Impacts of lack of sleep | Hacker News Reader

Impacts of lack of sleep

belkarx.github.io

277 pointsbelkarx188 comments

I've struggled with sleep for as long as I can remember. I have improved it considerably in the past year (still not perfect). Out of the dozens upon dozens of things I've tried, here's what I think made the most difference, in order of importance.

1. Very consistent bedtime and wake up time. +/- 30 minutes, but ideally less. Obviously if you struggle with sleep you can't count on falling asleep at the same time, but work at it.

2. Expose yourself to bright, outdoor light every morning.

3. Keep the lights as dim as you can tolerate for ~2 hours before bed. Blue light is technically worse than red, but total light is way more important.

4. Anything you do for ~1 hour before bed should be very passive. For me, reading is good, very particular kinds of TV is okay (can't be too stimulating), or something along those lines. Anything that requires decision making, social interaction, things that get you excited and so on are completely out.

5. Breathe through your nose. It can be hard at first but it gets easier over time. If your nose is constricted you can exhale all your air, hold your breath until you feel the urge to breathe, and then draw in a big breath through your nose. It will open up your nasal passages. Do it a couple times if you need to. If you have sleep apnea that you can't fix that way get a CPAP.

6. Meditation. And it's not really that doing 10 minutes of meditation during the day means you'll magically sleep better; it's more that you learn how to divert the noisy thoughts and focus on something very simple to help you relax at night.

Also, sleep is a temporal problem. If you do everything perfectly for one day your probability of sleeping better at night will go up by some relatively small percentage. Which is discouraging. But if you really work at it for a month it will get significantly better. And by the same token, if you're in a good state, one or two days of disrupted sleep don't cause all that much damage.

EDIT: 7. Forgot to mention this one: keep the room very cold. Matthew Walker (the guy who wrote Why We Sleep, which is a great book) recommends 65F.

I'd also add

8. Don't eat within 2 hours of sleep (at least, maybe more).

9. Exercise earlier in the day, rather than later

Can't agree on reading. It's cognitively stimulating, assuming you read something that interests you. I don't know about you, but I can't just close the book and forget about it.

Complete opposite for me, no matter how good the book is, at night I still find myself becoming extremely tired from reading.

Yeah, if it's night time and I start reading something technical I usually pass out in like 20 minutes, even if I'm enjoying it.

Read something you’ve read a hundred times. I use Hitchhikers Guide to go to sleep.

For me it really depends on what I'm reading, and I do agree that sometimes it can be too stimulating. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule here of reading == good, TV == bad or anything like that. For example I can watch twitch before bed, but only a replay, not a livestream. I suspect it's something about the feeling of being able to interact with a streamer vs it being totally passive.

I think it just really depends, and it's worth just paying attention to how specific things affect you.

There are morning w/coffee books and, nighttime books. For me, history works well for night time. The 18th or 19th century. Ancient works. YA novels. Something which will take you out of your day and into another place mentally. Examples of bad books to read before bed: business books, technical books, self-help.

Try reading a book you find boring, like a book in a foreign language that you kinda understand but only barely (for most Americans this would be something Spanish, maybe something by Isabel Allende). The cognitive load will make you doze off -- at least it works for me.

Also try heavy books like Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. That one's another snoozefest for me.

Cryptonomicon has given me countless hours of sleep.

Regarding Why We Sleep here is a critique [1]. Was posted on HN in past.

[1] https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/

I either watch a netflix series that I've seen multiple times before (Office/Parks & Rec/Superstore/Arrested Development) or read a book series I've read before (flip flopping between Harry Potter and the Discworld series). They're not boring, but they don't stimulate me as much, and if I miss a chapter, or a half an episode, so be it.

> but I can't just close the book and forget about it.

When I'm reading for sleep, It's closer to reading to the point of dropping the book rather than closing it and deciding to go to sleep fwiw!

A couple of things worked on there for me as well, but the biggest one for me personally is 0.3mg of melatonin

I started with 3mg, way too much, went to 1.5mg, still too much. Then did 0.7mg, that was fine but still some small side effects. Then 0.4mg that was fine. Then 0.2mg, that didn't work. Then I did 0.3mg and it seemed to be the sweet spot. I can just barely perceive it working and it is just enough to make me feel a bit woozy, which is what I cannot do myself.

My understanding is that melatonin is a threshold kind of thing, so it makes sense to dial in a specific dose. For me I found that 1mg gave me as much "get to sleep" effect as 10mg, so I would just use 1. I wasn't able to find dosages less than 1mg so I never experimented further.

For me, I took melatonin before bed for a month or two and then stopped, and when I stopped I didn't notice my time-until-sleep being any different. My assumption is that my natural melatonin production eventually started happening at the right time once my circadian rhythm was fixed and the supplemental melatonin wasn't needed.

> I wasn't able to find dosages less than 1mg so I never experimented further.

I was like you, but I just roughly broke the pills in half or 1/3 and it worked even better.

Now I have this melatonin syrup drops, 150mcg per drop so it's easy, 2 drops for me.

In The Netherlands they are sold at 0.1mg at the lowest granularity. I used those to test it. Eventually, after figuring out my dose, I now resort to a comfortable yummy (it's sweet, helps with placebo effect :P) 0.3mg melatonin + 1mg CBD tablet.

Most melatonin tablets are available in 3 mg formulation. What sort of microtome are you using for dosing?

A few companies make 300mcg. Sundown Naturals is one.

In Germany melatonin capsules come usually in 1 mg doses or even 0.5 mg ones.

Just get melatonin drops. They say 1.5mg on the label, but that's for 10 drops or 150mcg per drop, so you can take 2 drops for 300mcg or 3 drops for 450mcg.

Perfect, thank you!

According to Scott Alexander's review (https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...), 0.3mg is the correct dosage for melatonin and higher doses might do more harm than good. I think you have accidentally replicated some of the melatonin research on yourself.

I personally wouldn't want to use melatonin all the time. Relying on a drug to keep my circadian rhythm going seems fragile and scary.

Yep, I read that one after I found my dose and had the same thought.

I don't want to use melatonin either but when I got off of it, I don't fall asleep. My situation is simple: either don't get sleep, or use melatonin. It's fragile but currently my only seeming option that I have, so I have to take it.

It may seem paradoxical but also not worrying about sleep itself, not writing down lists, not trying to dissect and optimize sleep, may actually improve your sleep much more. Animals have slept and evolved for literally millions of years. Unless there’s an actual clinical condition, having faith in your own body and just relaxing should be enough. At least that’s my case.

It is paradoxical and rooted in our duality as thinking animals. Many sleep disorders (mine included) are rooted in anxiety. They will respond to these little hacks and tricks, but (in my experience) only insofar as they allow you to feel in control and tune out your thought stream.

For the record I practice all the common wisdom and more 90% of the time (and melatonin, earplugs and blindfold close to 100%). I might sleep 7-8 hours a night and wake up fully rested or I might wake up totally blitzed, depending on my mental state. I might fall asleep easily the night after or toss and turn for hours. I might fall asleep easily from exhaustion and wake up 4 hours before I'm supposed to with a racing mind. It's not environmental and it's not any state of my body. It's my/your thoughts and emotions. It sucks but since I've found the root cause, I've been better at controling the downward spirals.

