Real Men Go to Sleep
blogs.hbr.org
blogs.hbr.org
I set up a (rather nice) nap room at my company's office and I'm the only person who EVER uses it. It turned into a storage room. I sent articles about the virtues of napping - the studies - the benefits - the facts - to all of my employees, and nobody seems to care. I _still_ get an eye-roll when I head off to the nap room in the middle of the day for a 20-minute power nap.
Meanwhile, the employees in the office just head to the espresso machine and down shot after shot to keep themselves lit up. It's so odd - I can explain 100 times over how I get all the benefits of caffeine (and MORE) by taking a 20-minute nap, and they just don't seem to care. Deeply ingrained, hard-to-change views.
Even at the places where employees are not expected to rigidly conform to fixed working hours, there's an expectation to put in a certain minimum of hours. I'm not talking about producing a certain output: even in the most "goal-oriented" places I've worked at, there was still an unstated, tacit expectation that you were supposed to put in a certain minimum of effort, regardless of your results.
What I'm getting at is that if you have employees who nap and those who don't, there will almost certainly exist an expectation that those who nap should put in extra time equal to the length of their nap. Therefore, those who do nap will lose some of their free time.
If you're single, that could be an acceptable bargain: instead of sleeping for (say) 8 hours at night, you would have a 20 minute nap at the office, stay 20 minutes longer and then sleep for 6 hours at night. The net gain would be 80 minutes, which isn't bad at all.
On the other hand, if you're a family person, then that's 20 minutes less with (say) your kid after school.
Not saying you'd get the same effect from quitting wheat. But there's decent odds it's something you eat.
It could be an additive used in commercial baking because I seem to be fine with no-wheat gluten and some forms of wheat,but pragmatically avoiding wheat helps me.
Sounds like your lunches include a bunch of carbs, too much sugar, and/or maybe a drink or two. If it happens frequently, habits form.
Get real, guys.
I don't know WHY I don't get them. Celiac is not the only issue wheat can cause.
I feel fairly confident in these results. I tested wheat in isolation, repeatedly. I've tested other variables: carbs, sugar, dairy. None of them ever gave me a food coma, in the absence of wheat.
It seems completely reasonable for me to avoid wheat, given the results of my experiments. Why are you so certain I must wrong?
Plus what would the carb, sugar producing companies say!
A lack allergies or what not does not imply that it's healthy to stuff your face with it all day.
EDIT: nevermind, acconrad described the same thing 3 hours ago.
Does anyone know of any research on this phenomenon? There are obviously lots of anecdotes, but I can't find any studies.
tl;dr: the insulin spike from high glycemic index foods causes sleepiness, and low insulin sensitivity which can be caused by sleep debt and lack of exercise exacerbates it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postprandial_somnolence
> When foods with a high glycemic index are consumed, glucose is absorbed rapidly from the gastrointestinal tract into the bloodstream, and in individuals with normal carbohydrate metabolism, insulin levels rise concordantly to drive glucose into the body's tissues and maintain blood glucose levels in the normal range. Insulin stimulates the uptake of valine, leucine, and isoleucine into skeletal muscle, but not uptake of tryptophan. ... Uptake of tryptophan by the brain thus increases. In the brain, tryptophan is converted to serotonin, which is then converted to melatonin. Increased brain serotonin and melatonin levels result in sleepiness.
He's fine as long as he eats gluten free wheat.: http://udisglutenfree.com/products/whole-grain-bread/
He ultimately blames GMOs: http://maninisglutenfree.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/the-histor...
One side benefit: No more symptoms associated with Seasonal Affective Disorder.
YMMV.
Try it and see - the next time you go out to lunch, don't eat pasta, bread, potatoes, corn, tortillas, dessert, coke.
Have a steak and green veggies. I can eat an enormous 24oz prime rib plate and not suffer the zombie state that I would if I ate a hamburger and french fries.
(Also means I urgently need to lose some weight.)
Yeah I just started logging everything before consuming... Age too means I've to permanently cut the daily calorie budget and ditch 9 kg (20 lbs) ~ 70M cal.
