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Comment by mettamage | Hacker News Reader

That sleep impairs learning is something I notice as well. For someone who can't sleep well, it feels like a cognitive enhancer. What I find hard to reconcile nowadays in my life is how to go out with friends, stay up until 4, wake up at 12 and then go to bed around 11 again (only being awake for 11 hours). When this happens I can be assured that I can't sleep well, but I have to go to bed around that time to have a shot at getting 8 hours of sleep.

How do other HNers deal with this?

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Melatonin. It's considered safe, normally produced by your body and there's very little tolerance (i.e., diminishing returns over time):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12546989

Watch out for melatonin, it might cause/increase depression (or depressive thoughts).

Source: Safety instructions on a box of melatonin pills.

Isn't it also the case that after 3 days of taking it that your body will produce it less? Or is that not true?

That is certainly the case with almost all hormones and compounds that are produced endogenously when they are supplanted: Down Regulation.

Always take the smallest dose of whatever you need to supplant in your body, for the effect you need to achieve :-)

Doesn't that disagree with the study posted above? Or do you have other data?

https://www.gwern.net/Melatonin

Have a kid. No more staying out until 4am and getting up at noon for you!

Or just not going out until 4. Or if you do - force yourself to get up at your regular time, or only a little later (max 2 hours?).

The main thing is regularity. I had a paper round on Saturday mornings once, they made me forget how to sleep in in the mornings.

So funny, and so true. And it'll really wear you out... You'll dream of the day you get a decent night's sleep again.

If I was on a night out usually I wake up quite early, like around nine. Then I feel the hangover of course but I don't go to bed again, instead have my coffee and start working. That day I feel tired and less energetic but I know of course that this is from the nice night out. When I arrive home at night I'm longing for bed but don't go to bed anytime sooner or later than I'm used to go, which is around half past 11. Then I sleep in within a short amount of time after having read a few pages in a novel. That's my hangover day novelty.

I honestly feel worthless in a hangover. It has (almost) sucessfully made me stop drinking.

Drink a lot of water before going to sleep ? Like, as much as you can.

> That sleep impairs learning is something I notice as well

Lack of sleep, presumably?

Yes. Lack of sleep. Sleep is biologically essential for forming detailed long term memories.

Lack of sleep indeed.

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