(Still need my little rituals before going to bed to feel right though)

> just relaxing should be enough. At least that’s my case.

Yep, this is a very important one.

I've been fortunate enough to have a pretty good ability to fall asleep and generally wake up feeling rested. Most nights I'll wrap up with a movie and often times I'll fall asleep in what feels like about 10 minutes after I decide "ok, I'm going to sleep now".

I believe this is very tied into not feeling like I must wake up at a specific time. It allows me to goto sleep when I'm tired and wake up when I naturally wake up. There's no laying down and thinking "ok it's 11:17pm, I have to be up at 7am". This could easily turn into "it's now 11:58pm, why can't I sleep, crap I have to be up in 7 hours" to "...how the heck is it 1:30am, this is bad, I need to be up in 5.5 hours" and now you're done for, your sleep quality is going to be bad because you'll for sure think if you can't fall asleep in a few minutes you're going to risk sleeping through any alarm.

But without the pressure of having to be up on a schedule, 99.99% of the time if I went to bed at 11pm I'll be up at about 6:30am or 7am without an alarm and feel good about it.

This has happened to me time and time again. Any time where something comes up and I "must" be up at an early hour with alarm it affects my ability to fall asleep the night before. Usually the more important the thing is the harder it will be to fall asleep. Like ensuring I'm up to catch a flight or anything with a hard line on the time.

>But without the pressure of having to be up on a schedule, 99.99% of the time if I went to bed at 11pm I'll be up at about 6:30am or 7am without an alarm and feel good about it.

For me it's even a step further, because with no set schedule I'm more likely to fall asleep at 9 than at 11.

The schedule anxiety can creep into the morning if I have more time than I strictly need, which leads to my sleep schedule being mostly a (semi)subconcious attempt to minimize excess morning time.

> Any time where something comes up and I "must" be up at an early hour with alarm it affects my ability to fall asleep the night before. Usually the more important the thing is the harder it will be to fall asleep. Like ensuring I'm up to catch a flight or anything with a hard line on the time.

Yup, this is me. It's one of the driving reasons why I've endeavored to not have to wake up at any particular time most days. Paradoxically, I wake up earlier.

I really like your list, but I also want to point out that humans have way more variability than we realize. A sure fire solution for some will do nothing for others. It doesn't mean it's bad advice, just that context is everything when it comes to health, diet, and fitness for people.

A few other things I would suggest that might help some.

8. Cut down on caffeine. The whole point is that it's a stimulant. I have had many conversations with people where they complained about chronic insomnia but also drank six cups of coffee a day. Caffeine has a longer half life in the body than you expect. Drink less and drink it earlier in the day. Personally, I have only one cup of coffee in the morning, and that's it. If I have any caffeine in the afternoon, I'm up all night.

9. Journaling. If I'm awake with the same anxious thoughts going through my head, I find writing them down helps massively. It's like my brain understands that I don't have to worry about forgetting it in any more and lets it go.

10. Exercise. Doesn't have to be super vigorous, but just going for a walk helps. We are animals. Animals need to move. Gotta get the wiggles out.

This is such a good point. /r/decaf has a lot to say about how life changing quitting caffeine is.

Anecdotal, but cutting caffeine completely for at least a month is something that I think anyone with sleep issues should try.

I drank at least five cups of coffee every day for the last couple of decades. While I have tried to keep away from it for a week now and then, I have never managed to eliminate caffeine entirely, and still ingested some from other sources like tea and soda.

Until last year, when I started taking some medication that interacts with caffeine, forcing me to drop it could turkey. Aside from the splitting headache and flu-like symptoms that persisted for three days straight during withdrawal, my sleep almost instantly improved. For most of my adult life I have been a very light sleeper, waking up easily and having a hard time falling asleep. While I still have some nights where I can't fall asleep, the number of those have reduced significantly. Finally, I can actually remember my dreams again, and they are often quite vivid.

good list

the following addition is gonna sound weird, but here it goes :) one thing that was recommended to me and which worked is eating a handful of sour cherries before sleep. don't get ones in a jar (contains added sugar). instead get frozen ones and defrost them so they are ready before bed

also here is a great podcast about topic of sleep by the author mentioned in advice #7:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbQFSMayJxk&t=5768s

"Dr. Matt Walker, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology and the Founder & Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley"

Same, I’ve heard that red berries work well in general. I’ve used raspberries but will have to try the sour cherries. Not sure the science behind it but I’ve noticed a difference.

well sour cherries contain melatonin. apparently non-pealed kiwi fruit is good too ... but id rather not sleep than eat that

For what it’s worth, kiwi skin is delicious. Tried it once, and now would rather have an unpeeled kiwi.

Just my $0.02.

Kiwi skin is good, the contact point of the fruit and skin is an amazing tart flavor. A semi-aggressive wash can get a lot of the "hair" off the outside if the texture is what puts you off.

For me the most impactful thing by far was leaving the phone in the other room. Instant gain of 1-2 hours of sleep per night.

I find brown (not white!) noise really helps too. I particularly like Alexa's brown noise mix.

I tell Alexa to "play brown noise" and the droning sound calms my mind in minutes.

Also writing therapy helps -- writing down all the thoughts bothering me and then crumpling it up and chucking it in the trash really helps me let go. There's something about externalizing one's thoughts that helps one let go of them.

agreed - white noise is too tinny.

I use a mix of brown and grey throughout the day.

I use Bose sleep buds for sleeping. It was life changing. The 'warm static' mix they offer is a great brownish noise for masking out external sounds and helping get to sleep.

Meditation has been a big help to me when I wake up in the middle of the night. But sometimes letting thoughts go isn't enough. I've often found that the muscles in my body simply don't want to relax enough for me to be able to fall asleep, so I need to put extra effort into helping them relax.

This can be anything from the traditional 'body scan' where you start at the crown of your head and work your way down, focusing on relaxing every part of your body (head, neck and shoulders are the big ones for me). Or I sometimes imagine getting a full-body massage, and that can do the trick. Of course if you've never had the experience of a full-body massage this likely won't work.

I did one thing in the last years: wake up early, and directly go for a walk to the bakery. 45min ~ it was surprisingly mentally refreshing and after 3 days my body got a natural alarm clock as if the reflex of walking was now preset.

> Breathe through your nose. It can be hard at first but it gets easier over time

I'm stumped here. Isn't that the normal way to breathe? Why would it be hard, unless you have some medical condition like sleep apnea, which requires treatment in itself?

When I was a child mouth-breather was an insult. I’ve also always thought one should breathe through one’s nose.

I have to actively try to breathe through my nose, it's often congested (having a pet despite allergies doesn't help), and it's just simpler to breathe through my mouth, cause that just works.

Medical interventions are possible, but I'm not thrilled with the side effects of the medicines I've tried, and surgery has some really awful tail risks, so there's that. I was recently recomended to try B1 (thiamine) suppliments related to sleep apnea, not sure if it helps with that, but it does seem to open up my nasal passages, and taking it before bed seems to be helpful with breathing during sleep. YMMV, not medical advice, etc.

