Sleep duration is associated with brain structure and cognitive performance
I&#x27;d like to share my sleeping practice which I&#x27;ve developed after several years of focusing on it and trying to recreate the pre-industrial (and possibly pre-farming) sleep patterns my ancestors had for millions of years before the last few thousand.<p>Whenever I feel tired, I lay down to rest.<p>Whenever I am sleeping, I allow myself to sleep until I am &quot;fully slept&quot;, meaning I can lay there for a while, still physically resting, and not fall asleep.<p>Sometimes this means only a couple hours, and sometimes it&#x27;s 16 or more. Whatever it is, if I am tired and want to keep sleeping, that&#x27;s what I do.<p>A couple of times I think I was coming down with something, I slept for more than 24 hours with only pee breaks. And I woke up feeling fresh as a cucumber, as they say.<p>Those flus and colds which I used to get once or twice a year and which would sometimes drag on for weeks? I can&#x27;t remember the last time I&#x27;ve had that happen, but it&#x27;s been several years now. (Of course, I have several other practices to thank for this, in addition to the sleep.)<p>I also practice what I call &quot;dog sleep&quot; or &quot;cat sleep&quot;, meaning I lay down and close my eyes and fully rest my body, without necessarily losing all alertness or consciousness.<p>My rewards have been improved cognition, better health and overall feeling, and still being able to do occasional coding marathons like I used to when I was half my current age.<p>We&#x27;ve been conditioned to think of sleep as laziness and sloth, but nothing could be further from the truth on the cellular level. When you rest, your cells go to work cleaning, rebuilding, and renewing your body. Your mind also does sorting and self-analysis, and returns the results in the form of remembered dreams.