My 2022 self was wrong about meditation, monitors, and sleep | Hacker News Reader

My 2022 self was wrong about meditation, monitors, and sleep

guzey.com

152 pointssebg162 comments

Meditating every day before bed is the best lifestyle change I've made in the last year. I think it's as important as brushing my teeth twice a day.

A few years back, I was almost killed in a shootout between two rival gangs while in my house. A bystander walking by wasn't as lucky and he was shot to death in front of his wife. Major US city, not in a bad part of the city either, just bad luck, bad timing. It took a while for the PTSD to hit but eventually my therapist and I realized that a lot of my anxiety symptoms were stemming from a constant feeling of danger / feeling that I wasn't safe.

I started meditating every day about 3 months ago and the difference has been night and day. My friend started the journey with me and he's had similar results. I feel so much better every day, and I would estimate that my anxiety symptoms are down about 80%. Therapy is helpful too, and I would encourage anyone who feels like anxiety affects their life at all to do both CBT and meditation.

Can you go into some detail about how you meditate to reduce anxiety?

Not who you asked, but Healthy Gamer GG has a lot of short meditations that only take a few minutes. There's a course on his site but a lot of the same information is scattered throughout his YouTube.

https://youtu.be/86sYinrLuPA

Headspace helped me tremendously.

There's a great book by Culadasa: The mind illuminated. It covers a lot of what ancient meditators thought about the practice, but the essentials can be found in the first chapter.

Second this. He is a professor for neuroscience and meditation teacher for decades. Breaks it down into 10 steps, in plain english. A must, if you are into meditation, IMHO.

He was, unfortunately.

Goes to show the importance of Right View with these practices as well. They don't suddenly make you a great person on their own, etc.

I meant - his body dissolved and he got reborn or not (Idk whether he was an Arahant)

Ah - I forgot he had passed. I meant the sexual misconduct issues.

That sounds like he molested someone, which he did not. He had a secret relationship with a prostitute, who he treated well, helped her with rent, even got her a flat IIRC. He was unfaithful to his wife, if you believe in monogamy. Many species of birds believed to be monogamous are not on close inspection. Both human sexes want to have sex with other people, besides their primary partner more often than we think. To suppress these desires leads to resentment and other problems i think.

Would you mind elaborating on the meditation method(s) you’re utilizing to minimize the effects you described?

How do you recommend finding a good CBT provider?

If you're in the US start from your insurance provider. Most insurance has directories of in network people. Psychology Today also has a very good index of therapists. If you're uninsured need based discounts are common.

Most therapists give some kind of statement about their approach, past experience and list their areas of focus. Find one who matches what you want and schedule a first appointment. During this session explain your difficulties and see if you like their communication style. A good therapist will also tell you if they think it's not a fit. Not everyone clicks with everyone so don't be afraid to back out and don't read too much into it if they do the same.

How long do you mediate for and do you fall asleep doing it?

Weird. I had a similar experience: I was suddenly caught very close to a shootout in which someone was killed, and the PTSD (not necessarily strictly PTSD because I don't know the diagnostic criteria, but definitely a lot of anxiety that came out later) was a big deal, and meditation has also helped me.

I often use Insight Timer on my phone, and I like Christiane Wolf's meditations.

I was held up at gunpoint and I refused to give up my item. I never got PTSD from it because I stood my ground.

I was hit in the head, in a fight and because he lied to the police and said I attacked fiest I felt helpless and that gave me mental anguish.

For me when these problems are unresolved or i felt helpless in the situation it caused me to replay the situation and upset myself more until I stopped it.

> I never got PTSD from it because I stood my ground.

I'm glad that you didn't get PTSD, but that's not how that works. PTSD isn't "anxiousness because I didn't stand my ground", it's mental baggage which occurs after traumatic experiences. That can happen even if you stand your ground.

Just wanted to mention this because it almost seems malicious to build the narrative of "if you defend yourself you also avoid PTSD".

> That can happen even if you stand your ground.

But I told the IEDs, "You shall not p<explosion!>" ...

Haha :')

I give OP the benefit of the doubt that they only apply their logic to defendable, human vs. human interactions, but even then - You can get PTSD no matter what you do.

Successfully preventing someone from taking your wallet can cause PTSD, surviving an IED blast without injuries can cause it, etc.

You can get PTSD "just" from witnessing a stranger being robbed.

And of course getting PTSD doesn't mean that someone is weak-minded or whatever.

If you talk to IEDs you have mental issues.

I'm speaking about my experiences. Notice how you quoted me saying how it worked for me. Why are you are dismissing it or telling me what it is?

Why is my experience sharing malicious?

No. What I am complaining about is the use of "because" in your statement:

> I never got PTSD from it because I stood my ground.

