Good sleep, good learning, good life | Hacker News Reader

Good sleep, good learning, good life

supermemo.com

152 pointsJesseAldridge61 comments

I love this guy.

Great article about him here: http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia...

See his apology at the bottom of http://www.supermemo.com/english/company/wozniak.htm

The apology is strange. It seems predicated on a false notion of efficiency, assuming that somehow one's interactions with other people can be "efficient" in the same sense as one's interactions with a book. But that's not at all true. I am reminded of Freeman Dyson's comment soon after he met Feynman:

"Feynman is a man whose ideas are as difficult to make contact with as Bethe's are easy; for this reason I have so far learnt much more from Bethe, but I think if stayed here much longer I should begin to find it was Feynman with whom I was working more."

More generally, working with and learning from other people requires dealing with all sorts of "inefficiencies"; they're not optional. But if you're working with the right people, those inefficiencies are more than compensated for in other ways.

> working with and learning from other people requires dealing with all sorts of "inefficiencies"; they're not optional.

I don't think he's all that interested in working with other people. In other words, he's not seeking to optimize his relationship with other people so much as he is finding a convenient excuse for not seeing other people at all.

"In other words, he's not seeking to optimize his relationship with other people so much as he is finding a convenient excuse for not seeing other people at all."

Which is sort of foolish. A big problem with being hyper efficient and blocking out assorted noise and distraction is that you end up filtering out serendipity. You become very efficient at some local maxima. If nothing else you risk missing out on learning about some new, better way to be efficient, but mostly you miss out on the weird random stuff that comes from the odd conversation with people.

It's like people who only listen to [right|left]-wing radio or follow [right|left]-wing Web sites. You get really good at reinforcing the same beliefs and attitudes. (Same is true for people who stop paying attention to new other programming languages and paradigms.)

I've reduced the number of local gatherings and general conferences I attend because of, overall, a poor return on the time invested vs tasks I want to complete, but don't want to become a hermit altogether because at the better gatherings there's a reasonable chance I'll learn about something interesting out of the blue.

> Which is sort of foolish. A big problem with being hyper efficient

I think you're defining a metric by which your life is a success, but I'm sure you'll agree other people can be aware of this and still have other goals. This person probably doesn't need to work for a living (passive income from his software), so he can afford not following your otherwise quite sensible rules about serendipity. He can dig deep into a narrow subject, which may end up bringing him more satisfaction than aspiring to be something of a Renaissance man. He doesn't have to be all HackerNewsy, entrepreneurial etc.

Besides, let him be a hermit if he wants to. It's kind of comforting to know that there is no high score or awards ceremony at the end of our lives. Local maxima don't sound so bad.

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, a neurologist, or an endocrinologist. I'm in no way qualified to be talking about this.

I have a fairly severe form of delayed sleep-phase syndrome: left to my own devices, as when I was on summer vacation back in school, I would gladly stay awake for 24 hours and sleep for 12. I've long noticed anecdotally this pattern is associated with geeks. Ask yourself: if a 6:00 AM Twitter update says your geekiest friend is waiting for his code to compile, is it because he woke up early or because he hasn't been to bed yet?

It turns out there's a reason for this. There's a gene called the ASMT gene, which codes for enzymes responsible (in part) for the synthesis of melatonin from serotonin in the pineal gland. This gene is often deleted in individuals with autism or Aspergers syndrome, which results in extremely low levels of serum melatonin. The effect is so strong that even family members of autistic children, even those not themselves diagnosed with autism or Aspergers, have been shown to have abnormally depressed melatonin levels. More information: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2199264/

Melatonin is one of the biggest chemical regulators of the sleep cycle in humans, and increased melatonin at night has been shown experimentally to reduce the time of sleep onset. I'm not aware of any studies comparing the effect size between autistic/Aspergers patients and healthy controls, but it stands to reason that the former group might stand more to gain.

I've personally experienced tremendous benefit in my sleep patterns from taking melatonin. I spent my entire teenage life showing up to classes in a sleep-deprived haze because I wasn't aware of this. Hopefully I can save someone else from that.

