Why you should not

I think fast levels wracked my brain more :man_shrugging:

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It is because of the circadian rhythm of humans that has not changed. Melatonin is created when it becomes dark in the night.
The illustration is not from the book directly but 99% similar.

circadian rhytm

There was a part about the change of sleeping patterns in monkeys and early humans but it takes a bit of time to find it, I will post it later.

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This would go against your 8 hour hard rule. In different seasons there are different lengths of light, and around the equator there’s roughly 12 hours of light/dark year-round.

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As I stated I have not studied any of this, so unfortunately I cannot provide you with a source on this. I could probably find one by googling, but so could anyone else on almost any given argument.

In my home country it is dark for more than 20 hours of the day in the winter. Do you suggest that before the electric light people just slept the whole day? And in the summer it is light around the clock = People used to stay awake the whole day and night for weeks?

This seems to be besides the point anyways. As I have not read the book that you keep quoting or studied sleep in depth. All I wanted to note is that there are different experiences than yours and making generalisations and fearmongering is not necessary the best way to give advice. Even if we wanted to have “perfect” sleep patterns, it is not attainable (or desirable) for everyone and it is hardly WaniKani’s job to make sure its users live a healthy lifestyle by limiting the times when (or how) it can be used.

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Perhaps this is what they were referring to?

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“On average, these tribespeople will fall asleep two to three hours after sunset, around nine pm. Their nighttime sleep bouts will come to an end just prior to, or soon after dawn. Have you ever wondered about the meaning of the term “midnight”? It of course means the middle of the night, or more technically, the middle point of the solar cycle. And so it is for the sleep cycle of hunter- gatherer cultures, and presumably all those that came before.”

I cannot give you a page number because I read it on kindle.

Anyway, I think my point is clear that I think waking up just to do reviews is unhealthy and does not give any benefit because your memorization is worse.

I am tired now and can not answer other questions,
from my initial post I think you can imagine that my condition is not a very good one.

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It is their responsibility to mention that waking up to do reviews has a impact on your health and memorization.

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Ok , this is the last thing I am going to reply to for today because it implies that I have some kind of dishonest motive for writing down in public the miserable state I am.

The truth is, that I really would have been grateful if somebody had pointed me out the dangers of sleep deprivation when I was still studying. Because there have been many people who know it and didn’t say anything in order to protect themselves from exact the response I have to bear now. “Weakling, fearmongerer…”
So to say that in all clarity I don’t gain anything here, and quite frankly I am surprised at how much attention this topic has got.

Maybe one thing on sleep deprivation that everyone can easily empathize with:

But you know, my intention is not to change your sleep rhythm but to counteract on the glorification of “who is the fastest in reaching level 60” that DOES happen here.

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It doesn’t imply that at all. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Anyway, you’re generalizing your experience and try to force it on everyone else while ignoring evidence to the contrary like this:

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Actually I am interested in what wanikani has to say about how beneficial it is to wake up in order to do reviews.

Because that’s what we are talking about here, no?

I want an answer from them, because they are the experts.

Finally we are paying for the service and it seems this topic is controversial so why don’t make them clarify it?

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Why though? Not one thing WaniKani has ever posted, officially or otherwise, has suggested to me that they recommend this. Why should they need to specifically tell people this? It’s like the “Caution! Coffee may be hot!” nonsense.

My own common sense tells me it’s a dumb idea, as would I think most other people’s.

I also think that most people who are waking up in the middle of the night to do reviews are not doing so because they believe it will improve their retention or recall; they are doing so because they want to “finish” Wanikani quickly (also an extremely dumb idea, in my opinion, but whatevs).

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That being said, I’m very sorry for the troubles you’ve faced, they sound terrible, but I don’t think WK is the issue here.

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The concept of SRS is you need to review before the SRS time is missed (forgetting curve), so in theory, hitting the time precisely would yield better retention.

Because they really shouldn’t have to.

They mention that the fastest completion is “breakneck” and not actually doable for most people, estimating that you could finish it in about a year and a half. Depending on your personal schedule, it is entirely possible to finish in this timeframe without sacrificing sleep.

It is so obvious to most people that forcing yourself to wake up to do reviews is at best, weird, and at worst, harmful.

Just like speedrunning a regular game, it’s not really something you’re supposed to do. Just because you CAN, doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

Your proposed solution would absolutely wreck the system for a lot of users. That’s the beauty of user scripts though - you’re free to adjust the system to make it work for you without affecting everyone else, unless they want to use it that way too.

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I did not open this topic for the most but for the few who feel it’s a challenge to be the first to finish.

But you’re suggesting to restrict review times for everyone. It sucks you’ve had such a bad experience, but it’s not your job to “fix” things for everyone else.

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I don’t suggest that. I want wanikani to be clear about on how to use this tool efficiently and in a healthy way. Because obviously some abuse is going on here. And no, I am not taking about you.

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Then what’s that supposed to mean?

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Basically what OP means is that hitting people with the gamification aspect and then tempting them to do reviews at 2am is not using “this tool… in a healthy way”.

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I don’t know about you very well but as I am concerned my opinion is not fixed at the point I enter a discussion. If there is the necessity, and it seems it is, to make reviews available 24/7 than its ok for me.

But I want wanikani to be clear on the usage they intended this to be.

Because at the moment the only say “do the reviews as soon as the are available”.