Not everyone needs 8 hours of sleep: new research
time.com
time.com
I don’t sleep 8 every night: sometimes it’s longer, usually it’s more like 6, but either way I don’t use an alarm to wake up.
The key for me was to prioritize my sleep health by minimizing screen time before bed, going to bed consistently at the same time, and always leaving enough time to get 8 full hours if my body ends up wanting it.
I don’t _always_ need 8 hours, but it makes a huge difference when I do. And empirically, my well being—physical and mental—improves substantially if I am going out of my way to tend my sleep health.
Flux was great but for the most part modern OS' have caught up and it's no longer needed.
— https://twitter.com/JustGetFlux/status/1288979404677292032
I think it doesn't really eliminate the possibility, though, with different numbers.
Right up until other people do all the R&D for them so they can pick out the parts they like for a big announcement on stage. It's a smart strategy. They get to look like geniuses while others do the hard work and take all the risk.
I think it's probably much more of an issue for people already susceptible to inspect insomnia or other sleep issues.
F.lux, Windows 10 night light and Android's bedtime mode are great distractions at best and to me they serve more as a bedtime reminder. I feel that most sleep assistants and other life-hacking tools are mostly placebo that give you the feeling you're in control, which is a state the human brain likes. Sadly, it also means that once you know the placebo effect, those tools become useless. :-)
I use flux, but I also cut all blue light after 10pm. I use 1850k lights (aka candlelight) throughout the house after 10pm. My phone is also yellow shifted and I watch tv yellow shifted too (by only watching from a computer with flux at night).
All those things together made a huge difference in sleep quality.
"Yes. Mainly when I practice good sleeping habits, though."
/s :)
I'm currently using Iris Pro in max brightness, in which the display doesn't need to flicker, the software still can dim the screen itself.
But there's this too - and increasingly more stories like it:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191216173654.h...
Yes or good old fashioned curtains or window blinds.
The problem is that we keep our brains active late at night and that's the reason why it is hard to get to sleep.
For me alcohol is the one that messes with my sleep. The lack of deep sleep makes me feel tired the next day(s).
Edit: an article about recent studies: https://time.com/5752454/blue-light-sleep/
I still read a lot on computer in the evening, but I get sleepy much earlier.
I find it much easier to fall asleep when the light is redder. Even for example when reading a book, if there's a lot of bright light in the room I will have a much harder time falling asleep.
I've noticed that if I wake up for some reason at night and turn the lights on, if the light is bluer it will tend to wake me up completely, whereas a red light will allow me to stay "sleepy" and fall back asleep quicker.
You are correct, however, that's a confounding problem. The (relatively) weak effectiveness of software solutions is due to blocking only a small percentage of blue light from a (relatively) strong light source (assumes short distance to screen, low ambient light at night).
Blue light (and even some green light frequencies) is a hardwired stimulus feeding into your circadian rhythm. Blocking all blue and green frequencies, e.g. with simple welding glasses, is effective in supporting the creation of melatonin.
But again, having enough melatonin in your system is a necessary but not sufficient condition to be able to sleep.
All this makes my body ready for sleep and at 10 pm I feel relieved to close my eyes and dozing off. I have accepted that I seem to need more sleep than others. Usually after 8 to 9 hours of sleep I wake up on my own.
I did and I went back.
It does very little you use night mode everywhere.
It might help with white backgrounds but I remove or avoid those even during daylight. I do use the 'Eye saver' mode on my smartphone, but only to visually let me know that it's after midnight.
So this thread helps but also something like this article about sleep hacking is very helpful: https://medium.com/better-humans/what-i-learned-from-six-mon...
I recently experimented with bed linen made by bamboo, but did not experience any big effect. Bamboo is supposed to regulate the temperature at night, but didn't seem able to on warm summer nights.
I personally don't agree. For pretty much all the people I know who won't sleep enough (that is, most of the people I known), it falls into the more general problem of health hygiene denial:
- knowing that one should sleep more, but for <any reason> one doesn't,
- having anxiety problems (eg. waking up early and not falling back asleep due to "mind rush").
The negative effects of eating junk and smoking are extremely well known, and still, there's a large amount of people who do it.
Sleep deprivation on the other hand has obvious negative effects, buy they're not documented/perceived, in common culture, as being catastrophic (eg. you risk to die); it has also the perception of being a time waste, which conflicts with the busy requirements of a modern life.