Now, for the catch: We have no idea why Aspergers symptoms are associated with reduced melatonin synthesis. Melatonin is a regulator of neural plasticity during fetal and early childhood brain development. Melatonin is synthesized from serotonin, and serotonin levels at various stages of development are drastically different in autistics/Aspergers compared to healthy children. We don't know to what extent these are causes or effects of autistic symptoms, and what effect there might be on development from long-term melatonin supplementation during early childhood. However, in healthy adults, the safety of long-term melatonin use, even at doses many dozens of times higher than the maximum clinically effective dose, has been shown to be completely safe. How you generalize from that is up to you.

I've personally experienced tremendous benefit in my sleep patterns from taking melatonin.

I did better with taking co-q-10 in the morning. For a long time, I couldn't tolerate melatonin. I would feel like I wasn't fully awake for up to three days after taking it. When my health improved enough that I could tolerate it, I still needed co-q-10 in the morning to feel fully awake.

Co-q-10 is the co-enzyme of melatonin and wakes your brain up in the morning. It is made in the body in a complex (17 step?) process. A bottleneck at any stage can leave you deficient, so many people are deficient. If you take co-q-10 in the morning, your body will produce a small melatonin spike about 12 or so hours later. If you take melatonin, it does not increase production of co-q-10. So taking co-q-10 can do a lot more in terms of healing both sides of waking/sleeping cycle of the brain chemistry. It is also gentler/subtler than melatonin.

Lots of people use melatonin to good effect, so I'm not trying to knock it. Just trying to expand on the topic of nutritional supplements and brain chemistry wrt the waking/sleeping cycle. Thanks for bringing this up. :-)

I'm betting on a placebo effect of the melatonin. taken in pill form it is only effective for a few hours.

It's hardly a placebo effect if it has an effect for a few hours.

I've struggled with insomnia my whole life. If I'm able to fall asleep in the first place, I'm usually able to stay asleep long enough to get rested.

I only need the effect for about an hour, maybe 90 minutes. Long enough to fall asleep.

I think the comment refers to the placebo affect for "I would feel like I wasn't fully awake for up to three days after taking it."

Ah, right! Rereading the thread, that seems the more likely interpretation.

At the time, I was extremely ill and my brain chemistry was out of whack in a big way. It wasn't a placebo effect.

What happens if you use both melatonin & co-q-10?

Melatonin about 30 minutes before bedtime and co-q-10 in the morning worked well for me at one time, but only after I had already done some work on healing my body generally and brain chemistry along with it. I no longer routinely take either of them, which is a recent development. I still have co-q-10 in the house because until two or three weeks ago, I was still taking it about 5 mornings a week. I haven't had melatonin in the house recently.

Some quick googling did not find anything about CoQ10 being related to melatonin. I'd be interested in learning more about this. Do you have any sources?

Unfortunately, no. A quick google isn't turning anything up for me either. I know this from talking to very knowledgeable people who did a lot of research for dealing with their own health problems. I have found such people to be the most reliable source for information on such things. I am quite surprised and rather chagrined that this information isn't readily available with a quick google. I will have to look into it some more some other time, when I have the time to do so. I try hard to find scientific stuff to back up what I understand to be true.

I have taken CO-Q10 for a period of 6 months several years ago. It is bit on the expensive side, as far supplements goes. I used to take it to help me stay alert. I didn't see any difference in my general alert level. I kept on taking it because I was under the impression it might take me longer than couple of months to see any improvements. I increased dose, changed brand; nothing happened.

Currently I am only taking Fish Oil (Omega 3&5) and St. John's Wort. Both helps me with my anxiety and sleep.

I used to stay awake for 24-36 hours at a time quite often with 12-16 hours sleep in between. Relied heavily on caffeine and my anxiety was off the roof. I completely stopped caffeine from my diet. Drink decaf. Tea. Exercise first thing in the morning to burn up most of my energy so that I get tired by the end of day and help me sleep. I still end up staying awake for ~20hrs a day, which is closer to my goal of ~16hrs and better than previous habit of staying awake for ~30hrs.

If you have problem sleeping, kill the caffeine and it will solve half of your problems.

I think i have a DSPS too, but instead of fighting it, i live with my cycle (around 25 hours). Impossibility to work in office hours forces me to be independent, so it's not so bad.

