What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep | Hacker News Reader

What It’s Like to Need Hardly Any Sleep

nymag.com

164 pointsjgrahamc119 comments

> * “Cells don't sleep,” he said in his most quoted anti-sleep rant. “Fish swim in the water all night. Even a horse doesn't sleep. A man doesn't need any sleep.”*

> Yes. Even when my kids sleep crazy amounts of hours I get annoyed. Teenagers can sleep probably for 12 hours straight, and I get so annoyed because I think they are wasting their lives. Why are you wasting your life sleeping? There are so many things that you could be doing. That’s how I see it. So, I don’t like them sleeping for longer than necessary because they are wasting their lives. That’s always been my thing. You have plenty of time to sleep when you die. You might as well embrace life.

It's great that you can get by on four hours, but I'm not wasting my life when I get nine or ten hours of sleep, because without that sleep, I'd be miserable and unproductive. A life spent tired, that's a life wasted.

Where did that first quote come from? Horses sleep (though they can standing up). So do fish, though it's not clear if they use the unihemisphere sleep trick that marine mammals use (so they can keep swimming).

Given the great benefits of being conscious (alertness from predation, etc), there's clearly some biological reason that animals and humans sleep.

Uh, it's the Edison quote mentioned in the article...

It was from Thomas Edison, so from long ago and far from an authority on animal sleeping habits. There are a vast number and variety in species of fish, some appear to do the unisphere thing, some actually go dormant and rest without swimming like zebra danios, while some don't show any signs of resting like mackerel. You can't really generalize too much about the whole lot of them.

Also, horses sleep.

Also, wasn't Edison a huge proponent of cocaine use?

Somehow that seems fitting.

This is the typical great man myth that gets promulgated by their publicists to make them seem more than human. As a rule they are either out right lies or greatly exaggerated, other myths of this type is Kennedy reading 1000 words per minute, Napoleon listening to reports, reading a letter and dictating laws all at the same time, or Stalin single handedly designing the first five year plan.

For speed readers, 1000 wpm is actually pretty standard.

Yeah, no: http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/articles/2000/02/the_...

Stalin designing the first 5 year plan doesnt sound impressive. It sounds like an idiotic idea resulting from an idiot, with predictably idiotic centrally planned results.

The first 5 year plan was the most successful piece of industrial policy by any country in the world until the Chinese opening of their market. What's even more impressive is that it happened in the middle of the great depression without outside help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_five-year_plan_%28Soviet...

It also created the conditions for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor in which millions of people starved to death :-( .

1000 words per minute doesn't seem outlandish. My 10 year old already reads at over 300 wpm.

I got married yesterday. If the trend continues tomorrow I will be doubling the number of wives I have every day. I expect to be married to the whole human race by the end of the month.

Your childs increase in reading speed by contrast is highly unimpressive.

Not to ruin the analogy, but wouldn't the number of wives you have just increase by one every day? Because 2 * 0 = 0?

Perhaps she was a midwife?

We need more than two data points to get the relationship. It may be that monochr will have a fibonacci progression in the daily number of wives...

No, you'll have about 30 wives.

It's almost certainly a myth in Edison's case. Seems like he considered it his brand in a way. Reports from his contemporaries are that he slept much more than he would have liked to admit.

http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic.htm#Thomas%20Al...

I've always like Prince Shotoku, able to follow ten conversations at the same time.

Agreed. The level of productivity for most of us who need 8 hours drops substantially when we go above or below that threshold.

Yeah, it doesn't make much sense. She has a special genetic mutation that lets her get by on less sleep. How does that mean that other people are wasting their time by getting the sleep their bodies need?

I really wish I had that trait, but instead I have the exact opposite. I often need about twelve hours to feel fully rested, and even then usually require a coffee or two to feel productive. Some people suggested recently that maybe I have sleep apnea, so I'm planning to try a sleep study sometime soon.

Do you get much exercise?

For me, the more I sleep and the more coffee I drink the more tired I feel.

As soon as I throw in a bunch of exercise, I find I'm asleep within 30 seconds of hitting the pillow, and I'm awake ~5 minutes before my alarm after 8 hours, and I feel good. The more exercise I get, the less coffee I drink too, until I drink none, which is when I feel the best and least tired.

