TAG of the Week: "Why People Can Run on Little Sleep"
"My long-term goal is to someday learn enough so we can manipulate the sleep pathways without damaging our health," says human geneticist Ying-Hui Fu at the University of California-San Francisco. "Everybody can use more waking hours, even if you just watch movies."
Do you think that by taking a gene variant and exploiting it to manipulate our body so we can accomplish more things in the day is a good idea or a harmful one? Do you think that with more waking hours people would be more productive or wasting more time? How important do you think it is to have sleep and to allow your body to rest? And how important is it to be able to accomplish more things in the day? Aside from workaholics and college students, do you think that this research could potentially benefit certain other people?
Do you think that by taking a gene variant and exploiting it to manipulate our body so we can accomplish more things in the day is a good idea or a harmful one? Do you think that with more waking hours people would be more productive or wasting more time? How important do you think it is to have sleep and to allow your body to rest? And how important is it to be able to accomplish more things in the day? Aside from workaholics and college students, do you think that this research could potentially benefit certain other people?
Read News Clip:
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112502/why-people-can-run-on-little-sleep-wsj
I believe that it would be extremely difficult to manipulate the sleep pathways without damaging health. Sleep is essential to all animal species. Without sleep, our bodies would have difficulties healing, restoring cells, and remembering. Thus, although it may be ideal to increase our ability to not sleep and therefore produce more work, our overall quantity of work may be decreasing.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, I think that by allowing more waking hours, people will not necessary be more productive. Instead, the quality of the human performance may decrease as we increase the quantity of hours awake. Although it is important to be as productive in a day, it is also important to analyze the costs and benefits associated with production. If the costs of not sleeping begin to outweigh the benefits of working (i.e. not producing enough work or not producing a high quality of work), then it is more important to sleep. Thus, I do not think that this research could potentially benefit people in the long run or as a whole, as it will eventually cause a decline in human health and work production.
As Miranda mentioned before, sleep is essential for all species including humankind. We need sleep to fulfill many bodily functions and without it we would be damaging our health. Sleep helps with the learning process, memory retention, metabolism, weight management, combat diseases and it also helps your cardiovascular system. Also, who wants to be in a bad mood! I think that by taking a gene variant and manipulating our body, we would be harming ourselves. If we continuously mistreat our body (lack of sleep, bad eating habits, etc) we are going to suffer later in life.
ReplyDeleteFor most of the people I have met including myself, I think that staying awake for more hours would be extremely wasteful. I mean during college we are constantly sleep deprived and what are the outcomes: falling asleep in class, lack of concentration, and even low performance in school.
I think sleep is and should be one of the most important daily ‘chores’—people should try to make it a priority, but unfortunately we all have various factors that pressure us to be consistently active. Instead maybe people should be better at time management and set priorities.
The research could certainly help some people, but one this gene variant is in the market we have the risk of people overusing it and ethical issues could arise. What if it alters your genetic make-up? Or creates other diseases? From meeting people who currently have sleep disorders i.e. insomnia among others, I truly believe it would bring more harm than good.
As mentioned above, I do not think that taking a gene variant and exploiting it is a good idea for most people. As the article states, these so called “short sleepers,” are born this way and have had the sleeping cycle all their lives. I believe that if a person who needs their sleep tries to implement the idea of being a short sleeper they will just ended up tired and being less productive. The article also noted that the people who are short sleepers tend to be optimistic, outgoing, and ambitious in their everyday lives, often multi-tasking. I do not think that a person who is a normal sleeper would exude this type of behavior on only a few hours of sleep, even if they were given the variant. There seems to be a genetic component which is necessary to follow the short sleeper sleeping pattern. Therefore, I do not think that people would be more productive with their time. Although it depends on the environmental factors, most people tend to procrastinate their duties and I believe that if people had more time they would simply push them back even further because people would feel like they have more time to accomplish those duties. It is also very important for your body to rest during sleep as your brain needs to rest and create long term memories from short term memories. Without rest, the body will slowly wear down. However, I do think it is pretty important to be able to accomplish more things during the day as this leaves less tasks to be done the next day.