Sorry dude I accidentally downvoted your you due to being foggy while waking up.

High school students like me, unfortunately do not have means to get the necessary good sleep that everyone needs.

The school system will continue to impose this miserable condition on us.

Just wait until you do regular 8 hours shifts at a warehouse. School will seem like a pleasant dream you were rudely awakened from.

While the 8 hrs of just about any manual labor job is much more work than 8 hrs at school, at least you don't have to worry about it when you go home.

I worked several manual labor jobs during summer breaks in high school, and the freedom to think about whatever you wanted at night (instead of homework or activities) was at least mentally liberating, even if I was dead tired from moving boxes of tomatoes all day.

Yeah, wait until you're older and have a corp desk job. The days spent toiling moving furniture will feel like your past life as a greek god. You'll look back on stuffing any food you want into a naturally evolving muscular machine of a body as your ass slowly forms into a chair shape around the dent of your paid for yet unused Snap-Fitness card.

Can you not go out for walks at your corp desk job? Every one I've had didn't have a problem if you left the office for ~20 minutes mid-afternoon to get out and stretch. Some would even have self-organized games of soccer or volleyball to break up the monotony.

well, yeah and I do, but it is nothing like the good old days working for Mayflower and being all ripped without thinking about it.

Unless you're operating dangerous machinery, you don't need as much sleep to work effectively at a warehouse. 6-7 hours and to recover physically and then a couple days off every so often to rest and you'll be fine. You don't have to think much, you just have to be strong and willing to exert effort.

Plus, getting to sleep at night when working a warehouse job is pretty easy, you're usually exhausted when you get home and have nothing to do but eat and sleep.

It's much different than a technical job that requires focus, concentration, inspiration, and mental discipline. Much different from work that requires social interaction with people. The mental states associated with lack of sleep can be disastrous in those environments.

While some studies have indicated that adolecents would benefit from starting classes later in the day, I don't believe it's the silver bullet that you believe it is.

I'm 27, and I quoted that when I was in High School. But the truth is, I seldom was wound-down and in bed by 9 or 10 PM. I was irresponsible with my bed time. All my friends were the same.

I think you would be surprised at how much of the "misery" you and your peers are self-imposing. Do your homework when you get home, skip the Daily Show, shut off the computer by 9PM, and in bed by 10. I understand you'll think "easier said than done" but if you're truly miserable, take some responsibility for it!

While some of the staying-up-lateness may be self imposed, my Google searches show that puberty brings with it a natural change in circadian rythym, which isn't something the teens can do much about.

http://www.healthcentral.com/sleep-disorders/caregiving-2708...

http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/adolescent.html

I think you would be surprised at how much of the "misery" you and your peers are self-imposing.

It's a pity the article is so long, because otherwise you might have encountered this sentence before composing a reply:

It won't be enough to demand an early hour for going to bed. If you ban the late evening Internet surfing, you will just swap a dose of evening education for an idle tossing and turning in bed.

You can't necessarily change your biological clock by an effort of will, even if you know exactly what you are doing -- which few people do. Your biological clock has a "mind" of its own. No matter how much "responsibility" you take for your schedule, and how much intelligence and full-spectrum lighting you apply to the problem, you may find yourself unable to be optimally awake at 7am. Especially if you are a teenager.

Meanwhile, I'm afraid that everything about this reply rubs me the wrong way. It is a textbook example of its kind [1], and it illustrates why broken designs persist for decade upon decade. School day starts too early for the typical young person's biological clock? We survived it, so should you! Third-shift workers causing accidents at 3am? Your grandpa worked third shift and survived with 80% of his fingers intact; so should you! Medical interns forced to work continuous shifts of 24 hours or more, even though studies have shown that they therefore make avoidable errors that harm patients? We survived it, so should you!

It's so much easier to instruct the victim on coping techniques than it is to contemplate changing the system that it becomes a reflex: You poke an adult, and out pops a sanctimonious lecture.

---

[1] The world would be a better place if every text editor came with an alarm that rang every time someone typed the word peers. ("Hi! Microsoft Word has noticed that you sound just like your mom! Can Clippy help you with that?")

The trouble I see here is you're equating a propensity for high school kids to push the envelope on _everything_ with medical residents and shift workers.

