Are you falling asleep correctly?

[Manfred Belheim]

Averaging six hours of sleep per night is exactly that.

Can I just remind you that your original statement was that people who claim to live on 6 hours of sleep per night are liars. The goalposts are back thataway.

 

[Ferocitus]

Have some facts courtesy of some professionals!
(Bold type in this excerpt is my emphasis on issues brought up by some posters.)

Sleep Medicine Reviews
In Press: August 2018, Volume 40, Pages 127–134.

Association between long sleep duration and increased risk of obesity and type 2
diabetes: A review of possible mechanisms.
Xiao Tan, Colin D. Chapman, Jonathan Cedernaes, Christian Benedict

SUMMARY
For the last two decades research has revealed an alarming association between short sleep duration and metabolic disorders. In tandem, the hormonal, behavioral, and genetic mechanisms underlying this relationship have been extensively investigated and reviewed. However, emerging evidence is revealing
that excessive sleep duration has remarkably similar deleterious effects. Unfortunately, to date there has been little attention to what drives this
connection. This narrative review therefore aims to summarize existing epidemiological findings, experimental work, and most importantly putative molecular and behavioral mechanisms connecting excessive sleep duration with both obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus. It will also address recent findings suggesting a worrisome bidirectional effect such that metabolic disorders create a positive feedback loop which further perpetuates excessive sleep.

INTRODUCTION
Nearly half of all adults sleep either too little (commonly defined as ≤6 h sleep per day; up to 33% in the general population) or too much (commonly defined as ≥9 h sleep per day; up to 18% in the general population).
This is alarming, as both too little and too long sleep have been associated with an increased risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM)
For example, in a Swedish cohort study involving ∼5000 women (aged ≥20 y) followed over 10 y, both questionnaire-based habitual short sleep (in this study
defined as <6 h) and habitual long sleep (defined as ≥9 h) correlated with a higher prevalence of obesity (31.3% and 38.1%, respectively), as compared with
reports of habitual normal sleep duration (defined as 6–9 h, 8.9%) [6].
Moreover, by utilizing self-reported sleep duration data from nearly half a million adult participants (of ages covering the entire adult lifespan) with follow-up periods ranging from 2.5 to 16 y, a recent meta-analysis of prospective studies found the relative risk for T2DM to be increased by about 9% for each 1-h decrement of average sleep duration among individuals who slept less than 7 h per day, and 14% for each 1-h increment of sleep duration among individuals with long sleep duration (defined as >8 h) [7]. Collectively, these studies appear to indicate a U-shaped association between sleep duration and weight gain and T2DM.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

fantastic posts both hrothbern and ferocitus. a thing I wonder about is how much daytime/night time matters, e.g. is it better to fall asleep at 10pm and wake up at 6am, or to fall asleep at 4am and wake up at 12pm. it would of course make sense for natural sleep patterns to go along with the sun, however I find I can sleep very comfortable even with lots of lights, be it natural or artificial.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

fantastic posts both hrothbern and ferocitus. a thing I wonder about is how much daytime/night time matters, e.g. is it better to fall asleep at 10pm and wake up at 6am, or to fall asleep at 4am and wake up at 12pm. it would of course make sense for natural sleep patterns to go along with the sun, however I find I can sleep very comfortable even with lots of lights, be it natural or artificial.

Some people are night owls, and for us it's normal to sleep at 4 am. It's close to 6 am here, and I'm about to go to bed. I'll set the alarm clock for about 1 pm, but will likely wake up well before that time. I'll be up for a few hours, and then take a nap before doing my nightly writing and other online activities.

For me, at this time of year, this is normal and not too different from the schedule I kept in the '80s and '90s.

 

[Ferocitus]

fantastic posts both hrothbern and ferocitus. a thing I wonder about is how much daytime/night time matters, e.g. is it better to fall asleep at 10pm and wake up at 6am, or to fall asleep at 4am and wake up at 12pm. it would of course make sense for natural sleep patterns to go along with the sun, however I find I can sleep very comfortable even with lots of lights, be it natural or artificial.

There are many examples in literature that mention broken sleep, i.e. where
people go to bed shortly after sunset then wake up around midnight and stay
awake and active for a couple of hours then go back to sleep.

Nowadays there is a great emphasis on regular sleep increasing "productivity"
which sounds like a crock of Capitalist/Protestant work ethic to me.

I can't comment on light levels, but there are many recent papers that have
quantified the effects of different levels of light on sleep and satisfaction
with sleep. (It can vary depending on ethnicity which is quite interesting!)

If you are truly interested in this stuff, or any other research, you should
become acquainted with the 2nd best woman alive, Alexandra Elbakyan,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Elbakyan
and the sites sci-hub and library genesis. You will never run out of refereed
papers to feed your interests!

 

[Hrothbern]

There are many examples in literature that mention broken sleep, i.e. where
people go to bed shortly after sunset then wake up around midnight and stay
awake and active for a couple of hours then go back to sleep.

Nowadays there is a great emphasis on regular sleep increasing "productivity"
which sounds like a crock of Capitalist/Protestant work ethic to me.

I can't comment on light levels, but there are many recent papers that have
quantified the effects of different levels of light on sleep and satisfaction
with sleep. (It can vary depending on ethnicity which is quite interesting!)

If you are truly interested in this stuff, or any other research, you should
become acquainted with the 2nd best woman alive, Alexandra Elbakyan,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Elbakyan
and the sites sci-hub and library genesis. You will never run out of refereed
papers to feed your interests!

Alexandra Elbakyan
Nice to know
Never heard about her.