Why would you get a pet when you're allergic?

Gain > Loss, I suppose

My baby poodle is on the couch with me, fast asleep. Her little legs twitch. Sometimes she does little yips in her sleep. I wonder what she dreams about. I hope she feels love for me, close to what I feel for her.

Oh, allergies. Yeah they suck. Dogs are nice though.

Why would you want to live without one?

I like being able to breathe. Its one of my favorite things to do, goes along well with being able to drink water and digest solid nutrients.

You might not feel so strongly about a non-hypoallergenic (er, allergenic?) breed that it's worth suffering. (Probably you'll end up loving the breed you choose above all others anyway, whatever your feelings on or awareness of it beforehand.)

Well, my first two cats, I didn't realize I was allergic, because there's so many other allergens anyway. It became pretty clear the cat was a significant allergen with the second one, but it would take a lot for me to want to rehome a cat who I had bonded with and was well behaved. The current one was supposed to be a barn cat, which would be fine, but at least lately he's decided to hang out indoors a lot (he's well behaved and a snuggler). Cats and I get along well, other than the allergies.

In summary, humans do all sorts of things that are not wise; of all the stupid things I could do, this isn't so bad.

I can breathe, breathing through my mouse is normal for me, so if allergies clog up my nose, it's just another day.

A vegan diet has made a huge difference in clearing my nose pathways.

I had chronic allergies growing up, so my nose was ALWAYS stuffed up and I had to breathe through my mouth. When I moved somewhere where my allergies weren't as severe, it took me years of conscious effort to breathe through my nose by default. Sometimes I still catch myself breathing through my mouth!

Allergies. It is very very rare I can breath through my nose. Really wish I could because life is so much better when it does. I have been told surgical operation only works for about 10 years before it comes back. And no long term medication seems to be able to deal with it without some side effect.

I am not a "yoga type" so I was completely unaware of Neti pots. By chance my doctor told me about a "Rhino horn" which is available at the local pharmacies around here. It is the same thing.

https://www.yogaprosess.com/usa/

(I am not affiliated - any odd neti pot will do!)

You mix salt and lukewarm water. It gives instant relief. Even if you are not fully obstructed it relaxes the nose. When fully obstructed just have a little patience and it will rinse through.

I think Yoga practitioners use it as part of their daily morning routine. But I am too lazy and only use it when I have a cold or allergies (been around cats and horses).

It was a really weird thing to use the first couple of times. But the relief is so worth it.

This is a total game changer for a CPAP user. If you nose is clear when you go to sleep the pressure from CPAP it often enough to keep the nostrils free.

Thanks. I Actually did that long before Yoga was a thing. It only works for about 10-30 min. Then it is blocked again.

Neck muscle problems sometimes show up as sinus issues. All the muscles of the head are tightly linked in crazy feedback loops. For example, there's a muscle at the base of the back of your neck called the suboccipital that is linked to your eyeballs. You can feel it flex and move when you move your eyes around! That's totally unintuitive to me from a basis of minimal human biology knowledge.

Anyways, this is very relevant to knowledge workers many of us eventually succumb to forward head posture, which is like slamming on the brakes of a car doing 100mph. Except we do it every day for hours at a time. Eventually stuff gives out.

Normal is different for different people. It feels much more natural for me to breathe through my mouth. But I suppose the fact that "mouth-breather" is an insult meant to attack one's intelligence is a sign I'm in the minority on this.

I also significantly improved my sleep with this exact same list (plus fasted cardio every morning and progressive weight lifting 3x/week).

I my case the things that helped the most:

1) Melatonin 300mcg (2 drops) -- usually after 2-3 days, taking it I found I don't need it for another 3-4 days. No tolerance at 300mcg. I've tried other drugs that I still use for when I'm stressed (zolpidem which I actually like recreationally but won't take it when there are others in the house, antihistamines, or benzodiazepines).

I cannot stress how good it feels to know that I have options in case I can't sleep. The same with panic attacks I had a few years ago -- once I knew I had lorazepam/alprazolam in my wallet and I could end any panic attack in 15 minutes, the panic attacks stopped by themselves. Just having the option gives me peace of mind. The same for polydrug usage that helped with my BPD -- having the ability to just change the way you feel was such a blessing and the beginning of the end of BPD for me (70% was dealt with by therapy).

2) Actually fixing the problems in my life -- when I'm happy with my work, my child, my wife, I exercise a little (even just a bike ride in the park), I practice my hobbies, I socialize a little -- in such days I sleep like a baby.

3) The whole sleep sleep hygiene thing -- it's just a cherry on top of the cake, if I had a good streak of days where I was content/happy, I can basically do everything sleep hygiene says but in reverse and still get a great sleep.

> Breath through your nose.

I used to be a mouth breather at night due to a nasal passage so narrow that it would essentially close shut on inhale. If the air was very humid - like 100% – I was fine. Otherwise, I would wake several times during the night practically choking from a dry throat. What solved this was a cheap silicone nostril tube insert. It dilates my nostril letting the air flow. It took a few days to build the habit of sleeping with my mouth closed, but this little tube massively improved my sleep.

If you have problems with breathing through your nose or snoring, go get some breathe right strips. It’s just a metallic strip with adhesive to help keep your nasal passages open - super effective.

re: nose breathing. What i’ve been doing is using Simply Saline (easier than a neti pot) and using breath right strips. Optionally use a mouth guard which can help you avoid mouth breathing

> Expose yourself to bright, outdoor light every morning

Bright outdoor light is a luxury not everybody has. Where I currently live it is cloudy most of the time and feels dark even at noon, especially in winter (when the sun is low). I wonder how people do adapt to such climate.

I did sleep studies, medicines (including modafinil which worked but had scary sides), natural supplements (which helped but tended to result in lesser quality sleep).

In the end I needed to make sleep my number one priority and I focused on it for several months.

I slowly built up what worked for me, but likely won't work for you. A lot of being in bed at 10 staring at a dark ceiling for 3+ hours. Getting into meditation (in the am, not evening), exercising but never after noon and not eating after 6. Alcohol in any amount won't prevent my sleep but will vastly deteriorate the quality.

It took tons of trial and error to do what medical professionals couldn't help with. My conclusion is sleep is complicated and highly individual. You need to identify the things that wreck your sleep and pick them off with serious attention to them.

Isn't modafinil a stimulant? A coworker gave me some and I was super-productive at work.

> Isn't modafinil a stimulant?

It's... stimulant-ish? Nobody seems to know exactly how it works.

Can you even get that without a prescription?

The answer is "yes"… from online pharmacies that ship it from India. Whether you get the real product or a counterfeit version is anyone's guess.

It seems to legally retail at 0.25 USD per pill: https://www.1mg.com/drugs/modalert-100-tablet-19037

I assume online pharmacies sell at a heavy markup. It hardly seems like counterfeiting would be worth the effort.

Can you expand on the scary sides of modafinil you found?

> Increased (+33%) risk of dementia which is something you should be terrified of

Ah yes, the secret ingredient for a good night's rest. Being terrified.

