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Metus comments on Open thread for December 9 - 16, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: NancyLebovitz 09 December 2013 04:35PM

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Comment author: Metus 10 December 2013 06:08:53PM 9 points [-]

This makes me wonder: What are some simple ways to save quite some time that the average person does not think of?

Comment author: hyporational 11 December 2013 06:05:10AM 11 points [-]

Sleep enough.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 14 December 2013 10:04:57PM *  7 points [-]
Comment author: solipsist 11 December 2013 03:03:25PM 6 points [-]

Move close to where you work (even if it means you have to live in a smaller place).

Comment author: hyporational 12 December 2013 03:17:55AM 1 point [-]

If you don't have a car, study in the bus/train or take the commute as a bicycling exercise if the distance is relatively short and you can take a shower.

Comment author: James_Miller 10 December 2013 06:12:08PM 18 points [-]

Stop watching TV.

Comment author: Desrtopa 12 December 2013 10:20:58PM 1 point [-]

Possibly cooking very large meals and saving the rest. If you want to save money by cooking from scratch rather than buying prepared food or eating out, it can help to prepare several meals worth at a time.

Comment author: lmm 10 December 2013 08:39:29PM 1 point [-]

Pay for an online assistant. It makes you feel awkward but I hear it's quite effective.

Comment author: [deleted] 13 December 2013 04:03:44AM 0 points [-]

Dave Asprey claims that you can get by fine on five hours of sleep if you optimize it to spend as much time in REM and delta sleep as possible. This appeals to me more than polyphasic sleep does. Link

Also I was intrigued when xkcd mentioned the 28 hour day, but I don't know of anyone who has maintained that schedule

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 13 December 2013 11:33:07AM 3 points [-]

Dan Aspey claims he can do well on 5 hours of sleep, and then makes a further claim that any other adult (he recommends not trying to do serious sleep reduction until you're past 23) can also do well on 5 hours. To judge by a fast look at the comments, rather few of his readers are trying this, let alone succeeding at it.

Do you have any information about whether Aspey's results generalize?

Comment author: [deleted] 13 December 2013 04:43:25PM 5 points [-]

I am under the impression that nearly anybody who talks about sleep is guilty of Generalizing from One Example.

Comment author: [deleted] 13 December 2013 06:38:00PM 0 points [-]

Not really.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 14 December 2013 10:26:20PM 1 point [-]

There are by now some quite extensive studies about the amount of required or healthy sleep. Sleep is roughly normal distributed between 5 and 9 hours and for some of those getting 5 or less hours of sleep this appears to be healthy:

Jane E. Ferrie, Martin J. Shipley, Francesco P. Cappuccio, Eric Brunner, Michelle A. Miller, Meena Kumari, Michael G. Marmot: A Prospective Study of Change in Sleep Duration: Associations with Mortality in the Whitehall II Cohort.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2276139/pdf/aasm.30.12.1659.pdf

So probably Dave Asprey is one of those 1% for this is correct.

Some improvements (or changes) may be possible for most of us though. You can get along with less sleep if you sleep at your optimum sleep time (which differs depending on your genes esp. the Period 3 gene) and if you start to sleep quickly.

Polyphasic sleep may significantly reduce your sleep total but nobody seems to be able what the health effects are. It might be that it risks your long time health.