I exercise from 3-5 times week (doing P90x), and my energy is low and the sleep is a failure (I also can sleep 12+ and still need to take naps). I have a healthy lifestyle, and try several supplements, but still not find a way to be better...

Edit: 12+ hours not all the week. Most certainly a crash 1 time/w. The sleep/insommia vary each day. I have used sleep pills (make me sleep, but get grovvy all the day) and melatonin (sometimes work, but sometimes get me grovvy).

12+ hours and still tired with exercise? Something is wrong. Have you tested for Lyme?

"Lyme borreliosis"? Not likely. This is for years now...

Maybe you're lacking certain nutrients in your diet, eg. iron, protein.

Overtraining is well known to be linked to Insomnia. P90X is pretty hardcore, so maybe you are overtraining?

Do it. Seriously. I can't believe the change in my life since discovering (in my 40s!) that I've suffered from sleep apnea my entire teen/adult life.

Out of curiosity, in which ways did your life change? How did you adjust or what do you do differently now that you know?

For what it is worth, I had a neighbor who was so exhausted he retired. THEN he got a CPAP machine and felt so amazing he'd wished he'd kept working.

I never notice when my comments are replied to! Sorry for the delay:

The biggest change is that I used to get migraines from lack of sleep (even while sleeping 8-10 hours plus occasional naps). Now I can get 6 a night continuously and be more alert. But most importantly my quality of life improved drammatically on account of having probably 30 hours a week of migraine-hours removed.

I still occasionally get lack-of-sleep-migraines, but they are rare, and are usually well deserved (I have three children, a puppy, and an unwillingness to give up 'alone time' in order to sleep enough. It's a bad combination).

I rarely sleep well if I know I have to get up at a certain time (say, if there's an alarm set). The slightest disturbance is magnified—a moment of wakefulness can turn in to half an hour, followed by another hour of half-sleep half-waking before I'm finally back under (maybe, if I'm lucky). Going to bed early just increases the chances that this will happen at 2AM and I'll be unable to go back to sleep at all, which is worse than waiting until I'm dead tired at 1AM and going to sleep then (and then still not getting enough, but at least it's usually solid).

Then my weekend sleep-in day rolls along and I can stay under for 12 hours, falling right back into a deep sleep even if I've had to briefly get out of bed (bathroom), because I know I don't have to get up. Unfortunately, I have to have a day like this because my sleep is so bad during the week.

I think it's related to anxiety about not getting enough sleep, which of course turns into an awful feedback loop. I've tried repeatedly to find info about this, as I am certain I'm not the only one by a long shot, but my Google-fu has failed me. Low levels of melatonin supplementation helps a bit, and at one point I was on Lunesta which got me through the night, but left me feeling only about as rested on ~8 hours as I did on ~6 hours of normal sleep, so I stopped. I can't even imagine how good my life would be without this problem, let alone if I had the kind of low sleep requirements that some do.

Maybe you should try an anxiolytic?

I'd always though of it a strictly a sleep disorder, but maybe treating it as a more general anxiety thing would work. Good idea.

Note that anti-anxiety meds can make you sleepy and have long-term side effects (e.g. increased risk of developing Alzheimer's). That said, they're generally very effective and can probably be taken PRN with less risk.

Do you exercise and eat healthy? I find that when I am getting enough physical exercise and nutritious food to support it, I am so tired in the evening that I go right to sleep. I used to have similar sleep patterns as yours, before I got serious about physical fitness.

I have mild apnea (not enough to need help, yet) and my Dad had a much more sever form. In fact he was one of the first people in the world to have a sleep study done on him.

Anyway, signs you might have apnea: Never feel fully rested, wake up to your own snoring, your sheets seem like someone pushed them all off.

If you have a partner that sleeps with you, ask them if it seems like you're choking in the middle of the night and/or your legs twitch at night. Mine is mostly the leg one, so my sheets never stay on the bed and when I was a kid I would wake myself kicking the rail off my bed.

Do you eat too close to your bedtime. That can really destroy the effectiveness of your sleep. As can digestive issues which can lead to not absorbing nutrients.

