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Comment by apawloski | Hacker News Reader

My colleague recently recommended the book "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker. While I was expecting it to tout the benefits of good sleep, I was surprised at the evidence around the inverse: not getting a full night's sleep is alarmingly bad for you.

The evidence suggests that this extends far beyond cognitive and psychological health impacts. For example, the author notes that there is a 24% increase in heart attacks the day after we lose an hour of sleep during daylight savings. This is just the tip of the iceberg, in my opinion.

Given these mental and physical risks, it is insane that we allow physicians to routinely work shifts that endanger themselves and lead to measurable drops in their performance.

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I'm currently reading this book at the moment. The part of it that discusses the disastrous effect of the removal of the biphasic "siesta" sleeping in Spain, versus those that maintain it, had a distinct impact on me. I honestly think that we culturally need to return to this. I work on a team of engineers and you can see people flag around this time, yet they'll grab a cup of coffee and struggle through. It makes you wonder how many errors are solely due to this sleep deprivation that is now all so common.

I highly recommend people read it. I've gone from getting into bed about 11 and waking up around 6, to getting into bed at 9 and waking up before my alarm clock even goes off, and having a 20 minute nap at lunch. The difference in my mood and energy levels, and most amazingly memory, has been stark. I miss out on an hour of reading or games, but I feel like I actually have more time because I'm alert - not in that state of flux where I'm gormlessly staring at my book or computer with nothing actually happening in my head. You won't realise how sleep deprived you are until you're not, and I would never have changed my perspective if I wasn't given the statistics that he presents in this book.

All these go to bed early stories sound great until I remember that the majority of my social life happens from 9PM-1AM

An unfortunate reality but at least that means sleep deprivation only needs to happen 1-3 times a week, not every night like I got used to. The difference between 7 hours sleep a night to 8 hours during the midweek days has made the biggest impact on my life. The book discusses that the difference between 7 hours and 8 hours has almost as much an effect on you as that of 5 hours and 7 hours. The last moments before you wake up seem to be the part when the electrical "waves" that happen during REM sleep are at their strongest, but sadly it's that REM cycle particular that almost everyone misses. I'm a night owl forced into a day time job (if given the option I'd happily stay up till 2am), so I struggle with getting to sleep early - but now I've learnt how important it really is I'm much more motivated to force myself to do it.

>For example, the author notes that there is a 24% increase in heart attacks the day after we lose an hour of sleep during daylight savings.

How did the author directly attribute those stats to the "lost" hour of sleep? Even apart of the fact that people don't necessarily lose an hour of sleep, there could be many other reasons. It sounds like a case of conflating causality with correlation.

I am reasonably confident that the author is aware of the distinction between correlation and causation.

If you're interested or skeptical, I would highly recommend this book. It's from the "Sleep Loss and the Cardiovascular System" section of Chapter 8. He includes chapter endnotes discussing sources.

I believe we need to do away with “the Kaiser’s trick hour” and restore a truly reliable, truly American sense of time

There's talk of doing away with it in Europe: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/26/when-do-the-...

The Kaiser? I always thought it was Adenauer...

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