This thought is based on the idea of
more effective / productive time utilization, the way we use it in the context of work.
HYPOTHESIS
7 hours of
optimized sleep per day has the same
amount of desirable effect as 8 hours of
usual sleep (which can be reasonably assumed to be
unoptimized in most cases), without involving any compromise with one's physical or mental health. The basis of this (unproven) hypothesis is real-life observation on myself, among some other observations.
DEFINITIONS
- Amount of desirable effect: Sleep has some purposes (related to both the physical and the mental health), and these purposes are the desirable effects of the activity of sleeping on our body and mind. These effects can vary in extent depending upon sleeping conditions and its duration
- Optimized sleep: When sleep takes place in such conditions as to maximize the desirable effects obtained per hour, the sleep is called optimized sleep. Posture, noise, lighting, time, type of bed, and many other factors affect the quality of our sleep
- Usual sleep: The way most of us sleep each day. The conditions we sleep in are not the best possible, and hence almost all of our sleeps are not optimized. The desirable effects we obtain per hour are lower than the maximum possible amount achieved during an optimized sleep
CALCULATIONS
If a 22 year old person has been having 7 hours of
optimized sleep each day for the last 10 years of his life, then he has been awake for about 3,651 hours more than a similar-aged friend who has been having 8 hours of usual sleep, without making any compromise with his physical and mental health (this follows from my hypothesis).
Assuming that the average number of
productive hours (the hours which are utilized each day for work - these hours do not include eating, entertainment, bathing, etc.) per day for any person who takes 8 hours of usual sleep per day is 10, a 23 year old person X has had 40,170 productive hours in the last 11 years of his life (3,650 hours per year; 2 days have been added to account for the minimum number of leap years that
must be traversed during 11 consecutive years).
Using the same methodology, a 22 year old person Y - who takes 7 hours of
optimized sleep per day and hence has one extra productive hour per day - has had 40,172 productive hours in the last 10 years of his life (4,015 hours per year) - a total of 2 hours more than person X. This difference will increase as person X and Y age.
CONCLUSIONS
Assuming that most of the
learning / living occurs during the productive hours (the definition of productive hours can be broadened to include
entertainment, since a lot of social learning takes place during entertainment activities), the 22 year old person Y has effectively lived slightly more than the 23 year old person X - without making any compromise, and without accumulating any
sleep debt.
If this hypothesis is proved to be true, it will make education about
effective sleep all the more important for inclusion in the syllabus of school children. Also,
optimized sleep will become another productivity-enhancing weapon in the arsenal of organizational CxOs (CEOs, COOs, CTOs, CFOs, CIOs, CMOs, etc.), and other high-ranking individuals.
Finally, it must be remembered that
optimized sleep is just one out of many possible methods by which a 22 year old can have practically lived for more duration than a 23 year old. Also, this idea assumes that the situations faced by person X and person Y (while they're in their
productive hours) are the same. In real life, it's more likely that these 2 individuals shall face very different situations, resulting in learnings that vary not only in extent, but also in type.
Update: Forgot to mention that person Y also has a full extra calendar year ahead of him, compared to person X, since he's only 22 yet (that's 4015 more productive hours by the time he turns 23!).
My Thoughts About Human Memory