The "70 M cal" scared me until I realised it was a small c. Still that's ... what ... 2 months on half-rations? :-[
Ideally yes. But there are times that even with the best intentions that can't be done. Anxiety, sickness, some important schedule issue. Maybe a big lunch that you shouldn't have eaten.
Naps work very well for rejuvenation.
Every once in awhile I achieve the perfect nap - and that's usually in a noisy place, very well lit - and after it, I barely feel like I was really "asleep" - not the same way that I feel after I sleep in a dark room under a blanket.
k = 1 => 45 minutes
k = 2 => 1.5 hours
k = 3 => 3 hours
k = 4 => 6 hours
k = 5 => 12 hours
Edit: also, k=0 is valid, and what most people have been advocating here (as 20 minutes).
Perhaps I've just been extremely lucky not to have seen this, but I don't think it's a justified generalization. I've only worked at length in two states, MN and FL, but I have never seen anything overt to suggest this is some sort of vastly applied cultural judgment.
Also, there are other strategies to deal with the 2-3pm slump, e.g. doing less intensive work.
http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Original_Graphic/2008/06/...
But don't worry about what is written. Just give it a try and see how much you naturally sleep for and when you wake up and go from there. This can be as simple as just laying your head down on a desk with an eye patch and ear plugs. Airline tarmack type ear muffs also work well for this and completely block out most noise.
Everyone is different. I don't care much for what has been written about this I just experiment and have found what works for me.
I have been doing this from way before there were even things written or it was something that was even considered a strategy. To me it just made sense. I don't really care what others do or whether they think it's good or bad.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783
"His book At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, published four years later, unearths more than 500 references to a segmented sleeping pattern - in diaries, court records, medical books and literature, from Homer's Odyssey to an anthropological account of modern tribes in Nigeria. "
The title of the article is "Slumbers Unexplored Landscape" I'd link to it but what I've found is I believe behind a paywall. I'm employed at a university so sometimes I don't notice paywalls.
http://designyoutrust.com/productdesign/power-nap-office-pil...
It's probably a little different with everyone, so practice makes perfect :)
In reality I sleep 8+ hours and laugh at those who "boast" at how little sleep, or how many hours they work at the expense of other valuable things in their life (family, socializing etc.)
Also, a lot of these comments are about the mid-afternoon/post lunch nap. Honestly I'd prefer to get home to my family a bit earlier, than take a mid day siesta and have to come home later in the evening.
Getting up early and clocking out early are especially tempting given how little daylight we have (Northeast US) this time of year.
HBR gets a high price for its ads because its audience is older businesspeople (decision makers on high-priced services and products) who consider its content high-worth and authoritative (this attitude rubs off on the ads around the content.) Having a gating ad that scares away people who don't value the content enough to close it probably increases the price per ad more than enough to make up for the slightly decreased viewership of the ad.
Not trying to start a holy war, NoScript isn't a universal cure. There is plenty of content linked to from HN that requires JS. (However, I don't bother reading most of it!)
Occasionally you'll run across a site that has scripts from 30-odd domains, and after enabling a few, it still doesn't work. Those sites aren't worth visiting.
But NoScript gives you the degree of control you want. It's possible to enable all scripts by default, disabling them only when you feel there is a problem. Or you can use it for information purposes only, so you know what third party domains have scripts running on that page.
Or, you can recognise that not functioning at all without JavaScript generally indicates a lack of interest in the user experience.
The problem is people on poor or mobile connections - the majority - who have to suffer that little bit longer to wait for the blocking JavaScript to load and then burn down their limited battery for the sake of parallax scrolling or a marginally prettier icon or button on the static text site they are trying to read.
JavaScript-requiring designers do hate proper user experience.
Having such extra functionality doesn't mean I should need JS at all to view the text content of an article.
Obviously, there are plenty of more traditional workplaces where this wouldn't fly. But at most tech companies, the problem is not that you wouldn't be allowed to nap, it's people not realizing the value or feeling too silly about it.
Some people still took naps, and I get the sense that the others felt napping would be a violation of a personal code, rather than something consciously felt as a cultural pressure.
Or just between Switzerland and the US.
If you treat your digestive system like a dustbin, of course you'll need higher amounts of insulin excretion (also called spike) to digest, higher blood pressure (heavier heart work-load) and all these nice staff which lead to hyper/hypotension disorders and finally to strokes.
