> Familial Natural Short Sleep (FNSS), a benign mutation that allows them to sleep 1-2 hours less than the recommended 7-9 hours, without experiencing the negative effects of sleep deprivation.
Sleep deprivation is one concern, but thereâs a more subtle impact on cognitive functions (working memory, creativity, deep focus), overall health (particularly the endocrine and immune systems), and long-term health outcomes (such as an increased risk of dementia).
When I was younger, I was fascinated by various optimized sleep schedules. However, I noticed a stark contrast: many of my math friends consistently slept 9â10 hours a day. They needed thatânot just to function in daily life but to achieve the deep focus required for their work. Living on less sleep might not affect immediate action (and in some cases, it might even seem to enhance focus on doing), but it can impair deeper, more complex thinking.
Some suggest that one of sleep's key roles is to help the brain regenerate. Chronic sleep deprivation, in turn, is linked to a higher risk of dementia. For anecdotal evidence: Churchill and Thatcher, known for boasting about sleeping only 4â5 hours a night, experienced significant cognitive decline later in life.
> When I was younger, I was fascinated by various optimized sleep schedules.
I was also fascinated with alternate sleep schedules when I was younger. Some of the books and biohackers of the time made them sound like magical ways to get more hours out of the day.
Then every single experience report I found that was not coming from someone trying to sell me a book or get me to subscribe to their newsletter, YouTube, or other social media was extremely negative. Nobody who tried these had continued them very long. After going back to regular sleep schedules they felt significantly better. A common report was that they didnât realize how badly sleep deprived they were until they stopped the alternate sleep schedule and went back to normal sleep.
A lot of the sleep biohacking reports follow a similar trend: People who try alternate methods of minimizing sleep donât realize the negative effects until they quit. This is also true for people who rely on stimulants (caffeine or stronger) which mask feelings of sleep deprivation but canât actually reverse the negative effects of sleep deprivation.
I thought that it could be a superpower of productivity...
This is true, I was neighbours with one of the top mathematicians in my uni and he slept what felt like an excessive amount everyday.
I definitely underperformed academically due to sleep deprivation and I probably benefited greatly during my revision period because I had a very strong sleep routine.
That said, I entered my final exam having only slept probably less than two hours and that was 100% the right call because the extra cramming was necessary and drove the needle significantly.
Sleep deprivation affects many different things, some of which are salvageable with stimulants like caffeine, and certain functions are fairly unaffected. Exams that can be solved mostly with rote memorization are less impacted by sleep deprivation than exams that require spontaneous creativity. In any case, glad to know it went well for you!
Itâs funny how we sometimes donât notice the toll until after weâve recovered
> many of my math friends consistently slept 9â10 hours a day.
Anecdotally, I've noticed an association between long sleeping and math ability in particular, so this doesn't surprise me. I wonder if it's been studied scientifically.
> I noticed a stark contrast: many of my math friends consistently slept 9â10 hours a day.
I'm curious, in order to reach this duration, did they need to do some kind of exercise at some point in the day, to gain physical fatigue ? Or could they sleep this long whilst being (I exaggerate here) couch potatoes ?
Being able to just sleep 10 hours every day seems like an unfair advantage.
Why would it be an advantage? Aren't you "losing time"?
I need 10 hours every day, so even if I go to bed at 10pm, I'd wake up at 8am, which is "late" for most people.
I'd love to be able to wake up at 6am, but just can't. It doesn't feel like an advantage.
But maybe they have to sacrifice time for other things
Hey, discussion of orexin receptor stuff! As someone with clinically-diagnosed insomnia, I've been lucky enough to/unfortunate enough to have to try the orexin receptor antagonist sleep aids for a while. As recent, on-patent drugs, they are very, very expensive ($360/month was the number marked on the receipt slip, not that that means much in the US; I certainly wasn't paying that)... and they work. They really, really do work. I was prescribed them because I tried every single other class of sleep aid on the market and they were mostly ineffective, had massive side effects, or were benzos (temazepam: best sleep of my life, but better not use it for longer than a month!).
This stuff? Orexin receptor antagonists? They work. Holy crap, do they ever work. Sleep quality better than the Z-drugs, great tolerability, no massive disruption going off them... when these things go off-patent they're going to be massive. Sleep quality was not perfect (maybe 80% of "normal"? I don't know) but that is absolutely minor compared to the alternative.
(And for the record, I'm off them now due to other stuff clearing up such that I don't need this level of sleep assistance anymore. Not because I can't afford them.)
I guess that's a long-winded way to say that if you're going to do questionably-advised sleep biohacking, orexin receptors are probably the place to start.
> As recent, on-patent drugs, they are very, very expensive ($360/month...
Expensive is always relative to one's income. But, to put that number into perspective relative to another medication given for a good night's sleep:
I'm the parent of a narcoleptic. The meds to get a good night's sleep, Xyrem, are in the $15k / month range. The recently approved generics are 1/2 that.
> Xyrem, are in the $15k.
Xyrem is basically GHB? A 500 ml bottle of GBL used to be what, 50 euros?
I know the medication is pharmeceutical grade, but are these people insane?