Sanctimonious lecturing? I think you need more time in the field. Stop by any house with kids on a Friday night about 2300 and you'll see kids and adolescents alike dozing off, barely able to keep their heads up. When bed is suggested they sit up a little straighter and protest "I'm not tired."

What you missed in my original post (somehow, it was only a paragraph) is that I spent 4 years in high school quoting these sleep studies. Just like I spent 4 years quoting the Tinker decision, and debating Hazelwood.

But the truth is that staying out past curfew and putting my homework off until the last possible second and staying up to watch Conan and the Daily Show had absolutely NOTHING to do with my "biological clock." It was me, dozing off, and snapping to, my backbone stiff, saying "I'm ok, i'm not tired."

I got a head start on you, so I spent six years in school condemning Hazelwood and other criminally unconstitutional decisions, but what's more important are all the years since. I didn't learn to justify eliminating the rights of "minors" for their age alone, like most people seem to. And, more to the point, I never "got used" to waking up before 7 am in school, because you don't get used to sleep deprivation. You just get less and less healthy.

Was I perfectly responsible with my sleep time, doing of homework, etc., in school? Of course not. No one was. But that fact doesn't disprove that it's very difficult for most teenagers to follow the sleep schedule that American schools impose on them, and not just because they like to stay up late.

> ... I spent 4 years in high school quoting these sleep studies. Just like I spent 4 years quoting the Tinker decision, and debating Hazelwood.

What do Tinker/Hazelwood have to do with sleep? Or are you suggesting that siding with the Warren court decision was some kind of youthful indiscretion that thankfully the Rehnquist court backed off on? Though I was never a writer for a high school newspaper, I’m damn glad in CA we have some legitimate protection for student journalists and other student speech.

> But the truth is that staying out past curfew and putting my homework off [...] had absolutely NOTHING to do with my "biological clock."

How can you possibly assert this? First, your suggestion that you personally would have been fine if you’d just been less stubborn is counter-factual speculation. But second, your assertion is flat out contradicted by careful scientific research on the subject.

The whole “personal individual willpower is the only causal mechanism in the world” fallacy so pervasive in our society is really distressing to me.

It leads to terrible policy aimed at blaming the suffering rather than trying to help them achieve better outcomes. It’s great that poor diets; low-paying menial jobs; living in physically dangerous gang neighborhoods; getting stiffed out of insurance, pensions, etc. by unscrupulous businesses; deaths from “reckless driving” on poorly planned streets; getting imprisoned for decades for drug possession; getting straight-up scammed by not carefully reading through all the fine print on contracts intentionally designed such that their real implications differ substantially from the signatories’ mutual understanding; becoming pregnant as a teenager; catching a venereal disease; etc. etc. are subject to free will, and can be avoided by the smart and careful. But while that’s good advice for individuals trying to navigate the society – “do your work”, “get enough sleep and exercise”, “eat right”, “read the fine print” – it’s atrocious policy, because it ignores cognitive biases and intuitions and focuses only on narrowly construed technical responsibility. The result is inefficiency, poor health, unnecessary death, &c. &c. And we “teach” people to be “personally responsible” by condemning large numbers of them to bad outcomes, with nearly no evidence that any learning actually occurs as a result.

Most importantly, it eliminates empathy for those in rough situations. After all, if all outcomes are based mostly on personal merit, the down-on-their-luck must just deserve what they get.

Have you ever thought that I actually try your all your suggestion and more?

Oh lord, I don't even watch the Daily Show and Conan which seem to be mindless trite that other people watch. Heck I don't even know what these shows are.

Maybe those teenagers aren't really pushing the envelope. Maybe they just aren't made biologically to sleep at what the American system demand.

I took personal responsibility seriously, but don't ever expect me to do the biological impossible. Stop lecturing me about things that I already tried.

Please forgive me for responding to disagree with just one small part of a much larger post that I largely agree with, but I do feel compelled to reply regarding resident duty hours.

