I need very little sleep. I go to bed about 1am and wake up about 5-5:30am every day. I'm never tired.<p>I had a two day long migraine in 1995 and have been like it ever since. Never had a migraine after that one either. Had my nut stuffed in an MRI and nothing showed up. My neurologist said he's at a loss. No complaining though.
While it's an interesting read, it doesn't really provide enough information to show that this is a good thing. What is the average lifespan of people with this mutation?<p>Even if Abby lives a normal lifespan we still have too little data we need some randomized samples.<p>I come from a family of short sleepers. I always go to bed later than my wife and wake up earlier with more energy, this is still the case now that I'm in my 30s, but I have severe health problems compared to the average person my age. Is this related to not getting enough sleep or just another example of confounding.<p>It would be good to see some real statistical evidence to show that her mutation is even positive.
I wish I only needed 4 hours of sleep a night. I hate going to bed and wasting 1/3rd of the day passed out. Or getting less than that and feeling groggy and lethargic all day.<p>I always hear these stories of people who can live happily on 4 hours of sleep and am insanely jealous.
I find exercise and also deep learning, challenging mental tasks make me need 7-8 hours, but otherwise when I have a series of hum drum days with no exercise I'm fine with 6 hours.<p>Does anyone else find that?
I can relate to this article. I go to bed at 1am and get up at 5:45. I prefer to be at work by 6:30am and work solid 12+ hour days, with ideally a gym session mid-morning, a run at lunchtime, and 2-3 hours more sport in the evening. Dinner is often at 10:30pm. Basically, I can go all day at full speed and never get tired from mental or physical effort. I'd pack even more into each day if my partner would let me.<p>Sometimes I worry my body will break. That rarely stops me though, so long as I get 4.5 hours' sleep. Less than 4 and my concentration span is reduced, I get susceptible to colds and am more easily irritated.<p>Clearly there's a genetic difference here. I count myself very lucky for my extra productive hours.
My dad only needed 4 hours of sleep.<p>He worked 12-16 hour days, went to grad school at night, and still managed to run or hit the gym every day. He was never tired, and actively tried to cut back on his sleeping time.<p>Now he has diabetes, and the doctors are nearly 100% convinced it was due to a lifetime of lack of sleep.<p>Beware.
<p><pre><code> “It’s wonderful to have so many hours in my day – I
feel like I can live two lives,” she says.
...
“There’s this social view that short sleeping is a good
thing and should be encouraged – we’re always hauling
out the example of Margaret Thatcher and top CEOs who
don’t need much sleep. In fact, the amount of sleep you
need is genetically determined as much as your height
or shoe size. Some people need very little sleep,
others need 11 or 12 hours to feel their best.”
</code></pre>
I don't think sleeping less is only better from a social view - like this lady says, she sleeps 4 hours and she feels like she can live two lives. If I need to sleep 12 hours to feel rested, doesn't it stand to reason that I can only live half a life? Maybe sleeping less than you need to feel your best is a worthwhile trade if you can spend more time living...
Without an alarm, I tend to sleep 4 hours a day. But this is provided I dont exercise. If I go to workout at a gym / Martial arts, I find I have to sleep 7 hours. But both these cases, I do not need an alarm to wake me up. I wake up about 5 minutes before the alarm is going to ring and Stretch in my bed. When the alarm goes I jump off the bed. I actually feel more energized when I sleep for just 4 hours. But I need a 20m nap in the afternoon if this is the case. My schedule is<p>(without exercise) - 10:30 PM to 2:30 AM
(with exercise) - 11 PM to 6 AM.<p>I would love to study more about the effects of sleep and how we can control it.
I had a friend like this in college, a high-energy athletic dude. I don't remember the exact details, but I believe in his case it had to do with his body over-producing iron. He only needed 3-4 hours of sleep a night and his father needed even less (and would routinely work 24 hour shifts at the hospital).<p>I was a bit jealous of him. I'd love an extra four hours to my day.
>Short-sleepers like Ross never feel lethargic, nor do they ever sleep in.<p>I'd be curious to know what her IQ is, how good her memory is, how good her puzzle solving ability is, how creative she is, and other metrics. I'm always a little surprised when I read interviews with people I admire at how much sleep they need. Seems to me, that people who are thought/analytic/creative heavy just rough up their brains more and that might mean a need for longer sleep schedules to recuperate.<p>>A positive outlook is common among all of the short-sleepers that Fu has studied.<p>Smart people are almost always fairly negative if not outright depressed. There's a lot of study in this area. This is an interesting result.<p>I wonder if being a low sleep person comes at the cost of smarts and creativity. Maybe DEC2 comes along with other things we're not looking at and that package may be unappealing once we get the whole picture.
Anecdotally, I've found that the method in the article about having a fixed wake-up time worked for me. In college I used to sleep 8-9 hours a night and would feel awful if I got less than 7. I have trouble sleeping early even when I'm tired so when I started working I was only sleeping 5-6 hours and could barely make it through the work day even loaded up with caffeine. After half a year or so I noticed I could skip the caffeine and still felt alert. Now even if I try I can't sleep more than 8 hours.
I used to be one of those. Then I got the interest bill and since then I seem to be able to sleep through whole days if I let myself (I don't). My productivity took a pretty good hit but when I have to I can still go at a good clip for about a month or two (high intensity jobs, ship on fire kind of stuff). Then after that I run out of steam and need to recover for a while.
People who need little sleep are often in position of power or great responsibility. Did they achieved great things and became successful also because of this trait, or is it a trait they developed because of success and the need to do a huge number of things during a longer day?
I have seen if you go to bed by 12 or 12:30 am and wake up by 6 or 6:30 am then you are fine and might feel fresh also but the more you delay..the more harder time you will have getting up in the morning even if you slept for the same number of hours.
There are so many extremes here that I just want to mention that I actually sleep 7-8 hours.<p>Something that is apparently only normal if you aren't talking on HN. :)<p>(Less causes problems, more is not needed... so pretty average)