You don't want to ask me. I seem to be one of the few prodigious sleepers left, though in my mid-thirties I'm way short of the champion sessions I put in during my late teens.
Still, I'm a big believer in the eight-hour minimum if you want to retain what you learn during any given day. It isn't just prejudice, it's science! (Really. You need your REM sleep.)
I sleep poorly, and never enough, but I've got a bad environment for sleep, which will only really be improved by moving. 6 hours straight is a pretty good night. 7 hours is brilliant.
I usually go for 8-9 hours. Sometimes I used to get it into my head that I would have "more time" if I cut it down to 7, but after a few days of that, I was usually walking through a haze. Getting by on insufficient sleep for a long period of time seems to me to be parallel to being a "functional alcoholic." The fact that an entire nation is walking around in that state seems to explain an awful lot.
As his roommate, I usually abstain from discussing topics for which roommate-roommate privilege might obtain, but yeah, MY gets no sleep. Five to six hours a night tops, no sleeping in on the weekend.
Let Kriston's rigorously on-topic post--he doesn't even mention how he sleeps--be an example to you all.
I think Adam's on to something about the entire nation being sleep deprived. I know how much worse I function even on the 6-ish hours that I get, compared to how I function when I sleep more. It makes my head spin to think what that means in the aggregate.
What's upsetting is that I (and, I'm guessing it's not just me), sleep less than I ought by choice; which is to say that if I wanted to get 8-9 hours, I'd have to go to sleep before 10, which would shorten the night considerably, and make me feel like my time is being robbed by work, eating, etc. So I stay awake, because I want to those hours to myself, but then I pay by being tired.
Most nights, I go to bed between 2 and 3 am. I usually get up about 7:30. Typically, I see 4 am at least once a week. I've been on this schedule for nearly twenty years, but only in the past year have I started feeling tired on a regular basis.
It's plain that you'd function better if you got more sleep, to the point that you could probably do an equivalent amount of work if you started, say, an hour or hour and a half later and stopped at the same time. Unless you just have a long commute or something? Clearly it's not because you have a lot of work to do.
Has anyone recently read about a study that was just published whose conclusion, if I remember correctly, was that getting more than 8 hours of sleep a night was unhealthy? I think the conclusion was based on the fact that people who regularly got more than 8 hours of sleep a night showed high er incidences of cancer. I guess you have to be careful both ways.
How can you be sure it's sleeping more than eight hours that's unhealthy, and not something that would tend to lead both to sleeping more than eight hours and ill health, or something else? The study might show that sleeping a lot and ill health are correlated, but it doesn't show that sleeping a lot is what's unhealthy.
It seems almost unbelievable that 8 hours is the exact "sweet spot" of sleep and that any deviation in either direction has negative health effects. Okay, upgrade that to "completely unbelievable."
I'm with Adam, too little sleep (under 7 hrs) and it's like I'm tipsy all the next day. But I don't think 8 hrs is the magic number, I believe it's more of the mode. I've known people who sleep 4 hrs a night and function just fine.
You can have your sleep cycle measured at, uh, medical-type places. You want to sleep a length of time that's evenly divisible by the duration of your cycle.
No, with an adverb. See this languagelog post for support not only for that position, but reinforcement for the eminently commonsensical position that ending a sentence with a preposition is not an error in English.
Er, that would be this post. Omitted the quotation marks, it seems. But, this gives me an opportunity to ask the question to ask which I forgot above: is your brane on?
Since Ben Wolfson beat me to the preposition thing, I would like to pedantically point out that the "on" in "it's on" is in fact being used adjectivally.
the eminently commonsensical position that ending a sentence with a preposition is not an error in English.
In technical, prescriptivist terms, it isn't an error, and especially not in informal spoken English. However, if you're ending a written sentence with a preposition, you're almost always ending it with a weak word choice. It's on a par with writing in passive voice. Might not be wrong per se, but it's a warning sign when you're editing that you need to tighten your language.
