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Comment by axod | Hacker News Reader

Please post some studies showing how you get ill with less than this magical 7-8 hours sleep.

Say you sleep 2 hours less than "the norm". That means you get an extra 30 DAYS a year of 'awake' time. Over 50 years, that 2 hours has added up to an extra 4 years of useful awake time.

Would you rather have more time while you're young, and able to do stuff, or just live a bit longer when you're old and stuck in a home? (Assuming you're correct, and lack of sleep makes you die younger).

Everything in moderation - don't take things to extremes, but I'd say 5 hours is probably still healthy enough.

Having kids certainly helps with training yourself to not need much sleep.

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A lot happens while your asleep. It's not just your brain repairing itself, although you'd think this would be important enough. In college, at the end of a few hours of study, I'd have some vague understanding of the material. After a full night of sleep, the next day, the information was sometimes clear as day.

Additionally, I'm convinced that your dreams, whether you remember them or not, influence your consciousness. That great idea you had may be a derivative of some really strange thoughts that went through your head while you were asleep.

The point is that sleeping isn't wasted time. There's really important things going on and the ones sleeping those 30 more days a year are probably going to get more out of their sleep than those staying awake for that time.

I agree. I often solve problems when asleep, and wake up with an answer. But picking any arbitrary number and saying people should sleep that much is a bad idea. One size doesn't fit all.

Definitely. The way I read his post, though, it was more to point out that you should get a full night of sleep and if you're bragging about only sleeping a few hours a night to be productive, you're not impressing anybody.

Fair enough... I wouldn't objected if he hadn't included the magic 7-8 hour figure. I agree, some people are sleeping too little trying to be a hero.

umm btw... If you take good care of yourself I don't think it's likely you'll end up "stuck" in a home. I know plenty of older people who are vibrant and energetic.

Also, to me it makes intuitive sense that degeneration can be exponential. So a lil bit of carelessness all the time can accrue some major interest (ie. if you're outspending your body's budget on regeneration costs per day).

Right, but until I see some proof showing that 7-8 hours is the magic number humans need to get, I won't worry too much that I sleep less than that and still feel healthy.

I'm just curious, how much do you exercise during the week and (if so) how strenuous is it?

I go skating 2-3 times a week, about 3 hours a time. Probably most of my exercise...

Anecdotally it seems this depends a lot on the individual. Based on the actual studies I've read about (though I'll admit this is interpretation by science journalists rather than my reading the studies myself) this would generally be a very unproductive extra two hours, and would also cause a large chunk of the rest of your day to be less productive for mentally challenging tasks (the only kind I'm generally concerned about). That last point is why the kids argument doesn't seem to fly for me. When you have a baby that wakes you up every couple of hours, the tasks you are doing are routine, and man parents do it barely being conscious.

Kids aren't that routine - if only ;)

Oh damn now he's puked all over the laptop dammit. Eugh he has spots on his ear wonder if that's ok. Oh great now the nappy has exploded. Oh great now this bottle leaks.

But granted, some of it you can do semi conscious.

of course I meant most of the time. Of course they'll do things to jar you to full consciousness (good or bad). If they were that routine, who would want them?

It also depends on your level of activity. My sweet spot is 6-7 hours. I can function on 4-5 but it's a painful day and I end up making up for it on the next night. Anything more than 7 and I feel off kilter for the day.

I found that with evening aerobic exercise (running, swimming) I naturally sleep less and awake as fresh or fresher than usual.

With exercise, 6-7 hours. Without, 7-8 hours.

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