Good sleep, good learning, good life | Hacker News Reader

Good sleep, good learning, good life

supermemo.guru

457 pointsMalfunction92121 comments

This has been one of my favourite articles for years, on the reading list, but never had the time to fully read such a behemoth.

Some stuff I got out of this:

1. The ideal sleep pattern is sleeping when tired and walking up without an alarm.

2. Biphasic is recommended. Homeostatic is how easy it is to initiate sleep, circadian is how easy it is to maintain it. Circadian cycle is usually nightly, homeostatic peaks with fatigue. It's easy to have a 20 min midday nap but hard to do a midnight one.

3. Brainwork is great as soon as you wake up, and if you need caffiene, this is the time for it. Bundle stress and exercise and keep it away from the night.

Take note this is all theory and not practical, and the author hints that society should follow these and not the other way around. It took me half a decade to find a way to fit it, and what I did was:

A. Force myself to wake real early, about 4 AM. You will feel horrible for a week, but it moves your circadian rhythm forward to wake and sleep naturally without an alarm.

B. Naps in the car at lunch. Waking early gave more time to cook, which means packed meals are done in half an hour, followed by a quick nap. I set an alarm but never need it. Exercise is easy; a quick run and a lot of strong deodorant.

I remember reading the article a few years ago (unfortunately down right now) and being struck at both how erudite and impractical it is. These days I find it even more of the later.

My biggest pet peeve is that it ignores the role technology (in the form of artificial light and comfortable indoor space) completely subverts our natural sleep cycle. It's a lost battle.

Better to accept that we're in an artificial state our whole lives and do our best to adapt to it. What I'm trying right now is a good melatonin supplement every night to counteract the unnantural stimulus, plus a magnesium supplement, and a lot of daytime exercise. This routine has gotten me from 6 hours of anxious sleep to 8-9 hours per night plus the occasional nap. And I feel great.

I think it is great you found something that works for you.

The main point of both your comment + the article (which, I also haven't been able to read yet) is that you need to find what works for you by trying things.

Personally, melotonin only gives me 6 hours of sound sleep (many times I have tried to get more, last night being one of them). But in 6 hours from sleeping almost like clockwork I will be awake- and quite wide awake. It ususally takes another hour to fall back asleep, or sometimes I just decide to be awake.

So personally, moving towards the no-supplement tact is appealing even if it is much harder in artificial environments.

I have the same problem with melatonin — it seems like artificial sleep because when I wake up 4-5 hours later, my body really doesn’t want to fall back asleep.

Have you played around with dosage?

Have you tried bi-phasic sleep patterns? You could for example get 6 hours at night and a couple hour in the day as a big nap.

My sleep got royal screwed during the summer and I'm trying to get back to at least some sort of stable baseline. Probably a few months ago I managed to get myself on a biphasic sleep schedule. It probably would have worked if I had more flexibility in my schedule.

I very much disagree that it's a lost battle. It's not hard to put blue light filters on screen when it gets dark, and limit bright screen usage before bed. But I do agree that melatonin and magnesium is a great idea as part of a strategy to counteract artifical light messing with our natural melatonin production.

naps are sometimes great, but sometimes if I don't set an alarm I end up feeling lousy. Don't know if it means sleep or something else is out of whack and I need a nap too much.

the pandemic has let me play with sleep and sometimes it's to let it gradually drift forwards an hour each day and wrap around. (schedule meetings are the only trouble spot to that experiment)

Bad post-nap feeling is very likely sleep inertia: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Sleep_inertia

I committed to living without an alarm clock in college, 20+ years ago. I fought long battles with my snooze button, and realized I was spending hours each morning hitting the snooze button. I realized if I just didn't set an alarm I'd probably get up later than I usually set my alarm for, but earlier than I typically got out of bed. It worked; I started waking up refreshed, and happy to get out of bed in the morning.

When I had an important exam or something else I really didn't want to miss, I'd set an alarm for a while. But then I just went all in, and never set an alarm. That made me pay more attention to when I was going to bed at night, and the quality of my sleep. When I started working I would set an alarm for about half an hour after I typically woke up, just in case, so I wouldn't be late for work. But after six months of that, I stopped setting my backup alarm as well. I was late for work maybe twice in five years, and it was never significantly late, and it was at times where my body really needed sleep and it probably helped me avoid getting sick. These days I only set an alarm if I have to catch a 6am flight, or if I'm getting up super early to climb a mountain or something.

If you're battling your alarm every day, I highly encourage you to experiment with not setting an alarm.

This doesn't work for me. Left to my own schedule, I go to bed later and later and wake up later and later.

The thing that works for me is waking up (with an alarm) every day at the same time (6 o'clock) including week-ends.

I have a "dawn simulator" clock so most of the time I'm already awake when the alarm rings. But no matter what, when it rings I get out of bed immediately. You snooze you loose!

I think the key point from OP was paying closer attention the when they went to sleep.

If you know you have to be up by X then be sure to go to bed at X-Y. I would imagine the struggle is winding down for bed early rather than waiting till you "feel tired" to go to sleep. Artificial light and stimulation makes it easy to stay up way later than intended.

For me, it's easier to wake early than sleep early. Whatever I want to do after midnight, I can do before dawn. And that plays into the artificial light thing of waking me up.

Once you're tired from waking early, you're far less likely to look at your phone too late.

Luckily I went through a similar experience in college, so when I got rid of the alarm I slowly but surely looped around a bit, until I got the napping right.

However - then I started a job where I had to travel between time zones, and I still haven't figured out how to get the body to know that it's traveled quickly other than mealtime & nap manipulation the day before, and even then I still need alarms.

You likely have DSPS, worth taking a look at: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Curing_DSPS_and_insomnia which has many helpful suggestions (that could work better than alarm clock)

I tried doing this in college too but it broke down immediately. The way coursework and exams are conducted almost forces you to burn the midnight oil and sacrifice sleep for forcing another three or four things to memorize into your head.

That’s what it felt like, like I had very limited time to shove x amount of things into my brain which only processes at y rate, so if I had too many things to shove in at a time due to taking a full courseload, that meant staying up since I cant change the rate my brain digests information without abusing stimulants like some of my friends.

