Regular afternoon naps linked to improved cognitive function
sciencefocus.com
sciencefocus.com
I'd do 35 minute naps with an alarm at 0430, 0830, 1230, 1630, and without an alarm at 2030 and 0030 (on the basis that I thought my body would sleep through if I was "doing any damage").
It made going out at the weekends or playing poker in a casino incredibly difficult so after 3 weeks I had to pack it in.
I was lucky to live a 5 minute, folding, bicycle ride from the office but I also had a little card I'd leave on my desk for the corner that said, "I have not collapsed I'm having a nap."
The one thing I've kept from those days is that I still wear a sleep mask to bed.
Apparently insulin regulation plays a big part in sleep quality, hence the effect of sugar. Another nice side effect is I've lost about 7kg without counting any calories or making any real effort to.
Xmg of melatonin is hard to measure, because there's apparently not great accuracy in most OTC pills. And... it may take you days to confirm if a specific pill is 'working' well or not. If/when you find a combination, buy a bunch to have on hand.
I recently received the book "why we sleep" and it discussed melatonin's process. If "1 hour before bed" works for you, that's good, but it never did for me. ~3 hrs did. Or... at least 2-3 hours at this time of the year. My routine has been taking a melatonin between 6 and 7ish, and by 10 I'm typically quite 'ready' for sleep, and it's usually a fast process. It doesn't seem like it in the moment, but my wife has noticed I'm "out like a light" (which I think is more just in comparison to months ago).
I also have all phone alerts etc stop a 9pm.
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[0]: Studies linked here: https://www.verywellhealth.com/pros-and-cons-of-a-polyphasic...
The modern WFH culture has probably made it easier to do that than ever before (plus the lack of social schedules from the lockdown).
I did a modified Uberman sleep schedule while I was home taking care of my dad & working - the forced isolation, the fact that I would have to wake up every 3 hours to check on him & living in India, while working US hours anyway messing up my schedules of sleep supported the transition.
The process took almost two weeks to get into it, but lasted a whole two months & if I had to go back to it, all I would add to it is some exercise to sync up with the sun rising.
I think we as a species are naturally capable of doing short nap rests, at least for periods of several months, because that schedule of ~1 hour of rest for every 3 hours is literally what taking care of a newborn demands.
See also certain diets, not drinking alcohol, etc
I could take care of the baby while my girlfriend was sleeping at night and I could go out or work on my hobbies all night (with 27m naps) without any problem. It was like I was a liberating experience, I watched the whole of society shutdown at night, but I was awake every day all by myself, it was very odd. I also realized I didn't really need a house if I could sleep anywhere, except in winter - but I started thinking I could just sleep 30m here and there (in trains, at work, in the park on a bench) perhaps with electric blankets. A real nomad lifestyle. I also noticed that I had to force myself being productive at night as my executive function wasn't quite there - it was like my mind was used to doing nothing consciously at night, an unconscious part didn't really see a point in being awake and doing things at night - so I mostly just was sitting there, contemplating or meditating. When I made a todo list it was better.
As I also had to organize naps outside and at friends and family places it caused some tension and conflicts (I can tell some really wild stories) - and eventually, also because I didn't want to risk potential long term issues I went to 2 naps and eventually 1 nap each day.
Regarding 35 minutes, you risk entering deep sleep with 35m, at least I did when I went over 30m a nap. Or did you mean 25 minutes?
Very interesting. I wonder if this helps to explain why I'm not all that productive when experiencing insomnia, even on the occasions when I say "okay well if I'm gonna be wide awake, I'm gonna get some work done on xyz"
I worked midnight-8am for 10 years right out of high school, and now, if I'm not asleep by midnight my body just 'revs up'.
I once got woken up by a security guard in the casino as I was taking my 35 nap sitting up and I found when I just said the phrase "medical reasons" he backed off.
Have you considered getting tested for sleep apnea?
In addition, the therapy they recommended (bi-pap or something like that, basically a two-way assisted breathing machine) did absolutely nothing for me.
What finally helped was a min dose of an SSRI, which I started for totally unrelated reasons. Guess it was anxiety, never got any confirmation from any doctor that this is a known presentation of it, but swear to God literally two days on the stuff made me sleep easy with no breathing problems whatsoever. After six months I got off and once the withdrawal symptoms broke (real bad in my case, which is super weird for a min dose, but :shrug:) I've never had the problem again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis#Threat_hyper-v...
As one falls asleep one loses the ability to voluntary breath. This can cause sensations of suffocating and resulting in panic if experienced when still conscious.
I used to stay late and do school projects at night (mostly programming). I always felt my mind is so calm and with no outside distractions I was able to focus very well and be very productive (may not be objective truth at all though).