ReplyDeleteAs others have mentioned, I strongly do not believe that manipulating a gene and exploiting it is in any way shape or form a good idea for people. People are genetically predisposed and have their own personal genetic makeup for a reason. As stated in the article, "short sleepers" were born this way. Therefore they are predisposed to be this way. They have had this type of sleep cycle their entire lives and by this time are used to it. Those of us who are not short sleepers are used to our own routine. Even though it may be more beneficial to be gentically predisposed to be a certain way people have developed methods to develop with their genetic shortcomings. I don't believe in exploiting our genes. We have been able to survive this long without exploiting them I don't see the need to start doing so. People have become accustomed to their lifestyles and doing this type of gene variant may end up doing more harm than good. We are not supposed to change our genetic makeup to simply have more waking hours to get things done. With this type of situation I believe that society has its values in the wrong place. I know that as a college student sometimes we wish we did have more waking hours to get things done but we need to work on other factors such as time management and porductivity before we start manipulating our genes. This type of solution would probably prove to be very wasteful with us using these hours to do more time wasting things. If we have more time to do something we would spend less time focusing and more time procrastinating becasue in the beack of our minds we know that we have endless time to do it simply wasting even more of our time.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I strongly agree with the comments above and do not believe that gene manipulation and exploitation is a good idea, I think that there would be many people who would be in support genetically manipulating sleep pathways. Doctors, pilots and those serving in the military would be just a few of examples of people who would potentially benefit from having more waking hours in the day. Although being awake does not guarantee productivity, many professions are forced to work long hours anyways so providing a way to stay completely awake and alert could be viewed as a hugely beneficial.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Leeann that being awake does not guarantee productivity. Also consistent with what most people are saying, it seems wrong to mess with our biological clocks. There are some professions where it would be beneficial (sometimes), but I think overall, the general population would not benefit from more waking hours. At least not as much as we benefit from sleep. I agree with Michelle that time management and productivity with the time that we have is more important than being awake longer and that we need. If everyone became "short sleepers," expectations of everyone would probably increase and many people may not be able to rise to the occasion even with more waking hours. There are reasons for sleeping that people are probably overlooking. I think we have plenty of time to do what we want, we just waste a lot of it. There's no reason to mess with our genes to have more time to waste. -Becca Adlman
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to gene manipulation, the possibilities are endless, but I think we need to err on the side of caution when we start discussing increasing productivity at the expense of our body’s natural instinct to “recharge.” These short sleepers are rare, which means the majority of the population would undergo genetic changes to acquire their ability. In addition to the biological consequences, we start working backwards into homogenizing the gene pool instead of appreciating the diversity we’ve worked so hard as a humanity to respect and appreciate. I feel like we would be acting like overpowered robots or rising-from-the-dead zombies, or a horribly confused spawn of the two. Genetics afford us wonderful opportunities that help us live a more fulfilling, organized life – like being better prepared for a child with a genetic disorder, or taking steps toward prevention before genes are even expressed – but, really, how much is too much? What happened to motivation? If people cannot will themselves out of bed early in the morning or to push for an extra hour of undistracted work in the evening, then that is their prerogative (or lack of). I think we would take away from the life challenge of “discipline” by manipulating our genes – we would be discrediting the true soldiers who have some sort of a passion and drive to work harder and longer and with less distraction. I think the intention is well-meaning, but there are ultimately more important things – understanding the genetic basis of cancers, autism, etc. – than turning ourselves into wide-eyed machines. That is not to say that I cannot sympathize with wanting to be able to accomplish more throughout the day. It is easy to have the best intentions and say that I would be more productive, but I know some nights I find myself faced with the ugly reality of having just cruised Facebook for two hours and wishing I could have those two hours back – and I’m sure the majority of the class can relate! Simply being awake will not guarantee productivity. We could make the argument that staying up longer may lead to faster answers in research, but I strongly feel we need to continue to hold people accountable for their behavior choices.
ReplyDeleteAs stated by the article, there are varied types of “sleepers” amongst us. There are “normal sleepers”, “wannabe short sleepers”, and “short sleepers”. “Short sleepers” are individuals that comprise 1-3% of the population who have the ability to function well on less than 6 hours of sleep a day. Honestly, I do not think by adding additional hours to the day would be beneficial to all. Possibly for those who are already productive, or those like “short sleepers” with the ability to multitask and maintain very efficient lifestyles will additional hours be beneficial, but for the average individual I don’t this this will change productivity. I believe the average individual will continue a lifestyle similar to the one they live during a 24-hour day due to conditioned lifestyles.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think productivity during the day is very important. Future research regarding this gene variant has the potential to benefit other individuals who may not have the drive to be productive during the day. This gene may provide a motivational advantage to what they were feeling before and allow them to increase efficiency. However for the average individual, I do not believe this research will very advantageous. Sleep is a time for the body to rest, repair, and grow, without this time the body is easily worn down and susceptible to infection. In addition, sleep is a wonderful escape from the busy, chaotic, everyday demands of life, and compliments the body’s mental health as well.
I think it’s very important to sleep and allow the body to rest. As mentioned above, adequate sleep is crucial for rest and recovery, and overall good health. Restoration of body systems, especially the immune system, occurs during sleep, as do the growth and repair of tissues and cells. On the other hand, sleep deprivation can cause impairments in health that can lead to serious disorders. Sleep disorders are divided into dyssomnias-- associated with the quantity, quality, and timing of sleep, and parasomnias-- associated with behavior or physiological functioning during sleep. Dyssomnias consist of insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, restless legs syndrome, hypersomnia, and circadian rhythm sleep disorder. Parasomnias involve sleepwalking, nocturnal eating disorder, nightmares, and REM behavior disorder among others. Therefore, I believe that it would be more beneficial to take the gene variants that are responsible or associated with some of these conditions and exploit them so as to alleviate these diseases (e.g. via gene suppression or insertion), rather than taking the gene variant and manipulating it in order for our bodies to achieve mere periods of wakefulness. It seems more important to me to provide remedies for actual sleeping disorders that are debilitating instead of merely enhancing our wakefulness.
ReplyDeleteI also think that it would be extremely difficult to "manipulate the sleep pathways without damaging our health," but I do agree that "everybody can use more waking hours" at times. The whole concept of taking a gene variant and exploiting it to manipulate our body for less sleep just seems very risky, but also intriguing at the same time. Sleep is essential for our health and well-being, as the other students have stated above, although there are those people who may be "short sleepers," as the article mentions. I found it very interesting in the study that the few true short-sleepers were actually more productive with less sleep and had different circadian rhythms, moods, metabolisms, and higher tolerance for pain and psychological setbacks. But considering that there are so few who have been studied, it is hard to make any generalizations about whether less sleep really will help people to accomplish more things in a day. I cannot imagine there being a method to enable people to function on no sleep without there being any side effects, but I do think that, if made possible, it could be helpful to those people who wish they could have more energy in a day. Some people just sleep too much and are lazy. Everyone is different, so there is no way to predict if people would be more productive or waste more time with more time in the day. It is definitely more crucial to allow the body to have more rest than to be able to accomplish more tasks. But if there were a way to use genes to allow less sleep without any risks whatsoever, then I do think it's possible for some people, like the short sleepers, to be more productive.
