due to his approach to farmers. You'll also notice the smaller family farms were effected much more harshly than corporate ones.

> When mass production came into play, they had to convince farmers to move out of rural communities to come work at factories in the city.

No, this is not what happened.

Re:Reagan was a terrible president

[avandesande]

That's bullshit too. We rode the wave of the rest of the worlds factories being destroyed after WWII for a couple decades.

Re:Reagan was a terrible president

[david_thornley]

Corporate income taxes are not paid on labor costs. If the company officers think it will be more profitable by abusing workers, it doesn't matter what the corporate tax rate is, they'll abuse workers.

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:So what do I do?

[inking]

I think you are phenomenally lucky. I’m currently (temporarily) getting around six hours of sleep on weekdays and it’s nowhere near enough.

Re:So what do I do?

[munch117]

What you should do is read the fine article, which actually answers your question.

Re:So what do I do?

[Ol Olsoc]

I think you are phenomenally lucky. I’m currently (temporarily) getting around six hours of sleep on weekdays and it’s nowhere near enough.

It can be handy when the workload is high.

Re:So what do I do?

[Ol Olsoc]

And you've never known anything else.

True - just like breathing or taking a crap.

To me it is amazing that there are people out there who insist that a group with as much physical variety as humans shares this one trait - that 100 percent of humanity needs exactly 8 hours of sleep a night - and that there are no exceptions to that rule.

Re:So what do I do?

[Ol Olsoc]

What you should do is read the fine article, which actually answers your question.

I believe I answered the article's litmus test. I don't use an alarm to wake up, with the rare exceptions of when a travel schedule requires a very short night of sleep. That's maybe 2 times a year.

Caffeine use stops at noon, and I even tried one of those programs that adjusts your monitor intensity and color since the wife heard how bad using monitors at night was. Alcohol use is minimal at an estimated six-pack equivalent per year. None of that makes a difference. No difference in sleep pattern

And I know exactly what sleep deprivation feels like, because if I get less than my 5, I do feel sleep deprived. And I hate the feeling. I just go to sleep when I feel tired, wake up when I wake up, and live my life without worry that I'm getting too lhow bad using a computer at night is.ittle.

I find it difficult to accept the idea that a creature as varied in physiological attributes as humans shares the exact same need for sleep. I do find it easy to accept the idea that a lot of people might be sleep deprived, a lot of people might be a little hypochondriacal, and that there are pharmaceutical companies that are more than willing to step into the breach and provide chemical means to force them to sleep their mandatory 8 hours.

Here we go!

"If you don't get the sleep that nature intended for you to get, you'll die a horrible and painful death at a very young age. Snoozika will correct for the stresses that a busy person like you has, and gently forces you into a proper and healthy sleep cycle, so that when you wake up, you'll feel healthy, refreshed, and ready to take on the world - on your terms!

So ask your doctor if Snoozika is right for you!"

(cue really fast talk......) Snoozika can sometimes affect your judgement, cause gambling addictions and other side effects. Do not take Snoozika if you are allergic to Snoozika or any of it's ingredients. If you are pregnant or planning on starting a family consult your physician first. If you have been to an area where certain fungal conditions are common, alert your physician. Alert your physician if you experience muscle weakness and shaking, as these may become a permanent condition. Alert your physician If you become confused, encounter mood changes or suicidal thoughts. Regular blood monitoring is needed with Snoozika to monitor liver function, Do not start Snoozika if you have an infection.

(Back to happy talk...) So remember, take Snoozika, for the healthy life you deserve!

The Snoozika commercial is immediately followed by one of those lawyer firms that want you to file a lawsuit against the manufacturers of Snoozika, as you may be eligible for substantial compensation.

Re:So what do I do?

[munch117]

I believe I answered the article's litmus test.

Exactly, so what are you complaining about?

Re:So what do I do?

[Ol Olsoc]

I believe I answered the article's litmus test.

Exactly, so what are you complaining about?