You did not get PTSD. That's great! Glad for you. But you can't know for sure why you didn't get it. That's the reason I think that it almost seems malicious to say that you didn't get it, because you stood your ground. Which makes it seem like you would've got PTSD, if you didn't stand your ground. So especially when replying to someone who has PTSD, it makes it seem like they should've just "stood their ground", because you know, according to you, that is the reason you didn't get it. But you or I or we can't know why you didn't get it. Or why exactly they got it.

Now, if that wasn't your intention at all - Then I'm sorry. But as you can see by the reactions to our comments, I wasn't the only one who misunderstood you. Maybe that's a hint :)

They were shot through and someone else was shot to death. You can't stand your ground or fight that his situation. He was lucky and may have had survivors guilt.

I get that you're trying to be helpful but I only shared my experiences and it doesn't at all apply to his situation. But the stiflingly soft language that you use to dismantle my experience such as "But you can't know for sure why you didn't get it." is passive agressive and I'm telling you to stop insulting my intelligence.

Why don't you post that to the person I replied to when they said mediation worked for them or tell them you don't know if they actually have PTSD?

> I'm telling you to stop insulting my intelligence

Okay. Then I'll stop. Have a good day!

PP phrases it badly, but there is an aspect of scientific truth in there.

Your chances of getting PTSD from a traumatic experience is less if you feel as if you are in control.

I cannot find the paper I read at the time, I feel I'm missing the right phrase, but here's a more recent one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6161595/

---

I have had three memorable traumatic events in a fairly long life, each about ten years apart.

I was in an explosion where my girlfriend and I were the closest people to survive; I was in a physically abusive relationship; and I was in an abusive work situation.

I had no effects from the explosion. It took me over a year to recover from the abusive relationship and separately, from the abusive job.

A counselor explained to me the reason was that after the explosion, I was in control and immediately made the right decisions to survive basically unscratched, so I experienced no trauma. In the other two cases, I was trapped and felt powerless.

Thank you for sharing your own similar experience and understanding me.

It's difficult for me to explain abuse without being stifled, but I have a feeling while everyone online talks about telling you to stop victim blaming, the abused one is victim blaming themselves anyway. It's why it's so traumatic, I replayed the situation to make sense of it, and it hurt every time, until I got out of that mental rut.

It's funny, when bad things happen I dismiss other problems I had because I had a worst one before so it helped with stresses.

Don't know why this is downvoted. It is an observation I and many others share. The mental anguish comes more from feeling helpless than from the actual danger. This is not to say (and the parent post doesn't say it either) that you can or should take action in all situations. Only that perceived agency or the lack of can have a greater effect on your mental health than the objective circumstances.

It probably comes from this statement:

>I never got PTSD from it because I stood my ground.

PTSD comes from trauma, and trauma is subjective. This statement above, intended or not, comes across as dismissive.

> This statement above, intended or not, comes across as dismissive

My thought as well. It gives me slight "victim-blaming" vibes, "If you would've defended yourself you wouldn't be traumatized now."

If it would be that easy to prevent trauma, it wouldn't be such an issue. Trauma is not a decision, the only influence you have is how well you're able to handle it after it occurs, and even then it can be overwhelming for some and they need external help or even medication.

Now I'm not saying that OP is a bad person for thinking what they think, but they shouldn't generalize mental health issues just because they experienced them in a certain way.

Same can be applied to depression, burnout, suicidal thoughts etc. If you're able to handle these things without issues, perfect! Good for you. Just don't apply this to every other depressed/burned out/suicidal person.

I didn't generalize. You did. You projected every "I" and "me" into "everybody" and "everyone" and I find your behavior mentally stifling and uninformed.

You haven't been in my situation, you haven't gotten past it, and yet you pretend to be the expert on my experiences. You're trying to be helpful... by dismissing everything I wrote with sweet words and redefining everything. Why don't you share your experience instead of whatever you're doing?

EDIT: Right, I see your reasoning in another comment. So, if I understand correctly, you believe that due to having agency in that situation it lowered stress and fear levels below whatever your threshold for (severe) trauma is? That's sounds plausible with my understanding (but I'm also a layman on the subject).

Wordsmithing is hard lol.

---

I think it show great... something, but nobody is sure what. Maybe it's emotional resilience, or something neurological in how your brain processes fear and memories. Maybe it's a combination of those—and other—things (since they can be related).

I'm saying this because I think saying "because I stood my ground" is a dangerous message to spread around, though.

It also does a lot of people a bit of disservice because many who have PTSD didn't get it through inaction. Firefighters get it, soldier get it, doctors get it, etc.