So then you end up with a few nights of 5 hour sleep which you pay for by sleeping for 13 hours on the weekend. Not healthy, but it became a matter of necessity due to also having to make time for a part time job.

You learn better when sleeping enough, consecutive 5 hour sleep nights were pretty much guatanteeing less learning.

The linked article is part of research on optimal learning. The proposed schedule will get a lot more out of your time. It's usually better to do your studying super early in the morning rather than late into the night, and proper sleep helps a lot with information storage. YMMV though; some people are naturally better in the evening, or sometimes daytime schedules just don't fit someone's lifestyle.

I had a similar college experience to the parent post. 8am classes every day and late night lab classes every other day. This schedule prevented me from having any time in the morning to study and pretty much forced an erratic sleep schedule on myself. Lots of quick naps in between classes.

> 1. The ideal sleep pattern is sleeping when tired and walking up without an alarm.

I interpreted this in summary as "sleep when tired and don't sleep when not tired". Which seems like common sense. That's akin to my favourite feeding pattern, which can be summarized as: "eat when hungry, do not eat when not hungry".

The waking up part is more important than the sleep part.

This is good advice but doesn't work for people with sleep apnea.

When I had sleep apnea I could fall asleep at any time of day, no matter how much sleep I got (or thought I was getting) each night. The alarm was necessary because I never felt well rested and couldn't get up without it.

Then I went for a sleep study and was told that during a night of 6-7 hours of what I thought was continuous sleep, I actually woke up 120 times. Eek! Of course everyone normally wakes up at least a few times and doesn't remember it the next day, but most people don't choke and stop breathing 120 times a night. I rarely got any real deep sleep.

I had sleep apnea surgery, which changed my life. Almost right away I got better sleep and was more alert during the day. It was like getting an extra 2-3 hours a day, every day.

Now I get up without an alarm every day and never need caffeine. It's a great way to live.

This article is full of pie in the sky things that are impossible for normal people needing to earn a living.

> do not wake up kids for school; if they cannot wake up in time, let them skip a class or two, or consider homeschooling

This, for instance, is entirely illegal (at least in my country, The Netherlands).

I think that's one of the things I find most appealing about his writings in general. Most people don't go to global optima solutions because there are various constraints while Woz just does not bother.

These suggestions cannot be taken to their conclusions in many cases but I think they are still good inspiration to try.

It'd be a lot better if the article wasn't filled with ad nauseam scaremongering about how poor sleep causes every form of human suffering if not outright death.

Many of his suggestions are simply not actionable to many people in the strongest sense of the term. Letting children sleep longer is simply not legal in (I assume) most jurisdictions. He mentions off-hand that co-sleeping is not recommended by most pediatricians but fails to mention that the risk associated with co-sleeping is death. Free sleeping is simply not possible for those who need to be at work in the mornings.

This article essentially amounts to a fire-and-brimstone sermon full of questionable statements, things that run directly contrary to established science, and poor argumentation and use of sources; it is also an order of magnitude too long for even the most patient reader.

Truly a shame, because I think there's actually a lot of useful ideas and information there, but they are very hard to separate from the scaremongering and pseudoscience.

> This article essentially amounts to a fire-and-brimstone sermon full of questionable statements, things that run directly contrary to established science, and poor argumentation and use of sources

Which claims run contrary to established science? Are the claims you mention that are established agreed upon unanimously, or are there multiple models comprised of competing evidence?

My main takeaway from reading this a year ago is different than what most people have focused on in the comments so far. In my current life situation, lack of alarm clock (in the shape of an infant) and free running sleep are simply not possible.

However, this article does highlight the importance and naturalness of a mid-day nap. When reading this I started practising mid-day naps at my desk, but I never really learned to do it until other things got in the way and I started forgetting about it. Maybe I should try again.

At the very least, I encourage anyone to stand up for the right to take a mid-day nap, even if you don't personally use that right.

If you feel like you could use a nap, napping is probably the responsible thing to do. If we defend that position with evidence, maybe we can slowly change the culture at work to not look down upon it.

naps are AWESOME. Woz claims somewhere that without naps, his brain is at 60% or somesuch second half of day. Same for me (likely even worse since I usually don't get enough night sleep).

One reason I never want to work for a normal company is that I wouldn't be able to take naps. Not sure how I'd survive that.

One note for anyone reading this wanting to try naps: the timing matters a lot. Woz recommends napping around 7-8 hours from waking, NOT at a fixed time of day. (https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Best_time_for_napping).

There's lots of individual variance meaning it requires experimentation. For me, I usually take a nap between 5-7 hours from waking.

If you use supermemo/are interested in it, it has a thing called sleepchart (https://supermemo.guru/wiki/SleepChart) in which you can log sleep data and then see some cool graphs spit out (if you also use supermemo for learning, you can very cooly see correlations between sleep and repetition grades).

> One reason I never want to work for a normal company is that I wouldn't be able to take naps.

It depends on the culture: I work for an absolutely normal company in France (I'm the sole dev) and at noon I go home (10 min drive) cook my meal and eat leisurely, then get a 30 minutes nap and go back to work at 2 PM.

Pay isn't great, but quality of life is high.

I visited France a few years ago. It was incredible how e.g. the entire Vieux Port market in Marseille would close down from roughly 1-3pm. Just about nothing was open. Storefronts, restaurants, all closed. Seemed like a very peaceful place to make a living. I guess money's not everything.

Have not been to that specific market, but I know other market sellers (farmers) in Canada.

Probably what you are not seeing is that these market sellers woke up at 4 am to get ready for the market, and drive > 1 hour from the rural areas to beat traffic and setup shop.

Then they take rest 1-3pm, and then continue until 6-7pm. Only to get home at 8pm and then still have to make dinner and rest.

This page has been archived by the Wayback machine if folks are having issues accessing the mediawiki: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Go...

It's been a while since there have been posts on Supermemo here (meta: I miss the times when HN was mostly about bootstrapping software businesses, nootropics and self hacking), so I'm wondering - are there people who (still) use Supermemo or similar software for actual learning, and not memorizing for its own sake, as a party trick basically (which I feel is its main use case, at least in the way it's in the news)? Are there any advances in this field, new methods, new implementations of existing methods?

