Oct

19

I recently read this interesting National Geographic article called "The Secrets of Sleep" : 

If we don't know why we can't sleep, it's in part because we don't really know why we need to sleep in the first place. We know we miss it if we don't have it. And we know that no matter how much we try to resist it, sleep conquers us in the end. We know that seven to nine hours after giving in to sleep, most of us are ready to get up again, and 15 to 17 hours after that we are tired once more. We have known for 50 years that we divide our slumber between periods of deep-wave sleep and what is called rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, when the brain is as active as when we're awake, but our voluntary muscles are paralyzed. We know that all mammals and birds sleep. A dolphin sleeps with half its brain awake so it can remain aware of its underwater environment. When mallard ducks sleep in a line, the two outermost birds are able to keep half of their brains alert and one eye open to guard against predators. Fish, reptiles, and insects all experience some kind of repose too.

All this downtime comes at a price. An animal must lie still for a great stretch of time, during which it is easy prey for predators. What can possibly be the payback for such risk? "If sleep doesn't serve an absolutely vital function," the renowned sleep researcher Allan Rechtschaffen once said, "it is the greatest mistake evolution ever made."

Richard Owen comments:

A favorite pastime of mine is spotting that well held societal nostrums are in fact most often false. For example, Europeans holiday excessively relative to Americans, Mexicans are lazy, that the USA is the land of Horatio Alger and opportunity, etc. I once collected a lot of these for a slide called "Is Everything You Know False?"

Unsurprisingly, the floated nostrum typically serves some form of vested interest.

Sleep and leisure time probably also fall into this category. Sleep has become a deprecated activity. Many myths surround great men and their willingness to sleep only four hours a night. In many cases it is a myth. In others, like Thatcher, it's probably true. But Thatcher also allegedly was borderline nuts by the end of her premiership.

The greatest real time experiment in this regard was the three day week introduced during the miners strike in Britain under Edward Heath. Despite 2/5ths of the working week being cancelled, GDP dropped hardly at all.

Contrast this to an industry such as M&A advisory where 100 hours weeks are mythically common (and myth then dictates reality). Most of the work completed in this regard is surplus to actual transaction requirements and of zero utility. Back when the City was staffed by Etonians, they could take a 100bps spread and simply answer that they had got their client $10/sh more than expected, so surely the fee was just. Now, instead, a senior banker must recruit a handful of young slaves to work to the bone and spread rhetoric of 100 hour weeks as a form of justification for the perceived premium.

Contrarily, those whose achievements are without question are often willing to be totally open. In this regard, Churchill slept twice a day and felt it essential to his productive output. Einstein, when pushing against difficult problems, notched up a few extra hours of z's.


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