Also, least time I read, current understanding—even if not great—doesn't support your claim that actions during the stressful/traumatic moments are relevant (at least not to the degree you make it seem). There's some small evidence that feelings of helplessness has an influence, but it's inconclusive since helplessness just manifests extra stress (but not the majority of it, and it's not universally present).

And finally a disclaimer for the above: I have zero qualifications on these subjects. I've always been curious of it because of my traumatic past having lived with CPTSD most of my life (not PTSD; they're different, but they have some "mechanical" similarities). So, I've read a few books on CPTSD and PTSD and healing from them, but they weren't academic literature.

I'm glad you came out okay from that situation, though.

PTSD is an all encompassing phrase that includes childhood sexual trauma, being beaten, disturbing visual experiences, survivors guilt and violent explosions. It is like calling it a human experience. The phrase is without reservation a piece of shit.

You shouldn't treat these things the same, yet they're grouped the same and often treated the same. You say firefighters and soldiers get it, have you spoken to them about agency or why they are troubled? I knew a marine and his sleeplessness was partially due to cradling his friend who was hit with an IUD and feeling helpless to save him and only watching him die.

I'd avoid academic literature on this since they group every bad traumatic situation and listen to why people have their issues or how they fixed them. This is deeply personal, and I'm not telling anyone any advice from my experience, it is just an story.

I've spoken about it generally with my therapists, and don't know many people with PTSD, but know some with CPTSD from a support group.

One person I know who had a "lesser form" of PTSD is a nurse. He worked in Zagreb in the wake of last year's earthquakes in Croatia (the hospitals were an absolute mess due to really unfortunate timing and everything happening at once: earthquakes, harsh winter and no/little heating and electricity, prime-time COVID). I say lesser, because his symptoms (nightmares, hearing sounds that aren't there, disassociating) receded on their own after a while. Maybe it wasn't lesser, but maybe his mind is just more resilient (for an unknown factor).

Yeah, I agree with with you that every PTSD is different (even within the same "subtypes" it's not very consistent).

I believe they're grouped together because of how they (or at least as far as experts know, which is also limited) has some common mechanisms in the brain. And I guess it helps to create a jargon for technical discussions too, even if not perfect.

But yeah I think the topic is too nuanced for layman like us to delve deeper into, since it's... A rabbit hole and a maze with lots of dead ends lol

> in 2050 it will be an accepted fact that focus on psychological health (including meditation) was one of the biggest biggest disasters for the advancement of humanity ever

> Get minimum possible sustainable amount of sleep

Wow those original opinions were some seriously hot takes. Please don’t hustle and grustle yourself to the expense of your mental/physical health.

With such ridiculous hot takes last year, I would not trust that whatever prediction they make this year is any more rooted in reality, even though they seem more valid this time around.

Except the 16 inch monitor part. I bet their neck and eyes enjoy looking down at a small screen for a dozen hours a day.

In 2023 he will discover that an exclusive Cheerios diet isn't great

I dont know if the take is as hot as you think. Meditation is cool and good (I try to do it) but it's not the panacea that, like all new age things, the average hacker news reader thinks it is.

Optimizing sleep improves productivity. Not a hot take. I don't know anyone who enjoys blowing an entire day sleeping. Do you? Perhaps people who are ill (whether they know or not) need 12-14 hours of sleep a day but a normal healthy person can get by on 6-8 with 7 being the recommended median for most people.

Psychological health is the hardest problem we face. The entire field of mental health is rife with fraud. Psychology as a "science" suffers from one of the greatest reproducibility failures we have witnessed. We have legitimately no idea why "mental health" is a problem in 99% of cases and our medicines and treatments are only marginally better than electroconvulsive therapy and divination to drive bad spirits away. We have, for example, almost no idea how and why SSRIs work. Many anti-depressant studies fail to reproduce. We often overmedicate people who just have a little sadness resulting in even more difficult and sometimes fatal problems. The only other field with more problems is chiropractic which, by my estimation, is only marginally less scientific than psychology. In fact if I pulled a random psychology study and compared it's reproducibility to a study on cracking people's spines to fix slipped discs I'd imagine they'd be similarly impossible to reproduce.

> Meditation is cool and good (I try to do it) but it's not the panacea

That's not what they're saying though. They literally said focus on mental health is one of the worst things we have done to the human race. People thinking in absolutes don't have much insight to offer, especially if they are unafraid to voice them out loud.

My point was more around him saying that focus on psychological health will be looked back on as one of the worst things to happen for humanity.

Also, I’m certainly not saying sleep the day away, but sleeping until you feel well rested feels pretty obvious. There’s a big difference between getting the minimum amount of sleep to get through a day and getting enough sleep to get through a day with high energy levels (as the author also found).

