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Medicine Science

Expert Says You're Deluding Yourself If You Think You're Productive On Six Hours of Sleep (chicagotribune.com) 223

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Chicago Tribune: Getting through the workday on little sleep is a point of pride for some. But skimping on shuteye could be shortening your life and making you a less than stellar employee, according to Matthew Walker, founder and director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley. "Underslept employees tend to create fewer novel solutions to problems, they're less productive in their work and they take on easier challenges at work," said Walker, author of "Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams," out Tuesday. Operating on short sleep -- anything less than seven hours -- impairs a host of brain and bodily functions, said Walker, who is also a professor of neuroscience and psychology. It increases your risk for heart attack, cancer and stroke, compromises your immune system and makes you emotionally irrational, less charismatic and more prone to lying. When asked, "What do you say to people who sacrifice sleep to work?" Walker said: "I often ask the question in return, 'Is the reason you've still got so much to do because you haven't gotten enough sleep and so you're inefficient while you're working?' We know that efficiency and effectiveness are increased when you're getting sufficient sleep and it will take you longer to do the same thing on an under-slept brain, which means you end up having to stay awake longer. So goes the vicious cycle."
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Expert Says You're Deluding Yourself If You Think You're Productive On Six Hours of Sleep

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  • by Vermonter ( 2683811 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @06:22PM (#55312029)

    I'm no more productive with 8 hours of sleep than I am with 6.

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      What about REproductive? ;)

    • Is that you, Wally??

    • I'm no more productive with 8 hours of sleep than I am with 6.

      Just productive enough to not get fired.

    • I rarely get more than 6 hours of sleep because I can't normally sleep any longer
    • 6 hours? More importantly can you run a country on 3 hours of sleep?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I've always known this, and wished bosses were smarter about it. Meaning, when I'm working on a weeks or months-long project, who cares if I come in an hour later, especially if it means I'm far more productive?

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @06:46PM (#55312125)

      Especially with the current traffic. I need to be at work at 8 in the morning. But to arrive at 8, I've to leave at 5:30 which means I've to get up at 4:45-5:00.

      If I could start at 10 in the morning, I would only drive 45 minutes and could leave home at 9 and could sleep until 8:15. I wouldn't even need an alarm clock because I wake up around 7:00. This would mean I could even go out for a walk, or do some exercises. I could spent some family time and even bring my children to school.

      But nope, 8:00 is set in stone. And all bosses think like this, which is why the traffic is so dense before 8:00 and why people spend more and more time in their car.

      • by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @07:01PM (#55312195)

        I like how the "9-5" job standard is actually "8-5" now.

        A few decades ago it really was 9-5. And on that a regular Joe could afford a house, a car or two, a spouse who stayed at home, 2-3 kids, a dog, and retirement.

        • Are you a communist?
          Longing for the days when shareholder value was not being extracted from each worker in an efficient way!
          You're probably one of those people who kneels during the national anthem too!
        • A few decades ago it really was 9-5. And on that a regular Joe could afford a house, a car or two, a spouse who stayed at home, 2-3 kids, a dog, and retirement.

          Do you mean before they abandoned the gold standard in 1971 and inflation went through the roof? Wall Street has profited handsomely - government is working as intended.

          Don't you and your wife and the haggard teacher at daycare all feel more fulfilled?

          • by gnick ( 1211984 )

            Do you mean before they abandoned the gold standard in 1971 and inflation went through the roof?

            That's not the only thing that was happening with the economy at the time. We had a major manufacturing bubble for a couple/few decades after WWII while all of our competitors were busy rebuilding their infrastructure. Eventually, those countries became competition again. So the situation where a married couple with 3 kids landed in a 4 bedroom house with 2 cars while one person worked an entry level manufacturing job didn't just fall apart - It was an anomaly that it was ever realistic.

        • by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

          I like how the "9-5" job standard is actually "8-5" now.

          Wow, that sounds great! There is actually a place where you can work 8-5? For me it's more like this, I remember a time when you didn't have to be on call 24/7 and big chunks of the population were not on anti-depressants and high blood pressure medication. But, don't worry folks, everything is FINE! If you whine, you're just a slacker!