ReplyDeleteI think that using a gene variant to manipulate sleep pathways would be a possible risk to one's health. Sleep is imperative for an optimal level of human functioning. Adequate sleep time is known to strengthen the immune system, reduce stress, control body weight, and boost memory. Although some people would potentially benefit from the possibility of having more waking hours, I think that it would alter society in a negative way. "Bed times" would no longer be a necessity, people would be constantly awake doing all sorts of things, whether they are productive or not. I think that there would be a major disruption to society. People need to rest not only for their physical health, but also for their mental health. I think it is important to not only look at the immediate effects of manipulating the sleep pathways, but also the long term health risks. I agree with T. Contreras point that rather than manipulating sleep pathways to allow for more waking hours, it would be more advantageous to take the gene variants associated with sleep disorders and use them to develop a cure to rid people of sleep apnea and insomnia.
ReplyDeleteI like everyone's arguments on this topic in particular because I think this is an issue everyone stuggles with. We KNOW we should get 8 hours of sleep but realistically it is hard to get enough sleep because there is simply too much to do.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if we open the gateway to messing with our circadian cycle it may be more dentremental than good. People need sleep as much as we deny we get live without it. I am particular on the fence on this topic because I am a college student and I love to spend every waking moment being productive, but I can't because my mind shuts off after it can't take it more of being awake.
Although it is cumbersome, for the sake of my health, I accept reality. WebMD notes that sleep depreivation can cause: "Decreased Performance and Alertness, Memory and Cognitive Impairment, Stress Relationships, Poor Quality of Life, Occupational Injury, Automobile Injury not to mention increased rates of heart failure and obesity." In other words, without sleep we can literally mentally crash because we are giving our brain a break.
We have to accept we are not invincible as humans and by doing genetic research in sleep manipulation we are not sending the right message to an already demanding society. Instead by doing so we are fueling the flames in making an already stressed out world feel inadequate unless they can keep up 24/7.
I think sleep is very important. Considering that a severe lack of sleep can cause death makes it an essential component of our day-to-day health. I also believe it is likely that there is a genetic component to sleep, due to the fact that genetic sleep disorders exist. Fatal familial insomnia is fitting evidence that genetics can affect sleep patterns; however, I believe sleep can be largely influenced by behavior. For example, people working "graveyard shift" jobs or people subjected to heavy work loads can train themselves to sleep irregular hours or to function on a limited amount of sleep.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I believe much can be accomplished with more hours awake throughout the day, even if it is simply providing yourself with leisure time. I prefer to watch a movie before bed, rather than sleeping a few extra hours. This kind of behavior allows me to feel as though I am finally relaxing after a long day. Still, I know other people who feel more relaxed when they have slept for ten hours a night. Just as sleep hours differ between people, so do their opinions on the amount of sleep they want or need. I do believe sleep is important, but for some there is potential to do more for themselves with less sleep.
Like most have said, I am not completely convinced that manipulating our sleep so we can extend our time away during the day is a good idea. Sleep is biologically essential to our health, and science has recommended between 7 and 8 hours of sleep a night. Even with these recommendations, some individuals can function on less or more hours of sleep. However, I don’t believe that having more waking hours would always necessarily result in increased productivity. Whether or not individuals would use additional wake hours to be productive solely depends on the individual. Sleep is essential for recovery after each day, and when people don’t allow their body enough time to rest, their body can begin to shut down and in extreme cases, exhaustion may result in hospitalization. Even though pressures to meet work deadlines and perform academically may seem important, the physical damage decreased sleep may have on an individual may result in accomplishing more things, but the quality of work will most likely decrease. I don’t believe decreased sleep would be more beneficial for workaholics and college students, I think that it would only enable their potentially dangerous behavior and habits. The possibilities of gene manipulation are endless, yet I don’t believe they are all positive or could be the most beneficial for individuals.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAs earlier posts have mentioned, having extra hours in the day does not promise productivity. If we are talking about creating more hours in the day to spend potentially wasting time, then what is the value? I think it would be more valuable to study what it is in these people that give them "manic" qualities without the depressive symptoms. To be generally productive during the day, and to be able to function without caffeine or naps would be an amazing feat. It seems from my observations that most people spend a lot of their day wasting time. From being drowsy in class to taking coffee breaks at work to surfing the internet instead of spending hours being productive, people are constantly spending their time awake on unproductive tasks. If we could be more productive in the hours we are awake, I think that would be even more powerful than being awake for longer hours.
ReplyDeleteBut, when it comes to gene manipulation to create a sort of super-human you begin down a slippery-slope. What will be the next step in gene-manipulation? If we start manipulating sleep patterns would it be possible to manipulate brain productivity, the type of brain power used, the amount of muscle strength used? When these types of options become available there will certainly be larger disparities in humans. Could everyone afford whatever cost it be be to become a short sleeper? As the current movie "Limitless" shows, when one person has access to more brain power they have a large advantage over all of their competition. If everyone cannot afford to have access to become a short sleeper, then only the rich could become short sleepers. This would create an even larger gap between the rich and the poor.
I believe that being able to manipulate genes to be allow individuals to require fewer hours of sleep would be beneficial. I have had the fortune (or misfortune since by comparison to such individuals I feel inadequate) off meeting two individuals who, in my non-professional opinion, would be classified as short sleepers. One was a roommate of mine who would be up until 3am studying/ doing school work and wake up at 7 to go to the gym (all the while I was still asleep). The other is a friend who does everything; she has a job, interns at a hospital, usually takes 20 credits of classes, is a premed student with a specialized psychology minor, all while maintaining as close to a 4.0 GPA as anyone I know. She is always very positive and willing to help others understand class work they don't understand (because she always understands it and if she doesn't has no problem teaching it to herself from the book). I have never been able to comprehend how these individuals are capable of completing so many tasks in a single day. I have envied them and wished that I was able to sleep as little and be as motivated as these individuals. If a gene variant could be used to make me more like these individuals I would be first in line to receive it.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that having more waking hours would be beneficial. Although, through my own experience and the information from the article, these individuals not only sleep less but also have an extreme drive to complete tasks. I think if all the genes were included so that all of those aspects were transfer to the recipient that such a treatment would be quite beneficial. This is because everyone would be motivated to succeed in our society in one way or another.