Xyrem is just the brand name for GHB. The company that currently owns the rights (Jazz Pharmaceuticals) pled guilty to felony misbranding in 2011, and in 2013 raised the price by 841%. More recently, in 2017, they sued multiple other companies attempting to produce generics, before settling on an exclusive licensing agreement with one of them. Ironically the headline on their website is "Improving Patients' Lives", but I imagine they aren't reducing the price because Xyrem makes up 74% of total sales [1]. The entire thing reeks of PE--tons of acquisitions.
How long have you been taking them? I've heard that an almost universal side effect is terrifying night paralysis on occasion. Have you experienced that yet?
I did not experience night paralysis while using lemborexant.
I can think of a few reasons I might have avoided it, but who knows for sure. I wasn't on it that long (about a year? not going to look it up), I as a general rule do not remember my dreams unless I'm interrupted, the underlying cause of my total insomnia was pharmalogical, I've always had some level of sleep disorder, I've been on every other sort of sleep aid, I used it with melatonin... who really knows.
I've been prescribed both available Orexin antagonists (Daridorexant and Suvorexant) for insomnia.
They work very well for me and I've noticed no side effects.
I've been taking them about 2-3 years now.
FWIW, I found Dayvigo to work better than Quviviq but they both do the job.
Yeah, this is is true. I've been taking for 3 months now --best consistent sleep of my life, but definitely occasionally the most terrifying sleep paralysis I've ever experienced, or even heard of.
I know it sounds ridiculous, but ~1-2 nights of absolute terror per week is totally worth it compared to how it used to be (getting maybe ~1 good night of sleep every couple weeks.)
Is it intended to be used daily or do you get the âonly use very sparinglyâ advice typical of prescription sleep aids?
>(And for the record, I'm off them now due to other stuff clearing up such that I don't need this level of sleep assistance anymore. Not because I can't afford them.)
If it was available over the counter for, say, $50/month -- do you think you would be taking it just for the improved sleep quality?
Also, what was the specific name of the drug you had such a good experience with?
Afaiu exmadscientist said their sleep quality improved in the context of their condition, but still worse than a healthy person's sleep:
> Sleep quality was not perfect (maybe 80% of "normal"? I don't know)
Yes, it was noticably lower quality than "good normal sleep" (80%?). Better than I got on eszopiclone (60%?) or zolpidem (40%??), worse than trazodone (90+%, but woke up every day like I'd been hit in the head with a frying pan) or temazepam (150%! amazing! but tolerance within a month and then addiction soon after if one is stupid enough to push back on a benzo, so no good).
For me they significantly increase REM, it seems at the cost of slow wave sleep. (this is logical as orexin agonism prevent REM sleep)
It's notable that almost every animal sleeps in some way, even organisms that are away from sunlight (ie. creatures that live underground).
If you sleep 30% of the time, that's 30% of the time you aren't eating, mating, etc. Also, during sleep you are more vulnerable to predators. One would expect evolution to get rid of sleep in creatures who don't rely on sunlight cycles.
So, there must be some really good evolutionary reason for sleep.
> during sleep you are more vulnerable to predators
Marine mammals sleep unihemispherally [1]. Land mammals can burrow, et cetera, which explains why predation and injury risk decrease during sleep. (Counterfactual: "large animals that are not at risk for predation, such as big cats and bears, can sleep for long periods, often in unprotected sites and appear to sleep deeply" (Id.).
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4948738/
[2] https://www.semel.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/publications/...
You've got it backwards, the awake part of life is the sacrifice all living beings have to make to support the primary function of dreaming.
This is a fun thought experiment, but our working definition of life is something along the lines of heritable metabolizing, which dreaming doesn't so obviously serve.
I don't think this is necessarily true. Is there some really important reason many animals have brains in their head (versus elsewhere in their body), or is it that many species happen to be derived from some ancestor who had that trait.
Another way to ask this would be how much of a benefit would be not sleeping? It's difficult to preserve food, but I guess there is no limit on how much energy you can expend pursuing a mate.
Repairing cellular damage (mitochondrial and main DNA) from oxidation thanks to slower metabolism is the main reason. On a side note taking vitamin E (an antioxidant that passes the blood-brain barrier) seems to have slightly reduced the need for sleep for me.
I work in the sleep space, particularly enhancing slow-wave sleep - the synchronous firing of neurons which define deep sleep, the most restorative and vital component of sleep.
Only focusing on the amount of time asleep is a significantly limited viewpoint, but I believe this will change in the coming years as we gather more knowledge of sleep and access to EEG data about our brain activity during sleep increases.
Only measuring sleep time is like measuring the health of a persons diet is by measuring how much time they spent eating, but of course, looking at macronutrients, calories, is the right way of doing it.
I'll be writing more about this in the coming months, but my current thinking is that the concept of "can we sleep less" isn't the correct approach, and can be dangerous. At AffectableSleep.com - we increase the efficiency of deep sleep, and much of the research (https://affectablesleep.com/research) focuses on enhancing deep sleep in sleep deprived individuals (I'll post more research soon). This doesn't mean we should be sleeping less. A lack of quality sleep is already an epidemic in society, and massively underreported because the focus of the sleep industry has been the amount of time asleep, not the restorative functions of sleep.