Is this scientific consensus? I remember the Matthew Walker book (Why We Sleep) was heavily criticised.

For example this article + discussion:

https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26684519

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21546850

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22419958

My thoughts exactly. My overall takeaway from sleep research is that although there are some health risks with undersleeping, there are (possibly greater) health risks with oversleeping, plus the prevalence of sleep deprivation is greatly overestimated.

These points and the Guzey essay were discussed in depth in Science Fictions by Stuart Ritchie, which features examples of negligence and fraud in science. Having read and enjoyed the message in Why We Sleep, my first reaction before reading based on the length of the essay was that the motivation was axe-grindy, but the further I read the more it made sense and the more egregious Walker's claims seemed. The lack of a response from Walker is another serious concern (especially after Andrew Gelman highlights this). It seems that he is trying to avoid a Streisand Effect by ignoring it completely. If that is the case, Walker's strategy seems to be working because on the comments on new threads like this, many mention mention Walker but seem unaware of the criticisms.

Doesn't he have a response on his website? I swear I read it at some point

Oh, right, thank you and GP for reminding me, there was more discussion of this:

Here Gelman's pieces (at stat modeling):

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/11/18/is-matthew...

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/12/27/why-we-sle... (<- more links in this one)

Quote from Gelman: > We’ve left “super-important researcher too busy to respond to picky comments” territory and left “well-intentioned but sloppy researcher can’t keep track of citations” territory and entered “research misconduct” territory.

This may be a response by Walker to criticism:

https://sleepdiplomat.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/why-we-sleep-...

Here's a reddit discussion where Guzey responds to that response and raises further points:

https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/ekdbo2/matt...

I've had terrible sleep issues forever. Finally got my sleep apnea and insomnia sorted out some years back (CPAP and melatonin+magnesium took care of it for me) and the difference is just incredible. I mean I would worry on a daily basis that I was going to black out at work and hit my head on my desk. (While still putting out decent work most of the time - not completely sure how). I no longer take multi-hour naps several evenings a week after work. I can't overstate the difference it's made in my life.

Anyway, if you suffer from sleep issues, I urge you to take it seriously and do anything in your power to mitigate them.

Another way of saying this is is that time in bed is not equal to time spent sleeping. sleep hygiene is important.

I got a CPAP and it really helped. Another overlooked one is sleeping in a cold room.

My problem is that I get too much sleep and it's very difficult for me to wake up if there's no meeting scheduled that morning for my flexible remote job or if there's no social pressure to get up. I'll happily sleep 12-14 hours if you let me. I've been this way since I was a teenager, and I'm 25 now.

I know this sounds like I'm complaining about a luxury, and lack of sleep is definitely worse, but it's always made me feel like I'm wasting my days sleeping and missing out on life to a degree.

Most of the ones awake wish they were sleeping an extra 2 hours, you enjoy it!

Get a blood test. I was like this in my early twenties, turns out I'd had two strains of glandular fever.

I was like that into my 20s. Now in my 40s, I'm lucky to get nine hours. Enjoy it while it lasts and don't worry about it too much. (But set an alarm if it's impacting work.)

I'm just like you. Healthy, but I sleep a lot. 10h is ok, but 12h is my sweetspot. And before people ask, I love starting my day with a Monster (caffeine + taurine + ...)

I just put that on genetic variability. Stop the FOMO on life: mornings are no better than afternoons :)

Ever got a sleep test? You might have some health condition like sleep apnea.

My sleep problem is not that I can't fall asleep when in bed, it's that I can't tell myself to go to the bed to sleep. I think it's some kind of chronic FOMO / productivity bug, but obviously it results in lowered productivity overall because of my effectiveness when fatigued.

Has anyone else addressed this issue in their own lives or know some resources tailored to this problem to learn how to better approach bedtime?

I have the same problem. I sleep within 5 minutes but I won't go to sleep. I stay up. I may waste 2 or 3 extra hours doing absolutely nothing productive instead of just going to sleep.

My positive interpretation is that it's introvert me. I need significant alone time and this is the only time slot where I'm not constantly bothered or interrupted.

The negative interpretation is that it's plain addiction. To distractions. News. Updates. Whatever.

Whatever it is, I can't solve it. I need a kick in the butt. Somebody to force me to bed.

Yeah, I get stuck in that loop.

The trick that helps is to realize that I will get more done tomorrow if I go right the fuck to sleep tonight.

I have this too. Someone had a good list of things to be doing to optimize your environment. They definitely help. I would add: 1. putting on pyjamas at a certain time every day (e.g. 9:30 pm). 2. not eating anything after 8-9 pm, only drinking water. 3. have other activities like reading to do in the 1-2 hours before bed. 4. no stimulants in the afternoon. No chocolate in the evening. (easy to ignore but makes a big difference).

The biggest psychological bad-habit I had to get over was ignoring my body/mind when I felt tired. If that means falling asleep in weird places, slightly earlier than expected or when there was still something I felt I needed to do, then just accept defeat for that day and let sleep take you over. Allowing my ego to accept defeat at the end of every day, to let sleep be the victor, that is the best way I can frame it for myself. In the end we're creatures that need sleep and to deny my own biology in that regard will lead to my own undoing.

I'm not sure how much this will do to change anyone. Sure, it's bluntly stated but, well, most people realize quite well that lack of sleep is awful and dangerous. People don't usually do it because they want to do it. Long hours at work, deadlines, stress, occasional bout of Netflix addiction. Out of all of those, there's only one that's easy to resolve and I'd wager that Netflix isn't usually the biggest contributor to chronic lack of sleep.

Also being a night person on a day people's world.

Yup. Even being a day person and maintaining a solid schedule is hard. Oh, you'd like to go to bed on time but the two/three friends you still retain as an adult want to have a drink because today's the only day of the week they're free. And then tomorrow you want to go to sleep early but it's cleaning day and you need to do it cause then it'll be a tough day at work and so on, forever and ever.

Imagine a medieval king who decided their castle should be lit up like day at nighttime, hundreds of candles in mirror-walled rooms, 365 days a year, and also that the entire castle save only the bed chamber would host the finest entertainers and all the most interesting friends and strangers in the world, party games and amusements in a hundred palace rooms, and a mage who could show the king any wonder of the world in his crystal ball, and a bazaar with the finest goods on display, the best academics, et c., et c., basically on tap, and this wild best-the-world's-ever-seen carnival would never. Close. So that all the king must do is open his bed chamber door, any hour, any day, to be enthusiastically welcomed into a veritable (and sometimes literal) orgy of entertainment. 24. 7. Year-round.

Think that king might have a rather disrupted sleep schedule? It seems obviously insane to live like that, no? Instant reaction is "my god, why would you do that", right?

Consider that a totally ordinary middle class house in the West is arguably worse than that.

No wonder everyone "can't" sleep or "is just a night owl" (sure, some may actually be, not saying zero people are).

Frankly it's a miracle we get anydamnthing done, and sleep at all.