Call me pessimistic, but I can hardly see a way to realistically (I stress "reastically") improve the situation on large scale (like smoke campaigns decrease smokers).
For example, I sometimes smoke "socially", sometimes up to half a pack during a night out. I never perceived it as "catastrophic", just as you say people don't perceive not sleeping enough as catastrophic. I would bet a lot of people don't feel like dying after smoking a cigarette or ten. The point is that maybe those campaigns do work, even when the issue isn't perceived as "critical" by the people. It could be launched as an education campaign, for the long haul.
Another thing which helped me a lot with sleep quality is exercise. And this is something for which there already are campaigns, at least in France, and from what I see it becomes more and more common to see people advocating for it. However, I don't see those campaigns talk about the effect of exercise on sleep.
When I started lifting some weights (nothing much, just a bunch of dumbbell exercises in my apartment) and going for short, light runs (around 30 minutes around my neighborhood) I noticed my sleep quality had improved enormously. A few weeks in, I actually started to sleep less than before. Went from around 7-8 hours and having a hard time waking up to around 6 hours and waking up refreshed and without an alarm.
So what I found out was that exercise actually turned out to be "free" from a time standpoint. But the overall levels of energy during the day went through the roof. Of course, the first two to three weeks were hard, especially waking up in the morning, but it was worth it.
I know nothing about the viability but like others you just find what works for you. I do know when I don't have enough sleep, it is really easy - I am irritable
I do have a sleep apnea issue so that might have something to do with it but I think I'm currently sleeping in a way that it's not bothering me as much, in a recliner (at some point I need to get the machine but I can't get the titration right now because pandemic).
There's just something about 6am (the light? my dogs wanting to go outside?) that gets me every time.
Didn't used to be the case when I was younger. I could sleep 10+ hours easy. Now I'm lucky to get more than 7 usually, and usually only about 6 hours.
A part of it was the breast is best craze that has taken over parenting. I don’t disagree with it, but also some people just don’t produce enough milk to fully sustain a child and you need to supplement. When our kids were older my partner found out that her doctor actually noted that her breast tissue was likely to not produce sufficient quantities of milk on her medical chart, but failed to ever tell her. Hence feeding the kids 8-12 times a night, times two kids.
As a result years later I now can’t sleep for more than 5 hours a night without waking up and not being able to go back to sleep for an hour or two. I am slowly figuring out ways to combat this but I have yet to find a solution that lets me sleep a full 7-9 hours my body seems to actually need that doesn’t give me a headache or make my drowsy for the rest of the following day. Sometimes being human is a limitation.
Have you ruled out alcohol? I’ve heard drinking at night can cause that.
For the over whelming majority of homo-sapiens alcohol tends to increase, not decrease, the propensity to sleep for many hours. Sure there's edge cases but they're rare enough and hard enough to differentiate from other problems that nobody should be trying to diagnose those over the internet.
https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/news/20130118/alcohol-...
He went to some sort of "sleep therapist", I forget the exact nomenclature. Anyway, he was recommended a series of tips (from limit screen time to everything else you may see online). He found it did help. That sort of service may be worth looking into.
Several years ago I was listening to a Freakonomics Radio series where they interviewed a bunch of big company CEOs, and one thing that I noticed was they all described their normal routine as involving very little sleep.
It struck me then that being a high power leader is almost certainly genetic in the same way that genes for height are essentially required to be a serious / professional basketball player.
I struggle with sleep, always have, and rarely feel good in the morning without about 8 hours or more in bed. And I’m acutely aware of many of my friends and peers who need much less than this and feel fine. Occasionally I’ll find myself at a conference or something and the group I’m with will stay out late and then get up early and go about their day as normal. I used to try and keep up, but I would be so hung over the next morning (regardless of whether I had anything to drink) as to be non-functional.
It’s a sad thing to me to think that I don’t have the genetics to keep up with the people who need a lot less sleep than I do. However, I’m gradually making peace with it, as I focus on finding things I can do with my life that are compatible with my need for more time in bed.
I'm sure there are other good CEOs that sleep 8 or more hours, but they don't talk about it. I hide the fact that I like to sleep at least 8 hours (but 9 would be my optimal), because sleeping 6 hours or less is a medal in my workplace.