They are not simply long because the "old boys" had long hours; long hours give residents the chance to attain expert-level knowledge in only a few years. Do residents perform more poorly at the end of a shift on various tests of coordination and perhaps even judgment? I will concede that the answer is almost certainly, "Yes." Nevertheless, the evidence also suggests a tradeoff between medical errors due to sleep deprivation, and errors due to patient handoffs. Although there is now a big push for reducing resident duty hours and/or imposing "naptime" requirements, I suspect that will only make the dangers of handoffs even more evident and costly. Were I to be a patient, I would rather have a tired resident performing my surgery or drafting my treatment plan than a fresh resident who doesn't know me.

I'm sure that's the theory, but I'd really like to see the studies that prove it. Because against those studies are all those studies showing how important sleep is to memory formation, judgment, and cognition in general. And I find myself questioning what experience the interns are getting that doesn't involve judgment and memory formation. I'm having a hard time reconciling the two.

Additionally, if it actually worked that way, others would be doing it too. Doctors aren't the only people who would like to "attain expert-level knowledge in only a few years"!

Additionally, if it actually worked that way, others would be doing it too. Doctors aren't the only people who would like to "attain expert-level knowledge in only a few years"!

Maybe some of us are doing so indeliberately, by going on marathon code sprees and working 80 hours a week on startups.

> It's so much easier to instruct the victim on coping techniques than it is to contemplate changing the system that it becomes a reflex: You poke an adult, and out pops a sanctimonious lecture

Adults have the benefit of having thought as you did once, and then realizing through further experience why they were wrong.

Your comment is idiotic, yet understandable. If this sounds patronizing, that's understandable too. In 20 years you can amuse yourself by reading through your old internet rants.

This is an appeal to authority.

You have yet to demonstrate actual evidence of adults having the proper wisdom.

They only experience life only once after all.

A quick response to your comment above: "Oh lord, I don't even watch the Daily Show and Conan which seem to be mindless trite that other people watch. Heck I don't even know what these shows are."

A friendly warning: be wary of thinking yourself superior to others, especially intellectually, or assuming that calling something "mindless trite" (or tripe) makes you smart. What makes you smart is your own knowledge, not whether you can put various forms of entertainment down.

I'm a grad student and have been teaching freshmen for the last two years, some of whom have the know-it-all disease that you might be manifesting. If you haven't watched The Last Lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo , do so. Notice the part where Randy tells the story of a mentor telling him, "If people perceive you as arrogant, you won't be able to accomplish what you want to accomplish." I would say the same to you, especially with comments like this:

"You have yet to demonstrate actual evidence of adults having the proper wisdom," which is a) vacuous and b) will make people think less of you.

Anyway, you'll likely perceive my comment as a) demonstrating my inferior intelligence or b) hostile to you. I make it anyway out of hope rather than expectation.

Why the hell are you trying to pyscho-analyze me? Alright, I made a dumb comment and will try to avoid that in the future.

"You have yet to demonstrate actual evidence of adults having the proper wisdom," which is a) vacuous and b) will make people think less of you.

Lady and gentleman, this is called an appeal to authority. Calling my comment stupid and dumb isn't addressing the issue. Demonstrate why it is dumb and stupid.

Anyway, you'll likely perceive my comment as a) demonstrating my inferior intelligence or b) hostile to you. I make it anyway out of hope rather than expectation.

Well I don't know what to think about this. I respect some adults, and know that I am not most experienced person in the world, don't know everything, and can be wrong. However, I won't be tricked by logical fallacies.

You know, I actually think beyond "HAHAHA, I am superior" steps sometime. Not alway successful mind you, but enough to meta-analyze myself.

An appeal to authority doesn't mean the claimed authority is wrong. It's just a weak (non-rigorous) form of argument.

I used to scoff at people who'd say "you can't understand X because you haven't lived it." I'd counter that a) I'm smart, and b) I have a good imagination. The thing is, as I've gained experience, I've realized that while I was correct in a very narrow sense, I was also missing something important.

If you're smart, and you can learn from experience, you're unlikely to think in 20 years as you do now, on a whole range of issues. It's a very interesting process to go through, if you're paying attention. The effect is real.

You appear to be replying to mechanicalfish, if I've got this indentation correct. If this is a high schooler's web site, my web browser is really screwing up the rendering of the photo: http://www.michaelfbooth.com/ (Link is from mechanicalfish's profile, so I don't think it's a secret.)

