One month ago, I started being treated with Humira for my Crohn’s disease, which put and end to a roughly three-month period of waking up several times every night to go to the loo, and since then I seem to have needed fewer hours of sleep per night than ever before. In the past it’s always seemed like the natural amount of sleep I’d have if it wasn’t cut short was about 9 hours, and I’ve recently seemed to need so much less that on two occasions in the last month I’ve been almost frightened by how early I’ve naturally woken up—“I thought I was sleep-deprived and turned off today’s alarm so I could recover, but I naturally woke up after only seven hours? What is this?”
My hypothesis is that my body adjusted to the terrible sleep I was getting, and now that I’m able to get good-quality sleep again it’s able to get by on significantly less than what I used to need before that stretch. So:
Is it actually plausible that that’s what happened, given what we know about human sleep needs?
Given 1, oh God please tell me this is permanent. This is the equivalent of about an extra decade of life. I don’t think I can properly express how excited I am about this but since most of us are transhumanists and/or munchkins you can probably emphasize.
I suppose I should have been more explicit than just to use the wording “in the past it’s always seemed”; I’m not comparing how much I sleep now to how much I slept while I was clearly less healthy, that wouldn’t be a weird thing I’d need to ask about. I’m comparing to about a year ago, when my condition was about the same as it is now.
The effect seems to be [slightly unhealthy, sleeping 8-9 hours a night] → [very unhealthy, sleeping 8-9 hours a night with frequent interruptions] → [slightly unhealthy, sleeping 7-8 hours a night]. And I’m not sure what my priors should be for whether that’s actually what’s happened.
How old are you? If you are 18-25 years old, you are still physiologically completing the transition from adolescence to adulthood, which means at some point your circadian rhythm will “shorten” and you’ll start tending towards early to bed / early to rise, with both a shorter natural sleep phase and a shorter natural awake phase.
I noticed it happening to me pretty suddenly—my sleep patterns noticeably changed sometime during college despite no major lifestyle change. I wouldn’t be surprised if dramatic changes can happen within a year. As far as I know it’s permanent!
The nasty downside is that, whereas the adolescent body would refuse to sleep on time but once asleep continued sleeping even until noon and I always woke up refreshed, the adult body has no problem sleeping early but will wake up at a set certain time and refuse to go back to sleep, regardless of whether I’m well rested or how late I went to sleep. So on adult-mode I actually have to go to sleep on time if I want a productive day tomorrow, which was never an issue for me in adolescent-mode. “Going to bed too late” becomes equivalent to “waking up too early”.
So, if you buy the circadian explanation, then don’t take “waking up naturally” as a sure sign that you’ve slept enough!
I’m 21, so I was considering something like that as the most likely alternative hypothesis, and the extra details about waking up are also consistent with what I’ve noticed, so yeah it’s probably that.
I might suggest that seasonal change in sleep-requirements is enough to add 2 hours; or take 2 hours away. Don’t get too excited, and also—start sleep tracking; easiest way to find out if you really do need less sleep.
I use a Basis watch to observe my sleep cycles and a fitbit to track total sleep (and the two of them in case of failure). There are apps that also track but I find they don’t work with my pre-bed lifestyle (be awake in bed till I fall asleep, usually on my phone); and remembering to set the app was causing it to not work for me. (I also tried a zeo and I managed to take it off during the night)
The 3rd thing I would say is—trust your body. try to optimise for a lifestyle that does not need alarms; and trust your body to wake up when you are rested. still sleepy? go back to sleep.
I can send you a graph of my sleep/time if you are interested.
One month ago, I started being treated with Humira for my Crohn’s disease, which put and end to a roughly three-month period of waking up several times every night to go to the loo, and since then I seem to have needed fewer hours of sleep per night than ever before. In the past it’s always seemed like the natural amount of sleep I’d have if it wasn’t cut short was about 9 hours, and I’ve recently seemed to need so much less that on two occasions in the last month I’ve been almost frightened by how early I’ve naturally woken up—“I thought I was sleep-deprived and turned off today’s alarm so I could recover, but I naturally woke up after only seven hours? What is this?”
My hypothesis is that my body adjusted to the terrible sleep I was getting, and now that I’m able to get good-quality sleep again it’s able to get by on significantly less than what I used to need before that stretch. So:
Is it actually plausible that that’s what happened, given what we know about human sleep needs?
Given 1, oh God please tell me this is permanent. This is the equivalent of about an extra decade of life. I don’t think I can properly express how excited I am about this but since most of us are transhumanists and/or munchkins you can probably emphasize.
In general unhealthy people need more sleep than healthy people. Removing a factor of stress for your body can reduce sleep needs.
I suppose I should have been more explicit than just to use the wording “in the past it’s always seemed”; I’m not comparing how much I sleep now to how much I slept while I was clearly less healthy, that wouldn’t be a weird thing I’d need to ask about. I’m comparing to about a year ago, when my condition was about the same as it is now.
The effect seems to be [slightly unhealthy, sleeping 8-9 hours a night] → [very unhealthy, sleeping 8-9 hours a night with frequent interruptions] → [slightly unhealthy, sleeping 7-8 hours a night]. And I’m not sure what my priors should be for whether that’s actually what’s happened.
How old are you? If you are 18-25 years old, you are still physiologically completing the transition from adolescence to adulthood, which means at some point your circadian rhythm will “shorten” and you’ll start tending towards early to bed / early to rise, with both a shorter natural sleep phase and a shorter natural awake phase.
I noticed it happening to me pretty suddenly—my sleep patterns noticeably changed sometime during college despite no major lifestyle change. I wouldn’t be surprised if dramatic changes can happen within a year. As far as I know it’s permanent!
The nasty downside is that, whereas the adolescent body would refuse to sleep on time but once asleep continued sleeping even until noon and I always woke up refreshed, the adult body has no problem sleeping early but will wake up at a set certain time and refuse to go back to sleep, regardless of whether I’m well rested or how late I went to sleep. So on adult-mode I actually have to go to sleep on time if I want a productive day tomorrow, which was never an issue for me in adolescent-mode. “Going to bed too late” becomes equivalent to “waking up too early”.
So, if you buy the circadian explanation, then don’t take “waking up naturally” as a sure sign that you’ve slept enough!
I’m 21, so I was considering something like that as the most likely alternative hypothesis, and the extra details about waking up are also consistent with what I’ve noticed, so yeah it’s probably that.
I might suggest that seasonal change in sleep-requirements is enough to add 2 hours; or take 2 hours away. Don’t get too excited, and also—start sleep tracking; easiest way to find out if you really do need less sleep.
I use a Basis watch to observe my sleep cycles and a fitbit to track total sleep (and the two of them in case of failure). There are apps that also track but I find they don’t work with my pre-bed lifestyle (be awake in bed till I fall asleep, usually on my phone); and remembering to set the app was causing it to not work for me. (I also tried a zeo and I managed to take it off during the night)
The 3rd thing I would say is—trust your body. try to optimise for a lifestyle that does not need alarms; and trust your body to wake up when you are rested. still sleepy? go back to sleep.
I can send you a graph of my sleep/time if you are interested.