I'd encourage everyone to try candle-only lighting after sundown (or maybe extremely dim candle-temp electric lighting, though if you're just trying it briefly consider the candles, they're a bad idea for a bunch of reasons long-term but fine for a few days—you'd be surprised how little you need, I found two beeswax tapers were the minimum to read by without discomfort, but my eyes are still young-ish), no electric devices whatsoever (there's actually still a ton you can do—card games, board games, play music, read, draw, write, et c.), no whole-room lighting, just for a week or so. See if you're still a "night person" by day 7.

[EDIT] Bonus round on the thought experiment at the top: imagine the king is, despite this questionable decision, actually fairly responsible and leaves the castle to go run the kingdom during the day, most days, retiring to this ultra-carnival-home only late in the day. You'll expect that to go even worse as far as sleep is concerned, right?

All of my lights are tunable for color temperature and brightness and everything is tuned for warm and dim in the evening. It's helped my sleep no end. However i also have sleep apnea and am unable to tolerate the machine, so all of these things are still true. (i've had some surgery - need some more, and i still do try the machine, i've just never been able to get more than a few hours sleep with it

Since you brought up apnea, I want to clarify that my post is not meant to explain all difficulty sleeping or dismiss all folks' situations. Some have sleep apnea or other medical issues. Some really might be built different in a way that makes them night owls (I was sure I was for years, as seem to be so many people). Just that there seems to be a pretty obvious explanation for probably most of the trouble when you lay out what the environment in a normal house looks like at night these days.

That is a fun and good analogy .. that I read at nearly midnight while sitting with my laptop and external monitor at full brightness communicating with strangers in other parts of the world.

You're absolutely right. I'm supposedly a "night owl" and "not a morning person" but it's total nonsense.

I've spent considerable time in my travels in tropical nations. Two days there and I'm a completely different person.

The day starts at 5:30 AM, as soon as light arrives. And will you look at that, I'm jumping out of bed full of energy. Absolutely unimaginable back home. It's made possible because life slows down after 6PM. You eat, relax, and go to bed around 9pm. For the simple reason that there's nothing to do, and nobody else is doing anything either.

Unlimited light and distractions has made me a night owl, it's not a natural thing or character trait.

Yeah, I didn't stick with it (it's really hard to resist the temptation, including temptation to try to be productive at night) but because I tried it I do know now that I'm not a night owl, at all. I'm just a normal person in the West in this century. Which manifests as living like a night owl.

I admit my speculation that this explains at least 50% of modern sleep difficulty in developed countries is not based on hard data, but I'd say it's a pretty damn solid hypothesis. Yet everything's all "take magnesium" or "exercise more" or "use redshift" or whatever. Which is probably helpful, but seems like it's ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that we might have too much and too good always-available entertainment (and our lighting situation... after I got used to using candles, which was much faster than I expected, normal electric room lighting was shockingly bright, like I couldn't understand how I thought it was desirable or even OK before).

> I'd encourage everyone to try candle-only lighting after sundown

That means dark from before 17:00 to 8:00 and that is just too much. I can barely fit work into that.

I happen to also think we'd be, in some ways, more content and happier (and likely healthier) if we followed seasonal rhythms a bit more, including being much less active & productive in the Winter when there's the least sunlight. But that part, I am entirely aware, is completely impractical.

As evocative as this thought experiment is, and highlights the extreme difference between modern and preindustrial life, trying to appeal to the well-being of that medieval monarch seems like it's falling into the natural fallacy. The past is a completely foreign country. The ancient elites would have absolutely killed for the HVAC systems that were absent from their drafty castles. The most basic of foods we eat would have driven them mad, wars were fought over simple seasonings and spices. Not to mention the advances in medication and basic hygiene.

That said, it would be interesting if it became a fad (among the classes of means, naturally) to try to revert to premodern sleeping habits. Paleo-sleep, perhaps. It could lead to the return of biphasic sleep.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29886907

Or, perhaps, not:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many...

This definitely wasn't intended as a "medieval kings had it great by modern standards" call to return to the past, but rather to emphasize just how much world-class, hyper-stimulative entertainment we have available, dirt-cheap and on tap, every hour of the day. Even TV stations used to shut down for the night. The shift started with electrification & recording technology, but entered a whole new phase only quite recently. When you put what we have in terms of what our everyday entertainment options would have looked like in a pre-industrial society, it emphasizes just how large a difference there is.

If anything, this is closer to a "Gods of the Copybook Headings" argument. "Too much of a good thing..." may be cliché and something only old fogeys say... but what if we're the ones making an error, in rolling our eyes at them? What if, not even that long ago, that was a bit silly applied to this particular thing (entertainment and nighttime lighting, chiefly) but no longer is?

I don't expect this problem to actually be fixed, but I do find all the casting about for "why do so many people have trouble sleeping, these days?" risible in light of what sure looks like the most obvious explanation, which never gets more than a personal-responsibility treatment ("put the phone in another room") which seems like a bad joke when you apply the medieval-king thought experiment. "Maybe the king should just not leave the bedroom, then?" LOL.

You forgot the most important one: caring for young kids in a nuclear family society with two working parents.

I was waiting for this comment. I have no problem falling asleep and staying asleep, but if one kid keeps you up until 2 and the other wakes you up at 6:30 you can only sleep so long.

As someone that has recently perfected their sleep I'll share my approach for anyone willing to try.

1. Always go to sleep within 30 minutes of a specific time every single day. If this ever starts to drift, take a pill of 100 micrograms of melatonin 3 hours before you intend to sleep to get back on track.

2. Get lights that turn on and off via a smartphone app. Set them to turn on 30 minutes before you intend to wakeup. No alarm.

3. Before sleeping supplement magnesium (most americans are deficient).

I wake up with 0 grogginess every morning. It's amazing.

Did you ever used to wake up groggy? I feel like that's been a constant for me since forever.

Yes, and I used to feel tired all day. I didn't include this in my original list but eating at the same specified time every day also helps with tiredness and keeping a sleep schedule.

Just in case anyone cares, this gracefully aging guy has found a reliable way to refreshing sleep every night for many years:

-- Learn some form of qigong meditation (not East Asian myself, but lived there many years). Just before bed, it's a huge help to quality sleep.

-- Practice a calorie restricted diet several times a week. On days I eat ~400 kcal., my sleep heart rate dips 5-10%.

-- Listen at bed time via earphones or otherwise to audible recorded books, selected for the sonority of the narrator and the subject matter -- not too boring, not too arousing.

I'd like to expand on that large bit. I really used to have elevated heart rates / anxiety while sleeping. I used to get up with a startle and be unable to sleep afterwards. What I found worked for me was crowd noises. I think it provided me, at a subconscious level, the reassurance that I was not alone (thus safe from predators).

After I married, the startle basically went away :). Turns out, having a human beside you while sleeping works wonder!

For me the biggest change in sleep came when I started exercising on a daily base. I started boxing and fitness couple of years back . I sleep 9 hours everyday. Never feel tired during the day, except when I go to bed. Normally takes about 5 minutes to fall asleep. Whereas it used to be hours sometimes when I was younger.

If there is any meta advice I've learned from developing good sleeping habits it would be "Learn your own nervous system". Anecdotally I've seen varying responses to different lifestyle factors, so experimentation should be part of your plan if you want to optimize your sleep.