The languagelog post uses the following as supporting examples:
"This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put."
"The restaurant got a complaint from the people that the woman was staring in at."
"How many interruptions am I supposed to put up with?"
Each one has several simple solutions that don't involve twisting prepositions in sequential knots.
"This is the sort of bloody nonsense I will not tolerate." Or better yet, "I will not tolerate this sort of bloody nonsense."
"The people being stared at complained to the restaurant."
"The people being stared at complained to the restaurant."
Passive voice alert! Also, it contains the same non-error (I don't know why people say that ending a sentence with a preposition is an error, and not any clause: "the people complained because they were being stared at" and "because they were being stared at, the people complained" should both be wrong if either is.)
It's just the way it works in many cases in English—can you never use idiomatic phrases like "put up with" or "stand for"? Is "I won't stand for this bloody nonsense" a weaker sentence than "I won't tolerate this bloody nonsense"? Or is it just a sentence-ending thing—you want to end on a high note?
Also, the first sentence you cite is described in the LL post as being bad English: "you certainly can't front one of these prepositions that traditional grammar would call an adverb, in addition to fronting a preposition that has an object".
Although I have to agree that disturbing any of one's readers is distracting, and therefore bad writing style. I firmly believe, however, that this distraction is in the mind of the misinformed reader, so I intend to publicly flog this horse, at the expense of threadjacking, whenever it rears its ugly head. Everyone needs a mission in their life.
And you've taken to yours admirably, Big Ben. I hold to my belief, though, that while it's not a back-up-five-yards-and-replay-the-down error, a piece is improved when terminal prepositions are judiciously replaced.
Oh, and anonymous, you betta recognize before grammar pops a cap in yo' ass.
It's about midnight and I know I'm waking up at 5am to go to school tomorrow and I still I'm going to end up reading blogs for another hour or two. But I've always believed sleep is for the weekend. Though I'd say that college seems to do this to most people I know.
I actually know someone who mailed a friend of ours some feces, and, sadly, that unpleasant incident came to mind when I read Michael's post. You guys sure know how to party.
You don't want to ask me. I seem to be one of the few prodigious sleepers left, though in my mid-thirties I'm way short of the champion sessions I put in during my late teens.
Still, I'm a big believer in the eight-hour minimum if you want to retain what you learn during any given day. It isn't just prejudice, it's science! (Really. You need your REM sleep.)
Posted by wcw | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 1:10 AM
I sleep very well - 8-9 hrs a night.
Of course, I don't have a blog...
Posted by Scott Pauls | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 7:12 AM
There's a good reason bloggers sleep poorly - viewing computer monitors at night screws with your hypothalamus' melatonin production cycle.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 7:37 AM
I sleep poorly, and never enough, but I've got a bad environment for sleep, which will only really be improved by moving. 6 hours straight is a pretty good night. 7 hours is brilliant.
Posted by paperwight | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 8:12 AM
Oh, sleep I can do. Right through. It's only a couple nights a year that I'm so anxious I have trouble sleeping.
When my work is intense I get up at like 4am. And some nights I put my kids to bed at 8 and then stagger over to my room and crash at the same time.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 8:17 AM
I usually go for 8-9 hours. Sometimes I used to get it into my head that I would have "more time" if I cut it down to 7, but after a few days of that, I was usually walking through a haze. Getting by on insufficient sleep for a long period of time seems to me to be parallel to being a "functional alcoholic." The fact that an entire nation is walking around in that state seems to explain an awful lot.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 8:19 AM
I sleep lots (ca. 9 hours) but it's not restful. Must be all that computer monitor viewing and lack of exercise.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 8:21 AM
As his roommate, I usually abstain from discussing topics for which roommate-roommate privilege might obtain, but yeah, MY gets no sleep. Five to six hours a night tops, no sleeping in on the weekend.
Posted by Kriston | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 8:22 AM
Let Kriston's rigorously on-topic post--he doesn't even mention how he sleeps--be an example to you all.