The SuperMemo algorithms [1] have been re-implemented in more modern software such as Anki [2]. These systems are popular for goal oriented learning like studying for a test or learning a new language.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperMemo#Algorithms

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anki_(software)

Anki's SRS algotihm is based on SM2 and is woefully outdated in comparison to SM's SRS algo.

Additionally SM is much more feature rich once you get into incremental reading and fully optimizing your learning experience.

Sure the UI isn't a nice flashy Electron.js app, but SM is a titan compared the terminate that is Anki.

I was thinking of platform support [1]:

> The method is available as a computer program for Windows, Windows CE, Windows Mobile, (Pocket PC), Palm OS (PalmPilot), etc.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperMemo

Yeah, that's definitely a problem. I will say though, if you use a VM you can get a not too bad experience on both mac and linux (I've tried both and found it usable enough for daily use).

outdated doesn't mean ineffective.

Anki is also free, and with a pretty big community behind it.

So, SRS algorithms are such that the more you try to get the optimality, the more the returns diminish because there's significant variability in the human population (bias-variance tradeoff sort of applies). The Ebbinghaus curve itself is a very crude approximation.

See this:

https://languagelearning.stackexchange.com/questions/3757/wh...

(I'm a language learner and an active user of SRS)

The notion of an outdated algorithm corresponding to worse or better results to me is neither here nor there. There's evidence that the repetition interval itself is not the critical factor in retention. Empirically we know there are things that we remember with 0 repetitions (the vivid details of a traumatic event), while other things we struggle to remember even with SRS when there's no emotional connection to what is being memorized.

When you're doing self-hacking, you have to understand you're working on a highly variable, complex adaptive system that defies optimality and exactness. Much of what is known are approximations.

I’m in strong agreement with your points. It always surprises me when I read people trying to come up with a more optimal algorithm for testing one’s retention when there are so many factors out of one’s control that would influence the forgetting curve. For instance, the notion of judging your ability to recall something and providing it as input to Anki is such a gross approximation. Choosing the wrong value from 1 to 5 would affect your recall schedule considerably.

In my opinion, what’s more important to a recall strategy is just pure habit. You have to practice regularly, and anything that makes the software easier to use for the long term is something that would have a greater effect than the optimality of the recall algorithm. (Incidentally this is why I’m working on a flash card app that is easier to use, to help ensure one comes back to it regularly.)

Have you tried SuperMemo? Intervals matter because they correlate with rep loads. The more accurate the intervals, the lower daily rep loads can be.

The SuperMemo creator has spent 3 decades and collected plenty of data, it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't be able to improve on an algorithm from 1990.

I admit I have not.

SRS isn't my main method for learning -- I use a variety of other methods. I only use SRS for (independent and disconnected) atomic-type knowledge that I need to drill. My rep loads are generally not onerous, so it's not a problem that necessarily affects me too much.

(Example: I learn through cognitive dissonance so I use it primarily to deprogram certain associations in my head. For instance, the word "oficina" looks like "office" to my English brain, but the word actually means "mechanic's workshop" in Portuguese. Or "pretender", which looks like pretend in English, actually means "intend". SRS helps me drill the Portuguese meaning into my skull. I use SRS to memorize bits of knowledge that don't fit anywhere and that are hard to create a context for.)

I have looked into SuperMemo in the past because I was attracted to the prospect of a general pro-level memorization tool. I use complex pro tools all the time and was not fazed by the learning curve, but I felt the UI was, let's say, overfitted to the creator's personal preferences.

It was a purely emotional decision but I knew I wouldn't use it regularly, and the best SRS tool is one that one would use over one that one would not.

> SRS isn't my main method for learning -- I use a variety of other methods. I only use SRS for (independent and disconnected) atomic-type knowledge that I need to drill. My rep loads are generally not onerous, so it's not a problem that necessarily affects me too much.

Agree. Also agree that actually using something is more important than how good it is. I just strongly object to:

>outdated algorithm corresponding to worse or better results to me is neither here nor there. There's evidence that the repetition interval itself is not the critical factor in retention.

claiming that algorithm does not matter, especially from people without experience actually using both.

>(Example: I learn through cognitive dissonance so I use it primarily to deprogram certain associations in my head. For instance, the word "oficina" looks like "office" to my English brain, but the word actually means "mechanic's workshop" in Portuguese. Or "pretender", which looks like pretend in English, actually means "intend". SRS helps me drill the Portuguese meaning into my skull. I use SRS to memorize bits of knowledge that don't fit anywhere and that are hard to create a context for.)

you look to be describing exactly interference: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Interference you might find 20 rules article useful for it: https://www.supermemo.com/en/archives1990-2015/articles/20ru...

>I have looked into SuperMemo in the past because I was attracted to the prospect of a general pro-level memorization tool. I use complex pro tools all the time and was not fazed by the learning curve, but I felt the UI was, let's say, overfitted to the creator's personal preferences. It was a purely emotional decision but I knew I wouldn't use it regularly, and the best SRS tool is one that one would use over one that one would not.

That is understandable. I will say: I personally like the interface. To anyone reading this, I might seem insane but for a high-level user it just clicks and works (with few quirks here and there). Likely because I lack imagination I can't imagine how I'd make it look nicer while still maximizing usability.

It is of course terrible to share with newcomers. But I've taught many people SuperMemo, I think the main issue with the UI for most people is just that you don't understand it. Once you get over that I think it's not so bad.

> claiming that algorithm does not matter, especially from people without experience actually using both.

Here's the basis of that claim [1].

That said, I have not tested it empirically myself so I think that is cause for moderating my claim -- I place a high value on empirically-tested knowledge. Take my claim as partially withdrawn.

But to make the argument more precise, an algorithm producing a lower rep load because it uses intervals more efficiently does not imply it produces a significant delta-difference in retention. It merely means the algorithm lets you fit more stuff into a memorization schedule. That seems to be to be quite different from improving retention itself of say a smaller inventory of facts. Just wanted to be sure about the actual claim that is made.

p.s. one of your links is broken.

[1] http://learninglab.psych.purdue.edu/downloads/2011_Karpicke_...

> Here's the basis of that claim [1].