I only know of Basecamp CEOs that take the opposite stance: they admit to sleep at least 8 hours, take long vacations, having cool hobbies and healthy families, working 40ish hours per week... while keeping their bussiness running happily on profits for 17 years in a row. And boy did they receive criticism for saying it out loud. Nonsense like "if you worked harder and slept less, your bussiness would be billionaire instead of millionaire".
I can imagine that someone who is CEO also has quite a thick skin and doesn't need to sleep that much. It seems to fit that theory :)
My sister simply can. not. sit. still. Not ADHD or whatever. I mean she always has to be in motion. On the move. Doing something. So whereas I'm a daydreamer, in the time I can imagine 3 ways to do a thing, my sister has already tried at least 6 options.
The Big Boss at one startup was a pretty good sales guy. Not especially smart, but good hustle. Yes, we had all the standard problems of a sales & marketing driven org. Over time you get to really know someone. Offline, holidays, birthday & release parties, etc. This Big Boss was always in motion. Never idle. I remember one time just sitting there, watching him in action, marveling at his boundless energy. He has at least 3x my physical energy level, and many people say I exhaust them.
The analogy I think of is higher energy people have more bites at the apple. So just by playing the odds, they'll succeed more often.
I've wandered about the psychology of this forever. Is it a bias towards action? Whereas I can think of 100s of ways something will fail, my sis just acts and learns quicker thru action. So is that a bias towards failing faster?
I dunno, but I'd love to find out.
Instead of feeling like a zombie until 5-6 hours into my day and working late into the night, I now can find myself working minutes after waking up - something I never thought possible.
I'm roughly twice as productive as before.
It is admittedly difficult to plan ahead; I don't have dependents and I am a solo developer, working on my own schedule.
One silver lining of COVID is that people are finally getting a glimpse of what post-9-to-5 cubicle work styles can offer.
Why shouldn't we work when and how we are most productive?
Off the top of my head:
- easier to find the will to exercise - less cravings for junk food - depression symptoms occur 80% less - back pain frequently forgets to manifest - I feel more optimistic
It's not all roses, though. I am not traditionally employable because I work unpredictable hours. It can be hard to schedule doctor's appointments, for example.
The hardest thing is syncing with my SO. She's actually inclined to keep similar hours, but has a 9-5 job. Still, this hasn't been a huge issue.
I don't think it could work if you had young children.
That all said, statistically I'm much more likely to be awake than not during the day, so many folks would have no idea. Usually there's only one day a week where I'm essentially going to sleep right when everyone else is starting their day.
I'm lucky that my daily shift is 3h - two REM cycles - as it maps nicely onto the 24h schedule everyone else is on, most of the time. 1.5h or 4.5h would be really confusing to me.
I am not a doctor, but I have spent a lot of time in sleep clinics and reading about sleep. I am also quite familiar with the huge number of issues surrounding the relatively recent book "Why We Sleep" which is essentially considered partially-debunked at this point. I feel about that book the way most of us would feel about a book declaring that people who code or are interested in startups are missing opportunities to play more football.
My rhythm seems to be off by two REM cycles eg 1.5hx2, and I actually find 3h pretty easy to manage as it loops around every 7-8 days.
I don't have any trouble falling asleep during the day, because I own a https://nitehood.ca - the discount code is August15 BTW.
Did you end up with this randomly or do you find it better than regular sleep mask?
I love the NiteHood. It's objectively awesome in terms of function, density and even material choice. 10/10
For me (and I'd guess many others) a sleep mask does not make it much easier to sleep during the day. I would need to have a dark environment for a while before sleep. Some people can set up a room like that but I can't at this point. This is not to say that I never get to sleep during the day, but I stay up longer when I go to sleep during the day, even if I have been awake for a while. Some people with Non-24 have the same reaction I do and others don't.
I am very lucky that I am able to control my environment - I have blackout curtains on my bedroom window, which is where I work.
How did you decide to choose this pattern? Did you hear about it or was it part of a process, or did you stumble across it?
If I don't then my internal clock will immediately shift later and it's incredibly hard to follow the "old" pattern. I think I can get away with one late night every so often but never two. Right now I'm stable but it's very hard to convince the people around me that it's what I need, even though they've seen the effects of not doing it. I believe it's in the same realm as smoking or alcoholism, where if you have a problem then most people will say "why not stop drinking then?" as if that's some great insight. "Just go to sleep" isn't particularly helpful.