I'm noting that anyone who demands that people who don't sleep the amount of time that they say is the right amount of time, is of very suspect knowledge of physiology.

I'm saying - and make no mistake, this is a stament, a part of a civil conversation - that that is simply wrong, and incorrect, and that there might be other forces at play that involve pecuniary accumulation on the part of the group making the statement.

Do you have some sort of issue with people having conversations? Chillaxe and consider making positive contributions to the conversation rather than a thinly veiled admonition to me to shut up.

Re:So what do I do?

[bingoUV]

That is correct, but it still doesn't mean that your original calling of bullshit is scientifically valid. Maybe optimal for you is 0.289334385 hours, maybe optimal for you is 12.86498963 hours. Maybe 9.84689923 is better than 6.008768934 hours for playing football, but 4.873846390 hours per day is better for learning the Arabic language.

I put some ways of making these observations scientific here : https://slashdot.org/comments...., it all applies to you too. Or it could at least help you realize why your observations aren't rigorously scientific.

If they are not too scientific, you could have those opinions still. But they are useless for others because they would need to borrow your body, mind and thoughts to have similar sleep requirements.

Re:So what do I do?

[Ol Olsoc]

That is correct, but it still doesn't mean that your original calling of bullshit is scientifically valid.

It wasn't a science experiment. It was calling bullshit on the statement "Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says." which is the headline of the article.I don't need that much. 5 is fine for me. I go to sleep, then wake up 5 hours later and it suits me just fine. That isn't science, just experience

>, it all applies to you too. Or it could at least help you realize why your observations aren't rigorously scientific.

If they are not too scientific, you could have those opinions still. But they are useless for others because they would need to borrow your body, mind and thoughts to have similar sleep requirements.

Where did you ever come up with the idea that I was making a scientific claim, and that I was somehow extrapolating it to everyone else? My particular sleep requirements are one data point, which was arrived at by a lifetime of going to sleep, then getting up. No experiments were made measuring my abilities before or after. But I make the claim since that's how I've slept my whole life, the only possible exception to that is my mother told me I didn't sleep much as a young child. She never told me the typical hours I slept though.

Most people need more sleep than me. My wife likes around 9. I wake up refreshed at 5, all by myself with no alarm help. I would need to be drugged to get 8 hours of sleep.

That is all empirical evidence. But it has been going on for a long long time, and it would take extraordinary proof to declare several decades of experience as somehow invalid.

So yeah based on the title of the article "Productive on six hours of sleep? You’re deluding yourself, expert says"

and the statement that:

"The recommendation is seven to nine hours for all adults. The reason that there’s a range is that it’s a little bit like calories. Based on everyone’s unique physiology, that amount will vary from one person to the next.

And the same is true for sleep, although there are somewhat hard boundaries on the lower end. Once you get less than seven hours of sleep, you can measure marked impairments in both brain and body health. And those people who claim they can survive on six hours of sleep or less, unfortunately, are deluding themselves and their health.

I feel quite safe calling Bullshit. I'm not deluding myself - that is for certain. I'm well outside his "hard limits" for sleep. I'm more productive than most people I know, and as noted except for old sports injuries re-appearing as arthritis, which is completely expected, I'm 63 and take no maintenance drugs, unlike almost everyone else my age that I know. And the arthritis is treated mostly by our spa. There might be some delusion here, but I'm pretty certain it isn't on my end.

That being said, I do believe that most people need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep a night. A few healthy people need more, and some of us need less.

There seems to be some confusion. I accept and understand and have no doubts that some folks need more sleep than me. Some a lot more sleep. Others think I am either lying or seriously damaging myself because they cannot comprehend that some might need less. Perhaps my going to bed when I'm tired, and waking up when I'm rested, all by myself with no alarm is part of that delusion? That lack of sleep make you believe you don't need it? I know exactly what sleep deprivation feels like, and my experience at 3 hours jibes with co-workers experience when they get 6. People need what they need, and to lump us in one physical grouping in which no deviation is allowed, and to to declare that anyone who doesn't march in undeviating lockstep with this rigid unbending and hard lined no exceptions allowed dogma is suffering from delusion isn't terribly scientific either.