I have moderate-to-severe apnea, but nothing that might have caused it (not overweight, don't smoke, etc.) and didn't find out until I was 21.

Using a CPAP is a night and day difference--whereas I used to require 10-12 hours to function without randomly falling asleep if I sat still for too long, and now I can get 6-8 without any issues and I'm more alert, have a better mood, etc.

I wouldn't have known except that my ex-girlfriend noticed that I wasn't breathing when I was asleep and got me to see a doctor about it. Apparently it had been going on for years and years--I asked other people who had seen/heard me sleep from 15 onwards and a lot of them also had noticed it but hadn't said anything.

If you think you have apnea, sleep studies suck to go through ("here, lets stick a bunch of monitors on you and then let you try to sleep"), but it was entirely worth it. If it's at all economical to do one, I'd suggest looking into it: even if they don't find apnea they might find something else.

What's a CRAP?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_positive_airway_pres...

Same story, only found out much later in life (around 40).

The thing is, now I can easily get by on 4 to 6 hours of sleep, and unless I'm truly physically and mentally exhausted I'm not even able to sleep for 8 hours because I'll be wide awake after 6 hours, tops.

I have no idea whether that is my natural sleep pattern, or just because I've spent decades "training" myself to get by on less sleep because of the apnea.

35, and I get my preliminary overnight monitor on Monday. I usually sleep 6 hours, waking up every 90 minutes to check on the world, but I find it really hard to get out of bed.

I recorded myself using snorecycle. Yeah, so, my snoring gets progressively louder, until I stop breathing and wake myself up. :( It's only taken my wife three years to convince me.

Schedule an appointment with your Doctor ASAP.

Don't wait until you are told you snore or that you wake up a bunch. I don't stop breathing, but my breathing slows down to a point that my oxygenation levels get crazy low.

I'm still in the first month with a CPAP, but the nights that I can tolerate it, I'm waking up in a much better mood, and feel far more refreshed.

Your results may vary, but don't hesitate to get checked out!

So, the only thing I actually wanted to get from the article isn't in there: what does this genetic mutation do? What does the responsible gene code for?

That's what the citations are for...

"This variant reduced the ability of BHLHE41 to suppress CLOCK/BMAL1 and NPAS2/BMAL1 transactivation in vitro."

What do BMAL1/2 actually do? Then you're getting deeper into the weeds and will need to look at references like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARNTL or http://genesdev.cshlp.org/content/28/1/8.shortJerome (Looks like they're responsible for kicking off a circadian cycle.)

Unless I’m sick, I need about 5 hours a night—typically a few hours after midnight, and another couple after dawn. Like the woman in the article, I also don’t get hangovers beyond a mild headache and tiredness. It doesn’t make me significantly more productive, but it does give me more time to enjoy life, which is not nothing.

I like having people over for parties, because I can get up before everyone else and make breakfast, and people are always really appreciative. :)

I also get about 5 a night. The best part, to me, is the 11pm to 2am "shift" when I just read stuff online, or watch videos. I wouldn't say I'm any more productive because of the fewer hours of sleep, but it's those extra 3 hours at night that really lets me learn and discover new things.

I absolutely feel the same way. While those extra few hours aren't necessarily used "efficiently" in a work/study manner, I find I can focus better during the day knowing I'll have time to have plenty of unstructured time later on.

Hmm, as far as hangovers she says

"Does drinking impact your sleep? I don’t get hangovers. If I overdo it and I get a headache, that’s saying a lot. Most people in their 40s are sick for a day and a half. If I drink too much, then I may go to bed at two and get up at six — maybe I get an extra hour’s sleep!"

Severe alcoholics often don't get a full night of sleep because they wake up when the depressant effect of the alcohol wears off, the same reason people shake in the mornings - in the absence of alcohol, the chemicals the body releases to compensate for constant alcohol cause overstimulation.

My experience with drinking a fair bit last year is I would get 4-6 hours of sleep a night, and wake up wide awake with no hangover, too. On nights when I hadn't drank, I'd sleep 7-9 hours which is normal for me.