And then, of course, they'll fall asleep with no problem and complain if they feel crap after one bad night :/
Really glad to hear you're feeling good on it! I hope it stays that way.
What changed is that I noticed how, left to my own devices without external schedule pressure, I would naturally drift 3h forward every day - and so I realized I had the opportunity to actually fully go with the schedule my body seemed to want to have. I informed my family what I intended to do, cleared my calendar for the next week, and went for it.
First observation: my biggest hesitation was social judgement. I was consciously aware of how little I wanted people to think I was a weird dude.
Well, turns out I'd rather be weird and feel great than normal and feel like a zombie. My body almost immediately seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and six months later, this part of my life is amazing.
I find it endlessly curious how some people seem seriously distraught when I tell them what I've been up to. Not because they have any medical opinion, but because it appears to challenge something that clearly gives them a feeling of being normal.
My doctor actually had very little to say, once they heard me out and read the research I gave them. Essentially, "please stop if you start feeling bad".
Thank you for posting this. It's encouraging me to consider giving that a shot again. (especially since I woke up at 5pm and that's been pushing later again)
Feel free to ask more specific questions.
And, here I am needing my 8±1 hours every night. Even needing half as much sleep alone would be a real edge. Tack on being naturally more optimistic and having a higher pain tolerance than others, and it starts sounding like a real superpower. Oh, and they live longer, too?
This is exciting research, but I can't help but feel either envious or inferior because of it. Yes, it's a personal failing. Sue me. :P
My real hope is that this research eventually benefits medicine somehow. Maybe they can put it in a bottle for the rest of us (unlikely!). Or, since lack of sleep is linked to so many conditions, including systemic inflammation, maybe we'll get some insight into what the relationship is between sleep and inflammation? Maybe a "sleep gene panel" will become a standard test and guide how we treat certain conditions? Who knows.
So I believe this might have done causation link.
We are always told how bad this is, but there is no solution offered which actually works and I've never experienced a downside. It would be nice to prove once and for all that it isn't harmful for us all.
She pointed out one reason why that may be the case: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2018/03/410051/scientists-discover...
I'm really jealous of you. I need 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep. I would feel like a zombie if I got less than that. If I could only sleep 5-6 hours of sleep, I would do more things in my life: studying foreign languages, working on side projects, reading more books, etc.
It's 1:17am for me. I will be awake for another hour most likely. I'll get up before 8am and ride for a few hours. Never a yawn. It's really fascinating and I have no idea how to explain it.
I think the biggest agent of change is my autoimmune disease which has worsened over the years and now requires of me more rest and sleep maintenance.
Got a cruel reminder of all of this sleep-related business last night with the bay area thunderstorm waking me after only 3 hours of sleep and the storm and heat keeping me awake until my body screamed for a rare noon siesta.
I'd say, if you feel well rested, energized and just overall feel good when you wake up, you don't have any issue.
I use to work at a seed stage startup, where I had to grind out days together without sleeping and eating, because of which I suffered from severe health issues mostly lifestyle related. I browsed through every blog, every paper, every podcast and youtube videos I could get my hands on --- tried all of them over a period of 2.5 years to a deteriorating health and increased stress. Luckily 2 years ago, I went to a Vipasana silent meditation retreat, where for 10 days you eat on time, sleep on time(9pm), wake up on time(4:30am), and meditate rest of the time. I don't how that retreat itself helped me, but I somehow managed to adhere to that schedule for 2 years now and I feel better than ever.
NB: I don't meditate all day, but I meditate 1 hour every day while also maintain my eating habits and sleeping habits.
"You are gaining weight, not finishing your work, and you had a car accident last week."
"I feel fine on 5 hours of sleep, shut up!"
If they're struggling, occasionally (or more) depressed, unproductive or unmotivated, lack meaningful social interactions... Sleep could be an issue. Or it could be the depression that is in turn causing the sleep and other issues. These things are complex.
> "You are gaining weight, not finishing your work, and you had a car accident last week."
And I have seen this in play. Otherwise smart person coding stupid things, saying stupid things, getting overly emotional and angry over stupid things all the while proudly claiming the 6 hours a night are enough for him.
And blaming everyone and everything for all the problems, just not himself.