So I'll still call bullshit.

Re:So what do I do?

[bingoUV]

I don't see any claims you make that contradicts the ones in the article. Being mainstream media, it is possible that they got some of the scientific nuances wrong, but even so there is an explanation after the "deluding yourself" bit which is only about making things more this way, or less that way, or reduce the probability of some events. It doesn't say one can't consider oneself more productive than others at 63, or cannot believe "suits me just fine".

Sometimes specific actions only change the probability of some events - you sleeping more could have reduced your probability of a heart attack per year, say, from 1% per year to 0.01 % per year. But since 1% per year in itself means you can live hundreds of years without getting a heart attack, on a sample size of a single person , one cannot possibly observe anything of value here. If that is the case, your "suits me just fine" is wrong. In which case, you don't even have a semblance of an argument.

In other words, not having had a heart attack at the age of 63 (or even 630) does not mean some of your actions are not increasing the probability of a heart attack.

I am not even saying you need to or can do anything about it. Just that your bullshit call is not justified at all.

Re:So what do I do?

[Ol Olsoc]

I am not even saying you need to or can do anything about it. Just that your bullshit call is not justified at all.

Well, guess we'll just have to disagree. I've had articles written about my research and other activities. If I made a scientific experiment that was written up like that, I'd demand it be removed immediatly because it makes declarations withoout actual support.

tl;dr, you cannot make scientific remarks about studies and articles devoid of scientific content, that only contain suspect declarations.

And for that, "Bullshit" is an adequate response. If the article were any worse, I would call it incompetent. Nowhere to go from there. You may not like that, but hey, life is tough - get more sleep and see if your chagrin goes away... 8^)

Re:So what do I do?

[bingoUV]

The interviewer didn't ask for evidence, so the "expert" didn't provide one. In this case, where the purpose of the article is not to provide evidence, your calling bullshit for lack of evidence is not correct.

Like you admit to making unscientific statements here :
https://slashdot.org/comments.... : no evidence, even faulty statistics. This article is far less bullshit than your posts. Both your post and this article do not make any claims of being scientific publications. Yet your statements have clear logical fallacies which when pointed out you claim to not having made a scientific statement, so somehow the logical fallacies are supposed to be acceptable. This article's claims are in themselves not provably wrong, doesn't contradict itself, doesn't rely of logical fallacies, if supported with evidence and worded better, could even form a scientific paper.

Do you also call your own posts bulshit ?

Sleep

[tquasar]

I worked rotating shifts and slept four hours at a time. I was a mental mess and could barely function. Making a meal was a chore. When I was at work I slept on the table in the lunch room. At home I could not sleep and would walk around my neighborhood in the middle of the night getting the attention of the local sheriff deputies. I was 50 meters from my house and being questioned like I was a criminal. At last I was so fatigued that I collapsed in bed, asleep.

In other words

[Milo GrafX]

First off, the title in a misquote. Operating on "short sleep" or not enough sleep is what the article was about. second, no new information here other than the author gave an interview. and apparently the title insights an emotional reaction in some people, even if its just comedic. begs the question is old news better than no news? P.S. I'm pro comedy :)

Re: The guns, the guns

[stealth_finger]

Ask the people at FN and every other US-based arms manufacturer. Global sales for decades going strong now...

Side point. FN are Belgian, but your point stands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_Herstal

Re:Self Proclaimed Expertise

[Godwin O'Hitler]

He invented a beautiful knot though!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Whenever somebody writes/says "We know that..."

[stealth_finger]

What do we know about creimer?

That a lot of people seem to have a rather unhealthy obsession with the guy?

Re:Dumshit bosses

[swilver]

Every time I read something like this, I just can't help but think that Americans are primarily wage slaves. This can't happen in Europe. You can refuse, and they cannot fire you without several formal warnings (and a warning can't be "refuses to work 60 hours a week").

