06 April 2011

Are you jealous of the "sleepless elite" ?

Excerpts from a Wall Street Journal article:
For a small group of people—perhaps just 1% to 3% of the population—sleep is a waste of time.

Natural "short sleepers," as they're officially known, are night owls and early birds simultaneously. They typically turn in well after midnight, then get up just a few hours later and barrel through the day without needing to take naps or load up on caffeine.

They are also energetic, outgoing, optimistic and ambitious, according to the few researchers who have studied them. The pattern sometimes starts in childhood and often runs in families...

A few studies have suggested that some short sleepers may have hypomania, a mild form of mania with racing thoughts and few inhibitions. "These people talk fast. They never stop. They're always on the up side of life," says Dr. Buysse...

There is currently no way people can teach themselves to be short sleepers. Still, scientists hope that by studying short sleepers, they can better understand how the body regulates sleep and why sleep needs vary so much in humans...

Dr. Fu was part of a research team that discovered a gene variation, hDEC2, in a pair of short sleepers in 2009. They were studying extreme early birds when they noticed that two of their subjects, a mother and daughter, got up naturally about 4 a.m. but also went to bed past midnight.

Genetic analyses spotted one gene variation common to them both. The scientists were able to replicate the gene variation in a strain of mice and found that the mice needed less sleep than usual, too...

...there is one question that is more revealing than anything else: When people do have a chance to sleep longer, on weekends or vacation, do they still sleep only five or six hours a night? People who sleep more when they can are not true short sleepers, he says...

To date, Dr. Jones says he has identified only about 20 true short sleepers, and he says they share some fascinating characteristics. Not only are their circadian rhythms different from most people, so are their moods (very upbeat) and their metabolism (they're thinner than average, even though sleep deprivation usually raises the risk of obesity). They also seem to have a high tolerance for physical pain and psychological setbacks...

Some short sleepers say their sleep patterns go back to childhood and some see the same patterns starting in their own kids, such as giving up naps by age 2...
More at the link. I'm jealous.

6 comments:

  1. Hm. I'd love to get away with less sleep (I need 9 hours/night, as best I can tell), but not at the cost of being slightly manic. I like being laid back, thanks very much!

    I do wonder if/when we'll figure out what sleep is really needed for, and if that need can be messed with.

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  2. This is a perfect description of the character Jordan from the 80s movie 'Real Genius'. I found a link which illustrates perfectly:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQkf-LmsGZw

    (I love the movie, because it reminds me of the geniuses I met at my university)

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  3. That does nail it. Nice find.

    I remember going off to college and thinking I had done well on my college boards, until I met a kid who had, as I remember, five 800s.

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  4. I need 7 to 8, myself. If I don't get enough sleep, I'm pretty much useless the next day. As a writer, a lot of my work ideas come from when I'm dreaming. If I'm not dreaming, I'm not developing new story ideas.

    I know three people who are true short-sleepers, and working with them is a pleasure.

    Sadly, I don't have enough digits and bodily protrusions to count the number of false short-sleepers that I have worked with over the years. Most are engineers and claim Thomas Edison (a true-short sleeper) as their role model. Many of them were either incompetent or were put into management positions in order to keep them from screwing up any more projects. False short-sleepers spend more time bragging about their ability to function without sleep and don't really get things finished. True short-sleepers don't and use that time to actually finish what they are working on.

    Jealous of a short-sleeper? No. I function quite nicely and accomplish my goals. I enjoy sleeping and dreaming. Short-sleepers don't enjoy sleeping and find it a waste of time. The short-sleepers I know don't remember their dreams when sleeping. I find that a rather depressing thought, not remembering my dreams.

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  5. A bill should be introduced to make these people pay extra taxes :D
    Supposedly Martha Stewart is like this.
    Back when I used to go to waterski competitions I knew a guy who complained he NEVER slept, except an hour or two here or there with the use of drugs. He said he had a rare epilepsy that was triggered by the onset of sleep. He said he had a full-time job and still make straight A's in school. He openly said he was unhappy, had bad color, and said all he wanted in life was a good nights sleep!
    I checked the web before posting this, but didn't have luck finding a description of the condition, just a brief reference in the wikipedia epilepsy entry.

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  6. Col. Russel Williams is a short sleeper. Google what he did with his time....

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