That said, I'm sure that if you wake up at 5-6 a.m. a nap around 13:00-14:00 will work for you, but the most important - imho, not sure what studies says, just personal experience - is getting a good night sleep, not a nap the day after.
There's nothing like a good night sleep and there are many factors that determine the night sleep. To mention just a few:
* Food: eating a light healthy meal at least two hours before going to bed is the optimal situation.
* Room temperature: Must be optimal for blanket usage
* Oxygen: Oxygenated room possibly, open the windows a little before going to sleep. Oh and no vegetables sucking oxygen inside the room is better.
* Sound: Trying to keep the bedroom as quiet as possible from external rumors, except maybe if you are living in nature. Natural rumors (birds, grasshoppers, etc) are likely to increase the quality of your sleep but surely nothing digital will. Even if some people believe that TV helps them getting a sleep, they rarely get a quality sleep.
* Relax: A book is at least 10 times better suited than a movie before going to sleep. Relaxes the mind while a movie is like a sort of bombardment, keeping adrenaline flow, when it shouldn't.
And many others :-)
http://www.geek.com/news/google-uses-high-tech-nap-pods-to-k...
The pods can be reserved on a public calendar, same as conference rooms. The ones in my previous building were booked pretty solid every day from 11am-3pm.
I tried one out once but didn't find it particular comfortable or conducive to sleep. But some folks swear by them.
That said, people do not work long hours. Only very few people consistently working more than 45 hours a week. Napping is not going to reduce your workload, it's just a lifestyle choice that most people choose not to make. Similarly, people take breaks either to socialize with other employees, or because they can't handle working solidly for 3-4 hours.
There's not much winning to be had, I've never seen anybody really change their minds about this, because we feel good about the side we pick. Best IMHO to just acknowledge the deeper issue, address it and keep moving forward.
There is definitely a "sleep is for losers" kind of machismo that pervades professional industries, but it's stupid. While sometimes you have to cut in on sleep to get something out the door, making a habit of not getting much sleep isn't likely to be a competitive advantage for you in the long run. Ironically, its the sorts of professions that glorify not sleeping that tend to require the quick thinking, creativity, and careful attention to detail that is undermined by not sleeping. It's worth while to cut into other things to make time for adequate sleep.
It's robots that don't, but I think they could easily fake it.
I'm well aware of the potential consequences health and otherwise but I see it as a short term cost for a long term benefit.
Don't ask for sources, because I don't have any, this is just an anecdote and a hunch. :)
I'm in the fortunate position now of being able to set my own work schedule. I almost never use an alarm clock, but I still get up around 8am, which is my personal indicator that I'm sleeping enough. I've also found that I have no problem working 12 or 14 hour days, much more than your average worker, but when I do so, I never take the time away from sleeping, but other activities instead.
As far as grogginess/tiredness after you wake up goes that's related to where in your sleep cycle you wake up. I use one of the numerous iPhone/Android apps that use the accelerator to detect and wake you up at the end of a sleep phase.
On normal working days, though, I wake up naturally around 6, go through my normal routine, and am "at work" by 7-8 anyway. And then I work until around 1 or 2 at which point I take a nap for an hour or so, and then I get back to work until I've finished all my major tasks for that day which is typically 4 or 5. After that, I'm free to do whatever I want, and I try to get to bed by 11 so that I can be sure to wake up the next day fully rested (this is mostly out of respect for my employer rather than out of a sense of habit or of good health).
Then there's other things like designing some business processes and, occasionally, editing some HTML here and there.
It seemed to make sense, especially when I later heard stories of professional athletes like Gilbert Arenas (professional basketball player) who were able to play at a very high level despite regularly only getting only 3 hours of sleep per night during the NBA season.
It got me to thinking that maybe these "Sleep is for the weak" proponents like Thomas Edison, Donald Trump, and Uber's Travis Kalanick belong to this genetically blessed contingent of the general population, and that they may be mistakenly propagating this false belief that "If I can do it, everyone should else be able to do it, otherwise you're just being lazy."
It would be awesome if someone could help me dig up that study.
[0] http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/science/variatio...
