>In one study published in the journal Sleep, researchers kept people just slightly sleep deprived—allowing them only six hours to sleep each night—and watched the subjects’ performance on cognitive tests plummet. The crucial finding was that throughout their time in the study, the sixers thought they were functioning perfectly well.
>Effective sleep habits, like many things, seem to come back to self-awareness.
One of the things I've noticed is that it's really hard to police your own sleep schedule, especially if you aren't aware of the consequences of losing a few hours of sleep. I'm working on a bot that helps you get to bed earlier, and our power users often come to us with a really clear understanding of what happens when they don't get enough sleep (e.g. "I perform way worse on my Army fitness test", "I'm not focused enough to do my side project after work") and still need to set up systems to keep themselves accountable on a daily basis.
That said, I think there's a much larger "zombie population" of the "sixers" described above that isn't getting enough sleep and simply isn't particularly aware of it. From a population health standpoint, the question then becomes: How do we get people to appreciate the effect of getting a full 7-9 hours of sleep when they don't explicitly feel the effects on a daily basis? Not only that, but how do we get them to unwind and prioritize getting good night's sleep at the time of day when willpower is low and Netflix temptations are high.
The CEO of Netflix somewhat flippantly declared sleep their biggest competition, and I think they're crushing the competition right now.
On the bright side there are people who have used our product and seen it make a pretty big difference. The trick was getting them to start with a very unambitious bedtime goal relative to their average bedtime, and gradually make the bedtime earlier week over week until they've dismantled their bad sleep habits.
>Effective sleep habits, like many things, seem to come back to self-awareness.
One of the things I've noticed is that it's really hard to police your own sleep schedule, especially if you aren't aware of the consequences of losing a few hours of sleep. I'm working on a bot that helps you get to bed earlier, and our power users often come to us with a really clear understanding of what happens when they don't get enough sleep (e.g. "I perform way worse on my Army fitness test", "I'm not focused enough to do my side project after work") and still need to set up systems to keep themselves accountable on a daily basis.
That said, I think there's a much larger "zombie population" of the "sixers" described above that isn't getting enough sleep and simply isn't particularly aware of it. From a population health standpoint, the question then becomes: How do we get people to appreciate the effect of getting a full 7-9 hours of sleep when they don't explicitly feel the effects on a daily basis? Not only that, but how do we get them to unwind and prioritize getting good night's sleep at the time of day when willpower is low and Netflix temptations are high.
The CEO of Netflix somewhat flippantly declared sleep their biggest competition, and I think they're crushing the competition right now.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...
On the bright side there are people who have used our product and seen it make a pretty big difference. The trick was getting them to start with a very unambitious bedtime goal relative to their average bedtime, and gradually make the bedtime earlier week over week until they've dismantled their bad sleep habits.