        • Itâ(TM)s called being salaried. I come in when I want and leave when I want, as long as the work gets done nobody cares.

          I do get my 8 hours of sleep and an approximate 40h of work in per week.

          • by gnick ( 1211984 )

            Itâ(TM)s called being salaried. I come in when I want and leave when I want, as long as the work gets done nobody cares.

            Right now, I'm employed as an hourly "Programmer" and put in exactly 80 hours every 2 weeks. I set my own hours at about 6:30-3:00. When I was salaried, that was not the case. I was expected to be at work from 9:00-3:00 with a 30-60 minute lunch between 11 & 1. Outside that I could work when I wanted. It was explained to me that 40 hours was the minimum number I should charge to my projects during the week. It was expected that I'd charge more. Getting all my work done was secondary. Charging hours to t

        • Yeah, it's 8am to 5pm, or 9am to 6pm. And they still call it an "8 hour work day", because they don't count your lunch hour. But then they get angry at you if you actually take a full hour for lunch.

        • by tsqr ( 808554 )

          A few decades ago it really was 9-5.

          For whom? I've been a full-time employee for nearly five decades, and it's always been 8-5. Except for when it's been 7-4, that is. 9-5 is eight hours; I've never known anyone who worked at a place that pays for employees' lunch hour.

        • by anegg ( 1390659 )

          I've been working "regular" jobs since 1978. None of the jobs I have worked were "9-5"; all required 8 hours of actual work; some had a nominal 30 minute lunch break, others 1 hour, planned into the schedule. Much of my "career" was in one company that gave all of its workers flexibility in start/stop times (and even in the number of hours worked per day), but we had to have 80 hours of actual work in every two weeks.

          I was able to afford a house in my first full time job after graduating college with a B

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday October 05, 2017 @04:57AM (#55313653)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by Hodr ( 219920 )

          I guess I see what point you are trying to make, I just don't think you are half as clever as you believe you are. Especially if you are comparing your programming job (I have never worked a an IT job that didn't have flexible hours) with say, a service industry job in the US.

          But for the counterpart, as a software dev in the States.

          I mostly work from home, and while the official target is 80 hours a pay period no one really cares (or checks) as long as you participate in the vtc/web conferences and get your

          • by rhazz ( 2853871 )

            I just don't think you are half as clever as you believe you are

            I am also forced to use metric and can't take a gun to work.

            That statement alone confirms he is clever.

          • I guess I see what point you are trying to make, I just don't think you are half as clever as you believe you are. Especially if you are comparing your programming job (I have never worked a an IT job that didn't have flexible hours) with say, a service industry job in the US.

            But for the counterpart, as a software dev in the States.

            You're also an anomaly. I know far many more people in IT who are working 60 hour weeks and drive an hour each way into the office, get 15 days paid vacation that doesn't roll over to the next year, and any sick time comes out of their 15 days of paid vacation.

      • by timftbf ( 48204 )

        Even without the traffic, it can still be about the commute.

        I have a reasonable 9-5:30 working day, with an hour for lunch, so 37.5 hour working week, which most of the time is what it actually is.

        However, I need a 5:45 alarm to be up at 6. I'm a slow mover in the morning, so that lets me shower, make and eat breakfast, feed the pets, prepare lunch, make my wife breakfast, get dressed, any other bits and pieces that need doing to be out the door around 7:30. I drive to the station to make a train around 8

      • by dasunt ( 249686 )

        Especially with the current traffic. I need to be at work at 8 in the morning. But to arrive at 8, I've to leave at 5:30 which means I've to get up at 4:45-5:00.

        I did that once - had a 90 minute commute (not as bad as yours, admittedly). That was by car. By bus, it took some insane amount of time.

        Perhaps your values are different, but I looked at what I was doing and decide I didn't want to live like this. I already had the advantage of living near the urban core, so I limited my next job search to th

      • So why do you work there?

        I'm pretty serious - I've got about 0 loyalty to an employer, because almost none of them have any loyalty to me. If the working conditions are good I'll happily work, but once it gets shitty I'm out. I'm a bit underpaid right now, but I'm here because everything else is pretty darn good. I'd like more pay but I don't need more pay - I'm getting enough that I'm doing quite well as it is. And I'm not willing to trade more money for the shitty work life you're describing.