I'd say it's all a matter of neutransmitter balance, which varies even in normal people. Bipolar folks often only need 2-4 hours of sleep in manic phases, and feel great, but may sleep for 8-12 hours in depressive states. Someone who is hypomanic could be expected to sleep just 4 hours a night and have difficulty sleeping longer.

    > Severe alcoholics often don't get a full night of sleep
    > because they wake up when the depressant effect of the
    > alcohol wears off ... the same reason people shake in
    > the mornings

I don't think I'd have ever classified myself as an alcoholic, although I used to drink a lot, and now I drink nothing.

For a while, I ran a party-promoting business and held down a job as a programmer at the same time, typically going to bed at 2am having drunk maybe the equivalent of ~20 shots of vodka, 3-4 nights a week, and getting up to be in work by 10am. I was definitely stumbling around a bit by the end of the evening, and I needed some strong coffee in the morning, but seriously impaired I was not (although I imagine driving would have been a bad idea at any point in this cycle).

Assuming I distributed my drinks fairly evenly from 9pm to 1am, and using the British system of "units" of alcohol, peak blood alcohol was at 1am with ~ 15 units. Less 1 unit an hour, means at 9am wakeup time, I have the equivalent of about 3.5 pints of beer in my blood, and the alcohol doesn't properly drop off until about 3pm in the afternoon - which anecdotally was when I used to feel dreadful.

I can't imagine a "severe alcoholic" running out of alcohol in the blood stream overnight.

>I can't imagine a "severe alcoholic" running out of alcohol in the blood stream overnight.

Well, it's the reason for delirium tremens. Alcohol doesn't have to be zero to cause morning withdrawal - just less than whatever your body is accustomed to.

As far as amount metabolized per hour, I believe that increases with habituation and tolerance.

Myself, I was hardly an alcoholic - just hanging out with one, and he'd entice me to a bar each and every night for 2-7 beers. Waking up as described was my experience.

> Nobody knows exactly how many true “short sleepers” exist, but estimates put it at one percent of the population.

So the first documented case of it was in 2009, but "estimates" think it affects 1/100 people? Who can take these numbers seriously?

Agreed. Far too many weasel words in one statement.

Fascinating. Made me think of 'Beggars in Spain', an SF series that is well worth the read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggars_in_Spain

I was going to bring this up. It's an interesting exploration of how the world might react to people who are inherently 50% more productive for having that much more time to work with.

Interesting.

But the pre-existing variance in people's productivity is already an order of magnitude or more. A 50% bump might be significant, but it's hard to imagine it would be society-changing.

Well, it's actually a 100% bump, right?

'Sleeper': 8 hours working, 8 hours taking care of life (eating, etc), 8 hours sleeping.

'Sleepless': 16 hours working, 8 hours taking care of life.

I agree with your point though: focus, environment, and pre-existing advantage probably cause far more variation in productivity than 100%.

Great book / series

I've always been fascinated by discussions surrounding the varying amount of sleep necessary for different individuals. I feel like "unlocking" the secrets of these folks who can get by on such little sleep would do wonders for humanity, though I'm unsure if that is even within our abilities.

As for a personal anecdote, I've experienced both ends of the sleep spectrum: in the past couple years I've had two 4-month long periods where I required little to no sleep to function as well as I ever have in both work and social settings. My personal belief is that this can be chalked up to a healthy diet, constant exercise, and an abundance of happiness. Also, I caution those who pine for the ability to function on less sleep: as the lady in the article mentions, it can absolutely cause issues in one's relationships. Other than that however, all positives in my experiences.

On the flip side, I've dealt with multiple bouts of varying degrees of depression that have caused my daily hours of sleep to skyrocket to ~10-12 hours/day. After experiencing both ends of the required sleep spectrum I'm convinced that, at least for me personally, happiness and health plays a huge role.

I have found I sleep less the more I exercise and I don't have to exercise that much to affect my sleep pattern. At minimum I do 45 minutes of elliptical while watching netflix; current revisiting doctor who. If I am really into it I use the resistance machine.

While I know its different for many people that is the route I follow and at times I was worried about getting too little. I just find that daily exercise imparts an incredible amount of energy in my day. I try my best to take two walk breaks at work, usually a quarter mile. Others get smoke breaks, I get a me break.