I think the large majority of us are built in a way that requires us to sleep but the individuals with these genetic variants are different. Their bodies do not seem to show the negative impacts associated with sleep deprivation. If genomicists were able to replicate this ability of the body to function properly without 7 hours of sleep then I do not think it would be important for individuals to get as much rest.
I believe if our entire society was like these select individuals, in all aspects like motivation not just a lessened need for sleep, that our world would be able to advance greatly. This is because each individual would be able to strive for greatness in some field, whether art or science or what have you, to advance our world.
I believe all individuals would benefit from this and that society as a whole would benefit. Each individual has different interests and talents. So by having a world of "short sleepers" we would be able to advance in all areas of human existence.
Although I have a somewhat mixed opinion about the pros and cons of manipulating genes to allow people to be short sleepers, I lean more toward the opinion that this gene in particular shouldn't be altered using technology. For those whose bodies allow for little sleep without negative effects on their daily activities, their predisposition to that sleep pattern could almost be viewed as a mutation or polymorphism they acquired. Those sleep habits are specifically beneficial to them, but not others. I think that just by manipulating a gene, people wouldn't necessarily see improvements in their health and daily lives. So many other factors play into sleep patterns besides genes. What is inherently healthy for one person could be completely detrimental to another, and this can't be fixed just be treating genes. Perhaps some people need sleep not for physical health, but for the component of relaxation and mental rest that comes with it. A society of people that can run on little sleep would not guarantee advancements; rather, it could result in a population of stressed out workaholics.
ReplyDeleteI think that taking a gene variant and exploiting it to manipulate our body so we can accomplish more things in the day obviously has its benefits. People are always striving to be more productive. Drinking coffee before class or skipping a lunch break to do some extra work are both common examples of this. For me personally I think that its not that the idea is bad, because trying to be more productive is not a new idea and certainly not a bad one, however I feel that it would be extremely harmful. I would be really interested to see if there are some side effects in the long run even to the short sleepers described in this article. I find it hard to believe that their bodies are able to properly recover, and with that said I cannot imagine there is anything that would ever make a non-short sleeper able to recover without their usually 7-9 hours of sleep.
ReplyDeleteMany people believe that more working hours will lead to higher productivity. I believe more working hours in the day would most likely just result in more time for leisure activities. I think that most people already work as much as they can handle and don’t have enough time to do things that they really enjoy. Giving people more time to enjoy their life, possibly spend more time with family or exercise could have really good psychological and physical implications. So like pretty much everything in Genomics I can see the positive side of wanting to take a gene variant and exploit it to manipulate our body so we can accomplish more things in the day but there is still a ton of research to be done and questions to be answered.
I agree with the previous posts: sleep is crucial. I think that genetically manipulating one’s body to simply accomplish “more things in the day” is an incredible risk to the health and mental status of an individual and one that should not be taken. It has been proven that eight hours is a necessary amount of time to sleep on a nightly basis as Christina Z. stated in her post. With this constant lack in our sleep pattern, people will eventually become less productive in their waking hours and the genetic manipulation will be completely counter-productive. I am guilty of staying up late and not getting the full, recommended and necessary, night’s sleep as I am sure too many others are, but that does not mean that I think we should genetically alter out body. On those nights, I realize that I poorly managed my time and I feel that the solution to getting more things accomplished in a day is better time management. It is an individual trait to actively and successfully time manage and I feel that it is more imperative and beneficial to the population for funding to go towards education in this regard instead towards genetically manipulating one’s body.
ReplyDeleteI think taking a gene variant and exploiting it to manipulate our body to accomplish more things in the day is a harmful idea. Personally, the busier I am the more productive I am because I have less time to waste. I think that when a majority of people have too much time on their hands they lose their time management skills and waste days away doing meaningless tasks. I think that sleep is very important to the body and gives us a chance to become stronger, fight infection, and give our brain a rest from daily thinking. The only reason I would think otherwise that sleep is not important is because the short sleepers in this study did not suffer any physical or psychological impairments from staying awake longer periods. I think that as it is our lifespan has increased dramatically even within the past 2 centuries so we have already gained a lot of extra time. In our competitive society everyone is always asking what more can I do what more can I receive? But I think it is important to understand that our lives have a limit for a reason and with a decreased supply of time there is an increased demand for appreciation. I think that this research could potentially benefit some people though like those with narcolepsy or most importantly parents with young children. Also it could benefit people that have to work multiple jobs in order to pay the bills. I think that the possibilities of scientific discoveries are limitless but should not be pushed to such extreme limits. Time is valued because there is a scarce amount and without scarcity people will work too hard and lose the luxury of relaxation and resting.
ReplyDeleteI think that the use of a gene variant to exploit and manipulate the natural patterns of the body would do more harm than good. The body needs sleep to function properly, as was stated by many of the scientist in "The Sleepless Elite". Personally, I love thinking that I am a night owl and can run on very little sleep. However, this article encouraged me to look deeper into my sleep patterns. I typically spend an average of 4-5 hours asleep at night without any naps during the day. But on days when I have no morning activities planned, I can still spend a good 8 or 9 hours in bed. So my self-diagnosis of being a short sleeper basically gets thrown out since Dr. Buysse says short sleepers require very little sleep always.