Also, if you do any sort of intensive working out (as most people should) sleep is an absolutely necessary part of your recovery.

> Optimizing sleep improves productivity.

This is the issue with modern world. Everything has to increase productivity, hustle life. Multiple studies showed people need more sleep.

> blowing an entire day sleeping

Who said sleep entire day?

All these takes are from capitalist hustle culture, does not have any scientific base.

Meditation has lots of research to back things up. Maybe look into it before having an opinion about it?

> Meditation comes from Asia, where the culture is that of escape from the world versus the Western culture of embracing the world head on.

Ouch.

> I learned that Adderall is used for ADHD and one other condition: narcolepsy. This further implies the connection between attention/executive control and sleepiness.

What? How on earth can you just make this assumption, especially if you have no idea how the brain works? Sorry, but this is just controversial garbage.

I can't tell if the post is just embellished in places for comedic effect or if they sound like a not very nice person with a big ego.

I mean, they tried to impose their somewhat ludicrous display set-up on people, and then though people were stupid for having different preferences... I've never seen a person with such strong convictions over trivialities. At least not a real person.

They also used to hold strong opinions and convictions about subjects they know nothing about as well. What do you even call this?

I'm glad they have become a bit wiser, though.

> They also used to hold strong opinions and convictions about subjects they know nothing about as well. What do you even call this?

Ignorant? I actually met a few people in my live going about live like this. I never stuck around long enough to get more insight into how people like this function, would've been pretty interesting I guess. Especially what story they have, how their childhood has been etc.

What do you call these people? Republicans/Democrats.

The assumption comes from a really dumb place but is essentially right.

Wakefulness is critical for executive functions(both directly and through the fact that they're really expensive energetically and need a well-rested neural substrate), and fatigue is the primary driver of deficits in motivation.

I strongly suspect that many ADHD cases are actually non-apneic sleep disordered breathing going undiagnosed due to outdated criteria, and I've seen cases of SDB being misdiagnosed as T2 narcolepsy too.

> fatigue is the primary driver of deficits in motivation.

Well, that I experience first hand haha. I was actually diagnosed with ADHD as a child and had trouble sleeping (allergies and social anxiety) and still have to this day. So one more supporting data point!

Any books/resources you would recommend for a deep dive (regarding sleep and neuro-functions, I'm not that interested in ADHD)?

I'll one up that request, I actually have a write-up where I detail why I believe a substantial proportion of ADHD cases is probably the ongoing effect of undiagnosed non-apneic sleep disordered breathing rather than solely/primarily a neurodevelopmental outcome. It links publications on sleep as well:

https://gist.github.com/Asmageddon/4a952260c0fc9875f477d6813...

OP talk about sleepiness, and Adderall didn't work only for that, coffee is largely enough for sleepiness, while Adderall feed you with a rash of dopamine that puts your entire being in complete other state, and dopamine can make you focus on whatever shit you are doing even if it's the most boring staff to you.

I mean, I am all in for updating your opinions, but I remember his blog post about Why We Sleep where he tried to shit and basically discredit whole book, talking so authoritatively and now 3 years later he does 180 switch?

I think this just shows, trust the scientist that spend their whole years studying stuff like sleep. Don't trust random self proclaimed "internet scientists". Best would be to find experts that are humble about what they are unsure of what the field knows.

He spent 100 hours trying to debunk the book, but it just shows - if you are highly motivated and biased to prove something you are emotionally motivated to find you will find the way.

I do the same. I believe random bullshit that can change my mind and preach it to my friends and then 2 months later I change my mind. I am sorry to my friends, but at least I don't post blogposts trying to debunk scientists

Consider actually reading the post before commenting next time. I didn't do an "180" switch. I wrote:

>1. There’s no good medical reason to sleep more than the minimum you can sustain.

>Not this one! Fight me.

You really should do more reading honestly. Sleep is when the wear and tear of activity is repaired and reversed, and is to a large extent regulated by molecules that amount to metabolic waste, which accumulate during consciousness, and are cleared away during sleep.

As far as my deep dives into the science of sleep have suggested, any deficits in sleep, either qualitative or quantitative, result in essentially minuscule quantities of irreversible kinda-neurodegeneration. "kinda" because it's not neuronal death, just the failure to maintain important connections and peak performance properly.

The important connections ... are important. By definition they will not be affected that much.

Without much drama (like the "kinda-neurodegeneration" wording), this can be easily summarized as: optimal amount of sleep = you're at peak performance, otherwise you're working at less than peak mental performance.

Getting some real Poe's law vibes off this post.

> Meditation is terrible -> meditation is amazing

> By “meditating” I mostly mean sitting around with my eyes closed. I haven’t done any research at all on what meditation is supposed to be.

