Optimizing the Timing of Brainwork | Hacker News Reader

Optimizing the Timing of Brainwork

supermemo.guru

65 pointsrajlego11 comments

Our culture frames our relationship with our body as a struggle against weakness. This encouraged me to spend years trying to hack a solution that would allow me to eradicate the mid-day slump. I tried sleeping more, exercising, eating this or that way. But always there would be an inevitable dip in alertness at some point.

The many articles on SM Guru taught me that trying to coerce your biology into submission is futile. One should learn to work with the circadian rhythm, not against it. Ride the waves, don't try to plow through them.

Organizing your life that way is hard if you live by a 9-5 schedule. Especially because organizations tend to perpetuate the disrespect of our own biologies.

But maybe now with so many switching to remote work, a brighter future awaits!

Anecdotal - the only thing that worked for me was eating once per day, around 6PM. I was very alert the whole day, but not in an unpleasant way. The hunger pangs come and go, but are manageable. Tried this for a week, I don't drink coffee at all but this felt like I've had a couple of cups.

A nutritionist friend however dissuaded me to go this route, as apparently it is very hard for our bodies to process that amount of food and one will end up with various nutrient deficiencies in the long run. I'm curious to know if someone got intermittent fasting to work long term though.

I think there are lots of studies on intermittent fasting/single meal per day eating schedules (though I haven't looked much at them). From what I can tell, caloric periodic restriction tends to be a net good. I've personally been doing it for ~1 year and it's definitely more convenient since I just eat twice a day but I think I may also have not been eating enough (alongside doing a fair bit of exercising).

I have a theory that most people who consider themselves night owls get to be that way because they "manage" their sleep. They stay up later than they should, wake up to an alarm and then their mornings are screwed for productivity. Additionally, normal demands screw up this time of your day. Instead of working during one of your most productive periods, you're getting ready for work, prepping the family, cooking breakfast, commuting and everything else which makes them hate mornings. They don't realize they get two peaks in a day and they are screwing up the first one.

Nah. In normal times (non-covid) I'm like death warmed over in the morning, but by the evening I've really perked up, don't want to go to bed, want to paaarty[0]. Always been that way. Always can think better later in the day. Owls/larks have been studied, it's real (interesting fact heard recently, owls are less sociable than larks. Curious, no).

[0] Thank you covid, for ridding me of these unhealthy passtimes.

> don't want to go to bed, want to paaarty

This is much like the problem I mentioned though. To have consistent good mornings, you need to be going to sleep at exactly the same time every night. You then develop a pattern where you get tired, sleep and wake up at the same time every day. This assumes that you don't have issues which get in the way of this (sleeping disorders, etc.) If you don't want to go to bed, then you're probably not hitting the sack at the same time every day. Pandemic doesn't change this as you could be doing the same browsing HN late at night rather than partying. Also, alcohol will really screw this up as well.

I had a period of my life where I could work any hours I pleased with no social obligations so I tried not having any alarms, just went free form. And I basically ended up having a 28 hour "day" and spun round and round the clock. Not ideal long term(!)

The most comfortable configuration was going to sleep about 6am and waking about 1-2pm, but once I started having kids, etc. that obviously wasn't going to be viable so now I get up at 9am which is tolerable but not super productive.

I have the same experience. Anyone know why we cycle around like that? Melatonin and blue-light blocking glasses have helped a lot, but it still feels like my body wants to stay up at least 1 hour past the previous day.

I don't know anything about why it happens, but you're definitely not alone. A friend of mine has it pretty bad; trying to adhere to a nominal 24hr has utterly failed him. If I recall, his body runs on about a 26hr schedule in a 13 day cycle. He fought it for a long time but ended up just being a zombie all day long until he found work that let him roll with it (which means for some portion of the cycle he's working midnight to 8am)

It's super inconvenient; if anyone knows of any potential resources I would happily pass them along to him. He's found something that works, but it's pretty inconvenient for... you know... integrating with the rest of the world.

AFAIK various studies have shown that people tend to drift to a slightly long cycle, but there's variation in how much the internal clock differs and how hard it is to adjust. And some of us just have bad luck with that :/

Went from night owl to early natural (no alarm clock) riser (5-6 am) doing covid. Best productivity decision ever.

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