[cbozeman]

This is just patently untrue.

Matthew Walker has been on a half dozen podcasts addressing this and almost all the data available in sleep research seems to suggest a lot of the same shit.

Get 8 hours of sleep. No you can't function on 6. You just think you can.

Have a sleep study done to see if you have sleep apnea, need a CPAP / BPAP.

Don't drink alcohol and caffeine before bedtime.

Don't look at screens about 2-3 hours before bedtime.

This applies to over 99% of all the individuals they tested.

[anotherman554]

There is no expert consensus saying people should get 8 hours of sleep. And also no evidence that humans naturally get 8 hours of sleep.

[ufmace]

Yeah no I don't buy that at all. This is so completely at odds with my experience and that of every single person I have ever met that I won't accept that this one dude supposedly knows better.

[cbozeman]

Yes, the world's leading sleep researcher is wrong.

Only on Hacker News... maybe Reddit, could you find this level of confusion.

[ufmace]

I'd counter that only on Hacker News would you find somebody who insists that a single person must be right about everything about a complex subject because he has some fancy titles. In other words, appeal to authority.

Yeah no. All of the no. Reality is king. If somebody with some fancy titles and a few podcasts tells you that they sky is green when anybody can walk out the door and see it, are you going to believe him? Authority figures and those with supposedly prestigious titles are sometimes completely wrong, and nobody should be believed blindly.

But those figures are usually at least trying. I think rather less of the person whose knowledge consists of listening to a half dozen podcasts from one guy and believes that qualifies him to go around the internet lecturing people about how ignorant they supposedly are because they don't bow down to the one self-proclaimed expert that they somehow stumbled upon.

[staticman2]

The National Institute of Health Recommendations are at odds with what you posted here. It's almost like listening to 6 podcasts from one guy doesn't give you an informed perspective on a topic.

[selimthegrim]

Walker has been criticized about his graphs in that book before…which you should know if you read Hacker News