Definitely ok with this person calling their practice meditation - who cares? But I'm more likely to listen to reflections when someone can commit to a particular meaning of a word. Is the meditation that you thought was terrible the same as the one you think is amazing?

Not to mention asserting that something is terrible when you haven’t done any research into what that thing actually is…

People belief something first, and then add ad-hoc rationales to it.

Yeah, I found this hilarious too. He says he went from thinking meditation was terrible to thinking it's great, but he really went from thinking it's terrible to not knowing what it is.

What a strange post. “I’m wrong, but I’m still confidently right! Also, I need to be more humble”. The arrogance just hurts to read.

Why would you ever take sleep advice from a person who celebrates being sleep deprived and admits being addicted to video games?

Someone who's addicted to video games and can admit it is a rare bird though!

> Why would you ever take sleep advice from a person who celebrates being sleep deprived and admits being addicted to video games?

Because he confirms what people want to hear about how they don't need as much sleep as is recommended.

“By “meditating” I mostly mean sitting around with my eyes closed. I haven’t done any research at all on what meditation is supposed to be. Apparently there’s a million different styles of it, so I’m just going to go ahead and call what I do meditation too, fight me.”

I can’t tell if he is serious. This didn’t help me take him seriously.

He looks like typical arrogant tech bro in this

Honestly, I've gotten that vibe from all of his writing I've read. Set ideas that he constantly tries to justify and then says others should follow. I'm glad he's doing a review, but even in that it doesn't seem there's really any real introspection going on, just more optimisation of life, as if productivity, etc. is all that matters.

I did crossfit once. Exercise is overrated!

What I understand about meditation from hearing and asking about it is that it also takes practice to get right. Perhaps picking up a guitar once doesn't give you the same feeling as jamming with friends either.

You saw an image of a guy who exercised once.

His monitor conclusion is a bit silly. There's zero cost to having an extra monitor if you turn it off when you don't need it. When coding I use Emacs like a tiling WM and like to have every relevant file visible, which sometimes means overflowing onto a third monitor.

M-x writeroom-mode[0] on a single monitor is perfect for writing, but you can just reach out and turn the others off, or use them for non-distracting content like references or notes in a scratchpad.

[0] Expands the buffer you're working on to the entire monitor, sticks it into a fixed-width column for readability, and gets rid of the modeline and other junk.

lol, you gotta admit these were some harebrained ideas that he got over. The lessons amount to "learn to chill," probably because he has gotten a bit older (and yep, looks like he's in his 20s). In coming years he'll be writing about the importance of family, paying attention to physical health, and spending time in nature. Universal revelations for humans as they enter their 30s.

Can confirm, the year I turned thirty I bought a dairy farm in the middle of a national forest, hours from a Walmart and moved my family across the country to experience a quieter and hopefully more holistic life.

> kids hate it

> moves to city for education and excitement

>> "yeah dad moved us to the middle of no where when i was 10, i hated it"

> gets high pace job

>> "yeah I grew up on a small farm in the middle of no where, it was nice thb. my dad still lives there. here's bessy our cow."

> starts family

> sigma grind set to support family

> gets burnt out

> buys farm in middle of no where

:GOTO 0

You're jesting, but: my parents both grew up in major cities. When they could afford it, they moved out to a semirural town of 5000, with the larger towns 25 miles in each direction. All their kids moved back to cities.

We moved back to nowhere before our kids were out of the toddler stage. All they remember is rural life. Maybe that's the key?

Not that I care if my kids move to a city. I'll have a place to stay while going to the museums.

My parents moved us to an old dairy farm on 30 acres with only one other house on the road. 7 miles from a town of 6000 and 50 miles from the nearest Walmart. I loved it and only moved away after college because there were no jobs here.

Moved back 3.5 years later because I could buy a house for 1/3 the cost while working remote for a "city salary" and because I missed raising animals.

It's something I didn't appreciate as a kid. I had to immerse myself in constant city noise and hostility and filth for almost 2 decades to really start yearning to get back again.

I’ll be honest I don’t really get why rural life appeals to those in the city. I think there’s a very romantic idea people have of rural life, which both does and doesn’t exist depending on location.

I’ve done rural living my entire life and I’d much rather live in a city if it were a viable option. Even very basic things are far easier in the city and the city has things like emergency rooms that are open 24/7. I can’t assume my local hospital will be open if I hurt myself and the next is a ~100km drive away.

Most rural areas are less hostile to your face, but the local rumour mill can be incredibly cruel and harmful behind one’s back should you not conform or if someone takes issue with you. A gay couple moved to my area and at least initially suffered greatly for it.

I guess the grass isn’t necessarily greener in either direction, the challenges and issues are just different.

