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Comment by markessien | Hacker News Reader

Based on this, if you are at risk for Alzheimers (your 23andme report shows this), then one of the most important things you can do today is to religiously track your sleep and make sure you get enough deep sleep daily.

In my anecdotal experience, if you don't get enough deep sleep for a sustained period of time, you start showing minor cognitive defects - e.g mixing up words, not being able to write long, irritability. Tracking sleep and 'catching up' makes all this go away.

This is especially important for people who are caffeine sensitive, but drink a lot of caffeine. You end up getting 5-6 hours of sleep nightly, and have this constantly mounting cumulative sleep deficit.

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I understand your desire to help here but it's important to understand these kinds of attitudes can be counter-productive. My saving grace after several months of difficulty sleeping a decade ago was a book called "Say Goodnight to Insomnia" where they systematically break down why most of what you've written here is incorrect. Within a week of reading the book breaking away from many believing many of the things you've written above I was finally able to sleep well and have ever since.

From the description:

My insomnia program achieves its remarkable results because it is based on a simple yet powerful concept: insomnia can only be treated by addressing all the underlying causes. In most instances, the causes of insomnia are thoughts and behaviors (habits) that are learned and can be unlearned. Some examples include: - Attitudes and beliefs about sleep - Negative, stressful thoughts about insomnia - Feelings of loss of control over sleep - Inadequate exercise or exposure to sunlight - Going to bed too early or sleeping too late - Trying to control sleep rather than letting it occur naturally - Negative responses to stress - Lying awake in bed, frustrated and tense

"...Based on this, if you are at risk for Alzheimers (your 23andme report shows this), then one of the most important things you can do today is to religiously track your sleep and make sure you get enough deep sleep daily."

Getting enough deep sleep is probably good general advice anyway, but it's as-yet unclear if Alzheimer's or amyloid-β plaque buildup is caused by poor sleep; or if a third condition causes both poor sleep and amyloid-β buildup, in which case addressing the underlying cause is what will help, not religiously tracking sleep. Not enough information to say, yet.

But, yes, everyone get a good night's sleep!

It’s not clear that tracking sleep leads to improved sleep https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/health/sleep-tracker-inso...

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