ReplyDeleteI think if something could be figured out and could be used in an relatively safe manner then more people would definitely be interested in manipulating their sleep patterns to get more done in the day. I do not think this applies exclusively to college students and workaholics either. I find people who live fairly normal lives and work the typical 40 hour work week who say there just isn't enough time in the day to do everything they need to do. It's also fascinating because when traveling to other countries you find that different cultures reward themselves with relaxation, time off, and sleep. It's so typical of the American culture to find ways around manipulating sleep patterns to keeping going and going and going. Additionally, sleep is a natural function of life, if it wasn't needed to survive natural selection would have eliminated it from our genome already, or so I would think. Nonetheless, I agree with M.Bratton that "the possibilities of scientific discoveries are limitless" and on the off chance that scientists and researchers do find ways around sleeping I'm sure they would find support and continual usage of their product by not only workaholics and college students, but also by the many people in society who feel they need more time in their day.
I think that using a gene variant and exploiting it to manipulate our body so we can accomplish more things in the day is more harmful than beneficial. Our bodies have natural sleep cycles so our brains can replenish themselves and so our bodies can take a rest. There have been many studies showing that overworking and not enough sleep is associated with stress, and it leads to many premature health conditions. Although it might seem like someone would be more productive, I think that people wouldn't be as efficient in the day without a full night's rest, regardless of how tired you may be. If it's true that short sleeping patterns runs in families like the article said, then I think its especially a bad idea to do this for future generations. What if this could effect the sleeping patterns in newborns? Could it harm their development throughout childhood? Aside from workaholics and college students, I think could benefit people who have sleep disorders in which they sleep to much or are always tired. If this gene experiment was used on workaholics and college students, it seems like they'd be using it for the wrong reasons. The main reason why college students are always tired is because they don't get enough sleep, however other factors are related besides a heavy workload. For example, for the most part college students procrastinate and have awful time management skills.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is tempting to pursue genetic research that would make us (college students) not need sleep, I think it could be the beginning of a slippery slope towards genetic engineering in order to form a "perfect" person. There's nothing wrong with using medical and genetic knowledge in order to improve health, but humans have had circadian rhythms for hundreds of thousands of years, and they have obviously been working. If genetic alterations are made to make a person not need sleep, where does it end? In addition to creating serious ethical complications, this kind of research could potentially decrease diversity from person to person. Additionally, I know from personal experience that having more awake time does not necessarily mean that I will be more productive with that extra time. Genetic alterations to make people stay awake for longer and consequently have more time in the day may not be beneficial for everyone.
ReplyDeleteI believe that sleep is one of the most important processes our body goes through on a daily basis. Without it, we could not heal and restore our cells, and our memory would be negatively affected. I think manipulating the sleep pathways would be very detrimental to people. I do not think that it would increase productive in society as a whole. Sure, some very motivated and driven people may use the extra hours of wake time to be more productive, but I think most people would find ways to waste the time. Yes there are plenty of days that I wish there was more time in the day, but I think if I didn’t waste time I would have all the time that I needed. I don’t think the want to accomplish more things during the day justifies manipulating such an important bodily process. The only people that I could see this research potentially benefiting are doctors who must work long shifts and do long surgeries.
ReplyDeleteI think that being able to take a gene variant and exploiting it to manipulate our body to sleep less and be more productive in a day would be incredible. I just think about those days when you don’t have enough time to accomplish everything you wanted, but by being able to stay awake longer because of a gene variant, then you could. However, there are definitely pros and cons to this. The pro of having more time in your day would be amazing. But would this lead to longer workdays since everyone would have the time and energy to do more in a day. On the other hand, a con would be that our bodies need this sleep to regenerate, repair, and what not. Our bodies would now have a limited amount of time to do this and would less sleep lead to more illnesses? I think it is very important to allow our bodies to rest and recuperate for the next day.
ReplyDeleteOur bodies were programmed to sleep at least 8 hours a night. And just because some individuals can run on only 4 hours a sleep a night does not mean that everyone needs to do the some or that we need to find a gene variant to do this. I believe the more we try to change what is natural, it is just going to lead to more problems, illnesses, and diseases in the long run.
I think, in contrast to what most people have said so far, that the ability to alter genes to create more short sleepers would be an excellent breakthrough. As many comments so far have pointed out, this type of gene alteration could prove to be very difficult as it is most likely a trait caused by many different genes. However, if this were possible, the potential benefits of literally having more hours in the day are endless.
ReplyDeleteFrom reading several comments it seems people are focused on the fact that our bodies “need” or are “programmed” to sleep 8-9 hours a night. The whole point of this article is to emphasize the fact that this small percent of the population classified as “short sleepers” do NOT need this amount of sleep. They are highly functioning and in great health even on only a few hours sleep per night. If we could learn to accurately manipulate the contributing genes we could potentially all utilize 18+ hours a day as opposed to only 15 or 16. In addition, we could do this while still remaining physically healthy and while feeling awake and alert!
Another thing people seem to be pointing out is that having more hours in a day does not necessarily mean being more productive. I do not think this is particularly important. As a person who often only sleeps 5-6 hours on average per night and frequently feels exhausted, I would love to be able to function as short sleepers do. I usually need to forgo luxuries like socializing, movie nights, or even going to the gym to work out, in order to fulfill the rest of my responsibilities. On days where I do have the time to do these things, I am often drained of energy and still don’t get any “me time”. I am certainly not the only one and I think it’s safe to say this is the norm for most college students. I would support this type of gene alteration more so for its ability to give the general population more time to relax and enjoy life, rather than its ability to create even more productivity. In the long run, if we were all able to not only complete our daily responsibilities but to also have personal time for fun, exercise, or relaxation, all without feeling exhausted, it would be much better for our overall physical and mental wellbeing.
