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Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

Donald Trump claims to sleep 4-5 hours per night. According to reports, he also watches cable TV news for several hours every day (including Sean Spicer's press conferences -- which is a strange thing for a president to do, as the whole point of having a press secretary was to free the president's time to do something else than meet the press).

Perhaps Ivanka could convince him to watch less TV and sleep some more...? An article equating sleep with status symbols is certainly a good start.

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Some people honestly just need 4-5 hours of sleep. I used to work for Zillow and their CEO Spencer only sleeps 4-5 hours a night. It's all he needs and all he's ever done, according to people who have worked for him for a long time.

But these people are the exception not the rule. I think the reason they tend to be successful is because they are up before everyone else and have time to get a lot accomplished before they are thrown into the day with everyone else's schedules pulling on them.

> I think the reason they tend to be successful is because they are up before everyone else and have time to get a lot accomplished before they are thrown into the day with everyone else's schedules pulling on them.

Whenever the daydream talking point "what superpower would you have?" comes up, my answer is to not require sleep. I love sleep and I get seven to eight hours of it every night. But imagine what you could do with another eight hours of waking activity every single day. I think you're right that people who can get by on less have an advantage. But I'm not one of 'em.

I'm not experienced in this but from what I've read you could just take stuff like modafinil and sleep way less while being productive longer so it's not really a daydream scenario - there will probably be trade-offs but it's achievable.

The "4-5 hours a night" story is so prevalent among government and business leaders that I've always assumed that they are A) lying, or B) medicating to reduce their sleep needs.

President Obama was reported to have regularly taken Modafinil to reduce jet lag while on international trips. He's also reported to only sleep five hours a night. Why not just medicate to increase your productivity for a few years?

It was said of Napoleon that he slept little, but apparently that is not so, though he could when necessary stay awake for long hours.

Because Modafinil is a Schedule IV controlled substance, and "I want to be a productive superman like President Obama" probably won't fly with your doctor?

I was suggesting that he was medicating to keep those hours.

Modafinil is not a long term solution. Sleep deficit that you would build up would have to be "paid back", or it would become detrimental to your health.

By the way, those few people who need less sleep most likely have certain genetic advantage that the rest of us don't: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetic-mutation-...

I'm not sure it's a 1:1 relation, eg. say you cut 12 hours of sleep during the week but sleep extra 6 hours on the weekend or something along those lines - cycling on-and-off according to your schedule.

As I've said I haven't tried it yet will do some research before I do, right now I'm trying out other stuff and it wouldn't be wise to mix so many unknowns.

i wish i could do that. I seem to need 8-9 hours every freakin night and even then i still feel tired sometimes.

> Donald Trump claims to sleep 4-5 hours per night.

This might go some way to explaining why he comes across so batshit insane and authoritarian. Lack of sleep correlates with reduced empathy, increased aggression and loss of impulse control.

Margaret Thatcher too come to think of it. She claimed to only sleep four hours a night because any more was 'a waste of precious time'.

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