Hacker News Reader

Comment by plantain | Hacker News Reader

I spent a few years oncall overnight at a company with very high pager load, and my sleep seems irreparably damaged in the same way. I wake up in the night and can't get back to sleep, and I almost always wake up well before my alarm (after 6-7 hours), even though I still feel tired and remain tired through the day.

I think there's something here, but I haven't figured out what or how to fix it.

Things I've found that have helped:

A thorough eyemask and good earplugs reduce the awakenings and help me sleep in a bit longer.

An air conditioner that runs into the morning to keep it cool - I think the air temperature warming after the sun comes up starts to trigger wakefulness?

Cutting out sugar and caffeine after 6pm, which helps getting to sleep a little.

View on HN

Maybe try cutting caffeine after Noon (or completely). The biological half life is about 6 hours, so the early cutoff means most of it is eliminated by the time you want to be sleeping rather than roughly when you are waking up too early.

>A thorough eyemask and good earplugs reduce the awakenings and help me sleep in a bit longer

You need blackout curtains. We all do. They are the best sleep aid ever.

Any recommendations on an air conditioner that would work when it's below freezing outside, but too hot inside?

If you don't have control over the heating being on, a cracked window goes a long way. My (very, very dated) dorm my freshman year ran the heat 24/7, often up to 85 degrees. Cracking a window kept it a pleasant 72 degrees. Wasteful? Absolutely. But worked with the constraints given.

Sadly it's hard to get a precise temperature this way when it's 30F oitside. Waking up cold isn't much better than waking up hot.

I was once gifted an electric mattress pad. Once I got over my own eyerolling it turned out to be pretty amazing. I was lying in a drafty, poorly insulated farmhouse in Wisconsin at the time (so maintaining a comfortable sleeping temp. was difficult). The ability to warm up the bed before getting in was very helpful (as is being able to "dial in" sleeping temp. separately from the thickness of blankets).

This is Hacker News though. A thermostatically controlled actuator, or similar, will fix that up.

Yes, but I also value my time.

It's a possible project, but you would need to not only have something that opened and closed, you would need a fan system to drive the air, and you would need to have it be thermally insulated when closed, and unless you have a very conservative cooling algorithm you would probably want a heating system to deal with the room getting too cold because the room itself is not thermally sealed.

It ends up being a DIY air conditioner/heater, which I'd rather just buy.

I think you're thinking a little too big. All I think that is really being suggested is an automatic window cracker/closer.

If the goal is just to maintain a temperature I don't think you need to go to most of the lengths you mentioned. You have a window that is currently adequately insulated when shut. This is intended for maintenance so no need for a fan to speed things up. However the room is getting too hot now will suffice to heat it back up if needed, but again being slow means it shouldn't overshoot badly either.

It still may not be worth your time, but if just cracking a window would be sufficient cooling for most of the year it could be.

A moment's thought leads me to think you could use something like this: (temp-controlled plug bar, basically) http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=536763 Attached to a motor /servo (depending on your window) that will turn on or off at a given temperature. Have a switch on the window which cuts off/enables the power when the window is open or closed at the desired max/min.

Crack window, wedge towel in leaving a small inlet for cold air.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com