Based on a skim of the paper, this experiment seems to only plan out how individuals study material on the same day, not distributed over a period of time that lasts multiple days.

In order to test how much of the material was retained in long-term memory, they tested the subjects on the material again after one week.

Spaced Repetition software (anki, mnemosyne, and supermemo) will distribute the learning across multiple days regardless of the algorithm they use. I don't believe the paper cited is using the same testing method that SRS systems use.

Piotr Wozniak (the creator of Supermemo) has collaborated on a couple of papers regarding this topic. I have not found many researchers who are studying it and creating algorithms in quite the same way.

There are a few papers cited in a blog post / self-published supermemo wiki here [1] that discuss a proposed two-component model of memory that explain in greater detail why learning on increasing intervals of time (days, not in the structure of repetitions on the same day) can lead to a higher stability of memory.

[1] https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Two_components_of_memory

Looks like SuperMemo is windows only which is a deal-breaker for me.

scroll to the bottom of supermemo.wiki/learn, there are some suggestions on using it on non-windows platforms

I would note that modern here should be taken to mean in interface alone. SuperMemo is still actively being worked on and looks like it will continue being worked on and improved for the foreseeable feature.

Yes. Check out this article that is half an essay on quantum computing and half a call to action for using spaced repetition (the main idea behind supermemo) as a new medium for learning.

https://quantum.country/

I would disagree :) I think the main idea of SuperMemo (now) is actually incremental reading: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Incremental_reading though it is nowhere near as popular as spaced repetition. I think we'll see more alternate implementations of IR pop up over the next few years.

Yeah, the Discord SuperMemo community has grown actually a fair bit over the last year: https://discord.gg/vUQhqCT

I myself only started using SuperMemo over the last 2 years but I think in the last 1, I've seen lots of friends get massively better and I'm looking forward to what we create over the next 5 years.

In terms of new implementations, one thing I'm excited about is dendro: https://dendro.com.au/.

It's made by a long-term supermemo user and some other friends and I think is the best shot at a modern incremental reading alternative to SuperMemo. It's missing lots of features and is aimed at bring IR to the masses rather than power users but I personally like it and find it good enough to use on my phone when I'm on the go.

I guess I'll take this as a chance, for anyone not knowing SuperMemo: this video introduces basics of IR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NURjZuHvDaU

to actually try supermemo, you can get sm15 full for free or sm18 as a trial: https://supermemo.wiki/learn/#/

Thanks for the video. The example he gave was a wizard learning spells, where each spell was a pretty independent unit of collection of facts.

What I fail to see is how this would work with scientific articles — reviewing independent sections from articles without the larger context is often useless (or at least far less useful).

Is there an example of this?

Do you have an example article? Would be easier to give some concrete advice with that since I'm not 100% sure what you mean by scientific articles (which I personally find fine. I do not find scientific papers so fine though).

I'm curious what you've seen in your friends that would make them seem massively better. I've thought of trying out supermemo, so I'd like to hear how it's helped you.

Ah, when I said massively better I was mainly referring to in terms of SuperMemo skill. I started talking a lot to them around February which is also when we all started to improve but I didn't know them well enough last year to be able to do a before/after comparison.

I can comment on myself though. I'm very low conscientiousness/have ADHD (without conscientiousness issues I'd probably have gotten 3-4 times as much done as I otherwise have). Around 2 years ago, and much of last year, I was pretty miserable. It's hard to say exactly what my thought process was back then (since I think differently now) but I got stressed very easily, could not message people without bad anxiety/overthinking, was in poor fitness, got little done, etc. etc..

I'm not sure what percentage of it I can attribute to supermemo (since you can't tell where memories come from) and I still struggle a fair bit but I've been able to get significantly better at managing stress sanely, not stress about talking to people so much, improve fitness and other lifestyle changes. A lot of these seem like they'd be things you just sort of do build but for the stress stuff in particular, I think I've been influenced heavily by stuff I've learned (though a big part of that influence also comes from creator of supermemo himself, both over email and from supermemo.guru). If I get back to incremental writing, I think you'd be able to see some of the benefits I've had in terms of creativity. Some days I can't sleep because there are just too many ideas popping up to be written down. Unfortunately I haven't gotten into the habit yet though I plan to establish a few other baser habits (like better sleep, ironically) and after to move back to it.

If you want to hear a miracle story where I started using supermemo and then wrote 10 research papers and completed lots of huge projects, you won't find that with me (I think 5-10 years from now you might). I don't regret it all though because the delta from where I started and to where I am now is huge (though it's hard to feel it day to day because of hedonic treadmill).

I would note, if you do try SuperMemo, maintain skepticism. One mistake I made especially when I first started is just importing neat things and memorizing them, without thinking about application. I'm certain that there are users at least 3x better than me, entirely because they're good at being selective/have more base knowledge so they can get rid of more overlapping inputs.

Regarding sleep: I wondered recently if Matthew Walker responded to the critique from here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21546850

He's certainly responded to a lot of reader critique on his blog: https://sleepdiplomat.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/why-we-sleep-...

Not sure if that covers all of it, and I'm not sure whether any of it is factually correct.

This is a 2018 eBook on sleep by Piotr Woźniak [1], a researcher involved in the Spaced Repetition [2] learning system SuperMemo [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piotr_Woźniak_(researcher)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperMemo

Site is down HOD.

Here is https://archive.is/NLi1E

Piotr Wozniak is a fascinating guy, if you want to read more about him: https://web.archive.org/web/20150613033756/http://archive.wi...

Is someone using his software here?

When you get hooked on SuperMemo and embrace the idea of incremental reading, it becomes the primary software on your computer. You end up spending more time in SM than you do in the browser. People use it not just to memorize flashcards, but to read articles and books... even to write and edit their own articles and books... track their sleep... plan and execute their daily schedule... keep track of tasks and priorities. It's a quirky piece of software but quite a mature one. After all, it has been in continuous development since the late eighties!

Oh there's a small but thriving community of SuperMemo users that sprang up recently. Here's a Youtube channel created by members of this community to help new users: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMdkN_8gHPn5vlYDe2ScrxQ

Sounds like Emacs. Does it have a Lisp inside? Can it send email yet?

