So, most people see sleep as something that’s obviously beneficial, but this post was great at sparking conversation about this topic, and questioning that assumption about whether sleep is good. It’s well-researched and addresses many of the pro-sleep studies and points regarding the issue.
I’ll like to see people do more studies on the effects of low sleep on other diseases or activities. There’s many good objections in the comments, such as increased risk of Alzheimer’s, driving while sleepy and how the analogy of sleep deprivation to fasting may be misguided.
There was a good experiment presented here, where Andrew Vlahos replied
> I’m a tutor, and I’ve noticed that when students get less sleep they make many more minor mistakes (like dropping a negative sign) and don’t learn as well. This effect is strong enough that for a couple of students I started guessing how much sleep they got the last couple days at the end of sessions, asked them, and was almost always right.
and guzey replied with a proposed experiment
> As an experiment—you can ask a couple of your students to take a coffee heading to you when they are underslept and see if they continue to make mistakes and learn poorly (in which case it’s the lack of sleep per se likely causing problems) or not (in which case it’s sleepiness)
Hopefully someone does bother to do it in the future.
So, most people see sleep as something that’s obviously beneficial, but this post was great at sparking conversation about this topic, and questioning that assumption about whether sleep is good. It’s well-researched and addresses many of the pro-sleep studies and points regarding the issue.
I’ll like to see people do more studies on the effects of low sleep on other diseases or activities. There’s many good objections in the comments, such as increased risk of Alzheimer’s, driving while sleepy and how the analogy of sleep deprivation to fasting may be misguided.
There was a good experiment presented here, where Andrew Vlahos replied
> I’m a tutor, and I’ve noticed that when students get less sleep they make many more minor mistakes (like dropping a negative sign) and don’t learn as well. This effect is strong enough that for a couple of students I started guessing how much sleep they got the last couple days at the end of sessions, asked them, and was almost always right.
and guzey replied with a proposed experiment
> As an experiment—you can ask a couple of your students to take a coffee heading to you when they are underslept and see if they continue to make mistakes and learn poorly (in which case it’s the lack of sleep per se likely causing problems) or not (in which case it’s sleepiness)
Hopefully someone does bother to do it in the future.