I think Adam's on to something about the entire nation being sleep deprived. I know how much worse I function even on the 6-ish hours that I get, compared to how I function when I sleep more. It makes my head spin to think what that means in the aggregate.
What's upsetting is that I (and, I'm guessing it's not just me), sleep less than I ought by choice; which is to say that if I wanted to get 8-9 hours, I'd have to go to sleep before 10, which would shorten the night considerably, and make me feel like my time is being robbed by work, eating, etc. So I stay awake, because I want to those hours to myself, but then I pay by being tired.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 8:50 AM
Most nights, I go to bed between 2 and 3 am. I usually get up about 7:30. Typically, I see 4 am at least once a week. I've been on this schedule for nearly twenty years, but only in the past year have I started feeling tired on a regular basis.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 9:00 AM
It's plain that you'd function better if you got more sleep, to the point that you could probably do an equivalent amount of work if you started, say, an hour or hour and a half later and stopped at the same time. Unless you just have a long commute or something? Clearly it's not because you have a lot of work to do.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 9:02 AM
Sleeping 8-9 hours a night gives me the following benefits - increased work productivity, better mood, keeps the weight off, increases muscle mass.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 9:53 AM
Has anyone recently read about a study that was just published whose conclusion, if I remember correctly, was that getting more than 8 hours of sleep a night was unhealthy? I think the conclusion was based on the fact that people who regularly got more than 8 hours of sleep a night showed high er incidences of cancer. I guess you have to be careful both ways.
Posted by D | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 10:22 AM
How do you force someone to sleep more than 8 hours?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 10:26 AM
D, this sounds like what you're talking about.
Who said anything about forcing?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 10:28 AM
How can you be sure it's sleeping more than eight hours that's unhealthy, and not something that would tend to lead both to sleeping more than eight hours and ill health, or something else? The study might show that sleeping a lot and ill health are correlated, but it doesn't show that sleeping a lot is what's unhealthy.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 10:46 AM
You're so dying a premature death, b-dub. But you're right, of course; they don't have a mechanism, only a correlation.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 10:49 AM
I've heard the really good cancer pain meds make one drowsy. Ahem.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 11:03 AM
It seems almost unbelievable that 8 hours is the exact "sweet spot" of sleep and that any deviation in either direction has negative health effects. Okay, upgrade that to "completely unbelievable."
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 11:54 AM
Erratic sleeper: sometimes less than I should (b/c I too am a night owl) but quite happy to call 9 hours a "minimum" during the summer months.
If this were a just world, people like you and me, ogged, would be able to stay up 'til 2 and then sleep 'til noon and go to work at, say, 3.
She says, still in pajamas at 2:30 pm. Yeah, I'm going into the office today. Later. Don't hassle me.
Btw, did you see this?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:28 PM
I'm with Adam, too little sleep (under 7 hrs) and it's like I'm tipsy all the next day. But I don't think 8 hrs is the magic number, I believe it's more of the mode. I've known people who sleep 4 hrs a night and function just fine.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 12:49 PM
You can have your sleep cycle measured at, uh, medical-type places. You want to sleep a length of time that's evenly divisible by the duration of your cycle.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 1:19 PM
sleep clinics, ben?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 1:23 PM
Ok, it's on.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 2:15 PM
bitchphd,
Well, cha! Like I said, sleeping helps you lose weight.
Pump the weights, sleep and shed the weight.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 2:35 PM
Did you just end a sentence with a preoposition?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 5:00 PM
No, with an adverb. See this languagelog post for support not only for that position, but reinforcement for the eminently commonsensical position that ending a sentence with a preposition is not an error in English.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 5:27 PM
Er, that would be this post. Omitted the quotation marks, it seems. But, this gives me an opportunity to ask the question to ask which I forgot above: is your brane on?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 5:29 PM
Of course, in another sense, I ended the sentence with a period, the way one usually ends sentences that aren't exclamations or questions.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 5:30 PM
Since Ben Wolfson beat me to the preposition thing, I would like to pedantically point out that the "on" in "it's on" is in fact being used adjectivally.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 5:40 PM
the eminently commonsensical position that ending a sentence with a preposition is not an error in English.