Funnily enough, you can use it to process email (which I have tried, and used): http://super-memory.com/help/e-mail.htm

Sleep is incredibly important for forming new connections in the brain. I just want to add another aspect of learning; The importance of focus.

I will start by saying: "Do not engage the mind in the intense pursuit of too many things at once; especially things that have no relation to one another"

A couple of questions that can help for solve the above issue are:

1.How many subjects am I currently learning intensely?

2.Do these subjects have any relation to each other?

3.Why am I currently learning the subjects?

4.Have I truly made progress in any of the subjects?

By following the four questions above, you get a sense of what you really need to learn at a particular time.

This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/do-not-engage-the-mi... goes in-depth into the why and how of learning.

There are other tools that can contribute to a good life. Some of these tools are 1. Journalling. 2. Daily self reflection. 3. Some form of physical activity.

You can find out more on how to improve the mind in https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/three-actionable-ins...

> "Do not engage the mind in the intense pursuit of too many things at once; especially things that have no relation to one another"

The author "incremental reading" technique directly contradicts this. I don't know who's right though.

Here is a YT video of him watching a couple seconds of dozens of YT videos to extract knowledge : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOJyO7QDEX4

I'll admit it seems absolutely counter intuitive!

I would say, op is right when learning by hand. Managing more than say 3 books at once or more than 1-3 subjects is impossible. Tackling too many things at once is easy recipe for madness. (these numbers are vague estimates and not from experience; I have near 0 non-supermemo decent learning experience)

When it comes to SuperMemo though, you're not managing learning. You more put in what you want to learn, push a lever or two (priority/intervals) and supermemo takes care of the rest. SuperMemo is way less stressful than normal learning because when you use it and are doing reps, you can focus as much as you want on what's in front of you and move on when you want to. The costs of switching between things are near 0 since you'll always see the thing again (unless you decide not to).

For working on more than 1 project at once, I think that's pushing it though with incremental writing (https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Incremental_writing) it becomes more feasible to work on multiple things in parallel incrementally (also enjoyably).

If anyone wants an easy way to wake up early, go camping.

You are forced to go to bed early once it gets dark, and once it's morning even if you're tired, it's too bright to sleep in.

FYI- there is a summary section at the end of the article if it reads too long for you.

There is a lot of info here and much I agree with but without reading the whole thing a few things I noticed that I disagree with:

1) the fatal result of rats being tortured to deprive them of sleep seems to have been traced to oxidative stress in the gut (there was an article on this here not that long ago)

2) while I don't have an easy reference, a number of studies have found that even strenuous exercise before bed does not seem to impair sleep. As with everything sleep related there could easily be lots of individual variation but in general I don't think it usually causes trouble.

3) the author seems to consider free running sleep entirely posistive, however I think it is likely to cause circadian issues in a number of people who try it and may be quite dangerous. I think in my case going from a sleep deprived state to free running sleep (in an attempt to deal with insomnia) induced non-24 (it may be that non-24 has both a genetic susceptibility and a trigger event and that once triggered is essentially irreversible). In my case it also seems that there is an issue with internal coherence of the circadian rhythm with different parts of my body proceeding on different scheduled and rarely synchronized, leaving me disabled with memory issues and fatigue. So I encourage everyone to be careful when making changes to sleep schedules. For someone who already has a circadian issue it seems often better to sleep on the delayed or shifting schedule, but few people can do that without significant disruption caused by interacting with the rest of the world and there may still be some issues, at least for some people, due to being awake at night.

4) I think alarm clocks can in some cases keep a healthy circadian rhythm synchonized with the sun. Maybe consider them more like a prescription medication than smoking, try to avoid if possible but if using one can help you keep a healthy circadian rhythm then it seems likely to be healthier than a disrupted circadian rhythm. In my experience, when you wake up seems to be more important for setting the circadian rhythm than when you get to sleep.

I don't think there is anything natural about such a rigid "circadian rhythm".

Its a leftover from feudal / agricultural society where you had to get up to do different things on the farm _all day_ until you where so tired you crashed and slept for 8 hours. Nothing natural in that.

I totally agree that "getting up early" can have its benefits, and so can an uninterrupted 7 hours - but the body is built to get up in the middle of the night, do stuff, then go back to bed, get up again, scavenge, build, talk to someone, then take a nap with your family/tribe etc.

As long as you follow the inner rhythm, and can zone-out and relax, you are probably most healthy going through various states multiple times a day, from intense focus, to alert, to way more relaxed than anyone are today.

This is in stark contrast to the toxically over-caffeinated over exerted extremely long days where you never really go through any different "mindstates" but just "plough through" until you crash - and then think that you need 8 hours and to get up early - no you only need that because you are abusing your body. Also you are missing out on so many states that make life worth living, ie the liminal hypnagogic state, the absolutely magical hypnopompic state, wonderful actual alpha-brain relaxation etc.

This is also why people become sad, superficial, loose connection to the magic of existence and ultimately become sociopaths constantly seeking superficial hits because they have no space or time for the liminal states.

How did you arrive at this opinion? Are there studies that compare a polyphasic sleep schedule to a fixed sleep shield that you've come across? I am mostly polyphasic because of insomnia and have been for many years so I'm interested in reading more about it

While I haven't done extensive historical research on sleep habits, the limited history that I have read makes me doubt your assertion. I think being up for a bit during the night and siesta are both things that can potentially happen while keeping a healthy circadian rhythm, but I don't think they are necessary for a healthy circadian rhythm. My impression is that siesta is a very common human practice with a boiological basis, but I'm not convinced that the same is the case with being awake for a while at night.

I suspect the human body can adapt to many different schedules and some will work better than others for each individual. My sense is that the most important thing is keeping a very regular schedule to make sure that when we are sleeping we are fully asleep. For me being awake at night seems to independently cause trouble and I suspsect this is likely true of most people, but it might not be the case with everyone. Even so, I suspect an irregular sleep schedule is much worse than being awake at night.

Regarding 1: Sleep loss lethality is caused by gut ROS in mice and flies [1]

> ...researchers demonstrate in flies and mice that sleep loss leads to an increase of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the gut, and that neutralization of ROS can prevent oxidative stress and prolong the lifespan of sleep-deprived flies.