        If more peopl

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @06:32PM (#55312069)
    the folks I know losing sleep to work are doing it because the wage stagnation that started in the 80s and's been going strong since decimated their wages so that they work two jobs to make ends meet. Even the folks who don't have two jobs put in extra hours in a desperate bid to move up because companies stopped giving cost of living raises in the mid 2000s.

    Sure, the extra work they do might not be the best but good enough is always good enough. People are losing sleep because they're being taken advantage of and made to work longer hours. As an added benefit if you're doing the work of 1.5 employees that's less people your company has to hire, meaning more competition for your job, driving your wages down further and leading to you working harder. See where this thing's going?
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Solandri ( 704621 )

      because the wage stagnation that started in the 80s and's been going strong since decimated their wages

      It actually started in the 1970s [aboutinflation.com] with the Arab Oil Embargo. But people wanting to blame it all on Reagan like to pretend it started in the 1980s.

      That's why Reagan is generally considered a pretty good President (among those who lived through the 1970s and 1980s). Yes growth was stagnant. But compared to what was happening before under Ford and Carter, it was a marked improvement. It's a little amus

      • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @09:41PM (#55312801)
        a momentary blip in oil production shouldn't have caused 50 years of declining wages. Trickle down economics did. Here's a good list [hornetapp.com] of reasons Reagan stunk on ice. And yes, I'm aware Clinton carried on Reagan's legacy to win the presidency. I never said I liked him either. A Republican's a Republican. Even with a D next to their name.
        • by Galactic Dominator ( 944134 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @10:36PM (#55312941)

          Don't forget Reagan's war on the family farm. Mission Accomplished!

          https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED2809... [ed.gov]

          • by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

            Don't forget Reagan's war on the family farm. Mission Accomplished!

            Reagan can't take credit for that, it started way before him. It was called: The Industrial Revolution. Read history. When mass production came into play, they had to convince farmers to move out of rural communities to come work at factories in the city.

            • Sure he can. Read history. It's true enough technology contributed to a world-wide decline of family farms, however the impact in US was much higher during Reagan's terms due to his approach to farmers. You'll also notice the smaller family farms were effected much more harshly than corporate ones.

              > When mass production came into play, they had to convince farmers to move out of rural communities to come work at factories in the city.

              No, this is not what happened.

        • It's more globalism than anything else - trickle down economics is shit, but it was stable for awhile. The issue is the people doing the trickling realized they could outsource things more cheaply and started lobbying for open borders, free trade, etc to build global corporations which move to wherever the cheapest labor is at a given time. Nations have borders for a reason, it's more than just for defense.
        • by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

          a momentary blip in oil production shouldn't have caused 50 years of declining wages. Trickle down economics did.

          I'm not disagreeing that trickle down economics doesn't work well, but the opposite doesn't work either. If you raise taxes on corporations, they just hire less people, pay lower wages and cut down benefits. What is the solution?

          • as does everybody in the 50s and 60s when corporate and marginal taxes were much higher and we had record growth and prosperity. If anything it spurs them to work harder instead of hoarding cash and power.
          • Corporate income taxes are not paid on labor costs. If the company officers think it will be more profitable by abusing workers, it doesn't matter what the corporate tax rate is, they'll abuse workers.

        • That's bullshit too. We rode the wave of the rest of the worlds factories being destroyed after WWII for a couple decades.
  • Experts say (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JohnFen ( 1641097 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @06:43PM (#55312119)

    Experts actually say that if you think everybody requires the same number of hours of sleep, you're deluding yourself.