I've personally found a lot of success with:

  - Deliberate relaxation - I found the muscle relaxation technique incredibly valuable ( https://www.healthline.com/health/healthy-sleep/fall-asleep-fast )
  - Sleep in a cold, dark room 
  - Limited phone time - mindless scrolling is fine if it helps me relax, but not if it amps me up

What I haven't found matters for me:

  - Strenuous exercise - I've found that training late at night (I compete in powerlifting) and going to bed immediately after leads to very deep, restful sleep
  - Caffeine timing - to an extent timing matters, but daily amount is by far the biggest driver for sleep quality
  - Meditation - it affected sleep adversely and even though very calm and level, I felt substantially more awake after meditation

> Increased (+33%) risk of dementia which is something you should be terrified of

Terrified of dementia, yes.

Terrified of a ~2% chance becoming a ~2.6% chance, not quite so much.

There’s a linear increase of dementia risk as you age. It seems to be not a matter of if you get dementia, but if something else kills you first.

[0] https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/76/suppl_5/v2

I went to jail. One of the things that I didn't expect is how little sleep it is possible to get in some cell blocks.

In prisons there are often lots of jobs or programs available, so people have to be able to get up in the mornings, but in pre-trial detention there is often nothing, so some people tend to stay up all night long.

And if you want to talk to your buddy, but he is on the other end of the cell block, then you need to scream at the top of your lungs for him to hear you. Especially if many others are trying to talk at once. So you basically get a cacophony of people screaming at each other all night. If your block has a TV and a radio, then those might be on maximum volume right outside your cell too.

I would say over eight years I got an average of four hours sleep a night due to these issues. God knows what effect this long-term sleep deprivation has on all these prisoners, but it can't be good for everyone's mental health.

Seeing "caffeine" after substance abuse/addiction is really an eye-rolling moment. Sure sleeping is important. But coffee = substance abuse? Get a life.

On a separate note. 1mg of melatonin does wonders if you help it a bit (don't take it and then stare at the screen). As everyone probably knows by now, the recommended dose is 0.3-1mg so you could get even better results by splitting the 1mg pills, but 1mg works for me.

It's surprisingly difficult to get 1mg melatonin pills, so the life-hack there is to buy the kids version.

Also heavy curtains and total black-out of the bedroom does wonders. Electric light is a pretty effective sleep disruptor

In high school and college I was in a vicious cycle of insufficient sleep, lethargy during the day, and panicked heroics the night before deadlines. It worked! I got into and out of a selective institution that way. But my life got immeasurably better once I started working. I would put in an honest day’s effort, leave it wherever it was at the end of the day, unwind all evening, and wake up again when I felt like it (hooray for 11am standup).

Holy shit. The quality of life improvement was unbelievable. It is incredibly tragic to have wasted those years that way.

Most of the bad side effects don't show up ( for me at least ) in the first day of no, or next to no sleep.

Against the long-term effects ( and brain / nervous system in general ) I do a 1-month therapy every year of cerebrolysin ( peptide that helps neuro-regeneration ).

I've found that if I can function pretty well if I do a 8 - 9h of sleep every other day, too. It's especially great, because I've got me-time for a whole night, while everybody's asleep. Anybody else tried the "sleep well every other day" thing?

The end of your life is not guaranteed. Your life may be shortened any number of ways unrelated to how much sleep you have had.

Let's say you live to be 90, sleeping 8 hours a day. That's 60 years of actual living time, 20 of which occur between ages 60 and 90. If you sleep 4 hours a day and live to be 90, that's 75 years awake with those extra 15 years spread over your entire life - not just the last third which is likely to be less enjoyable and productive.

I see your point, however your life may be worse on average (health and mental state) because of the lower amount of sleep.

This is my sixth night being 100% homeless (on the streets with no vehicle, no private place to go). Sleep for the past five nights has ranged from non-existent to a few nodding hours in long sleeves laying down in various public places.

Compared to a week ago, I finally started to notice cognitive decline today. My words don't come out as smoothly, and I have gaps in thoughts.

Frankly, it's nothing like it was seven years ago after a bad break-up. That time, I got maybe 2-7 hours of sleep a week for a solid two months or so. It is an awful feeling being wide awake, unable to sleep at all, yet: dead tired, suicidal in a persistent 24hr a day drawing-towards-death sense, utterly afraid and unable to actually follow through.

It's odd to me that my situation then was far, far better than it is now. Sleep these past five homeless evenings with a ruined life -- even missing a few nights and only catching a few hours these past few -- are far better than those restless post-breakup nights seven years ago.

My life fell apart since seven years ago in numerous ways. Programming and participation in technology, generally, for me is completely dead and has been for years now. Perhaps the extended sleep deprivation removed any remaining desire to live. I've certainly been dead inside since then, moreso than in the past.

Still unable to finish suicide. The desire doesn't go away, ever. The terrifying fear of death, however, seems unlikely to ever dissipate, so actually completing suicide seems increasingly unlikely as the decades pass. This has been an ongoing desire since grade school.

I am still awaiting the big sleep. It can't come soon enough.

Also, just wanted to add a point. I find human culture to be garbage, and have found it to be garbage ever since experiencing an ongoing pattern of abuse as a child.

I experienced bullying and abuse as an adult as well: at work, hell, even on hn in past accounts.

Whether there are good people is irrelevant. There are shitty people everywhere. One can try to ignore them, but they are still part of this species. Primitive, babbling apes.

Again, death cannot come soon enough. I pray to God to please kill me in my sleep tonight. A prayer that has yet to be answered.

I have seriously noticed the effects of a lack of sleep on depression. Often depression kept me sleepness and vice versa. Please. Find a way to find proper sleep somewhere for a good few days. Force it upon yourself to catch up on it.

Even if you're seeing it all as just you being on your way out then consider there's no point in waiting for it in misery.

I am living on the streets. Sleep is difficult.

I understand this won't sit well with a lot of people, but reading a chapter or two of the Bible before bed totally resets my mind and helps me fall asleep almost immediately when I am ready. It calls you to a different realm. Especially the historical books like Judges, Samuel, and Kings.

I'm a light sleeper, so noise is a critical concern for me in getting good sleep. My partner is a heavy snorer, and sometimes our son wakes me up to get water (because I'm a light sleeper and get up quicker). I remedied this by sleeping in a separate bed and that helped get some solid sleep. My partner was unhappy with this less affectionate arrangement, but solid sleep is precious!

To top it off, our neighbors have loud cars they like to rev at odd hours in the night. It can be seriously bothersome, and earplugs are needed. We've complained, but they are apathetic.

All this prep to get some solid sleep!

My arch nemesis when it comes to sleep is obstructive sleep apnea. I have some soft tissue redundancies (long uvula and turbinate hypertrophy) as well as skeletal deficiencies (recessed jaw and narrow nasal cavity), and I had to have multiple surgeries in addition to PAP therapy to get reasonable (but not great) sleep. When I first started having unrefreshing sleep a couple of years ago, I tried everything under the sun when it comes to sleep hygiene (which helped a bit), but there comes a point when you really need medical interventions.