Various biological systems seem to have recovery mechanisms associated with the sleep cycles. These cycles are measured using EEG devices but all the major SmartWatch vendors are adding predictive machine learning algorithms to generate the equivalent sleep cycles using optical heart rate data.

Continuous sleep cycle tracking might provide crucial insights related to optimal health.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41575-020-0340-6

Thanks for the link.

Lots of companies have products with claimed effects or measurment of sleep but personally I suspect they are almost always complete BS. I've used a recording pulse oximeter when sleeping a number of times and the pulse seems to reliably predict when I get to sleep but nothing else, not even when I am awake vs. sleeping. IMO, there is no possible way a pulse measurement could replace an EEG. I am also not convinced that sleep tracking would be helpful at all for most people, at least beyond keeping a log with a basic estimate of how much sleep you think you got and how long you were in bed. And even that seems only rarely useful, mostly because I've found it isn't obvious when I've had a month where I slept quite a bit less than usual. So maybe the helpful part is putting it in a spreadsheet and doing some statistics. But for most people I would guess that doing any sleep tracking would cause some disruption and be more harmful than helpful.

See Garmin Health Announces Sleep Study Results [1].

I used a Zeo [2] mobile for a few years and I thought I had a good feel for what my sleep cycles tended to look like.

I bought a Garmin VivoSmart last Black Friday mostly to try the SpO2 and sleep tracking. I shared your skepticism but, anecdotally, the sleep cycles are as good as what I would get from Zeo.

[1] https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/health/garmin-health-annou...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeo,_Inc.

Hmm... 70% agreement in an unpublished study funded by the company vs a device that is itself maybe 90% agreement with lab PSG. Better than I expected, but I wonder if it is just due to many sleepers having quite predictable stages. "Figure 4 shows the worst result of the cohort (55 of 55), with an accuracy of 49.9%. Note that this user self-reported having a sleep disorder."

> I wonder if it is just due to many sleepers having quite predictable stages

That is what I wondered. The Garmin reports my deep sleep in ways that don't match predictable patterns and do approximate times of random events like being woken by animal noises or sirens. Its much better than I expected and I can see it getting much better with the incorporation of additional sensor/external data.

I forgot to comment on the following important point:

> the pulse seems to reliably predict when I get to sleep but nothing else, not even when I am awake vs. sleeping

My experience with the Zeo made me realize that predicting sleep vs wake is hard to do. The modern multi-sensor devices tend to use the accelerometer derived movement together with historical sleep times to predict this. The early Fitbit devices tracked sleep with the motion sensor alone. In the middle of my normal sleep cycles, if I listen to a podcast or read from a smartphone/eReader while remaining mostly motionless, both the Zeo EEG and the Garmin PPG derived EEG will interpret that time as REM sleep.

I wonder if the professional sleep labs can accurately detect the difference? The true test will be when sensors/algorithms in casual activity trackers can detect when we nod off or nap during normal waking hours.

> 2) while I don't have an easy reference, a number of studies have found that even strenuous exercise before bed does not seem to impair sleep. As with everything sleep related there could easily be lots of individual variation but in general I don't think it usually causes trouble.

Hopefully.

These days, with all this working and staying at home, I'm sure for a lot of people their most strenuous exercise is just before going to sleep.

> In my experience, when you wake up seems to be more important for setting the circadian rhythm than when you get to sleep.

That's my experience too, however I think it is misleading, for some people, to describe circadian rhythm as a single daily clock.

In my experience it's more like:

1) There are a small number of distinct rhythms. When these are aligned, sleep is more refreshing, and they feel like one larger coherent process. When they are unaligned, sleep is less refreshing, and the awake time has a number of "different kinds of tired" intervals, as varies cycles that would ideally be during sleep occur during awake time instead. When severe, it's difficult or impossible to work during these intervals, even when getting plenty of sleep as well.

"Different kinds of tired" means things like tired muscles, or tired mind, or difficulty focusing, or poorer temperature regulation, or... Basically different processes in the body, which could all be conflated as "tired" yet are distinct from each other.

One of the most annoying is feeling very sleepy and needing to lie down, yet not falling asleep because it's the wrong kind of tired for actual sleep. After hours of that, maybe the right kind of tired will happen, at which point actual sleep happens. When these cycles are misaligned the overall process can take most or even all of the available 24 hours a day; it is very difficult to hold down a job when this is a regular occurrence.

2) The overall circadian cycle sometimes breaks up into pieces, like those 24 hour mechanical timers with a separate bit of plastic for each 15 minutes, which can be set to one long interval or more than one shorter interval.

As many other people point out, regularity is good for maintaining a strong circadian rhythm. I find that includes these multiple intervals: They seem to appreciate consistency too. I also find waking earlier/later (e.g. due to the sun, work, clocks etc) doesn't always drag the whole 24 hour cycle forward or backward; sometimes it seems to create a new interval and allow an old one to shrink or fade.

> trigger event and that once triggered is essentially irreversible

I had a trigger event which I can trace back specifically to age 15: Working on school coursework in bed in the early hours of the night. It's not really a single event so much as a time period of a few months.

Up until that point I had reasonably regular sleep.

Ever since then I suffered from essentially chaotic and unpredictable sleep times for about 20 years. No amount of "discipline", from school, jobs etc., fixed this. It just meant I was tired, and late getting to work a lot, because the alternative is to be on time but too exhausted to be useful, a real dilemma.

Eventually after about age 35 it started getting a bit more regular. But it's not great, and I have to be very conscious about managing sleep.

A challenging aspect of this is I'm far more productive if I decide to pull an all-nighter than if I remain disciplined about sleep. I have found with great consistency that in a well-chosen all-nighter, I've often got more things sorted out than a month of regular work. It's frustrating; I would like to do that in the daytime! If I'm disciplined and avoid doing that, months can go by with only "mundane" levels of productivity, and it's disappointing knowing I'm capable of more. As a decent programmer, I'm lucky that "mundane" is still good, but it's not what I can do at my best. I'd still like to crack this problem but I haven't found a solution yet.

