Comment by profstasiak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by profstasiak | Hacker News Reader

I mean, I am all in for updating your opinions, but I remember his blog post about Why We Sleep where he tried to shit and basically discredit whole book, talking so authoritatively and now 3 years later he does 180 switch?

I think this just shows, trust the scientist that spend their whole years studying stuff like sleep. Don't trust random self proclaimed "internet scientists". Best would be to find experts that are humble about what they are unsure of what the field knows.

He spent 100 hours trying to debunk the book, but it just shows - if you are highly motivated and biased to prove something you are emotionally motivated to find you will find the way.

I do the same. I believe random bullshit that can change my mind and preach it to my friends and then 2 months later I change my mind. I am sorry to my friends, but at least I don't post blogposts trying to debunk scientists

Consider actually reading the post before commenting next time. I didn't do an "180" switch. I wrote:

>1. There’s no good medical reason to sleep more than the minimum you can sustain.

>Not this one! Fight me.

You really should do more reading honestly. Sleep is when the wear and tear of activity is repaired and reversed, and is to a large extent regulated by molecules that amount to metabolic waste, which accumulate during consciousness, and are cleared away during sleep.

As far as my deep dives into the science of sleep have suggested, any deficits in sleep, either qualitative or quantitative, result in essentially minuscule quantities of irreversible kinda-neurodegeneration. "kinda" because it's not neuronal death, just the failure to maintain important connections and peak performance properly.

The important connections ... are important. By definition they will not be affected that much.

Without much drama (like the "kinda-neurodegeneration" wording), this can be easily summarized as: optimal amount of sleep = you're at peak performance, otherwise you're working at less than peak mental performance.

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