In technical, prescriptivist terms, it isn't an error, and especially not in informal spoken English. However, if you're ending a written sentence with a preposition, you're almost always ending it with a weak word choice. It's on a par with writing in passive voice. Might not be wrong per se, but it's a warning sign when you're editing that you need to tighten your language.
The languagelog post uses the following as supporting examples:
"This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put."
"The restaurant got a complaint from the people that the woman was staring in at."
"How many interruptions am I supposed to put up with?"
Each one has several simple solutions that don't involve twisting prepositions in sequential knots.
"This is the sort of bloody nonsense I will not tolerate." Or better yet, "I will not tolerate this sort of bloody nonsense."
"The people being stared at complained to the restaurant."
"How many interruptions am I supposed to endure?"
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 5:54 PM
"This woman around with whom I fooled..."
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 6:00 PM
"The people being stared at complained to the restaurant."
Passive voice alert! Also, it contains the same non-error (I don't know why people say that ending a sentence with a preposition is an error, and not any clause: "the people complained because they were being stared at" and "because they were being stared at, the people complained" should both be wrong if either is.)
It's just the way it works in many cases in English—can you never use idiomatic phrases like "put up with" or "stand for"? Is "I won't stand for this bloody nonsense" a weaker sentence than "I won't tolerate this bloody nonsense"? Or is it just a sentence-ending thing—you want to end on a high note?
Also, the first sentence you cite is described in the LL post as being bad English: "you certainly can't front one of these prepositions that traditional grammar would call an adverb, in addition to fronting a preposition that has an object".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 6:12 PM
Like I said on A-po's blog, there is nothing wrong with ending a sentence with a preposition, except that it disturbs the inmates.
Although I have to agree that disturbing any of one's readers is distracting, and therefore bad writing style. I firmly believe, however, that this distraction is in the mind of the misinformed reader, so I intend to publicly flog this horse, at the expense of threadjacking, whenever it rears its ugly head. Everyone needs a mission in their life.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 6:13 PM
If we're being pedantic, I want to know why Michael can be with Adam but
my being on Larry's team gets me snark from ogged.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 6:16 PM
Adam and I are monogamous.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 6:48 PM
What's all this with grammar "fronting"? I had no idea grammar was keepin it so real.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 6:52 PM
Dangling prepositions, double negatives, and the passive voice ain't never been put up with by those who no they're grammar.
Posted by aj | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 7:09 PM
Everyone needs a mission in their life.
And you've taken to yours admirably, Big Ben. I hold to my belief, though, that while it's not a back-up-five-yards-and-replay-the-down error, a piece is improved when terminal prepositions are judiciously replaced.
Oh, and anonymous, you betta recognize before grammar pops a cap in yo' ass.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 7:35 PM
Damn. I was hoping someone would take the bait and attack my singular "their" so I could get in another round of linguistic flagellation.
Posted by Big Ben | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 7:54 PM
Ben W: On it is! I know, we'll mail each other our theses and have a rip-roaring good time grammar-checking them!
What is it with philosophy students? At my last bonfire-party, my latin was insulted. And people laughed. Are other students such big losers?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 01-11-05 11:29 PM
It's about midnight and I know I'm waking up at 5am to go to school tomorrow and I still I'm going to end up reading blogs for another hour or two. But I've always believed sleep is for the weekend. Though I'd say that college seems to do this to most people I know.
Posted by platypus | Link to this comment | 01-12-05 12:44 AM
I actually know someone who mailed a friend of ours some feces, and, sadly, that unpleasant incident came to mind when I read Michael's post. You guys sure know how to party.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 01-12-05 9:15 AM