I think that altering the gene basis for necessary sleep is extremely risky and poses more potential harm than reward. While it is idealistic to think that one could change human sleep patterns to make us run on less sleep per night, it is extremely unrealistic. One must account for the toll it will take on the body physically and mentally. It may work for short periods of time, but if people are living years and possibly lifetimes with less sleep it has to catch up to them at some point. Also, as noted in the article- there is no guarantee that this will make people accomplish more in the extra hours they spend awake during the day. People could, in fact, do just the opposite and spend more time procrastinating their work because they feel that they have longer to do it, and this could lead to a lower quality of work.
ReplyDeleteHowever, that all being said, I do think that there could potentially be a demographic that this reaches out to. There are many people who work two jobs to provide for their families, as well as doctors on call who have probably the most irregular sleep schedule of any human being.
Lastly, I think that it should be noted that the effect that evolution has on the human gene pool shows that if this were truly an advantageous gene it would be more prevalent in the population. And yes, it is only recently with industrialization that society has increased to such a fast pace, and evolution happens on a much longer time frame then a couple hundred of years- but there is a reason that the large majority of humans need 8 hours of sleep to function healthily.
This is a very interesting idea I personally have never thought about. When it comes to this, everyone is different. I, for example, consider myself to be someone that needs a lot of hours of sleep to be able to function properly throughout the day and if I do not get those hours, then I absolutely must nap at some point to be able to be feeling okay and be productive. While there are some people that do not need more than 4-5 hours of sleep a night and are completely fine getting through their day like that.
ReplyDeleteTaking a gene variant and exploiting it to manipulate out body so we can accomplish more in a day at first seems like a really good idea since there are some days I personally wish there were more hours in the day to do things because I do spend so much time sleeping. However, it is proven that every adult needs about 7-8 hours of sleep a night and children need even more and this is just the way our bodies work. While this does seem like a good idea, I feel like eventually it would backfire on us and hurt our health. Today, research shows that people who do not sleep suffer more health problems so this is something that even if they did find a way to work around it I do not think I would like to participate in. I would just sleep the 8-9 hours I sleep a night.
If this were to happen though, having more waking hours people would be more productive. I feel like when I feel well rested I am productive and its when I'm tired that I feel lazy and useless so if scientists can get our bodies to have more waking hours I do think people will be more productive. But then again, everyone chooses how to spend their time different.
I believe it is very important to allow your body to rest. No on really knows why but everyone needs some sleep to rest their minds and physical body, or else everyone would be overworked and not be performing to the best of their ability. It is just not healthy to not sleep and can cause your immune system to weaken and get sicker often or maybe even result in more serious conditions later on in life.
So, even though it is important to be able to accomplish more things during the day, I do not think this is more important than getting the right amount of sleep one needs.
In the end, I think this research can potentially benefit everyone. I do not think this just college students and workaholics that feel like they could use more waking hours but even stay at home moms feel overwhelmed with all of their duties and sometimes wish they had more time to do everything so this is something that would affect everyone.
I agree with most of the earlier comments that changing our genetic makeup to sleep less would much more harmful than good. As the article said, this is new research that not much is known about - it is possible that "short sleepers" are not just the way they are because of one gene, but there could be an interactions of multiple genes, epigenetic factors, etc. that could contribute. If normal sleepers changed their biology to match short sleepers' behavior this could come with a lot of harmful side affects that we don't know about.
ReplyDeleteIn addition I think there are a lot of social concerns with promoting this idea. I think we already live in a society that overly promotes productivity, competition, and a strong work ethic over other aspects of our lives, which I personally think are more important than work, like family and friends. I agree with radlman's comment that this would raise expectations for productivity and encourage people to overwork even more than they already do. Not only would this create issues if some people cannot adapt to becoming short sleepers, but it makes me concerned for the psychological needs that people have for a life outside of work. The article talks about how 1/3 of Americans are suffering sleep deprivation because of being overly busy, but instead of altering ourselves physically to sleep less maybe we should think of slowing down the pace of our work expectations.
I also believe that manipulating a gene to require less sleep would bring more harm than good. Of course it does seem like a pretty interesting idea, I'm pretty sure all of us at one point in time has imagined and wished that there were more waking hours in the day so that we can more things. However, after a few days without sleep, I am positive that people will literally get "tired" of not being able to sleep.
ReplyDeleteWhile it may not be obvious why sleep is beneficial, most people need to realize how much sleep they need and why it is so important. The benefits of sleep impact nearly every area of our daily lives. Our body controls and requires sleep in much the same way that it regulates the need to eat,drink and breathe. It is widely known that sleep plays a vital role in not only promoting our physical health, but also longevity and emotional well-being.Without adequate sleep, judgment, mood, and ability to learn and retain information are weakened. I can attest to the fact that when I am deprived of sleep for just one day or two, I cannot function properly and can be quite irritable. This fact explains why, after a good night's sleep, you feel better, your thoughts are clearer, and your emotions are not as fragile. In fact over time, chronic sleep deprivation can actually lead to an array of serious medical conditions including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and even early mortality.This is why it is suggested that people should get at least 7 hours of sleep per day.
Although some people would feel that this would be beneficial, in my opinion, the harms of the gene variant greatly outweighs the benefits simply because it would cause even more unnecessary people being awake at unnecessary times, which most likely would lead to complete and utter chaos.