> I guess the grass isn’t necessarily greener in either direction, the challenges and issues are just different.

This nails it.

> I’ll be honest I don’t really get why rural life appeals to those in the city.

There may be multiple reasons, to each their own. As a city-dweller since I was kid, the biggest issue, and the one that has me contemplate rural(-er) living, is the constant noise.

The housing market being what it is, it's very hard to find well-insulated apartments.

In France, there have been new construction regulations for noise insulation, but most of the apartments in Paris were built before that. You can more or less easily get an apartment that doesn't face a major road (or any road at all). But you can never get an apartment with no neighbors (unless you're extremely rich, which isn't my, nor most people's case).

Agreed, like with virtually everything it is a tradeoff. I did not like the loud, fast cars five feet from our door, the drugs, the shootings (only twice but it was enough for me to move), and the hectic pace, lots of strangers. I still love the city we lived in and if I had to be in a city that's the one.

I was willing to trade city problems for the rural problems.

Living rurally on over a 100 acres, I am free to do a not that was not even possible on our 1/4 acre not in the city. I fix up old tractors and trucks in my free time with my sons. This summer I plan to get a sawmill and try my hand at building historical structures (log cabins, old style pole barns, etc.).

I feel like there's rural, and then there's extreme rural which is what you described.

There are rural cities. I'm in a rural area, classified as such by the USDA. There is ample space of farming, hunting and undeveloped wilderness. There's a fully navigable river, lakes, many fishable streams. There aren't neighborhoods, there are some stretches of houses not a great distance apart on a single road.

Then there is the city. It's not a huge city, but it's an urban environment. Again, classified by the government as such. The city is loud, active, and dense. There's no suburban area though. That's the difference. There's just rural farmland and wooded areas, no meandering neighborhoods with a random shopping center over and over. You go from rural to urban immediately. The first thing I come to is from a massive orchard to a dense violent apartment complex and a strip of 24hr stores.

> no jobs

I think this is part of the key. The pattern I have noticed is one kid gets the parent's farm and the rest move to find work.

How much of this is because of the boomer generation’s uniquely awful attitude towards their posterity and not rural life itself?

Rural life sucks. You know why they have so many kids? When you friends play it's fun until they die from farm accidents like falling into grain silos or machines.

You can't childproof a farm. It's way easier to die from misadventures.

Most childhood deaths are from walking into a road or getting into a car accident.

I live in a city center and don't want to leave - in fact, I want to move to a larger city often.

I'm also single and wish to have a life partner. If and when I find someone with whom I find peace and contentment to share my life with, I imagine being in the middle of the bustle won't be as necessary.

(I'm aware I should not look for a life partner to make me at peace, but it sure would help).

I grew up on a farm and now I work a tech job & live in the bay area. I'm currently between stages 5 and 6, looking forward to the farm in the middle of nowhere stage.

Hahaha I'm in Palo Alto, grew up in a farm, and constantly look at places online to buy. Moving to Stockholm in August, hopefully the next stop after that will be a farm.

Tell us more

Not much to tell. We got sick of the city life and wanted a place where we could have our horses close at hand. Ended up moving across the country because of land costs. Bought a hundred or so acres surrounded by national forest, figure I'll never need to worry about neighbors that way. I milk cows in the morning and evening, might figure out how to make a living off that some day, and I am a software engineer working remotely thanks to starlink.

What do you do for a living now? This isn't my cup of tea, but I would just love to read about it regardless.

I'm still a software engineer. I just get up early and milk cows first. With Starlink, I can pretty much work from anywhere so the lack of internet out here isn't a problem for me.

How do you handle the social life aspect? I found it hard to settle in the capital of another country. Does it get lonely out there sometimes?

Not too bad actually.

Some one comes over to our house nearly daily for a visit. I sell raw milk, eggs, and sometimes other stuff (meat when I have it). I am the only place to buy any food stuffs for 30 miles.

On top of that, we have a very active and young (like 60% under 12) church community we are part of.

Then my neighbors stop in a few times a week usually to say hi or drop off compost for the hogs or something. It is quieter, but I don't think it's too quiet or lonely.

Haha my thinking exactly. I actually read some of Guzey’s crazy ideas on sleep last year, and I am happy to discover he was just going through a phase.

Productivity is for people with no leverage.

Folks in their 20’s usually have little choice beyond grinding harder. In your 30’s you not only have more resources, you’re also more effective with their deployment. But you do have less oomph to give.

I say use the oomph while you have it.

This one of the primary ideas in "So Good They Can't Ignore You"[1]. In your 30's there is a decent chance you've spent a bunch of time building career capital, so you're now in a position to cash that in.

Highly recommend reading the book.

[1] So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love, Cal Newport, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13525945-so-good-they-ca...