  • Not me (Score:4, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @06:49PM (#55312133)

    Getting through the workday on little sleep

    Now please turn off my office lights and close the door behind you.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @06:54PM (#55312167)
    Not getting 8 hours sleep a night has nothing to do with work. It has to do with having a life outside work. In order to get 8 hours sleep a night I'd have to be in bed by 7:30pm and asleep by 8:00pm, because I get up at 4:00am, do physical training for a competitive sport, then go to work by 8:30am. If I make no stops on the way home from work I'm home at 5:30pm. 2.5 hours is damned little time during a weekday to get things done you need to get done at home to prepare for the next day. I can't give up training, and I certainly can't afford anything without working. Even if I gave up my training I'm supposed to call 'work, eat, sleep, repeat' a life? That'd kill me faster than getting 6 hours sleep a night (plus a short nap at lunchtime). It's all well-and-good for some researcher to waggle a finger at everyone and tell them "You're going to DIE, SOON, if you don't get 8 hours sleep a night every night!", but it's not realistic unless you're either independently wealthy and don't have to work, or are so dull that work/sleep/eat/repeat is somehow enough for you.
    • Indeed. Conversely to you the thing that dictates how long I sleep is the time I go to bed, not the time I get up.
      If I'm having a great evening for whatever reason, getting 8 hours' sleep is way down on my priority list, or rather completely absent from it.

    • by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Not getting 8 hours sleep a night has nothing to do with work. (...) because I get up at 4:00am, do physical training for a competitive sport, then go to work by 8:30am.

      If you work out for like four hours every day I hope there's an Olympic gold medal in your future. Because that's just not normal levels of training even for competitive sports, that's trying to become the world's best. And I know there's some track-and-field events and various other obscure sports where sponsors are hard to come by and people do that as a side gig on top of a day job, but no wonder it takes some sacrifices.

  • Six hours of sleep. and 18 hours of delusion, which is dreaming, which happens in sleep.,... so it will work out.
  • What experts say to people for which 6 hours is the maximum they can sleep?
  • Bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @07:54PM (#55312409)

    People are different. They have different needs for sleep. If I sleep for more than 6, I feel like utter shit. Headaches and lethargy all day. I work best on about 6, and am function on down to 4. Above that I'm less productive.

    • People are different. They have different needs for sleep. If I sleep for more than 6, I feel like utter shit. Headaches and lethargy all day. I work best on about 6, and am function on down to 4. Above that I'm less productive.

      Exactly. My number is 5 hours, and I also get the headache issue if I've had too much. And with less than 5, I really notice a falloff in prerformance.

    • by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

      People are different. They have different needs for sleep. If I sleep for more than 6, I feel like utter shit. Headaches and lethargy all day.

      That's evidence of sleep deprivation. If you got proper sleep for a few days, you would feel like a new person.

    • You might say that, but do you have scientific evidence ? You'll have to :

      1. Compensate for the placebo effect - what if you have the headaches and lethargy because you think sleeping more than 6 hours is bad for you? One way for doing this is to make you think you slept 6 hours but you actually sleep 8 hours. If sleeping 8 hours is not physiologically possible for you, first that would need to be fixed. If it can't be fixed, the conclusion is that it is unknown how well an 8 hour sleep schedule works for y

    • Have you ever had a sleep study done? You could have apnea, and you'd feel a lot better if you fixed that.

  • You need so many hours to reset/repair your brain. And your body needs repair in the additional sleep. If you short yourself you might get away with the brain for a while, but they are both tied together so your thinking will eventually get cloudy. Not to mention the eventual breakdown of the body and/or brain.. Or you can deny all of this and wait till you get older.
    • You need so many hours to reset/repair your brain. And your body needs repair in the additional sleep. If you short yourself you might get away with the brain for a while, but they are both tied together so your thinking will eventually get cloudy. Not to mention the eventual breakdown of the body and/or brain.. Or you can deny all of this and wait till you get older.

      What you say is true, but it really depends on the individual, despite what this guy says. I've alawys done 5 hours, and unless I have a cold, I'm awake without an alarm, and feel good with 5. I go to sleep when I'm tired, and wake up when I've had enough sleep. I'm old enough, and except for nagging old sports injuries that come back to haunt me as arthritis pain, Im doing just fine.

      • Well, one thing I learned.. Lack of sleep contributes to arthritis. Two separate occasions with two different doctors though the years said the same thing. Plus I also read it on the Web. And yes, regarding injuries: an old man told me once when I was young, the injuries that you incur when you are young, will haunt you later. My grandfather warned me when I mowed the lawn. (I whipped around the lawnmower like it was a rag doll in my 20's. To get the job done fast) to take it easy on my body. I didn't liste
        • Well, one thing I learned.. Lack of sleep contributes to arthritis. Two separate occasions with two different doctors though the years said the same thing. Plus I also read it on the Web. And yes, regarding injuries: an old man told me once when I was young, the injuries that you incur when you are young, will haunt you later. My grandfather warned me when I mowed the lawn. (I whipped around the lawnmower like it was a rag doll in my 20's. To get the job done fast) to take it easy on my body. I didn't listen. And I wish I did now. I used to think I was indestructible. Too late now.

