Hacker News Reader

Comment by fleddr | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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/

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com