Guess it sucks for us who weren't taught about concepts like career capital. We have to grind more to make up for lost time.

You’re so right it’s hilarious to me. I’m currently going through this phase now. Relearning the same lessons that have been relearnt and forgotten ten thousand times before me.

Sitting outside watching bees go about their day is a good use of your time in your 30’s.

> Relearning the same lessons that have been relearnt and forgotten ten thousand times before me.

I don't think they are forgotten, you just changed. If I think back to being a child, going to a restaurant and just sit there and talk was incredibly boring. Also, Broccoli simply tasted like shampoo.

Even when people told me I would enjoy it at some point, I just could not imagine this at all. It's just a completely different mindset and it sounds absurd when people tell you that you will change that drastically.

getting real Good Will Hunting vibes off this thread. "You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library."

You would probably enjoy The Secret Life of Trees. It kicked my nature walks into twelfth gear. As did Google Lens for identifying stuff.

Let me buy you a drink or pastry, because god damn I feel like this is more relevant than ever.

Would take you up on that offer, but I no longer consume sugar or alcohol now that I'm in my thirties.

This rings true for me as well. I’m in my mid thirties and just moved out of Seattle to live on a nearby island surrounded by trees. The night sounds of coyotes and owls is so much better than a city street.

I can't help but wonder — if the author has changed their mind so radically about so many fundamental concepts — why should the new opinions be trusted?

I can't help but wonder — if the CEOs changed their mind so radically about so many fundamental decisions — why should the new decisions be trusted?

I would actually agree with that, when a startup radically changes it's direction I generally see it as a sign of weakness. Of course, not always the case.

I'd be way more concerned of someone who doesn't change their mind.

Consider reading the last section of the post.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".

This is the course of action that goes back to the, in my opinion, ill-inspired motto, "strong opinions, loosely held." For some, this is an admirable position. To me, a scientist, it is a cautionary tale: don't trust strong opinions, always verify.

It's nonsense on the face of it, which I think is on purpose with the point to be deliberate about one's opinions. If the subject matters, do enough research and thinking to actually form an opinion, but of course remain open to new data and arguments. A good example of this in a scientist is Sean Carroll's belief in the Everett formulation of quantum mechanics, or Hawking on black hole information loss.

I always thought that the loosely held part of that motto meant that you should reevaluate a position you’ve held onto when new evidence is presented.

What about "strong opinion when there is strong evidence"? Otherwise, you have absurdities like that of the author of the article, who told everyone and their cousins that, for example, 4 hours of sleep was enough and then realized he needed more sleep. He had a strong opinion without solid evidence. The "loosely held" part is meaningless, of course (in theory...) one has to change opinion when the evidence changes.

I haven’t used an alarm to wake up in over a decade.

I find natural sleep much more restful.

Perhaps I sleep 6 to 7 hours on average, and knowing that there isn’t a device set to wake me at a given hour allows me to avoid the mental stress that previously kept me from deep sleep.

I don’t actually know if this is for everyone, but it’s been beneficial for me.

I tried this at the end of last year, I would guess for about 3-4 weeks. What usually ends up happening is that I sleep like 10-11 hours, then I'm unable to fall asleep the next night because I woke up so late, so I wake up late again the next day, and so on. I would love to get rid of my alarm, but so far all my experiments have failed...

Kinda ridiculous how he says that he hated on meditation yet is like I actually don't know what it is... Like why even argue about it if you have no information about it.

This is an article about an arrogant idiot being an arrogant idiot about different things. I think it's getting attention because of the headline, but otherwise it's totally uninteresting. It's just someone who was deeply, utterly, confidently wrong about certain topics realizing that everyone else was right.

I used to listen to a podcast (not going to name and shame). I absolutely loved it but I found one of the hosts annoying as he spoke in absolutes- ‘I’m never getting married and having children, it isn’t who I am etc etc’, then a few months go past and ‘I’m getting married - and have kid on the way’.

It removes credibility and I know realise it shows immaturity.

Agreed, speaking in absolutes is a self imposed cage.

You end up either having to lose credibility or forcing yourself to live by something you don't actually believe in anymore. Ignoring the fact that speaking like that just comes out as arrogant

I never felt like I needed anything more than a 13" laptop screen. I have a 25" monitor on my desk and I almost never use it for work. I mainly leverage multiple workspaces, I think it's faster / more convenient to do Meta key + 1,2,3,4... than turn my head / eyes around between monitors. Some OSes make it sloppy though, last time I checked Mac OS has an annoying delay when switching workspaces that you can't get rid of.

IIRC You can get rid of the switch delay using Yabai[1] but you will need to disable SIP which may be a no go if you have work assigned MacBook

[1] https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai

I have been playing with KDE/wayland lately and after turning off all animations I am really liking it.

