Five hours' sleep is tipping point for bad health
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
My natural sleep is definitely about 1-2 am to 10-11 am unfortunately, which is not very compatible with most jobs. Thank god for remote work and being able to nap though.
Working from home has helped me dramatically as I can get up a bit closer to my ideal time, but whenever I have to work from the office, I might as well write off the whole week, it's really hard as most days I need to nap to recover lost sleep.
It's a shame society isn't more flexible. It's very much aligned for the early birds and shortish sleep cycles.
Those people don't seem to realise, it's all the same hours, so getting up earlier doesn't help, going to bed later, does. They think it's some kinda secret but really they are just working with there body clock and cannot impose that on others.
It sucks, since I'm a kid, I'm more productive and alert from 20-01 than from 13-17. I've tried multiple times to adjust my schedule, be more of a early morning person, ultimately I always fall back into my natural cycle. I feel like the accepted schedule in society does not suit me, it's a small struggle everyday to adapt to it.
I'm now 34 and just accepted I will live my days a little bit tired while holding an office job, and accepted that I will waste the hours I feel are most productive to me so I can fit into the general office hours schedule.
I listened to the advice and made big life changes. A friend of mine in a similar job sadly didn't receive the same advice and had a stroke.
Fixing bad sleep forces you to fix habitual bad patterns. Which in effect helps restore health and ingrain healthy life patterns
Poor sleep duration/quality is also correlated with hypertension/high blood pressure, which is a risk factor for stroke and heart disease.
Not to say that lack of sleep causes a white tongue or stroke, but it is plausible that it could be a sign of chronic sleep insufficiency or dehydration.
I can’t imagine what sort of damage it has done to me.
You then spend the first half hour of the each morning feeling like shit as you try to get all the air that went down the wrong pipe out of your stomach.
(Yes, that's what happens after sleep doctors have done multiple passes of calibration on it. They are doctors, they aren't wizards.)
Worth a try if you haven't, I love the resmed nose pillows. My pressure is around 13.5 for reference, so your own mileage may vary.
In NSW, Australia, if you have a CPAP machine you can tell your electricity company (a doctor fills in a form) and they cannot disconnect your electricity for non-payment, and the government pays a small rebate. Just in case anyone else from my state is reading this :-)
Happy I have it sorted, but pretty worried what 10 years of that did to me.
Mine is anatomy btw, a lot of folks assume I'm obese (even the folks I went to get my cpap from when they saw my AHI) but I'm one of those unfortunate athletic folks.
I wish I had the route of losing weight open to me, but I'm still thankful technology is advanced enough to save me from an earlier death. That and being able to live without daily headaches anymore, or falling asleep driving, etc.
Probably going to get some sort of mental issue later in life though due to the earlier damage. Ah well.
I’m certain my mental health would probably be better with a better night’s sleep. Having only really started using the machine, here’s hoping!
Hope it’s helping you. Once I get some proper sleep I’m going to look into more exercise - which is surprisingly hard to do when you always feel tired.
I've recently-ish started a regular, albeit quite light, weights routine. Strangely (or maybe not), feeling tired hasn't at all correlated with my ability to do the same number of reps and sets as when I'm feeling energised. The feeling of tiredness doesn't seem connected to actual muscle fatigue, it seems to be more mental tiredness, and therefore will power, or discipline, or mental strength seems to be more likely what's needed to get into an exercise routine.
Ie. Don't let yourself get away with saying that you're too tired, it's likely a different kind of tired than the one that will hold back exercise.
I've actually felt less tired coming out of a session than going in (endorphins, adrenaline effects etc.)
(with the disclaimer that this is very much a subjective, your-mileage-may-vary kind of situation, and also I'm speaking from entirely outside of your experience of always feeling tired)
I'm pretty sure I have the same issue. I lost 15-20 lbs of muscle when I lost gym access for 1.5 yrs of COVID, and my girlfriend mentioned my snoring got better. I've gain it all back now though.
To keep from sleeping on my back, I now put a foam roller under the back of my shirt before I go to bed. It's eliminated my snoring and help me sleep much better. Other people pin a tennis ball to the back of their shirt for the same reason.
I bring this up because I think many people are prescribed a CPAP machine to solve their sleep problems when positional therapy would be a more effective, less expensive solution.[1]
[1] https://khn.org/news/article/severe-sleep-apnea-diagnosis-pa...
With the CPAP machine I am definitely getting a better night’s sleep.
Up until my late 20's / early 30's I'd get headaches and be a grump the very next day on less than 6 hours of sleep. I'm glad I'm past that, so I'm not immediately ruined by one bad night, but still need the eternal discipline for maintaining a routine for long term health.
Certainly in their data, people with less than 5 hours per night of sleep were disproportionately in lower career positions, less educated, minorities, people with lower levels of fruit consumption, very high or very low BMI, current smokers, and more likely to have hypertension. These specific factors were adjusted for, but the paper does not say how that adjustment was made or what the difference in the results is before and after the adjustment.
I also found it interesting that, in the reverse of most of the other factors, a disproportionate number of those who get less than 5 hours of sleep don't consume alcohol (or at least reported 0 for their average weekly consumption). Also it's weird that those sleeping less than 5 hours and those who sleep more than 9 hours seem to share the same socio-demographic characteristics.
The key, I guess, is to pay attention to your tiredness levels and be prepared to try different things when the current sleep regime doesn't seem to be working. Instead of saying "X hours is what works for me" learn the signs of being overtired and react dynamically.
What I'd really like to see is more research into individual variance. I felt quite guilty about my sleep habits because people kept going on about eight hours. A few years ago there was a book about this that made the tours on every news show until it was torn apart for making half of its content up.
But at the same time........the sleepless nights, the arguments with your partner(because you are both exhausted and the smallest thing can explode), the financial cost, the stress whenever something isn't right and you're pulling your hair out..........I absolutely 100000% don't want a second one. Nope. Not worth it.
So...............take that as you will :-)
My son came almost 10 years after my daughter, he's still not yet 6 and still very demanding (while my daughter was objectively less, but still I barely slept during 2 or 3 years).
I'll die young ^^;