I would use full black out blankets, ear plugs and noise canceling headphones with video game music.
Pair programmer was wonderful for me, as it kept me on task and I didn’t give into distractions as easily.
Later diagnosed as ADHD. Medication made a massive quality of life. Up until my body decided that stimulants are invaders and my immune system went bonkers.
Have you found anything that gets close to it?? I have quite bad gerd and so taking any medication is a quick way to end up on the toilet but I would love to be able to focus!
Fruit and yogurt helps me a lot.
I think it's because fruit doesn't digest primarily in the stomach, so it moves the pills faster into my intestines.
Not a doctor.
> so after 3 weeks I had to pack it in.
Since it was for such a short period of time it's possible you just had sleep deprivation, which can be used to treat depression and cause a big uplift in mood.
When I was last in an office full time, commuting on the train a few years ago I'd usually be the first in my team to arrive, and then first to leave - basically trying to do 7:30 to 4 but I'd generally be pretty useless for the last couple of hours of the day.
Followed by a nap on the train.
M5x7wI3CmbEem10, I first thought you were worried about sleeping too long, getting off at the wrong station
I suppose it's getting robbed? And that you live in a quite different part of the world than me :-/
America.
Ok, I'm in western/northern Europe.
e.g. put your backpack on your lap against your chest and cross your arms through the straps, stick your leg through the loop of a duffel bag handle, etc
(wfh definitely helps with this but even before that, I kept odd/hard to track hours and no one ever questioned me)
The act of sleeping on a problem is almost mystical in that solutions seem to come out of thin air. The reality is that you're allowing your experience time to apply itself.
A lot of places it’s easier to fit in a walk or short bike ride than a nap, and it’s just about as good for clearing the mind.
I put 'nap' in quotes because I don't set an alarm (unless there is specific need to), and for me that usually means a 2 hour sleep! I figure that is made up of 90 mins of one sleep cycle, and some time either side for falling asleep and waking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_cycle
All made possible by pandemic working from home.
Sounds like they were just underslept people?
I also noticed a response to a question on memory from the article's author saying something like "well I didn't look into the impacts on memory so I can't comment on that". Also, this reads as a hit piece in general involving significantly less research and details involved, so I'd take it with a grain of salt.
- Average sleep is, obviously, not necessarily optimal; recommendations seem to tend towards 7+ hours on average (e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about_sleep/how_much_sleep.html), and there's of course data to support that recommendation (again https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/data_statistics.html)
"Our model suggests that persons sleeping 5 and 7 hours over-reported, on average, by 1.3 and 0.3 hours respectively."
For self-reporting sleep studies, perhaps people have it in their head that 8 hours is how much they're "supposed" to sleep and they over-report to better match that?
Of note, however, while the CDC data I linked comes from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System which does appear to be merely a self-reporting survey question (https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/surveillance.html), the data in the Economist article comes from an app (www.sleepcycle.com). Granted, I suspect the latter almost surely suffers from some kind of non-trivial selection bias.
The scheduled part is critical since it ensures you get to the point where your body drops right to REM and you actually get your naps instead of presuming you will find the time and then life manages to get in the way.
- it gets your mind off from the problems it would work on instead of sleeping
- it is boring, so it will eventually escape the boredom by falling asleep
- the time it takes to fall asleep gets shorter and shorter as it becomes a routine
Then perhaps after using this technique for a few days your brain might start to recognize these neuron patterns as the shutdown sequence.
I'm a bit older now, and I can actually fall asleep in midday naps. Sometimes. But I still feel energized after a nap, sleep or no.
For nighttime, I refuse to fail to sleep. When I start yawning, it's my bedtime, and I'm out like a light. If I try to sleep but I'm still bored 10 minutes in, it's not time yet. I've learned that if I try for an hour, I'll still be trying come morning.
I’ve also noticed one can feel relaxed and lie in bed but actually have a lot of residual muscle tension. Consciously trying to relax muscles in upper back/neck, thighs and arms seems to help me.
I think some people (my wife included) get caught up in the thought that in order to nap you have to sleep. Maybe just lie down, close your eyes, and try to relax (slow breathing, clear your mind, etc.) If you don't fall asleep after 10 minutes (or whatever) get up and go about your day. If you do, that's great too.
Setup is low profile in ear bluetooth headphones + copy and past a HN or reddit thread of interest (bookmarked earlier during RSS time), strip superfluous UI text and listen away. Unlike produced content like podcast/show, it's not designed to keep your attention. It still takes 10-20 minutes but it's reliable. Also gaining 10% more time is invaluable.
Episodes seem to resolve into largely incoherent babbling pretty soon. Also, the number of episodes (and their duration) is kind of mind boggling!