Give it a try, it might work for you.

> I have found I sleep less the more I exercise

In my experience this doesn't scale infinitely. Once I reached the average of 1.5 hours of strenuous exercise a day[1] I started needing more sleep than I did without the exercise. Sure, it keeps me mentally more engaged and productive, but I most definitely sleep more than I do when I'm working out less.

[1] I do 3 boxing sessions of 1.5h per week, run about 30km per week, and do about 3 hours of lifting per week

That sounds like bipolar disorder to me: Long cycles of happiness (euphoria), energy and hyperactivity (lots of exercise), and a decreased need for sleep, followed by depression, lack of energy, lethargy (no physical activity, less exercise), and increased need for sleep. That's the textbook definition of bipolar disorder, I think.

Wait, does it change how much sleep you feel like getting, or does it actually change the amount of sleep you need? If it's the latter I'm surprised I haven't heard about study into it.

Thanks for the tip. I will look into that.

You might be bipolar

Thank you, I hadn't considered that before. I will look into that.

i used to need 8-10 hours but after reading tim ferriss' 4 hour body i nap 20 minutes 2/3x a day at my desk and only need to sleep 4/5 a night which is saving me 4/5 hours a day of sleep time.. i don't feel fabulous when i wake up lol, but i feel the same as if i had slept more.. http://www.4hourlife.com/2012/04/29/become-uberman-sleep-lik... only problem is culturally workplaces aren't very accepting of polyphasic sleep patterns that involve napping in the office lol

From what I understand, polyphasic sleep has fallen out of popularity lately due to lack of evidence that it actually works better than a "normal" schedule. Even this author you linked to only does a light 20 min siesta.. barely even biphasic (if you're not hitting REM sleep in your nap).

Counterpoint: http://greenminimalism.com/2013/06/15/is-polyphasic-sleep-he...

I think it's merely been relegated to its proper place. I think both 'sides' in the debate now will often agree that segmented sleep provides more hours in a 24-hour period in exchange for fewer daylight hours and reduced ability to do difficult mental work in those hours. Another way to look at it is that some people should sleep a lot and work for short, concentrated periods and others should work a lot and sleep in short, concentrated periods, and each of those two patterns is suited to a different type of work. At least, that's what I've seen in the community/meta-community.

lol

I cannot relate, I need 7+, but I can imagine how much more you could get done if you had 20 hours a day to do it in. My grandmother was a short sleeper, she usually slept from midnight to 4am her whole life.

I'd probably just use the additional time to watch cat videos

Was your grandma a caffeine addicted? My mom is sleeping, since when I remember, just 4-5 hours each night but she also takes 3 strong coffees during all the day and if she forget even one she instantly feels much more tired than usual.

A shame I can't try because I am intolerant to caffeine that basically causes my stomach to hurt for hours... I would really like to halve my sleep need.

Seems like that would be explained from the caffeine withdrawal. Doesn't necessarily indicate she would need sleep more if she had less coffee.

Anyways there are many ways to ingest caffeine besides coffee.

Caffeine definitely cannot reduce your need for sleep long-term. Your body habituates to it, like any stimulant; after a while, the caffeine isn't making you more alert than normal, but it's required just to get up to normal. If your mother gets by on 4-5 hours a night long-term, it's because she's a natural short sleeper, not because of the caffeine.

I hear you, I can hardly get by with less than 9 hours at times. If I do, I get really groggy.

In a way, it focuses my efforts while I'm awake, so that might be one benefit to this.

I've got a friend who can get by on ~5 hours/night pretty much indefinitely, without feeling the kind of awful brain-numbing fatigue and dangerous (for e.g. driving) levels of tiredness that I do with more than one night in a row of less than ~7 hours of sleep. A full 8-hour night is sleeping in to him.

The key to understanding why this is so great is to compare the extra time not to the total waking time that others get, but to the total time others get that isn't spoken for. Actual free time. Measured that way, he's consistently getting at least 50% more completely free time per week than I do on a good week.

