Updates to Blog
Since the content of the site has grown significantly, and I tend to make very long posts, I've thrown in Google search features on the site as well. You can go ahead and search just locally through my blog with the top one (make sure to select the blog address), or, if I mention something but don't provide adequate linkage, you can search with either the one on the top (and selecting "Web") or the one in the sidebar, on the bottom.
I also found out that the feed to the site had been broken for a while. I'm not sure why, but it appears to have to do with using Blogger for Word and extra tags that are introduced, but do not fit in the Atom XML schema. Sorry for the techno babble. :) Anyway, the feed provided now is through FeedBurner, and is a so-called "smart" feed; it should conform to whatever format your aggregator desires.
Let me know if you'd like to see anything else on the site!
-sean
I also found out that the feed to the site had been broken for a while. I'm not sure why, but it appears to have to do with using Blogger for Word and extra tags that are introduced, but do not fit in the Atom XML schema. Sorry for the techno babble. :) Anyway, the feed provided now is through FeedBurner, and is a so-called "smart" feed; it should conform to whatever format your aggregator desires.
Let me know if you'd like to see anything else on the site!
-sean
posted by Sean @ 12/13/2005 01:36:00 AM
1 Comments:
Dear Sean,
Sorry for posting out of context. This is in an effort to eliminate the need to scan old entries if there have been any new comments.
Here are only short notes (I am at work right now with heavy deadlines on my head :)
"Why would I want to not eat when hungry?". Good point! :) You seem to have read Jim Horne. Oh ma ... he is very smart, very knowledgeable, but ... very wrong. There is no better way to get hungrier and lose natural homeostatic powers to regulate food intake than to diet. (I do diet, I lost it long ago :) Yet the primary difference is that you can accumulate fat and some nutrients in advance. You cannot accumulate sleep benefits in advance. People sleep more than needed only when their control mechanisms are out of kilter or if other control factors kick in (e.g. total darkness, temperature, pharmacological interventions, etc.). The best method to sleep MINIMUM is to sleep when sleepy. If you happened to sleep 16 hours, this must have been in a follow up to sleep deprivation, sickeness, overtraining, etc. Try to sleep 16 h on a sunny vacation for 3 weeks. If you are healthy and non-mutant, IT WILL NOT WORK!
In other words, the parallel with food and drugs is wrong. These are totally different mechanisms.
Job constraints make healthy sleep impossible for many. That's true. Yet if you want to maximize alertness and minimize sleep, look for natural sleep gates. Measure it and adap. The whole "Uberman" story is bogus. You will discover that sooner or later.
I do not think there is any data on unhealthiness of polyphasic sleep. Simply nobody can run it long enough for it to be well researched. Probably Stampi tortured a guy named Francesco for the logest period. Naturally, the guy did not die or get seriously sick. Simply, with astronomical relief, he terminated the experiment after a few weeks and returned to normal life and health. Yet we know so much about the risks of shift work that you can easily extrapolate from there. That's the exactly same problem: running against the low circadian and forced phase-shifts.
As for reasons for sleep, perhaps search for Stickgold, Hobson, Sejnowski, Buzsaki, etc. Smart guys who cracked it well (avoid Seigel and Vertes; those are two stubborn mule mavericks :)
As for REM NREM4, maximizing these is a good idea. You will maximize if you apply some natural phase-shift pressure (e.g. going to sleep later) and running the natural circadian curve. It might be impossible if it conflicts with your job. It sound as if you would do best to stay up till 6 am and sleep 4-5 hours in a single block. Or with an extra nap somewhere between 13-16 (the tiny sinusoidal superposition hump arising mid-phase). Probably impossible.
And about the protein cycles. They are precisely timed (elewhere in the article quoted). Some processes take 2 hours, some 4 hours, others 6 hours. You cannot step in an hope to revert this or adapt this machinery to your needs (except where in compliance with the PRC, i.e. 4.6-5.3 h margin). The 24h periodicity is genetically carried from a fruit fly and earlier. Even babies polynap around this cycle.
This is why you love to sleep at 4 am, or get slowed at 2 pm, and at other times the nap does not come unless you are dead sleep deprived.
btw: it would be great if you could plot your alertness and your sleep timing in excel and make it available for sleep researchers. Perhaps you will pioneer the field :) - fill the mentioned literature gap. I bet Stampi would also be delighted to get a package of monthful of data :)
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