Thought the concept was great, but couldn't stand the host or style. it feels like being trapped in room with crazy person, harder to fall asleep to his mutterings. Also doesn't work well when topics are random, need something that grabs brain interest, but not too much. This is why comment threads are great - they're somewhat sorted by quality. You start off with interesting conversations before quality drop, and it's easy for brain to check out.
I've also sometimes tried something I read in a blog a long time ago. I think they said it was what the Marines did but I have no idea if it's true. I'll imagine I'm lying in a canoe on an almost still lake with a crystal clear sky. Focus really hard on imagining the clear blue sky and then start imagining the gentle rocking of the canoe by the lake. Keep focus on just those two things.
Zero science, pure anecdotal, so take it for what you will :)
Is it just the social pressure, I wonder?
Nevertheless, I’m glad to hear that science is confirming what seems anecdotally obvious: siestas help.
Then I listened to Andrew Huberman talk about doing some meditation or yoga, getting inside, at 16:00 to reset your "external" system (1). I did a fair amount of meditation in the past so thought I'd give it a try, but keep it extremely sole just focus on my breath and being a witness without getting involved with anything going on around me. I do this for 15 mins around 16:00 (depending on what's going on at work). For me it works, I feel refreshed, re-energized like after a nap, but with the advantage that I have no problem to fall asleep at night.
Three hours later I get a text from her: "OMG thank you. The nap did help me understand everything!" (I'm paraphrasing).
I don't know what it is exactly, but I feel like naps almost invariably help me to understand complex problems. I suppose it's partly because my brain is still thinking about the problems while I sleep, and partly because my brain wakes up energized and ready to go, without the fog of tiredness interfering with my thoughts.
Regardless, napping when I'm tired has yet to fail me whenever I'm stuck on a complex issue.
Personally, naps do enough good for me that I regularly use L-theanine or melatonin to help those happen.
I've also been experimenting with taking L-theanine about an hour after waking in the morning, to encourage pre-noon naps, usually happening sometime between 8-11 am. This is because overnight sleep quality and sleep cycles can vary from day to day, so I find a bit of a "reset" nap in a more controlled environment (my office) can provide additional mood and executive support.
It seems a bit ridiculous now to consider how much of a daily energy bet I was making on the outcome of a single 6-10 hour overnight period, which could be affected/moderated by all kinds of factors.
I'm wondering though, are you using melatonin during the day to take naps?
Yep, I do use melatonin during the day but at a lowered dose. Usually 150mcg or half of one of the tablets I take at night. 300mcg is for me nearly a guarantee that I'll nap for 3 hours, and those oversleep results (depending on last night's sleep, but usually it'd be oversleep) are not enjoyable at all.
Edit: I've also taken a quarter tablet or about 75mcg to calm down after a long day, and I'm glad I tried it.
Also, I'm honestly a bit jealous that you have 300mcg tablets; the best I could find is 1mg in a capsule and to split that I have to do volumetric dosing. But at least it's not the insane amounts you exclusively find in American pharmacies, heh.
For example, if I feel like I'm bottoming out on a given cycle, I'll exaggerate my de-energizing response in order to bring the right momentum into the adjustment to the energy change. I might gently slump over in my chair, open my mouth, breathe deeply, and meditate for a few seconds before calmly deciding what to do--a bit of an overreact to help me model and effect the mental transition.
The opposite helps when I'm headed energy-upward on such a cycle.
In any case, if I'm feeling off (relative to the rhythm) I tend to set ultradian-style timers, e.g. building on the strengths of a 90-minute cycle effect by delaying important plans or decisions for 15 minutes to see if cycle position helps.
I hear you on the dosage. In case it helps, the brand I use are "Sundown" and the tablets are really inexpensive.
"Eating every 2 hours shown to improve cognitive function [in infants aged 0-6 weeks]"
Even when I was not drinking coffee, I was still not napping. While my wife would just nap every day between 1-2pm or 20 minutes like a clockwork.
I've tried afternoon naps throughout my life I'm part of the distribution where it only made my cognitive function and physical performance worse.
It's been years since I tried it last, so I'll def check it out. So far the best thing for my cognitive function from all my experiments is to have a good night sleep, eat healthy, meditate, have passions, and exercise. This doesn't mean Im consistent with it as sometimes it gets boring.
I noticed if you want your brain to get functionally good at something, these healthy habits will only take you half way there. There are other mental models that you're not gonna learn from simply being healthy.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SiestaI could never do the nap thing, but I always appreciated the hour long break. The naps seemed necessary for him though. If there was times he couldn't have his nap he'd get kind of grumpy and such.
This seems like a pretty important caveat.
Some people are just wired differently :)