What you say about the intervals makes sense to me, and related to rajlego's comment as well it seems like major changes in activity level or timing take some adjustment.

I know what you mean about "different types of tired". It is rediculous how many different varations of being tired there are if you have serious sleep issues. I have the same thing about feeling completely exhausted and what I could only call tired but not being able to actually sleep. I have learned a bit over the years (I'm about 40) to tell when it is actually possible to sleep but I am never sure. This is the kind of thing I want to warn people about as well as the non-24 when people talk about trying unusual sleep schedules; it really can mess you up quite a lot if things go badly.

I have also noticed that every few years there seems to be a significant shift in how I sleep and I've heard similar from others with various sleep issues. I suspect it might also be the case for most people and seems like it would fit well with your interval descripiton.

I had at least two periods of severely disrupted sleep lasting years in my first couple of decades of life but didn't end up with non-24 until I tried free running sleep. Although thinking about it a bit more it wasn't fully free running for a longer period but more trying to advance what had become a very delated sleep schedule (mostly by means of not using an alarm clock until I was back on a schedule of sleeping during the day). It is possible it would have happened anyway in my case. And the "generally disrupted sleep" aspected that I still have due to insomnia and circadian desynchronization seems worse than the non-24 part, but still not having non-24 even with the other sleep issues would be preferrable to me. It sounds like you have a milder version of what I have.

I also sometimes have noticed that I am most alert and productive not long before bed, although for me most often a similar thing happens early afternoon when I am waking up before 9 (and I personally seem to do best waking up at about 7am). My guess is that it happens before bed due to the process that keeps us alert right before bed that somehow is extended, my guess is that is related to having not previously reached a similar level of alerness earlier in the day. I have been meaning to look into that process in more detail but haven't done it yet.

I've also been thinking that for me at least one of the major issues is that the process of waking up is not working correctly. When I get less sleep than usual I can these days sometimes avoid advancing my sleep schedule but not always and even not sleeping at all does not usually make it easier to get to sleep early the next day. But it does make it easier to sleep longer once I do get to sleep. Maybe once every few years or so something briefly happens in the morning right as I am waking up that feels like rapidly altering between being asleep and awake for a few seconds causing a distinct feeling and I am always much more alert than usual that day.

Have you used melatonin at all? I find that oral or sublingual melatonin cause me to wake up a couple of hours after I get to sleep and not be able to get back to sleep (melatonin patches do not cause this but do not help at all getting to sleep, only staying asleep longer). This happens even if I take a small amount of melatonin a few hours before bed, meaning it should all be out of my system before I even get to sleep. I wonder if there is a "spring" aspect to the wake up mechanism such that it can be improved even before getting to sleep.

I think this might come down to heart rate. I've found that when I bike home at like 10 pm from somewhere say 30 minutes away, I'm fine now with sleep but when I first started biking back from somewhat far places I couldn't sleep well all night.

https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Circadian_phase I follow this graph from him and I've found that if I exercise at the time marked as "sports" even 1 hour isn't enough for my heartrate to lower which leads to a worse siesta nap. I'm hoping that long-term as I get more aerobically fit it becomes less of a problem.

More generally, I don't think the argument is that strenuous exercise impairs sleep. More that it effects your circadian rythm. iirc from talking to Woz, for him, sports make him more tired and bring sleep phase earlier and I think my experiences are somewhat similar, though both of us exercise in late morning.

An influential oldie. This has more up-to-date research to back it up, but references that article - https://insomniasos.net/ . Plus it isn't broken.

> You can compare the use of alarm clocks to smoking or eating hot dogs.

Wow. That’s a big statement, surely comparing alarms to smoking is a bit much?

It is a big statement. I've personally not used an alarm clock in about 10 years, I wake up naturally. The times I do use an alarm clock I can genuinely say often make be feel ill for the rest of the day.

Still, not sure it's as bad as smoking.

Given the critical importance of sleep (if you don't have enough, you die or go insane) - the default assumption should really be that anything that interrupts natural sleep/wake cycles is damaging, and we should have to prove otherwise. I mean, why not? You will notice the effects of going without it much sooner than going without food, for example.

Personally, I totally buy that it could be as bad as (or even worse) than smoking. How much bad stuff has happened due to lack of sleep/quality of sleep that we just discount as due to something else entirely?

After covid hit I'm having trouble sleeping too much. I'm doing 9 hours a night and occasional 1 hr nap after lunch, I feel my metabolism is slowing down and I'm putting on weight. I've started doing more aerobic exercise and it just makes me need my after lunch nap.

What helped me was to reduce the carbohydrates intake after noon and to drink more water. That helped a bit with my sleeping habit.

But it has been really hot and that makes it that much more difficult to have a good night of sleep.

If the site is down for anyone else, I found a version that has split the chapters into separate pages here:

https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Science_of_sleep

The section about not sleeping being lethal should be changed. First I talks about rats, secondly it's lethal for insomnia sufferers cause it makes them extremely scared and afraid of not sleeping (I'm obviously in this group).

Wow, that website is great. Thanks! It goes over learning/ schooling as well. I'd be interested to see how innovators are trying to solve the "10 mortal sins of schooling" or 50 bad habits learned at school.

Are you familiar with democratic schools or sudburry schools? They give children near complete freedom and are basically the answer to schooling issues. Unfortunately, they seem to have not spread too widely for issues I don't understand (likely funding and lack of understanding of learning from adults).

all this is good and doable if you don't have kids or have a job (or are just retired) where you set your own schedule

mirror : https://web.archive.org/web/20180928130701/https://supermemo...

You should probably add good server to that list...

https://web.archive.org/web/20180928130701/https://supermemo...

TL;DR! For me, I can always fall asleep within 5-10 minutes of lying down. However on some nights I wake up EXACTLY between 3-4 hours fully energized as if I had 7-8 hours of sleep. Then going back to sleep becomes a problem. This typically happens if I stay on my laptop after 8 pm and particularly if I spend time coding after 8 pm. I am a morning person.