While everyone can relate to feeling like there isn't enough time in the day to get things done, I don't think that manipulating our sleep pathways to avoid needing sleep is necessarily the best way to deal with it. Our bodies need sleep to repair and restore themselves on a daily basis. Without sleep, all of our body systems take a toll and the long term effects of sleep deprivation can be serious, if not fatal. It's not known how short sleepers' bodies are able to perform those same restorative functions with half or even less sleep than the rest of us, so tampering with our sleep at this point is likely to cause more harm than good. Natural short sleepers are characterized not only by not needing much sleep, but also an extreme Type A personality--very driven, focused, and outgoing. This points to short sleepers having multiple genetic factors, perhaps even epigenetic factors that allow them to function as they do, so replicating these factors in others may be very difficult, if not impossible.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, more waking hours does not at all guarantee greater productivity. Speaking from personal experience, there have been occasions on which I've stayed up incredibly late and not gotten as much done as in a few hours early in the evening. Productivity is not simply a function of time, but of a number of factors--whether you're fully prepared, focused, have other distractions. As I already mentioned, short sleepers also have a number of common personality traits that probably influence their productivity.
It would be extremely risky to try and manipulate genes in such a way that would make sleep unnecessary for humans. It is in our nature to need sleep, as does every other living species. I don't see why humans should be any different? There are obvious benefits that we get from sleeping, and our bodies do not function nearly as well without sleep. I think that even if such a gene manipulation, that seems too good to be true, probably is. Even if there is initial success with this, I think that the long-term side effects would probably be detrimental. Using genetics in this way is going further than personalizing medicine and maximizing heath, it is trying to artificially evolve the species. I personally cannot see much good coming out of this; all other evolution has been progressional and natural but once humans try to pick and choose characteristics of human life they want "bettered" we are starting to play God and humans are not meant to have such power.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I do not think that humans need more waking time. Most people are able to allot their time appropriately to complete everything they need to. Having more hours would probably not be utilized productively. Especially since a gene manipulation like this would bring a sudden change to a person's life, it is more likely that they will not know what to do with the time. Also, if a person is already a procrastinator, they will think that their time is almost limitless and push off the tasks that need to get done, and in the end have to rush the same way they do now.
As the majority of the posts have already mentioned, I think that gene-manipulation will produce more harm than good. It’s a requirement of our body biologically to get a certain amount of sleep to repair itself, so by limiting the amount of sleep an individual gets per night will have long-term physical effects on his/her body, despite the short term productivity (if we assume that there is a correlation between more hours awake and increased productivity—which is not always the case). Also, as previously mentioned, it would be more beneficial to somehow manipulate genes so that individuals could be more productive with the hours we already spend awake. We as a capitalist society are so focused on work and achieving more than our peers, that we often times miss out on certain relaxation or leisure activities. By increasing our ability to stay awake longer, we are only feeding into the mentality that this time should be spent at work. Many times “workaholics” are so focused on earning more money to spend it on lavish things like yachts, vacation homes, etc. that they continue working so much they never get to actually enjoy these luxuries. I see increasing hours awake as a parallel to this mentality, that we make certain sacrifices (sleep in this case) to gain time to devote to working more, but to work more for what? To gain more luxuries that we won’t have time to enjoy? I think we are all better off balancing the time we do spend awake more productively than changing our genes.
ReplyDeleteI think that by taking a gene variant and exploiting it to manipulate our body to accomplish more during the day is a harmful idea because you are going against the natural order of things and more productivity cannot be guaranteed. More likely, people will be wasting more time like surfing the web, watching movies, etc. Our body requires 7-8 hours of sleep in order to fulfill a variety of necessary bodily functions like improving our immune system and our memory so reducing sleep would ultimately be harmful. “Short sleepers” did not genetically manipulate their body to have poor sleep cycles rather they were born that way. It seems illogical to go against nature and change our entire sleep cycle only to gain longer days, especially considering the psychological effects this could have on individuals. Instead, people should focus on being more productive during the day.
ReplyDeleteIn order to be functional human beings we need sleep built into our daily routines. Without sleep there are mental and physical consequences, such as fatigue, decreased cognitive functioning, and weight loss/gain. Dr. Matthew Walker from the University of California- Berkeley also points out that research shows that sleep deprivation can lead to increased activity in the amygdala and decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex. This worsens our ability to make rational thoughts. So if a gene variant was used to manipulate our bodies so that we would sleep less, I think that the consequences from this would be extremely harmful. Although having less sleep hours means that there is more time available for doing productive tasks during the day, I don't think this is a good enough reason when we consider what the consequences could be. More research and experimental studies need to be conducted on this sleep gene variant before it starts being used. But let's just say that this gene variant for sleep did successfully work without damaging the mind and body. Would people use these extra hours productively or would they waste them? We can't predict this so it’s hard to say if this gene variant would even be used effectively.
ReplyDeleteThe article mentions that for only a small portion of the American public, about 1-3%, sleep is unimportant. Thus, for the remaining majority, sleep is essential to our daily functioning. Scientifically speaking, I think it would be neat to manipulate sleep pathways. However, I do not think altering genes to stay up for endless periods of time is a good idea. Sleep is a crucial part of life and has many benefits. Most college students understand the detrimental aspects to forgoing sleep and the consequences that come along with a lack of sleep. In addition to physiological effects , there is also ethical concerns surrounding this research. I think a lot of people would find this gene manipulation to be controversial. This genetic alteration is going against our body’s natural tendency to sleep and recover from the day’s events.
ReplyDeleteThe gene variation in short sleepers is not common and the study mentioned that researchers have only identified 20 individuals with the Hdec2 variant. While this research could help people who naturally do not feel the need to sleep, I think the large majority of people will find it irrelevant and possibly unethical. Many people simply enjoy the act of sleeping and might not be interested in this research. As the article explains “It’s unclear if short sleepers are high achievers”, more research needs to be done before researchers start tampering with genes to increase a person’s ability to function on no sleep. Because there is no evidence yet to prove that people can successfully function on minimal sleep, it is hard to weigh the benefits of this new research. The prospect of eliminating sleep from our daily routine may sound intriguing, but there are many consequences to consider that coincide with this scientific breakthrough.