The result of this is that he's pretty much a fear-of-missing-out[1] machine for all around him. While I've watched my hobbies and interests narrow by necessity as I've grown older[2] his have seemingly widened without any apparent ill effects.

That new TV show that's supposed to be really good? He's seen it. All those Criterion movies you've been meaning to watch? He's seen them all. Twice. This year's Oscar nominees? Yes. Even the documentaries and shorts. Video games? All of them that matter and most of the ones that don't. That one comic book series you heard good things about? He's read it. His academic field of choice? Keeps up with some journals. Writing, both fiction and academic? He has the time. Crafts? He juggles a couple of them. That funny thing you saw on the Internet? He was on the thread where it was first posted. Reading? Oh man. You don't want to know. It'd just make you sad.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out

[2] Frustratingly, it seems like the most "productive" and useful hobbies and interests are the first to go, as when life demands more hours from you it always wants your most valuable ones, not your nearly-worthless ones when you're already drained and tired. No, those you get to keep, for what little good they do you.

>That new TV show that's supposed to be really good? He's seen it. All those Criterion movies you've been meaning to watch? He's seen them all. Twice. This year's Oscar nominees? Yes. Even the documentaries and shorts. Video games? All of them that matter and most of the ones that don't. That one comic book series you heard good things about? He's read it.

Thanks. After reading that I don't feel too bad for not being a "short sleep mutant".

Yeah, but he manages that and productive stuff. I can't even fit in one or the other as well as he does with both. Besides, he's not entirely without standards for his media (that'd be another of my friends, without the low-sleep thing) so a fair bit of it ends up being enriching anyway, aside from being enjoyable, which isn't without merit.

As someone who needs a lot of sleep every night to be functional, how could a "short sleeper" ever feel anything but privileged? It seems to have tons of pros and almost no cons, with the exception of being careful when living with people who need more sleep.

Do you actually feel any disadvantages from needing less sleep?

I am not a short sleeper, in some aspects I wish I was. The advantages seem huge as you would be able to be a lot more productive. I wonder though if the personality traits of restlessness and not being able to switch off are common among all short sleepers?

It's possible there is one, but I think I'm a counter-example. I have anxiety issues and also am restless and have great difficulty "turning off", but I need 8-9 hours every single night to be functional at all. Unfortunately, the anxiety just results in insomnia and me feeling terrible when I wake up and even more terrible all day long. I sure would love to have the anxiety and insomnia without the "feeling awful" part after getting insufficient sleep.

It is also important to note that you probably aren't a mutant. If you keep on having a very short amount of sleep, your body will stop telling you that you are tired, but you will still get the back effects of sleep deprivation.

Yeah. I think the most important points from this article in identifying if you are, indeed a mutant are: she doesn't fight sleep, and she doesn't feel tired, on 4 hours.

When describing your short sleep patterns, if you use the words "I can function at...", you probably aren't one of these people. "Can function at" does not seem to be the same thing she is experiencing.

This explains my whole family. It was common while growing up that the whole family was awake doing random things till 12-1am every day, even on school nights.

These days, I'm in bed no earlier than 12am, and wake up at 5am for work. Forwarding this article to my wife because she needs at least 9/10 hours and thinks I'm crazy.

Sleep is one of the best parts of life, why cut it short?

Kind of crazy how little is known about sleep in the scientific community. The answer right now to "why" we need to sleep doesn't go much deeper than "because we get tired"

As a general rule, when somebody says "nobody knows X", they are almost certainly wrong. There are 7+ billion people on this planet. Someone probably knows something you don't, for just about any common language X you could form. (They just haven't told you about it!)

For instance:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/373

Scientists don't just sit around twiddling their thumbs all day...

I've heard of both of these theories (cleanse and consolidation) but it's kind of strange how the first sentence of the abstract is "The purpose of sleep remains mysterious." If the researchers have any confidence in their work, why are they using this language? Why not "sleep is not as mysterious" or "sleep is no longer mysterious"?

My point was more that somebody very likely knows the truth (and believes it to be the truth,) even if we don't know who that person is.

Don't miss the comment:

http://xkcd.com/1345/

That is a foolish assumption.

It's also a very weak definition of "know".