They simply cannot make you work 60 hours a week, and they have to *ask* you nicely if you want to work overtime (with extra pay) on the weekend or evenings.

They also cannot spy on you, expect replies to mail/SMS/whatsapp outside office hours, fire you without reason, etc. In Europe, your boss is just another person with a different role, not somebody that must be obeyed without question or face consequences.

Simulation of productivity vs. actual productivity

[gweihir]

Those that simulate it will stay long hours, but actually have less output and worse quality than more sane workers. But unfortunately, many "managers" are pretty low on productivity and insight anyways, so simulating productivity may be better for your career as those evaluating you do not understand that they are using an unsuitable metric. What we see here is the ages-old problem of faulty optimization strategies because of wrong selection of metric. The result is that people optimize with respect to the metric and not with respect to the actual problem they are trying to solve.

Of course, your live will suck badly with all the time spent at work, but many people seem to prefer that situation. Many will also be trapped in this situation, because they have no actual good marketable skills and need to fake it in order to survive.

If I sleep more than 7 hours for a couple of night

[Chrisq]

If I sleep more than 7 hours for a couple of nights I end up waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get to sleep agin for an hour or so. I physically can't seem to sleep longer than that on average even if I stay in bed.

I get exactly 8 hours every night

[gosand]

That is what I track on my health incentive plan at work, so it is true.
I also am never stressed, work 40 hours a week, am always happy, eat the perfect diet according to what they think is perfect (which it isn't), and exercise exactly how much they think I should exercise.

I'm seeing a trend here

[commandlinefanatic]

So, it's just like all the research that you can't actually multitask and noisy "collaborative" open-office environments are bad for productivity: it will just be ignored by people who think they can make an extra buck.

Stuff grows to fill the space

[drew_kime]

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?'

I've got "so much to do" because stuff grows to fill the space it's got. If you're the kind of person who likes to be hectic and busy all the time, you'll do it whether you're awake 16 hours a day or 20.

Same goes for bosses. We all talk about "getting the work done" but most of them only care about how busy you are - or how busy you look. Very few of them know what's a reasonable amount of work to expect, so they focus on hours and effort.

The U.S. Navy might have something to say

[kilodelta]

Because duty on a submarine is six hours of sleep.

Warren Buffet disagrees

[rsilvergun]

as does everybody in the 50s and 60s when corporate and marginal taxes were much higher and we had record growth and prosperity. If anything it spurs them to work harder instead of hoarding cash and power.

Re: The guns, the guns

[bobschmagogee]

No, the constitution gives Americans the RIGHT to bear arms, while the nation's and state's laws let us know WHICH arms we can bear. While laws can and do regulate arms usage and legality, they cannot take away the RIGHT to bear arms.

If you want to abolish the RIGHT to bear arms, that's a constitutional amendment. Good luck with that.

If you drink 6 glasses of water every day ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Experts say if you drink water, you're diluting yourself.

Here's Better

[jf_moreira]

We complain about a lot of things here, but not about this subject. Working hours are flexible and I do everything to avoid let work ooze inside my lifetime hours. Working in IT infrastructure and its service management (whole backoffice, 500+ servers, 6 countries), I usually arrive at 8:30 everyday, have a minimum by law of one hour for lunch (we actually HAVE lunch here, differently from Americans that eat a sandwich in a 15-minute break), come back by 13:00 (we use 24h format here), sometimes 13:30. I can leave at 17:30 completing an 8-hour work journey. So, no worries. Of course, eventually I have to work on saturday nights to follow up on changes the teams are doing but it's not frequent so that does not bother me. I am old enough to know that, if you work for others, it's not worth it to grind your ass too much. Or to do loads of overtime. I'm well after that time. Work for living, not the other way around. If you own your own business, things may be different, but, again, don't sacrifice your family over work. Americans take proud in this shit and, as everybody, they will die alone, so...you know what to do.