          I have a long litany of Ice Hockey injuries, and the generalized wear and tear that that involves, especially since I played long past the age when most people have stopped. Sleep or no sleep, I was a prime candidate. I still get a lot of exercise, since that's a drug-free way to keep mobile and oddly, avoid some of the pain. But I wouldn't change any of that. But oh yeah, The old injuries do come back to haunt us.

  • Any article that thinks that working less gives you more sleep is ignoring the majority of life. I do my 38-40 hours of work, rarely more, and I'm lucky if I get an average of 6.5 hours of sleep per day. I'm not partying, I'm just trying to maintain my health and my house.
  • So what do I do? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Wednesday October 04, 2017 @10:30PM (#55312931)
    I've always slept arounf 5 hours a night, unless I was sick - which happens about once every 5 years.

    I go to bed, fall asleep, and then 5 hours later I wake up feeling refreshed and rested. So should I drug myself in order to get the "correct" and healthy amount of sleep? Or do I go to a doctor and tell him that some expert told me I was killing myself. so I need treated for insomnia. I really don't want to just lie in bed for three extra hours.

    I call Bullshit. I know what I feel like when I'm tired, I know what I feel like when I have had enough sleep.

    • What you should do is read the fine article, which actually answers your question.
      • What you should do is read the fine article, which actually answers your question.

        I believe I answered the article's litmus test. I don't use an alarm to wake up, with the rare exceptions of when a travel schedule requires a very short night of sleep. That's maybe 2 times a year.

        Caffeine use stops at noon, and I even tried one of those programs that adjusts your monitor intensity and color since the wife heard how bad using monitors at night was. Alcohol use is minimal at an estimated six-pack equivalent per year. None of that makes a difference. No difference in sleep pattern

        And

        • I believe I answered the article's litmus test.

          Exactly, so what are you complaining about?

          • I believe I answered the article's litmus test.

            Exactly, so what are you complaining about?

            I'm noting that anyone who demands that people who don't sleep the amount of time that they say is the right amount of time, is of very suspect knowledge of physiology.

            I'm saying - and make no mistake, this is a stament, a part of a civil conversation - that that is simply wrong, and incorrect, and that there might be other forces at play that involve pecuniary accumulation on the part of the group making the statement.

            Do you have some sort of issue with people having conversations? Chillaxe and consid

  • Those that simulate it will stay long hours, but actually have less output and worse quality than more sane workers. But unfortunately, many "managers" are pretty low on productivity and insight anyways, so simulating productivity may be better for your career as those evaluating you do not understand that they are using an unsuitable metric. What we see here is the ages-old problem of faulty optimization strategies because of wrong selection of metric. The result is that people optimize with respect to the

  • If I sleep more than 7 hours for a couple of nights I end up waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get to sleep agin for an hour or so. I physically can't seem to sleep longer than that on average even if I stay in bed.
  • by gosand ( 234100 ) on Thursday October 05, 2017 @08:56AM (#55314523)

    That is what I track on my health incentive plan at work, so it is true.
    I also am never stressed, work 40 hours a week, am always happy, eat the perfect diet according to what they think is perfect (which it isn't), and exercise exactly how much they think I should exercise.

  • I often ask the question in return, 'Is the reason you've still got so much to do because you haven't gotten enough sleep and so you're inefficient while you're working?'

    I've got "so much to do" because stuff grows to fill the space it's got. If you're the kind of person who likes to be hectic and busy all the time, you'll do it whether you're awake 16 hours a day or 20.

    Same goes for bosses. We all talk about "getting the work done" but most of them only care about how busy you are - or how busy you look. Very few of them know what's a reasonable amount of work to expect, so they focus on hours and effort.

  • Because duty on a submarine is six hours of sleep.

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