The field of genetics has created many wonderful opportunities that have allowed for a more rewarding life. This field has allowed for prevention and medication schedules to be catered toward individual genetic makeup. However, when it comes to genetic manipulation, the possibilities are endless; and in this case manipulating our biological clock in order to have more hours in the days, seems risky. Also, just because one has more hours to complete tasks, doesn’t mean that they will be more productive with that time. I agree with Michelle that time management with our time is more important than being awake longer and that we need. I think we have plenty of time to do what we want, it’s just procrastination that gets in the way.
ReplyDeleteI think that ideally it would be great if we could add on hours to our day. However, I know that there have been many studies done showing how unhealthy it is in the long run to get little sleep. People's bodies need to rest so that we can grow, restore energy, and just simply relax. We do so many things during the day that I think it's vital to get some downtime. Moreover, this would mean longer work hours! I think that everything should be done in moderation and that although sometimes it may seem ideal to have those few extra hours to study for a test, for example, overall we should be able to find time to finish the important things we need done. People need sleep so as to have those few stress-free hours we may not get in the daytime.
ReplyDeleteOur bodies work the way that they do for a reason and any cycle should not be disturbed. It can be potentially harmful to manipulate our bodies to reduce the hours needed of sleep because the body and brain needs to rest. Some people may use extra hours of being awake to their advantage, but I think the majority of people would end up wasting more time instead of using it efficiently. Without sleep, we would not be able to function. It is a part of life that is necessary and should be kept the way that it is because it can cause health risks if a person does not sleep the sufficient amount of hours every day. It is not guaranteed that by exploiting the gene, our health will not be damaged at all. The damages may be seen many years later by accumulating so much sleep loss. Although sometimes it may feel that there are not enough hours in a day to get everything accomplished, I believe it can be resolved with better time management skills, rather than limiting the number of hours designated for sleep. I think the research would be more harmful than helpful for the overall population because people may not use that time wisely. Therefore, there would not be a valid incentive to go through with the research because it may not be used for the intended reasons, which are to use the extra hours to do productive things that were not done during the day.
ReplyDeleteMy gut reaction is that altering genes for more wakings hours is not a good idea. Its not necessarily true that by being more awake people will be more productive, which the article points out. In cases of college students, better time management might solve the problem of long nights spent doing homework. For workaholics, again the problem may lie in their disposition where they are choosing to do work and are staying up as a result. Instead of altering genes to increase productivity in a day, which i believe is important, there are less invasive ways of approaching this problem. Instead of giving people more time to do things, the problem should be addressed from the position of how to teach people on how to use time more effectively and efficiently. I believe sleeping is definitely too important to skimp on. Beyond just being a biological need, sleeping keeps everybody sane by forcing people to take a break from each other. Society seems to be progressing without the need to have people on shorter sleep schedules. In fact, skimping on sleep only hurts the performance of individuals in the long run, making people sick more often, more stressed,and more irritable. To alter society that is largely not doing well on reduced hours does not seem like the right course of action. We should change peoples habits before trying to change their genes.
ReplyDeleteI believe that taking a gene variant to manipulate our sleeping patterns is a very harmful idea. As mentioned in the article there are many other genes that play a role in short sleeping. Natural short sleepers share the characteristics of a very upbeat mood, faster metabolism along with a physical tolerance for pain therefore in order to replicate these effects in other people with a gene variant you would need to determine the variant for all the characteristics. Only 1-3% of the population are natural short sleepers, while most adults are normal sleepers. With that said more waking hours in the day would most likely lead to wasting time. Since a majority of the world need their rest these short sleepers often find themselves blogging, videogame designing and on social media websites, "where their sleep habits come in handy". The body needs its rest in order to function properly the following day. Sleep allows people to concentrate better, in addition to enhancing their mood, depriving one of this could lead to negative effects like obesity as mentioned in the article. While it is very important to accomplish things during the day , leisure time often contributes to less stress which is very important to overall well being by reducing risk of some diseases such as hypertension. Consequently, more hours to work could actually harm those individuals who do not possess all the qualities of a short sleeper. A more effective approach could simply be to teach better time management to complete all work while still getting the right amount of sleep.
ReplyDeleteThis post is extremely interesting to me because I have never even considered manipulating someones sleep patterns. I didn't even realize sleep pattern were genetic or that a gene could be manipulated to change one's sleeping patterns. I don't necessarily agree that it would be a positive thing to manipulate peoples patterns because it could be harmful to other parts of our bodies or our lives. I believe people need to rest and restore there bodies and manipulating a gene to only allow us to sleep for 5 hours or a certain amount of time could be extremely harmful for the rest of our health. How do we know that we don't need more than 5 hours of sleep to function? Will the gene manipulation affect our day to day activities? Will we be able to do more or less activities. i think this gene manipulation is taking things too far. Our bodies know when we are tired and when we are fatigued and when we get sick I don't think that should be manipulated because our bodies know when these things happen and changing it could be detrimental to our health. If we can manipulate a sleep gene who says we can't manipulate a eating gene or drinking gene. I don't think this would be a productive manipulation. Granted it would give us more hours in the day to be able to do things but again that is not always the best thing, our bodies do need to restore and relax and being able to do a thousand things in one day could be detrimental to our health.
ReplyDeleteThere are many ethical arguments and concerns that need to be addressed here.
ReplyDeleteDo we want to continue to push the limits in terms of the capability of human bodies? Is this safe? Our bodies are programmed for homeostasis, and gene manipulation is constantly changing our natural state.
Is this fair? What about the people who couldn't afford gene manipulation or don't believe in it? They would be missing out on some of the benefits associated with being more productive.
And what about the negatives? Being able to stay awake longer may not make us more productive, it also gives us more time to consume more. And these are just some societal concerns. Physically, our bodies don't need to be manipulated this way.