And everyone else is unhappy due to consequences. And him unhappy due to constant conflicts he is in that he does not really understands. But like, those were totally not his fault, they were everyone elses fault.
As I explained elsewhere in this thread, after fighting ever-present grogginess for my entire adult life, I switched to a 20 up / 7 down schedule six months ago. My output has doubled, my depression has gone away, I have more energy for exercise and I crave sugar and carbs far less.
You should do what works for you instead of getting upset when something different works incredibly well for me.
@yjftsjthsd-h can't downvote you at all, HN doesn't allow you to downvote replies to your own posts.
There is imo bias in play tho, the loud "I sleep little" people do so because they picked up that working or playing till night is cool thing to do. Which has little to do with their actual sleep needs. And the bragging has a bit to do with diminished self control due to sleep deprivation.
Meanwhile, people who actually need to sleep less, would just ... sleep less without talking about it or even realizing it, so you will never know.
But what to do then? Talking to housemates might be ok, but what if you have none, or the conversations end up stimulating? Similar for books. The books Im usually interested in (non fiction) tend to be very stimulating. I remember fiction to be quite stimulating, too.
I guess the crux of the problem is, how do you stick to doing something that is boring on purpose? And is the improvement in sleep quality really worth it?
Specifically about your problem: for me, I move from a state of "active engagement" to "passive consumption". 1 to 2 hours before bed, I stop doing anything engaging that requires my active participation - work, video games, learning. I shift to lounging on the couch and reading fiction or watching a movie/show. The key is in my intentions behind each: in the evening, my goal is to relax. I dont turn on a movie with the intention to learn or to be entertained; I'm just there to experience it.
Sorry if that's too abstract; the feeling is hard to communicate. Hopefully it's a useful starting point for further thinking.
A few things that come to my mind now:
1) I did notice though that some form of learning, e.g. vocabulary, can help me fall asleep. I guess it requires focus - which makes me feel tired - but is also dull. 2) Reading in low light conditions makes my eyes tired. It feels harder to keep them open which can work as a trigger for sleeping. It's not bad for eye health by the way [1]. 3) The biggest hurdle often seems discipline. It's just too tempting to continue a fun and engaging activity, like playing video games, way past bedtime. The easiest solution would be to not engage in them at all in the evening, but then you might never find time for it.
[1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/safeguarding-your-....
Do not be so sure about this. http://www.myopia-manual.de/ has a lot of information. Page. 131ff:
>The development of chicks towards emmetropization was observed at various levels of illumination [544]: (10.000 Lux, 500 Lux and 50 Lux). Result: After 90 days 50 Lux resulted in a mean myopia of –2.41 D, 500 Lux resulted in +0.03 D, and 10.000 Lux resulted in hyperopia of +1.1 D.
>Categorized according to their objectively measured average daily light exposure and adjusting for potential confounders (age, sex, baseline axial length, parental myopia, nearwork, and physical activity), children experiencing low average daily light exposure (mean daily light exposure: 459 ± 117 lux, annual eye growth: 0.13 mm/y) exhibited significantly greater eye growth than children experiencing moderate (842 ± 109 lux, 0.060 mm/y), and high (1455 ± 317 lux, 0.065 mm/y) average daily light exposure levels
For me, these boring things are: * Making and drinking herbal tea (just don't get _obsessed_ with tea) * Doing dishes * Organizing my physical space (mail, books, backpack, papers, clothes, shoes, et al get moved during day) * Talking with partner * Catching up on texts before 930 * Reading fiction (or non-work non-fiction) * Listening to music (sometimes I listen to audiobook/podcast at night but rarely) * Sometimes making food for next few days or making grocery list
We had to talk about not having stimulating conversations before bed and are working on that. It's a real challenge, especially if you end up not seeing each other all day. You have to talk about it with your roommate or partner and talk about the problem you're trying to solve, offering that as a solution.
My day is designed to get me to bed having checked off my list of important things and feel tired for bed. It's essentially designed to add in good habits and take away bad habits so that I sleep better. I've worked on it for a few years and it has paid off.
Hell, disrupting REM mid-cycle is worse (in my experience) than fewer cycles that are all while: better to get 6 hours than 8.
At first I felt really weird about working before showering, like it was out of order so it felt wrong. Now, I can’t imagine doing it any other way. Weird!
