How (not) to build a successful and sustainable life in science

Part I: Sleep

Pascal Wallisch

Cultural attitudes to sleep

Top performers don’t waste time sleeping

Self reported average sleep durations

Tiger Woods

Great people sleep less.

2 hours 4 hours 5 hours

No sleep = Success. Not only for individuals

Pervasive. Less is better.

Summarizing the cultural message

• Sleep is for losers.• At best, it is a waste of time.• Great people sleep little.• No sleep = success. • The real elite gets by on little sleep. • People who sleep more are just lazy.

The classical scientific position

• Why do we sleep?

“It’s complicated”

•(How) can I reduce the amount of sleep per day?

“Yes, with stimulants”

What is the individual and cultural response to this cultural challenge?

• By and large, people respond to incentive pattern.• Lack of sleep as a badge of honor.• Less sleep = get more out of life.• People want to be a part of this.• Average sleep duration dropped from over 8

hours to under 6.75 hours in the past 100 years. • Technology is meeting this demand for less sleep.

There are over 250 Starbucks in Manhattan.

Polyphasic sleeping

“Uberman”

What did I do?• I bought into it.

Why sleep?

• First principles

Energy expenditure

Time of day

Why sleep?

• Empirical evidence• All animals sleep. • If they can “afford” it and have a more “phasic”

lifestlye they sleep more (e.g. predators). • Chronic and complete sleep deprivation is lethal in

man and beast.

Mechanisms – the glycogen link

Raichle & Gusnard, NN Reviews 2001

JNS 2002

There is a lot going on.

Benefits of sleep

• Legion.

Insight

Born et al. Nature 2004

Self-control

Well rested participants were much more persistent in assigned tasks and much less likely to cut corners. Sleep deprived subjects were much more likely to outright cheat on the assigned tasks.

Neurons will get their sleep one way or the other.

• In other words, synchronized or not.• Individual neurons will get their sleep.

Practical considerations

• What if one cannot (go to) sleep?• Not surprising. • Often stimulated (e.g. caffeinated, long half-life).• Exposed to bright light at night (e.g. screens).• Awoken by loud and unpleasant sounds.• Doing it all wrong.

The human phase response curve

Light management

In conclusion

• If your goal is long term sustainability:• Respect sleep – it is important.• Don’t mess with sleep (e.g. “Uberman”, etc.)• There is no substitute for sleep.• There won’t be one for a while (too intricate).

End of Part I

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/22/13/5581.short• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15086

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