Hacker News Reader

Comment by fredley | Hacker News Reader

Yup. I did a Sleepio course that had a good trick for this: Remember that you've got through every single day after a bad night's sleep before just fine. Even if you don't sleep a single moment, you'll get through the day. You've done it loads of times before and you'll do it again.

For me a big source of panic was worrying about the impact on the next day a bad night's sleep would have.

I still have nights where I don't sleep from time to time, but I've stopped caring about it.

View on HN

Man, generally I don't have sleep troubles[1], but I hate not getting sleep. It destroys my next day. Like, objectively. I don't operate well without sleep, so the thought of "you'll get through the day" doesn't ring nice for me. The same is true if I stab my foot with a knife, but it doesn't mean I won't dread experiencing the recovery from the knife wound lol.

[1]: I sleep well, I get plenty of it. The only downside I have is restless leg syndrome which, according to my wife, has me kicking and moving my legs a lot at night. I imagine that impacts my quality of sleep, so I try to get a bit more sleep due to that.

Getting a lot of sleep != getting quality sleep.

If you have restless leg syndrome, you don't sleep well.

Agreed, but sleeping more still helps me. Maybe I could be happy with 7h/night without restless leg, but that doesn't change the fact that 8h for me is currently better than 7h. 7h just isn't enough. Which was my point - I get enough (more than average) to ensure I feel refreshed the next day.

It's definitely a problem though. I'm not a fan of medications, but I've not researched a natural remedy - perhaps I should.

Restless leg/limb has nothing to do with involuntary movements, so I don't think that's what you have here. RLS features a restless sensation, and sensations generally require consciousness.

No idea - when I'm awake it's definitely a restless sensation. Ultimately I'm the one that moves my leg, but it becomes nearly impossible to resist. It's a hard to describe feeling, a growing tension that almost buzzes electricity - not painful, but .. insanely insistent regardless.

I only found out that I kick in my sleep from my wife. She says it's worse on days when I actively, while awake, complain of restless legs.

Beyond that I've got no idea. It's not something that seemed to be dangerous nor bother me enough to see a doctor due to the infrequency that it bothers me while awake. If it occurred often while I was awake though, I'd have to see a doctor. No question.

Unsolicited advice: try taking 300mg of magnesium a few hours before bed. My RLS used to be rampant, and since I started supplementing Mg I haven’t had a single instance of it.

I use magnesium glycinate chelate because I’m a sucker for fancy vitamin sales pitches, but I’m sure other formulations work just as well.

Nice.

"Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

So if you fear death . . . ?

If you fear death, dying will certainly cure you of that fear.

> Remember that you've got through every single day after a bad night's sleep before just fine.

Not everyone has gotten through every day just fine, though. Drowsiness increases the chance of automobile accidents, decreases working memory, and, over time, contributes to stress-related diseases.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com