Comment by makeset | Hacker News Reader

Comment by makeset | Hacker News Reader

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I've cut out all sources of caffeine completely, except for a glass of tea right after I wake up where I pour away the first steep.

I use NRR 33 earplugs and at least one white noise machine going, sometimes two, to avoid any noise pulling me back from near-sleep. The room is dark, but I wear a sleep mask just in case.

I'm averaging 1-2 hours with those. I'm doing the sleep hygiene thing, where I don't do anything in bed except (try to) sleep and sex. I think you're also supposed to just get up if you can't sleep, but if I do that, I just never sleep. I come back even more exhausted, and I'm still looking at the same damn wait.

Mental activity can definitely make it worse, but I haven't found a meditation/visualization sort of trick that really helped. The best I can do is psyche away the frustration and just... wait.

Alcohol/pot help maybe a little, but then I don't sleep deeply at all, always wake up really tired. I haven't tried prescription drugs. I'm told they have the same effect on sleep quality, and I don't want that. I do get much-needed good sleep once I'm there. It just takes too damn long.

I'd love to hear if anything's worked for you.

For me it's all about stress. Typically I can't get myself to fall asleep before 1am. Whenever I go to bed it just takes 1-2 hours to fall asleep. I just can't get my mind to shut off. I struggle to get up at 9:30am and need coffee to be functional in the mornings.

If I go out on a long camping trip I'll often not even bring a book. This means that once the sun goes down there is basically nothing to do. After a day or two I find myself easily falling asleep and sleeping through the night. When I come back home, if I still haven't begun to go back to work, it persists. I can easily just go to bed at 11:00 and get up at 8:00. It generally lasts until I go to work.

It's the anxiety of needing to get things done and maintain my appearance to others and to myself that really seems to keep me up. As I lie in bed there's a part of me that says I should have accomplished more during the day and that I should be doing something "productive". I'm working hard on meditation, mindfulness and self-awareness to reduce the anxiety, but what works best is to really remove myself from the stressors and go to a place where I really just can't do anything so my mind gives up.

I went camping near the end of December and had another week off for the new year. It was great. I was well slept and relaxed. Now in my first week back to work I've already fallen back into less than 7 hours of sleep per night.

I guess I need to go camping again.

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