As for myself, I'm 31, and I echo mechanicalfish's message in toto. I'd also add that the Puritan impulse in America is alive and well, it just moved on to things other than religion. This is one of them. If sleeping the way your body tells you to sleep is less miserable than sleeping correctly, then we can be pretty sure that it's wrong; the surest sign of correct behavior is misery. That's not the whole story, it's only one component, but it's there.

Upvoted for your last paragraph, the final sentence in particular (sometimes I think it's helpful to know why a post is voted up or down).

> It won't be enough to demand an early hour for going to bed. If you ban the late evening Internet surfing, you will just swap a dose of evening education for an idle tossing and turning in bed.

You've just chosen to take this statement at face value. I don't believe it.

If you get enough exercise, don't drink caffeine in the evening, and don't over-stimulate yourself after 9pm, this doesn't happen, in general.

You may see the above restrictions as draconian, but actually, they're normal for a lot of people, and have been for a while.

You're attributing a lot to this biological clock, without supporting any of your claims, while these could equally be attributed to bad habits. Don't underestimate the power of training and habit.

Now, does society enable these bad habits? Yes! So maybe we should push-back on that, instead of changing school times.

It would be useful here to look at what happens in other cultures, with other schedules, although that would make it hard to control for the one change.

Your "rubs me the wrong way" argument is silly and immature. So what if it offends you? That doesn't make it wrong.

Finally, I say all this after having thought as you did, and getting bemused "why don't you go to bed earlier" responses from my parents. Guess what? When I finally did, I started to feel better in the morning. Duh.

re:mechanical_fish

I've made other replies in this thread, but I think I've just realized the core issue:

It's easier and less error-prone to change yourself than to change external organizations.

Over the years, this becomes more and more clear, which is perhaps why older people seem more conservative and cynical.

Essentially you're arguing: this thing is difficult for me and others to do, so let's change the system. You assume that this will be easier than changing yourself and that it will turn out as you expect.

Experience teaches that things almost always seem easier and less complicated at first. Experience teaches that again, and again, massive fuckups start with good intentions.

From a coding perspective: think of getting buy-in from various people and departments to change some process or piece of code, versus just doing it yourself. Which will be easier?

So, should we avoid all structural change? Of course not. It's just that as you get older you've experienced more of these good intention -> massive fuckup cycles, and become attuned to them.

So to summarize, I expect that your plan would have unintended consequences, and that it would be easier and ultimately more effective to just re-train yourself.

If you were seldom in bed by 10 and your friends were the same, it is unlikely that high school students today will do any different. Why not propose a solution based on what people generally do rather than telling them what they should do.

I went to a military boarding school. Plenty of exercise and fresh air. In bed and lights out by 10, with roaming patrols to ensure no noise was made. And still I tossed and turned until the early hours of the morning and was exhausted all day.

Every fourth week on Sunday there would be no enforced wakeup time. Without exception the entire house would sleep in till early afternoon at least.

When I was in high school, I frequently got home at 7:00pm or later. Or else, I got home at 3:00 and then had to go back for rehearsal or practice by 5:30.

The time I did have free would be broken up by changing clothes and eating dinner (making it if parents weren't home) and taking a dump.

I've now been working at a company for 3 years where hours have been flexible (core 10am-4pm). I use an alarm clock once a week (a 7:00 AM meeting on wednesday) which I only need about half the time. Yes, sometimes I have sleeping problems and I can trace them directly to choices and habits (often, though, they are really hard choices-- eg spend time with girlfriend or not). But it's still enormously easier to avoid chronic tiredness when you don't get stuck in a bad-sleep cycle where you can't fall asleep at night and get forced out of bed every morning before the sun comes up.

I actually like his apology. It resonates with how I have been living of late. I don't expect to do things exactly like I this "forever", but if you have a serious goal, it can be extremely effective (and even necessary) to cut out distractions and refuse to participate in social expectations that you have realized add little or nothing of value but take away a lot from you in terms of time, energy, mental distraction and so forth.