I did not read the article (what did you expect, we are on HN ;) Anyway, my experience has been a little bit different. I would summarize it as "good life, good sleep, good learning". And yes, order matters. The fact is that recently I was completely in my midlife crisis and was at probably 50% of my mental stamina (memory loss, lack of interest, poor focus, and insomnia). I was ok with the fact that I was getting old and accepted all that as normal. Then things changed (my mortgage ended, my children went out of the primal-youth zone, I lost a really demanding job). Now things are really different. I sleep well, things seem to really get into my mind much like it used to be during my youth. I am not so sure I understand what is happening. But I definitely consider my previous state as impossible to learn anything whatever method I use. I am slowly getting out of that. And I now force me into a mental diet to avoid any unnecessary stimulus that would bring me back to my previous state. So my learning experience is that external conditions are supremely important. The method comes second. [And yes, supermemo is pretty cool]

That resonates with my own experience. I walked away from a bad relationship and my mental stamina, as you call it, improved dramatically. Memory is better, I am much more active and confident. I still have a very demanding job, so maybe I should change that as well.

So much yes! One should feel happy coming home, not dreading the moment. Fortunately, my lovely wife is such a person.

See also "The Happiness Equation" which boils down to "Be happy first."

NOT:

Hard work -> success -> happiness

RATHER:

Happiness -> best work -> success

Intuitively, I don’t doubt that, but certainly there are unhappy “successful” people right?

My tentative explanation for this is that many people luck themselves into “success” and then fight tooth and nail to keep it.

Oh certainly! That is simply a paradigm and no paradigm can fit the whole (unless there's a better paradigm). Anyways, it depends on your definition of success. If it includes happiness then by definition no. If it's more vague then that then probably. I would define perfect success as something like improving the world and being happy about it.

To that point there are definitely construction workers and nurses who hate their jobs and actively despise but still make the world a better place, are they successful? I believe your internal mental state will reflect and impact upon those around you and the things you are significant for. Does being an unhappy boss who gets great results make you not successful. The core issue lies in definitions. We could dream up a definition of success that could define any number of contradictory traits. That is for you to decide and society at large to gently guide.

A different angle I sometimes see is Unhappy -> Ambition -> Success.

However, these types of people might not be happy in the end. For example, I remember Elon Musk saying "you wouldn't want my life."

For sure, infact "successful" people are probably in general less happy because they do not prioritize happiness. Sure they might be able to more easily achieve some artificially (vacations, new stuff). But that isn't the same as truly learning how to be happy.

Definitely worth keeping in mind, although it is important to remember but these are not a linear series of checkboxes. You’re going to have fluctuating quality of work, happiness, success every single week, month and year. It is also very possible that the causality runs in both directions.

The universe is complex, and ice really don’t have it all figured out, but acknowledging that complexity will prevent a lot of theory induced blindness!

Curious, what do you do? Get off social media, less screens, that sort of thing?

Social media: I did stop arguing on Twitter. And stopped following arguers. Still following informational accounts. But mostly Twitter is back to its original usage: a Google Reader replacement. No more a global chat.

Screens (TV): I now avoid any kind of TV series that is not already finished. No time for a show that is eventually a bad one after season 1. (a variant of the GoT syndroma. But you could call it XFiles syndroma too, if you are old enough :)

Screens (games): But the most dramatic change, and the most unexpected one, is that I have started playing FPS games again. It has increased a lot my attention and "good stress" level.

Also, I have started learning piano. Passed the first 2 years and things are getting much better now.

In the end, I suppose that I am no longer able to survive the information deluge that Internet brings. So I now focus on a few things that I consider important, and I leave the rest out of my attention.

PS: oh and let me add that i now learn new tech things through books (from Manning and O'Reilly) instead of loosing my time reading blog posts. Sounds so basic that you may laugh at that, but it made my learning process much more straightforward. (once again, I was loosing myself in the information deluge of the internet).

I think social media sucks mental stamina because you are exposed to a lot of potential social interactions without actual interaction, and that takes a huge toll on your mind. Real close human interaction recharges the mind whereas the prospect of it depletes it, as many of the interactions has to be simulated (you are only interacting with text and images, the rest is left for the mind to fill in the gaps)

In any case, that is my perception of it, not necessarily true/scientifically accurate.

I really think it's a life superpower to realise that a mind's capabilities aren't just due to age, nutrition, genetics etc., and it doesn't just decline with age.

The state of a person's life circumstances, which can change, has a huge effect on mental capability.

I'd say it's more useful to think of these as a 3 point cycle. Each leads to the other, and if any one gets perturbed out of control it will cause the other two to go south. The cause and effect is not linear but interactive. Then again, perhaps sleep is more basic than a "good life", so there is a little bit of hierarchy embedded...not sure what the article argues as it's currently down for me.

Agreed. You need to first have a good strategy, and then tackle the tactical points. Having a positive life is way more important than anything else. You can try to give yourself good sleep or good food, but if your life is miserable (not necessary poor, but of poor quality), you won't even have the mood to have good sleep/food.

You can speed read supermemo by scrolling and stopping at the yellow sections. It's worth even just getting the highlights.

Wait, so I am not the only one who almost never read articles, but spend 30 minutes on reading their comments?

It varies for me.

If I'm only mildly interested, the comments often provide a summary and then I decide if I RTFA.

Certain titles or domains are insta-RTFA without looking at the comments.

Sometimes it is nice to know the controversial aspects by reading the comments, so I can be more careful reading certain passages.

Sometimes I read neither but the article is still on the front page the next day with a thousand upvotes. Then I read it.

To be fair this is an ebook. If everyone read it then there would be no comments for a day and this post would die

I usually start with the comments to see if it's worth reading, often it isn't, but the comments were interesting all the same.

OP author is usually biased in one way or another (just like any of us). Reading comments you're pretty much guaranteed to view the problem from multiple angles. When I feel adventurous I read the article first trying to anticipate what the comments will be. When I feel lazy I skim the comments first, then read the article with the grain of salt ready (or not at all).

I strongly believe it's a positive feedback loop: "good life, good sleep, good learning, good career, good friends, good family, good home, good legacy, good politics"

It comes off the inspiration from my First Big Personal Project: https://adequate.life

TL;DR: No alarm clock. Follow needs of your body, sleep as much as you need. Free running sleep has no alternative.

It's been a while when I first read this excellent article, I always try to follow the advice about free running sleep since then.

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