A friend had a short stint working in Taiwan and he was surprised by the fact that almost everyone took a nap sometime during the day. Long term thinking that.
1) I can't just nap like that. I can lay there for thirty minutes, an hour, or more, without falling asleep. Reading or watching something usually helps, but in all cases, the degree of exhaustion, or other fatigue or unconsciousness-inducing factor, has to be fairly high.
2) I can't wake up after 20-30 minutes. I just can't. If I'm going to take a nap, it's going to turn into a 2-3 hour nap (and more often, a 3-4 hour nap). And then I'll be up all night.
http://i.imgur.com/aQE2AVD.png
what a great experience.
Working odd hours late at night was a habit I developed while doing my undergrad. Unfortunately, I ended up carrying it over into my professional life as well, and I'm certainly not alone in that regard. It's almost 3am here, and I still find myself working.
Deleted comment
Compare: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/11/ashton-kutcher-demi...
It's about directly opposing what is seen as a prevailing view of masculinity. Sure, it might be intended to be entertaining as well, but it's not primarily an attempt at humor. It's saying: "Here's a bunch of people who say real men don't sleep. They're wrong; real men sleep."
This doesn't follow by way of logic
But seriously, I think the point is that it's considered 'manly' to work hard and not sleep enough. The title of the article takes on that myth directly.
Oh, but some guy writing a random article with nearly zero authority has accomplished SO MUCH MORE than any of those men right?
I understand the importance of sleep and its effects on mentality and productivity. But, I really don't think we are going to properly understand the implications behind sleeping schedules for individual (types) with some random internet articles that we keep linking to on HN.
EDIT: This may get downvoted, but since I assume HN is an intellectual discussion site, it would be appropriate to offer up your counter-arguments to my points rather than just give a "NAY!" gesture hiding anonymously under the guise of some sort of self-righteousness. Thanks.
The article also pointed to a counterexample - Albert Einstein (10 hour nights).
Anecdotes are not sufficient to prove either point, you should look at the research on this. And research shows[1] that animals that are sleep deprived perform significantly worse in cognitive tasks.
Now, when humans start being "sleep deprived" will vary among individuals - but at least 6 hours is definitely required in most of us (of course, exceptions to every rule.)
I thought it fair though to offer up symmetrical counterpoints to the OP to show that this is all drawing global conclusions on a particular set of examples (or small sample sizes if you will).
> An abundance of scientific findings, many from research sponsored by the military and NASA, has led many executives to abandon the quest to minimize sleep unreasonably.
They aren't arguing entirely from anecdotes, they are using them to illustrate the point mostly. They are writing for a broad audience of non-scientists, which they've used as an excuse to exclude references from passages like the above, perhaps justifiably.
Assuming, he references the generality of the studies appropriately (abandon the quest to minimize sleep unreasonably). Then the discussion should cater towards the differences between unreasonable sleep deprivation expectations brought on unwillingly and its toll on the mind vs. sleep deprivation willingly done due to a personal will to finish a project or continue a streak of creativity, etc.
(I'm only half joking - if you put a proposal for a meta-study about this research up on Kickstarter, I will back it.)
If you are hungry, eat. If you are tired, sleep.
I am not sure where this irrelevant accusation of "macho attitudes" came from but it certainly fell in line with using terminology similar to what the article use with words like "effeminate" and "male champions".
And yet this article contradicts your argument by naming several (large) companies incorporating sleep-is-good attitudes.
SO I highly doubt that my singular paragraph offering contradictory arguments for the sake of discussion and clarity is the reason why "common-sense attitudes ... have not taken hold in companies".
Regardless of studies that have shown individualized scenarios of productivity loss due to sleep deprivation (also dependent on numerous external and internal parameters) there are still counter examples that cannot be scientifically ignored.
Your (appeared) devotion to 'scientific-establishment' is just you using particular studies to justify held beliefs (and/or just to be in agreement with localized observations e.g. your personal dependency on sleep or those you work with).
Personally, I get a much greater sense of accomplishment when I can look back at a marathon 27 hour work session and see that, through it all, I did good work. But, more often than not, my work is riddled with errors that I don't see until later. So, I take naps and rest when I can, and try to get work done on an even, if not boring, timeline.