I also like this bit from the article and very much identify with the sentiment he expresses:

Bundled up in parkas with fur-trimmed hoods, strolling hand in mittened hand along the edge of the Baltic Sea, off-season tourists from Germany stop openmouthed when they see a tall, well-built, nearly naked man running up and down the sand. "Kalt? Kalt?" one of them calls out. The man gives a polite but vague answer, then turns and dives into the waves. After swimming back and forth in the 40-degree water for a few minutes, he emerges from the surf and jogs briefly along the shore. The wind is strong, but the man makes no move to get dressed. Passersby continue to comment and stare. "This is one of the reasons I prefer anonymity," he tells me in English. "You do something even slightly out of the ordinary and it causes a sensation."

I've wasted way too much time due to sleep issues.

My Miracle Mix:

- Morning: 100m Provigil (ordered from an Indian pharmacy, naturally!)

- Night: Melatonin

I don't take provigil on the weekends and sometimes skip a weekday so I don't build up tolerance to it. Some people say it's like adderall without any nasty side effects. Just do it and thank me later.

any side effects? Stay up too late?

Nadda. Just don't take it in the afternoon or evening.

Is it not ironical if at 0130 hrs in the morning, i could not sleep and start browsing hn and i get to see an article that tells me to get a good sleep and life ?

0130 hrs IST it is ..

I hope someone will post a summary of this here.

It's hard to summarize. There is a lot of data and a lot of stuff to cover. I'll grab a couple of parts for you and I hope others can summarize others for you. :)

Why we need sleep:

Your brain needs sleep because your brain uses it to organized and optimized the experiences of the day. Without sleep your brain is unable to support new learning.

Read it, it's worth it. And if you don't think sleep is important enough to read this much about just start reading it and the author will convince you.

Summary (from the bottom of the page):

Sleep is important for learning! Sleep deprivation results in intellectual deprivation!

Sleep as much as you feel you need

Avoid alarm clocks

Forget about trying to fall asleep at pre-planned time! Let your body decide!

Forget about trying to fall asleep quickly! If your body decides it is the right time, it will come naturally!

Do not try to make yourself sleepy! It is enough you stay awake and keep on working/learning long enough!

It is much better to eliminate the source of stress rather than to try to forget stressful situations right before the bedtime!

Learn the details of your sleep timing (how many hours you sleep, how many hours before you need to take a nap or go to sleep again, etc.). Use this knowledge to optimize your schedule.

Adjust the timing of intellectual work to your circadian cycle (see Fig. 5)

Stick with good people! The bad lot will often ruin your slumber

Be careful with caffeine. Drink coffee only upon awakening (or after a nap if you take one)

Do not go beyond a single drink of alcohol per day. Drink it at siesta time

Quit smoking!

Use siesta time for a nap if you find it helpful

If you cannot fall asleep in 30 minutes, get up! You are not yet ready for sleep!

If you experience racing thoughts at the time when your body calls for sleep, the best method is: get up and use ... SuperMemo for 30 minutes! Few other activities can be equally taxing to your tired brain (do not expect this to work before your circadian timing though)

If you sleep it out and still not feel refreshed, be sure you do not sleep against your circadian rhythm. Try free running sleep. Remember that you may need 1-2 weeks to synchronize all bodily functions before this starts working!

If you cannot get refreshing sleep even in free-running conditions after at least a month of trying, consult a sleep specialist (see: Sleep Disorders). Remember, however, that a bad night is a factor of life. Few can avoid it. Do not get alarmed even if it happens weekly

I'd be interested if a qualified person could corroborate these recommendations.

I have Asperger's and DSPS, and have noticed that taking Piracetam helps me regulate my sleep cycle. On days when I take it, I begin to feel sleepy right around my 16th hour of being awake. I have also noticed that when I have not had decent sleep for a few days, taking Piracetam puts me to sleep within a couple of hours of taking it.

I found exactly the same thing. I've had problems for years with roving sleep cycles to the point that it seriously interfered with my life. After I started taking piracetam it settled down within a week or two. I also wake up feeling completely refreshed and ready to go. I haven't seen this effect documented anywhere - it was completely unexpected.

It is good to know that you experienced this effect as well. I also have not seen it documented anywhere. The stuff is simply great. I am in a third world country (Colombia) and in a backwater town to boot, and Piracetam is both readily available and inexpensive. What's more, it's a local generic brand, and the quality is very decent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com