Hacker News Reader

Comment by dot1x | Hacker News Reader

For those interested, Internal Time [1] does a good job at explaining chronotypes.

People that say they "changed from night owl to early riser" (or vice-versa) have never been night owls in the first place, but something else was the cause (diet, screen time, etc).

Chronotypes are genetics-based so no amount of wishful thinking will make you a night owl or an early riser (though obviously you can try and force this with alarm clocks / melatonin... to your own risk).

Another book worth mentioning is Why we sleep by Walker. It has it's flaws but overall does a good job at explaining the importance of sleep.

[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Internal-Time-Chronotypes-Social-Yo...

View on HN

Some caveats to think about for that particular book in this blog post: https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/ (I'm not a researcher in the area, so not sure how valid either side of this is!)

That's actually about a different sleep book, Why We Sleep

An interesting read, but the article comes across as an unhinged attack piece brimming with silliness. Better to get a take from a proper scientist with more balanced views.

Point number one of his list of 'egregious' errors is the idea that shorter sleep does not imply shorter life span, but all of the recently published meta-analyses make that connection convincingly (for the population sleeping <6 hrs). Anyone can look up these studies. And Walker does not advise people to sleep 9+ hrs (which is also thought to be a risk group on a population level). The author of the piece from the outset is quite evidently arguing in bad faith.

There is criticism to be had on Walker, he overstimulates his readers with fear-inducing statements which can definitely backfire.

Thanks, I am definitely going to check out Internal Time.

> Early birds and night owls are born, not made. Sleep patterns may be the most obvious manifestation of the highly individualized biological clocks we inherit, but these clocks also regulate bodily functions from digestion to hormone levels to cognition. Living at odds with our internal timepieces, Till Roenneberg shows, can make us chronically sleep deprived and more likely to smoke, gain weight, feel depressed, fall ill, and fail geometry. By understanding and respecting our internal time, we can live better.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com