I truly wonder how many people sleep poorly because they ruminate about dysfunctional relationships at night. After many decades of miserable sleep I finally set boundaries with certain family members and long time co-workers. I can practically fall asleep on demand now and sleep through the night. It's beautiful! and so many of my life-long mental health problems, even minor physical issues, are gone. I wish I would have asserted myself decades ago but I kept thinking it's my fault, not theirs, that I am not mentally stronger.

> which is something you should be terrified of

The use of that word "terrified" in American journalism is mildly annoying, and baffling to me (Slate is also a big culprit). What's with this?

If someone threatens me with a deadly weapon I may get terrified (IDK, never happened yet), but I'm not "terrified" of any future event regarding society, the world, or my life.

Terror is clear and present danger; it's unclear to me how any hypothetical event placed in the future could ever induce terror today.

I've struggled with sleep for as long as I can remember, but my issue isn't falling asleep -- it's staying asleep throughout the night. I usually sleep ok from 12am-5am, but after that, I wake up and fall back asleep every ~30 mins or so til I get up around 8.

Does anyone else have this issue? Curious if there are any good solutions...

IMO this is the toughest thing to solve.

What somewhat works for me:

* My GF cuddling me. I just think about her, and sleep and nothing else, it's a bit pavlov like. I'm fairly sure I get a lot of "feel good" chemicals when this happens.

* Sounds silly but... build a buffer for 12 hours, and stay in bed for longer until you properly fall asleep again.

* If I wake up after 4 hours of sleep and really need the sleep, I do 0.3mg melatonin. Not ideal, but it does the trick.

* Meditation: sometimes (20% of the time) it nudges me to sleep. In all cases, it leaves me a bit more well-rested than if I'd not meditate.

* 0.6mg melatonin + CBD at the beginning of the night. I'm not a fan of this solution. I find 0.6mg a bit much, but if I need a blunt tool, this would be it.

This is really great advice. I'm going to give this a try tonight. Which side of your girlfriend would you prefer I take?

Hahaha, whichever side makes you fall asleep :')

You might be phototropic, which is not a bad thing. If you go to bed at 10 and wakeup at 5, congrats. That's your issue, and you should probably listen to your body. If you go to bed at 10 and wake up at 3, maybe make a lifestyle change.

Yeah something like that, I think it could be a body clock thing or dry eyes in the winter by the time is around 6 the dryness wakes me

I go to bed between 10:30-11 and wake up without fail right around 5am. No idea why. I find it I move to a comfy chair I can often get back to sleep.

Bluntly Stated: The Impacts of Lack of Good Sleep.

You can sleep for 10 hours and still feel shitty. It's getting that good 5-7 hours of restful sleep that makes the difference. Something about that cerebral fluid washing the brain just leaves you feeling like a new person.

I never really had issues with lack of sleep until I became father 1.5 years ago. Child has issues with sleep since the start and while it recently got a bit better, in those 1.5 years I can count the number of times I got 8 hours uninterrupted sleep on one, maybe two hands.

On the worst days I could eat double my normal food intake and was still hungry. Working and concentration is quite hard, more coffee intake is the case. Complex thoughts are increasingly difficult (e.g. improving software architecture takes much more time than I was used to).

I do wonder what happens when sleep is back to normal. Are some effects staying or will eventually everything go back to how it used to be before?

One major change I experienced on becoming a father is instantly respecting every parent MUCH more than I previously had.

>I do wonder what happens when sleep is back to normal. Are some effects staying or will eventually everything go back to how it used to be before?

We had twins and sleep was incredibly hard for more than 2years. It took me a few more years to realize that not only was my sleep disturbed, my whole sleep hygiene was messed up and I had picked up several detrimental habits (e.g Late night was the only time I had to myself with no disturbances. I started to stay awake increasingly late into the night). I almost had to relearn how to sleep all over again.

So, yes, It does get better. You may need to put some effort to reclaim it.

Is 8h sleep from 22:00 to 6:00 qualitatively equivalent to 8h sleep from 00:00 to 8:00?

This is a question I've had for years: Does time of day matter for sleep?

If I go to sleep on a "normal" schedule (wake up, start day around 7am), I need 8 hours. However, I can totally survive, and even thrive, with just 5-ish hours of sleep, if I can wake up around 11am, going to sleep just before dawn.

Not a doctor, so I don't know the answer. My assumption is that it depends on the person. I'm a night-person, so naturally the waking-at-11am schedule works best for me. But staying awake until 5:30am is unthinkable for most morning people.

I believe if you adjust your circadian rhythm accordingly, and don't face interference from external conditions (sunlight) they are equivalent.

For me, I have noted that it is not. Even after long periods of going to sleep at later times. I have always found earlier to bed and earlier to rise is much better. My problem is I am never tired or motivated to go to bed before 00:00 or 01:00. I don't really get sleepy or yawny. I really only go to bed because it's getting to silly o'clock.

There are multiple studies that show that the time that you sleep does matter. There is a higher risk of diabetes and obesity for people who sleep during the day and are awake at night.

I'm not saying this to be a buzz kill, I really wish it wasn't true. Anecdotally, I used to keep very, very late hours and sleep a lot of the day - and I did this for years. I thought I was fine. Once I established a normal day/night cycle (kids and wife do that to you), I realized that I had been grumpy most of the time and not particularly happy. Soon after establishing a more normal rhythm, I also lost a considerable amount of weight (about 15lbs).

It's less the time, and more how it interacts with the rest of your live.

Like the bodies instinct related to light amount and how you allow your body to sleep getting out of sync.

Or how day time tends to be more noisy and as such is more likely to disrupt your sleep.

Or how meeting people fits less into your sleep cycle.

Or how most people are not night active all the time, but switch between periods of night shifts and e.g. not being night active on your free days (because you e.g. can't go to the SPA at 2am).

Or how bright lights, even such advertised as daylight lights, often do not replace day light properly.

Etc.

So, while the time doesn't matter directly in practice having a "off" cycle is much much more likely to affect your life implicitly in negative ways then a more day aligned cycle.

Yes, obviously it is about the day/night cycle and not about absolute time because people on the other side of the planet are just fine. But while the absolute time may not matter, the time you are awake during the day/night cycle does matter. You can try to tell yourself you can live outside this day/night cycle, but we just didn't evolve that way.

The time "numbers" do not matter but:

- light availability matters, like how much lite you are exposed to in the morning, during the day and in the evening.

- how it affects other parts of your live (e.g. how reliable you can keep the rhythm)

- the body has a natural tendency to associate low, warmer light with "time to slowly go to bed", how likely are you to mess that up?

- how does it fit in with fitness and food?

I personally have a supper messed up sleep cycle.

Through one think I know reliable is that it's hard for me to stand up at any time before 1-2h after daylight (not twilight), which living in the northern hemisphere means in winter I have a hard time standing up before 9-11am. Which messes with food intake and daily activities.

At the same time it means that there is quite a long time in the evening with a constant not to bright light (room light), which messes with my body knowing when it's time to sleep.