I’m usually done with breakfast and tea around 8:45, and then I work through until noon. Go for a run if the weather’s good, shower, quick bite for lunch, back to work till 6ish.
I used to get in to the office around 11 before, regardless of what time I woke up. I can’t help but feel the current (weird) schedule is at least 20% more productive for me.
Yea, the office readjustment will suck.
We don't have one diet for everybody, one exercise type for everybody, why do we think sleep would be any different.
We're working on improving sleep performance, if you're interested in this sort of thing, sign-up to get on our waitlist https://withbliss.com or reach out.
I like it like this. I get to be awake and go about my business without interruption when the people around me are asleep. I get much done between the hours of 4am and 8am.
When I travel for work I get to see other cities with almost no traffic on the streets. New York and LA, Atlanta. It has a certain feeling to it. Although in recent years if I happen to be on the streets at 5am I usually notice a fair amount of foot traffic outside of fitness clubs.
At first I saw these people as intruders, encroaching on my little, peaceful world. The early morning has a certain feeling that is somehow diminished with the addition of other people...
You are very fortunate with your sleeping needs. What exactly is there for you to understand? You speak about them allowing themselves to sleep in, yet you don't disallow yourself to do anything but just wake up naturally without alarm.
Sleep, wake up for a few hours, sleep again. This new-fangled 8 hour block of sleep people seem to think they need to do is incredibly detrimental to health.
This period was often used for prayer, or writing, or sex, or even for visiting the neighbours.
Similarly, we shouldn't consider gene as an excuse against trying to be productive given fewer sleep hours. On the other hand, it could be better if we don't have to force ourselves or anyone to sleep fewer even if someday there would be a scientific way to do so.
For me, the biggest improvement I had thanks to the 'rona lockdowns was I finally can follow a decent sleep schedule - wake me up at 8 or earlier and I'm essentially an unusable wreck for the first 4 or so hours, so when I was able to sleep until 9 because I had no need to rush for eating, showering and to travel the ~45min to work I actually am way more productive.
Now, if politicians could get their butts to introducing 32 or shorter hour work weeks (=4 day work week)... that would be yet another boost, for physical and mental health as well as for unemployment numbers.
That being said, I have slept 8 hours or so when I am sick or feeling a tad depressed.
My wife in contrast needs 8-10 hours of sleep to feel that way. But with kids she gets 7-8 hours so she’s always a bit groggy.
Ideally We’d sleep without alarms, but our children let us know when it’s time to get up (and there’s some variance there).
I think your body adjusts sleep based on its needs and we should probably listen to it.
After I read "why we sleep" all these: "sleep faster", "you need 8 hours", "I wake up at 4am" seems ridiculous to me. It's all depends, try to sleep 8 hours and if 6h works for you - lucky you, if 4am works for you - lucky you, if you need 7h or 10h - good, stick to it and adjust your schedule. Despite all the articles on how bad "why we sleep" is, it helped me a lot, at least with basics, that's all I need due to lack of ambition to get a PhD in why people sleep.
I tried everything, slept 10h, 8h, 6h, mix(night/day) and there always was only one thing that worked for me: wake up without alarm in the "late morning". No matter how hard I try, morning is just not for me, I fought with it for too many years and the war is over, my sleep always wins. Evening works best for me, no matter of what people try to convince or adjust me to.
TL;DR try what works for you and don't try to adjust with others.
There’s a circadian effect to blood glucose...it’s part of how you wake up. Kind of surprised the authors of a circadian rhythm study didn’t factor this in.
I do feel much better, and it’s nice waking up when I’m ready without an alarm.
Every few weeks I find myself sleeping 10-12 hours with non-stop vivid REM dreams.
But it also looks like he ignores some of the more damning accusations, like cutting out parts of graphs that don't support his theories, being incorrect that the WHO has declared that we have a "sleep loss epidemic", and questions about where he actually earned his PhD (which he seems to continually misrepresent).
So yes, he seems to have responded to the criticism, but IMO not really addressed it to a satisfying degree.
Not saying that perfectly describes Walker, but the evidence does seem to point in that direction.
If you still want to trust someone like that, I guess that's your prerogative, but... well, that sort of thing doesn't seem like a winning strategy in life.
Of course he was a brutal dictator who caused the deaths of millions, so it's still probably a good idea to take his "wisdom" with a critical eye.