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Comment by coldcode | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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'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.

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