On the difference between for example sleeping say 7 hours between 22.00-5.00 and 01.00-0.8.00
This has as I understand it mostly to do with your circadian rhythm, and the hormonal pulses, whereby Melatonin production prepares you for the sleep, production starting at roughly 21.00, whereby HGH Human Growth Hormone gives normally an extra big pulse at the onset of sleep, and whereby Cortisol production after your sleep, elevated as function of bloodsugar&Insulin prepares you for activities in the day.
Messing around with your sleep timing and light is messing around with the amount of Melatonin produced. Whereby noted that Melatonin is a very strong anti-oxidant for your brain, triggers multiple other pathways, and also needs to be destroyed by a lot of daylight after your sleep to be able to be produced again in adequate quantities in the evening following.

Your brain is seemingly quite adaptive to deal with disruptions of the normal circadian rhythm, but my gut feeling is that you do stress the system if you do not ride the more natural waves of your circadian rhythm and allign your lifestyle to it.
How much is the question ofc.
Never focused on that... I give it a try.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I'm already very much familiar with lib gen

Spoiler :

I have another one just for academic papers..

 

[Lexicus]

Phones are pretty terrible for books. Just get an ereader, they're cheap and backlight temperature automatically adjusts for time of day.

....no

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Ereaders are very comfy. I have an old kindle in a pink case that I always carry around with me. It's nice not having to bring multiple books w/ you when you're going to the garden or the park or whatever. But the single biggest advantage is that you can read without having any kind of light on. Especially useful when you're in a relationship and don't want to lower your partner's sleep quality

I usually read two books and one poetry collection simultaneaously and for that an Ereader is just perfect. Tthere is little point reading philosophy when I'm tired or can't focus 100%, so I go for something with nice prose.

 

[Synobun]

You can just do that on your phone, tho.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Or you could just read books.

 

[Synobun]

My books can only provide reading as a service. Or toilet paper too, I guess.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Or you could just read books.

Are you okay? I literally made my post exclusively about things that books cannot do. So no, you definitely cannot read a book at night without a source of light. You cannot save near infinite amounts of books into one single book.

You can just do that on your phone, tho.

Not really, no. The display of a phone and the display of a kindle are just way too different. Reading a kindle at night is not straining on my eyes at all, reading on my phone, even when in reading mode, hurts after just a few minutes.

However the distinction is at this point extremely arbitrary. The biggest of phones rival Ereaders in terms of size and vice versa. Most Ereaders just mirror functions that are common for smartphones like browsing, a clock widget and so forth. Basically there are few advantages that the Ereader has right now that will vanish is technology gets better and smaller. So in a way you're right, we're just not quite there yet.

 

[Zelig]

So some of us are "not credible" and others are?

No, I have not been inconsistent in my belief of people's sleep habits. I'm not sure why you're getting so defensive, you said yourself that you're sometimes very tired and cranky in general as a result of not sleeping enough.

Can I just remind you that your original statement was that people who claim to live on 6 hours of sleep per night are liars. The goalposts are back thataway.

In context of the quote I was replying to the statement was that people who claim to function best on 6 hours of sleep are liars.

....no

I'm not sure which of those claims you disagree with.

E-ink screens are better for books, ereaders are cheap, and they contain auto-temp adjusting backlights.

Pretty much the only possible con is that it's an extra device to carry.

 

[Synobun]

Not really, no. The display of a phone and the display of a kindle are just way too different. Reading a kindle at night is not straining on my eyes at all, reading on my phone, even when in reading mode, hurts after just a few minutes.

However the distinction is at this point extremely arbitrary. The biggest of phones rival Ereaders in terms of size and vice versa. Most Ereaders just mirror functions that are common for smartphones like browsing, a clock widget and so forth. Basically there are few advantages that the Ereader has right now that will vanish is technology gets better and smaller. So in a way you're right, we're just not quite there yet.

Kindles are better for reading outdoors than phones, I'll give you that, but quality of the screen doesn't seem to be a major factor except with subpar phones. My phone, for example, is trash because it's a $70 phone and the quality suffers because of it. Modern brand phones seem to have the automatic brightness adjustment and screen quality that is lauded with e-readers... with the additional benefit of being able to do phone things.

 

[Zelig]

Modern brand phones seem to have the automatic brightness adjustment and screen quality that is lauded with e-readers... with the additional benefit of being able to do phone things.

No, it's not a quality thing, it's completely different screen technology and behaviour. It's impossible for an LCD/OLED screen to compete with an e-ink screen for reading. You can read e-ink displays without *any* backlight if the ambient light allows it, just like actual paper.

 

[Synobun]

If I wanted actual paper, I'd read on actual paper.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm not sure which of those claims you disagree with.

E-ink screens are better for books, ereaders are cheap, and they contain auto-temp adjusting backlights.

Pretty much the only possible con is that it's an extra device to carry.

As far as I can tell from experience with both my parents' e-readers, e-readers are exactly the same for books as phones, except as you note it is an extra device that is mostly not as small as a phone. The entire point of having my books in digital form is to carry them on my phone, in my pocket. Carrying another device would entirely defeat the purpose...might as well just carry around whatever physical book I'm reading.

 

[Zelig]

Sure, actual paper is great, but is sometimes impractical. (For reasons related to cost, storage, portability, lack of waterproofing, etc.)

As far as I can tell from experience with both my parents' e-readers, e-readers are exactly the same for books as phones

I don't really know how to respond to this. They're pretty clearly completely different. In terms of display, e-ink is closer to paper than it is to LCD/OLED.

 

[Lexicus]

There are waterproof ereaders?