I thought it was generally accepted that the brain needs time to recover and assimilate all the input it received during the day, and that process is likely a major factor in dreams. Supporting this is the fact that smarter animals need more sleep than simpler ones and younger brains need more sleep than older ones. Any actual brain scientists can confirm whether I'm just regurgitating folk knowledge or not?

I rarely sleep more than 6 hours, never have. I wake up at 5am naturally and I'm awake. There is definitely a difference between people who are "getting by" on little sleep, and those of us who need less than the "usual" amount. I seem to need less as I get older, and less the more exercise I'm doing (I'm a distance runner) which doesn't seem to make much sense, but there you have it!

Even if you happen to not need much sleep, you ought to at least consider that it may have adverse long term effects to your brain and body.

This Quora answer [1] summarizes it well.

[1] http://www.quora.com/How-do-CEOs-who-sleep-for-only-4-5-hour...

occasionally I'll need to stay up really late, or for some random reason I'll wake up really early (sound outside wakes me up), and I'll actually feel more refreshed with 3-4 hours sleep than a full night. is this a common experience?

I've never purposely tried sleeping only 3-4 hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep

I use this pattern when I have a lot of work to do outside of my day job.

You may feel better, but as the day progresses your critical thinking skills are going to be negatively impacted, in many cases without you realizing it.

I've been having a real hard time getting any kind of prolonged sleep (4 hours or more) the past few months.

I'd sleep and always wake up after 3 hours. Then I can't go back to sleep. This been going on for the past 4 months. It is very frustrating.

Is there anyone else that experience this?

When you're overtired, it can actually be harder to sleep. I found this out when we had a baby -- longer, better quality naps during the day lead to better, longer sleep at night.

The root problem could be delayed sleep-phase syndrome. [1]

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder

I also noticed this with my kids. The better they sleep, they better they will sleep the next sleep.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Insomnia/Pages/Treatment.aspx

Personally I don't have any problems with sleep, but I worked on an iPhone and Android app that would solve that problem for some of the people who used it. The app teaches an observation exercise similar to meditation. You can listen (without having to download anything) here: http://antidoteforall.com

I'd be really interested to know how this compares with people who have insomnia, or trouble sleeping in general.

Is the difference just that these people can wake up feeling rested, whereas people with insomnia are always tired?

I could have those 3 hours back w/ a shorter commute...

The chemicals modafinil and armodafinil subjectively let me get away with a bit less sleep without the various consequences of caffeine. Used with enough sleep, they enter the realm of transhuman cognitive enhancer.

Sure, but even with enough sleep, don't they have other side effects? (Seriously asking, never taken them)

Nope--just try to control your caffeine while on them.

I heard about modafinil years ago and have always been fascinated by the idea of it, is it worth trying?

Yes.

I've been trying to source modafinil in Canada. I hope to try an experiment once I acquire some.

I'm in the non-responder camp with those drugs. Unfortunately.

They let you get away with less sleep in the short term, but your body will pay it back by doing deep sleep instead of healthy cycles. Pardon the extreme laymanism, but mod lets you pull long days in the same way that getting excited does. There's no currently known drug that pushes your need to sleep past the end of your life if you're more than days away from it. I will be interested to see what genetic therapies can accomplish, though.

It certainly varies a lot by person. Modafinil only really works for me if I take it once a week, max twice. Otherwise I seem to build some sort of tolerance.

Also, when it wears off I very often get awful tension headaches and "mind fuzz", kind of like from caffeine but much worse. Unlike caffeine though, I can go a good 9 hours feeling energetic and only feel the pain once I get home and am done with the day, which is an advantage I suppose.

Interestingly, I also seem to get fairly powerful euphoria for about 2 hours after it kicks in, which to my understanding is unusual. (And yes, I'm sure what I'm taking is really modafinil.)

I only take it in "emergencies".

I've tried modafinil (to counteract lethargy from an antidepressant). It's a strong and long-acting stimulant, but for me there were definitely side effects (and stronger ones than from caffeine wearing off) - bruxism, jaw clenching, headaches, tension. I was only on it for a short period before deciding to get off due to side effects and concern about taking it regularly.

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