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The sleepiness equation

Apparently, the scientists at AWAKE — a British “sleep management consultancy” — have developed an equation that predicts when you’ll be most tired, depending on your average daily sleep and waking patterns. The equation is …

CDA + CT + KF = TMT

… where CDA is the hour of our daily dip is alertness, CT is our “chronotype” (our personal daily rhythm), and KF is a set of influencing factors such as prior sleep quality and alcohol intake. The result, TMT, is the time of day that we’re most likely to feel tired.

The web site KnackerFactor has created an online version of this algorithm, which asks you a bunch of questions and then spits out a chart showing how sleepy — or alert — you’ll be throughout the day. I punched in my stats for last night, including the following data points: I’m generally a night owl; I generally struggle out of bed; however, last night I went to bed around 11:30; I had one glass of wine with dinner; and I woke up at 7:30 am.

The result? Check the chart above. Apparently, the first couple hours of my workday were supposed to be among my most alert and productive. Reader, allow me to express just how insanely wrong was that prediction. Sure, I managed to drag myself out of bed, but I moved around the office like a snail. I am really not a morning person. Interestingly, the chart also predicts that I’m supposed to be heading into a “noticeably sleepy” zone right now — around 1 pm — but since I’m on my second bucket of coffee, I’m actually feeling quite alert and efficient!

Of course, being a total idiot, I’m spending these high-productivity hours blogging instead of doing actual, paid work.

(Thanks to The J-Walk Blog for this one!)


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Bio:

I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.

Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!

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Recent Entries

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“El Ajedrecista” — an analog chess-playing computer from 1912

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a bunch of stuff

May 20, 2011 » 02:28 PM

From Christopher Kennedy’s very droll book “Neitzsche’s Horse”.

July 28, 2010 » 07:35 AM
“Wr” - S

July 06, 2010 » 10:05 AM

My Xbox broke, and I was trying to Google some possible technical solutions, when I noticed that Google appears to be encouraging me to make a typo. I suppose it’s possible that Google’s algorithms know that typing “wont” instead of “won’t” would produce better results.

June 29, 2010 » 05:00 PM

On the other hand, when I tried the test for multitasking, I was pretty abysmal. I performed worse than people who identify themselves as heavy multitaskers, and those who identify as low multitaskers.

June 29, 2010 » 04:58 PM

I finally got around to trying out the interactive “test your distractability and multitasking” page at the New York Times, which they put up alongside their story earlier this month about how computer distractions are eroding our lives. 

According to the test, I guess I have good focus — I’m not very distractable! 

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Collision Detection: A Blog by Clive Thompson