Dual N-Back and sleep

[Browni]

Hi there,

Given the links between poor sleep and depression, reduced iq and
reduced performance I was curious about how n-backing has affected
your sleep. I know people have mentioned better dream recall but does
that mean a lower quality of sleep? Personally I have found a large
improvement in dream recall and find I'm a bit slower to get of bed in
the morning although that could just be me noticing my extreme
laziness more than usual ;).

thanks

[Gwern Branwen]

Better dream recall could* be due to better sleep. If you sleep 8
hours and you spend more time in REM thanks to n-backing, then isn't
it more likely your alarm clock or the sun will wake you up at a REM
point? Which would make it much easier to recall your dreams and
produce a subjective impression of more/more vivid dreams.

(An example: when I was trying out polyphasic sleep, I felt I was
dreaming much more than I usually did. This was, of course, due not to
any actual increase in dreaming but rather the fact that I was
brutally forcing myself awake 20 or 30 minutes into sleep.)

* I should note I haven't noticed anything I can't more parsimoniously
attribute to my use of melatonin

--
gwern

[jttoto]

I'm sorry, but what are your sources for insomnia and lower IQ? (are
you thinking of obstructive sleep apnea) The study below, looking at
elderly insomniacs, said that they actually retained words better than
controls, and have an intact verbal episodic memory.

http://www.neurofederatie.nl/enp/enp2004/posters/psycho/Raymann.pdf

On Sep 15, 10:50 am, Gwern Branwen <gwe...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Pontus Granström]

Mental functions usually benefit from sleep.

[jttoto]

(quoted wrong person, it was meant for OP)

Back to what I was saying, subjective sleep reports tend to be
inaccurate anyway. Studies show that insomniacs underestimate the
amount of sleep they get, while normal sleepers overestimate it.
Perhaps the depressed simply are more likely to misperceive sleep. In
fact, even the worse patients that subjectively reported only getting
an hour a day had EEG ratings close to 6 hours, which is what healthy
controls report as well.



http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=3724882&page=1

http://www.semel.ucla.edu/sleepresearch/Hypersomnia.pdf

> > gwern- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[jttoto]

Elaborating my previous post in relation to the OP, the point I am
making is that your interpretation of how much or little sleep you are
getting is very unreliable. You could just as easily be spending more
time in bed but sleeping just as much. (by having more awakenings that
you don't remember) Recording how much sleep you get, without a
proper scientific measure, is very inaccurate.

[Browni]

I see, all interesting points. I guess its not fair to judge
subjective measures of time asleep etc. Ok lets assume percieved
Quality of sleep is linked to depression. From a purely practical
"what are the potential risks/benefits of dual n back" point of view
how would you judge your quality of sleep and general mental well-
being since beginning dual-n-back. I say this mostly because
personally pre-dual n back my percieved quality of sleep was very poor
and I'd spend most of my day sleepy and out of it. Since starting dual
n back on a rather sporadic basis I have noticed greater fluctuations
in my percieved quality of sleep and my daily activity.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, experiences and opinions.

Mukund

[Nocra]

I've noticed that I seem to need an hour less sleep on average, as in
I'm naturally waking up sooner that I would normally, yet still feel
fully rested. This has been going on for about two months now. Has
anyone else experienced anything like this?

[Reece]

Sorry to bump up an old thread but I have noticed a difference in my
sleep duration as well -- I'm fully rested after 7-7.5 hours, whereas
I used to need 8-9 hours.

I didn't think it was n-back related (I take a few nootropics, so I
rationalized the change as such), however the more I look into it, the
more it seems like it is n-back causing the reduced need for sleep or
at the very least, the ability to "get by cognitively" on less sleep
(due to changes in dopamine receptor density:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080819213033.htm ?)

I usually play n-back shortly before going to sleep -- I would imagine
this is increasing theta wave activity? It's doing something anyway,
as I get pretty tired after a few sessions ever since I started
"playing intuitively" about 6 weeks ago. If 30-60 minutes of n-back
can consistently cut sleep time (without adverse health effects) by
an equal or greater amount, then it's pretty hard to say that one
hasn't the time for n-back training :)

On 17 sep, 06:37, Nocra <nocra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've noticed that I seem to need an hour lesssleepon average, as in

[Gaël DEEST]

Many people reported getting sleepy while n-backing ; it might not be
unrelated with your theta activity hypothesis.

I've noticed that, in general, increased mental activity (such as:
learning vocabulary lists with Anki) had a tendency to /reduce/ my
need for sleep in the long run.

2009/10/15 Reece <rock...@hotmail.com>:

[Raman]

Even I feel extremely sleepy while doing more trials per session (am
trying to do 150 trials per session but have not done more than 4
sessions in a day since increasing the number of trials).

Is it because the task becomes extremely boring?

[Reece]

I does seem to be trial per session related for me as well. Playing
Q3B with 1000 trials/session leaves me exhausted after 1 session and
performance takes a very noticeable hit after the first 500 or so
trials. Concentration starts to slightly decrease for me around
100-125 trials and continues decrease more and more as trials per
session increases, as does the willpower to do more training -- not
sure if that's session length related or just related to the sheer
number of trials.

One thing I have noticed is that it has been getting easier to do
longer sessions than when I first started -- I remember a time not
long ago when 100 trials per session of Q2B was as exhausting as I
find 500 trials of Q3B now.