Our goal isn't to help you sleep less, and we will need to be very clear in our marketing, but rather to ensure the sleep you get is as restorative as possible.
Of course, like any technology, some people will use it for negative purposes, which I believe would be to just "get by" on less sleep, rather than optimize your health through better sleep.
You can find out more at https://affectablesleep.com
Any idea what pricing will be like once this is released for sale?
Your /research link doesn't work.
It seems your company produces a deep sleep headband. I'm interested in these sorts of products because I want more deep sleep (for myself, and for family) while lifestyle factors (mostly kids) make that very difficult.
The last product I tried was the Philips deep sleep headband (which, unfortunately, never appeared in Netherlands, I had to import it from the US even though Philips is a Dutch company).
The main problem I had was that the headband is not compatible with ear plugs. Without ear plus, I get woken up very easily, either by outside traffic or by people in the household going to the toilet. The sound insulation in my house is terrible, and it cannot be improved short of tearing down all the walls and rebuilding them. So now I use a pair of really good ear plugs, and I also put a noise cancelling head phone over that to block out extra sounds.
Would it be possible to combine a deep sleep headband with a good ear plug? Or better: would it be possible to combine with that, and also noise cancelling headphones?
Our headband uses bone conduction speaker within the headband which sits in the middle of your forehead. Absolutely ear plugs are compatible. Wearing headphones should be fine, there is nothing in, covering, or near your ears.
Sorry for the wrong link, the page is "science" not "research", I'll create a redirect, I often type that wrong. https://www.affectablesleep.com/science
I'd be keen to hear about your experience with the Philips product. We've spoken to some of their researchers, but I've never met a consumer who had one. We've spoken with many people who had the Dreem headband which had similar technology in some markets (not the US).
You can reach me at pete[at] you know the domain - if you're willing to share your experience.
Thanks
For the afficionados, there's an excellent paper titled "The neurobiological basis of narcolepsy" published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience which examines the relationship between orexin and sleep as it relates to narcolepsy patients: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6492289/
In narcolepsy type 1 (NT1), patients have severely diminished orexin levels. This appears to cause them to inappropriately enter REM sleep.
OP notes that the mutation lowering the sleep requirement causes an increase in orexin. I wonder whether the increased orexin could be inhibiting REM and perhaps facilitating a more restful architecture of sleep. Alternatively, perhaps elevated orexin levels during the day cause wakefulness such that you just don't need as much sleep, regardless of how efficient the sleep is.
It would be interesting to compare sleep tracking data of people with and without this mutation to see if there are significant differences in time spent in different sleep stages.
> Alternatively, perhaps elevated orexin levels during the day cause wakefulness such that you just don't need as much sleep, regardless of how efficient the sleep is.
As noted elsewhere ITT, there is a strong biological need for sleep, and its main role is very likely to reduce reactive oxygen species (though the amount needed vary by genetics) Orexin levels increase the noradrenaline ones, which is one of the few antioxidants able to reach neurons (along with melatonin) and by this way also increase slow wave sleep, making it more efficient. So yes, this could be a way they would need less sleep.
A Gut Bacteria" is also a rather interesting approach to solving sleep problems. Does anyone have experience related to this?
"The company ( FitBiomics ) has already commercialized two products. Their flagship offering, Vâ˘Nella, helps metabolize lactic acid and reduce fatigue, while Nella targets sleep health - a crucial market considering that 100 million Americans suffer from insomnia. "Within 10 to 14 days of daily consumption, consumers feel the difference," Scheiman notes. "They have less daily fatigue interfering with their daily life, more energy, and some people are tracking cardiovascular benefits on their wearables. We hear really cool anecdotal feedback like, 'Hey, I no longer have to take a nap in the middle of the day, or I no longer need coffee in the middle of the day.'"
I experienced a similar change (more energy and steadier energy levels throughout the day) after switching to a plant-based diet, which has been shown to change one's gut microbiome over a few weeks.
> Getting a bad night of sleep now and then is annoying, but not a health risk. However, chronic poor sleep may increase the likelihood of developing dementia, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity and even cancers of the breast, colon, ovaries and prostate. [0]
[0] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi...
Is it entirely possible that yes you can get 2 hours less sleep, but you're at higher risk of developing dementia, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, etc.? I don't see anything discussing long term effects of less sleep in comparison in TFA.
There's a whole section in TFA called "too good to be true?" Which calls this out but says we don't have enough data to know
> Instead, the risks are concentrated in medium to long term health of individuals who undergo therapy. As of now, we simply donât have enough data to profile risk factors. More experiments are needed to know if âFNSS for allâ is too good to be true.
> Which calls this out but says we don't have enough data to know
I donât know if that is true, that section to me reads as we donât know if there are long term effects with FNSS therapy because they havenât been study yet, specifically to the therapy. Not necessarily how FNSS or FNSS therapy is related to other sleep health studies.
There is a good reason why this would be selected against by evolution: being awake increases metabolic rate--how many calories you use every day. Humans have only had abundant food availability for a short time, not long enough for evolution to adapt.
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