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Comment by hoodwink | Hacker News Reader

As someone who has struggled with sleep since childhood, I’ve been scared stiff by popular media that every ailment known to man is going to afflict me... underperformance, won’t develop muscle, won’t form memories, cancer, heart attacks, ED, high blood pressure, whatever.

I’ve always felt fine despite sleeping 5 hours. I wonder if the bell curve of what people need is centered on 8 hours and I’m just in the left hand tail somewhere?

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This is extremely rare, way more rare than people who merely think they're fine with much less sleep.

Given you seem to have spent a lot of time thinking about this, perhaps you've already been to a sleep medicine doctor, but if not, you really should. They'll be able to confirm you're one of the rare individuals who actually won't benefit from more sleep.

I have the same. I need 7.30 a night, if I get more than that, I have trouble sleeping the next night, and feel terrible the next day. For a long time I was in a cycle of trying to get to bed early because I was so tired, not sleeping well, thoughts bouncing around my head, repeating ad nauseam.

I eventually found a course[1] that went through a 'sleep restriction' cycle, essentially limiting the amount of time you're allowed in bed to the actual amount of time you're asleep, according to rough measurements through an app or whatever. For me this started at 5.30 hours. It was dreadful, but each week you spent 90%+ of the time actually in bed asleep, you could give yourself another 15 minutes. Eventually I settled on 7.30 as the amount of time I needed.

I now have the occasional bad night, but I don't sweat it, and stick to 7.30 hours in bed each and every night on strict hours. It's transformed my life from the insomnia I had before.

1: https://www.sleepio.com/

Not sure about the bell curve aspect of sleep, but scientists have discovered a gene that allows a very small portion of the population to be fully rested on about 4 hours of sleep a night. I suppose it's possible that you could have this gene.

https://blog.sleepnumber.com/can-4-hours-of-sleep-a-night-be...

Although it's also possible you have one of the other genes or conditions that alters your sleep needs. But usually that comes with associated side effects. You report feeling fine so not sure what to make of that.

> I’ve always felt fine despite sleeping 5 hours.

Tons of people will pay good money to be genetically modified with that ability. You should feel lucky.

> I’ve always felt fine despite sleeping 5 hours

This is part of it, I think. In Why we Sleep, Dr. Walker specifically mentions that we often don't realize how sleep deprived we truly are. Given the fact that, if you rounded the percentage of people who have the mutation needed for less sleep, there's an effectively 0% chance of you having it, I'd say that's what's coming into play here.

If it makes you feel any better in a weird way, Donald Trump supposedly sleeps only 4-5 hours a night and he’s 72 years old and healthy.

https://www.businessinsider.com/some-people-only-need-a-few-...

Well, first, almost everything Donald says is a lie or an exaggeration and I doubt he sleeps 4-5 hours a night. Maybe on some nights but only he knows how much he sleeps. Second, I don't know how healthy he is, he seems like his mental faculties have declined drastically over the years. I watched some earlier Donald interviews and he was a lot more articulate and certainly seemed a whole lot more thoughtful, he was bragging less, etc. He totally lost that ability to control himself.

His Twitter timestamps lend some credence to his claims about his sleep. Not that anyone could believe he's doing anything productive in those hours.

That still doesn't tell the whole truth. If I wake up every day at 4 am, how much do i sleep?? Well, you can't tell because you have no information on when I go to sleep.

That could be because he's come up with a very interesting theory about how exercise is bad for you because "the human body [is] like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only deplete[s].”[0] He's still running on a full charge, while most men his age are near empty.

[0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trump...

Sounds like lack of sleep does funny things to his head.

Mentally or physically healthy?

I would honestly question both but I'd bet money he isn't physically healthy.

Well I for one would love to have that kind of energy at this age. He's getting close to the average life expectancy by now so all in all it's fair to say he has lived a fairly healthy life? At this given moment he might not be though and we won't know unless something happens.

I'm not sure it is an example that go in the sense you think it goes.

It's actually thanks to his healthy McDonalds based diet.

it may be more accurate to attribute his longevity to his genes, instead of his reportedly rather poor lifestyle habits. his father lived to somewhere in his mid 90's.

Due to wealth genetics. More money = better living conditions = less environment negativity

“But while the new report may lift concerns about an early death, it still links insomnia with illnesses such as dementia and depression...”

is this satire?

Donald Trump is alive and he’s 72, and sleeps 4-5 hours a night. That’s all I’m stating. It was the first example that came to mind. I’m sure there’s others, I just recalled this article.

I guess it’s like mentioning that Obama’s left handed when I say I’m left handed, conservatives would give me a weird look for comparing myself to Obama in any way, however benign.

You described trump as healthy not just alive at 72. Trump's doctor admits the report on trump's health was fake. So I'm not sure what you're basing the healthy comment on.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/02/607638733...

4-5 hours a night according to Donald Trump.

I would not trust anything that man or his person physician claims about him.

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