But having bight (indirect) "neutral" or "daylight" light around my work desk, "warm" light in my living room area and reducing it over time before going to sleep does help a bit. Through it also creates a light cycle detached from daylight ... which can be a problem, too.

EDIT: Anyway: You are _much_ more likely to have subtle negative effects in your live implicitly caused by a less day aligned sleep cycle then you are with a day aligned sleep cycle. The more "off" your cycle is the more likely it will implicitly cause negative health effects, and the harder it gets to offset them.

Hi, I recently launched an app to help you get better sleep through cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-i), which is the first line of treatment recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. The program is designed in collaboration with experts from Harvard Medical school. We are running a promotion at the moment, and lifetime access cost only $19.99 (with a 90 day money back guarantee, no questions ask). Check us out at https://slumber.one/offer

I've had trouble with sleep since I was a kid.

- I'm a night owl. The rest of the world runs on mornings, and I hate it. (Working with west coast / remote has made this much easier. Seldom any 10 AM meetings.)

- Work / life balance is impossible if you're trying to do anything substantial outside of work. You have to find time to get it done, and losing sleep is the easiest thing to do.

+1, I also work a remote west coast job from the east coast. I haven't set an alarm since 2020 (apart from a few early flights). It's been great.

Perhaps we should praise the benefits of naps. [0]

- Increased alertness

- Attitude adjustment

- A creative mindset

- Cash saver (because the cost of drugs adds up)

[0] https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-lifestyle/sl...

This is one of my favourite things about working from home. I can take a power nap in the afternoon and be so much more productive when I wake up!

I've used books on tape (audible) with a 30 minute sleep timer. I've been falling asleep within minutes. After a week or two of listening to the same 30 seconds to a minute, I switch books, because I start to literally dread starting these things up. Perhaps the books are just too boring.

Tangentially, anyone tried dry sauna therapy sessions at night before bed? It's helped me tremendously with sleep and more. It's a bit considered a luxury, but maybe you can find a gym or spa membership that's low cost.

I installed an IR sauna a few months back. I use it almost daily. Sleep has been fantastic since then and I recover from workouts much more quickly. Stretching is also much easier in it and I've easily increased my bent-over stretch by 3 inches since I started focusing on it.

For me, the best thing to induce a good night of sleep is exercise. It can be at any time of the day. Some of my best night have been after I finished an hour-long heavy weight workout 45 minutes before going to bed.

I've been trying mental math. It seems to work quite well. Unlike reading you don't have to get up or put on a light. As I get more tired I fall back to very easy ones, like the times table.

I have kids. I am just going to be sleep deprived so my children don’t feel abandoned when they can’t sleep like I did. I’d rather have well adjusted kids than be well rested.

I always love reading the "productivity hacks" of people without kids and there is always an item which is basically:

- go to bed and wake up at the same time and try to get 8 straight hours. Or if not, take a nap etc.

Good luck with that if you have multiple children under 5

Most advice in techworld begins with an implicit "don't have kids". Children don't and shouldn't exist.

My favorite is the book How To Live Your Life In 24 Hours which was written around 1920 I think. It doesn't technically imply you don't have kids... more that your wife will take care of literally all the work at home.

Don't have time in the morning? Tell your wife to fill the kettle and put matches beside it so you can more easily prepare your tea when you wake up!

That’s genius! Why didn’t I think to ask my wife to leave the matches out! Ha ha.

I've seen people in this thread saying the opposite but for me having a kid has been the key to a good nights sleep. That kid just makes me feel tired all over.

I've had sleep troubles all my life but seldom feel tired. I'm hoping this means I just need less sleep. I fear it means early dementia. This keeps me up at night.

Also substantial relief of anxiety and ADHD. Much easier to approach any kind of task and do it happily without distracting or procrastinating.

How long do I have to lose sleep for permanent effects?

My newborn children would like to know their dad isn't going to suffer these problems.

Congratulations!

Your newborn has a distinct smell at the back of their head. You can smell it when you’re feeling tired and it will give you energy compared to a shot of espresso. Goes away around 6-7 months.

Fully empirical knowledge, I cannot explain the science behind it.

Can you provide some resources? I’m genuinely interested and search results are unyielding.

I’ve had luck with valerian root and melatonin getting me to sleep, but wake up 12-2 am, even with a “slow release” formula.

Take heart. This might be all natural.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29886907

I find sleeping late way past 12 and sleeping 8 hours vs sleeping early 11am is a huge difference.

Why is this published on github? Is it the cool new publishing platform for everything now

There is a good ans scientific literature about this subject

preaching to the choir, everyone wants sleep

Yeah, this is like "people who are overweight: lose weight". Well gee I never thought of that before, I guess I'll go right out and do it. I certainly won't continue lying awake between 3-5am 2-4 times a week now that I know it's important. /s

There's no need to be cynical.

Out of all the health problems one might have, improving sleep is the easiest to fix with the biggest immediate benefits. Further, many issues people claim to have with sleep are self-inflicted, excuses, or solvable.

When you improve your sleep, you're not missing out on pleasures in a way a strict diet may rob you of the goodies in life. You don't sacrifice anything with better sleep.

> Out of all the health problems one might have, improving sleep is the easiest to fix

… when the sleep problem is internal. Dependents with their own sleep problems are not often dealt with easily.

> improving sleep is the easiest to fix with the biggest immediate benefit

Tell it to all the insomniacs.

Is this true now? I hope so. When I started my career 20 years ago, it was common for people to take pride in how little they slept. Sleeping 8 hours/day was treated as a weakness. I don't hear such silliness so much now, but it was unclear whether that's because times have changed or because I now spend my time with wiser people.

AKA, impacts of having a baby.

Well…duh, lack of sleep is bad. It’s not like I had 10 years of insomnia by choice. And I’d gather most people, besides the tiny-but-vocal crowd talking about sleep hacking† and grinding and growth hacking or whatever, are desperate for more sleep.

My potentially unpopular opinion: if you have long-term sleep issues that aren’t resolved by lifestyle changes and sleep hygiene, go to a doctor. I had years and years of poor sleep, and I finally found help that way.

†modafinil is great, though.

Bluntly Stated: FUCK. YOU.

I have tried everything there is.

- lost 20 pounds - check - stopped smoking, alcohol, coffee - check - more sport - check - no screen - check - melatonin - check - light therapy - check - hypnosis - check - phytotherapy - check - accupuncture - check - that thing in your mouth - check - not working for a while - check

You think I don't know being tired makes me an asshole? Well rejoice, apparently I'm going to die early.

Have you had your vitamin d levels checked? Worth checking out what Dr. Stasha Gominak has written on the subject.

And iron

Iron was huge for me. I’m a blood donor. Last time I went I couldn’t sleep for a week until I started cramming chicken and spinach down my maw like there was no tomorrow. Got rid of all the issues I was having.

B vitamins are another big one, especially if you drink sometimes.

+1 on iron. Iron deficiency has surprisingly widespread effects.

If you haven't done so, try removing dust mites or other potential allergens from your bedroom.

Maybe try move to another location.

I tried to finish the original article but I was just too tired...

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