I come from i3. I am missing the independent virtual desktop / monitor mapping. But this can be somewhat worked out with pinning. I often only display one desktop on the second monitor. If I even use one. As I also find switching workspace is just much faster than turning my head!

What I am missing the most is the scratch space. Where you can shortcut windows in and out of existence. But I think this can also be worked around by using an extra workspace, and pinning windows via shortcuts.

Section 2 could be titled "Alexey discovers newest-generation cognitive behavioral therapy." It's so on point it's hard for me to believe he wasn't reading some acceptance-commitment therapy book or something. But good for him, and good for him for writing about it.

I keep on oscillating between a multi monitor setup and a single laptop screen.

I found out that as a web developer, multi monitor setup is a must because you ideally want 1 screen dedicated just for the web site you are working on.

But I understand that compromises must be made if you are going to be moving about.

"Random, smart, opinionated guy with little actual knowledge free-associates about life tips."

As other people pointed out,

> Meditation comes from Asia, where the culture is that of escape

manages to be twice false _and_ offensive in such a tiny number of words.

He's not wrong though. And nobody's give any reason in this thread __why__ he wrong.

When somebody mentions meditation, most people talk about the types of meditation that are based off religious practices originating from Asia.

Religions where the end-goal in most cases is to escape the physical reality we live in.

First, he's saying that there's some monolithic "Asian culture" that in general is about escapism. That's a big claim.

Second, you may have a misconception about what those religions say. Buddhism, for example, is entirely about becoming fully immersed in one's present reality. If one discovers that it's not the solid, external entity that one thought it was, that's not "escaping" it. In fact, their claim is that the constant distractedness of the untrained mind is the real escapism.

I'd love to see some research on optimal display size/configuration. My intuition is that there's a balance between 1) having enough space to see what you're focusing on and some reference/documentation and 2) having so much space things get lost and you spend time trying to find that thing you care about.

I feel like 30" is the upper limit here. I use a 27" 4k monitor at 150% scale, and wouldn't want more than two at that resolution. An ultrawide would probably be nice, though.

Kudos to being honest about your previous silly ideas. Meditation has been the most life changing thing for me, the only thing that without any external tools has been able to silence my mind.

Had to learn to meditate when working at a mobile game company, and under a lot of stress. Could not quiet my mind when going to sleep, so I started learning meditation in the game room of the company. 2 minutes at first, then 5, and so on.

Now I try to meditate every day at least 18 minutes, which feels like a good amount where my mind is quiet and I can defrag the thought processes and let them go.

The writer reflects nicely the strong ideas that we attach to and think as of truths in our lifes. I now understand a little bit better why some people like to push their wrongful agendas to others, so thanks for this reflection moment.

I can reveal one of my silly ideas, I used to not want to consume any dairy products, as part of me believed that "you are what you eat", and I did not want to be a cow, an easily controllable herd animal.

This made my life too difficult for too many years, until I finally through help from a friend and lots of inner reflection, managed to let go of this thought. I might have pushed this idea to others also in my fiery moments, so I can relate to this writing in some way.

I need larger monitors. Even a 16" monitor feels cramped to me, which either increases eye strain from high resolution, or mental load from having to visualize the things that aren't on the screen. Even if it's just an extra inch, that can reduce mental load for me by a lot. Make that a 24" monitor and it feels practically liberating.

But definitely only one, MAYBE two if I'm doing a fullscreen thing on one of them like media.

The 24" monitor on my desk is about to be retired since it’s way too small. Currently looking at ~32 and above. The 35" looks like it’s the new standard, but that 49" has me intrigued.

I use a 42" 4K monitor. It's just like having 4 21" 1080P monitors all bonded together with no seams.

42-49"; definitely going to be my next purchase.

I found that it's really beneficial to me to have one monitor where the task I'm focused on is maximized to reduce distractions, and a second monitor where I have distractions and supporting information. So for example I typically have a web browser maximized on my right monitor, and at work I've got Outlook, Notepad, and Teams on my left monitor. At home I've got Notepad, IM windows, and folders on my left monitor.

I'd be surprised if 16" didn't feel cramped to someone. I've used 3 21.5" monitors for over a decade now, and those are starting to feel small. Now my minimum size is around 24" at 1440p.

I dislike how manufacturers have standardized on 24" 1080p and 27" 1440p.

I want cheap 24" 4k monitors dammit!

> One 16" monitor is perfect for reading and writing. Coding is the only task that really benefits from having more monitors and I barely code.

As a person who switched to a large multi-monitor setup during covid and does programming, I can share my personal experience. Programming is indeed amazing on such a setup. But this setup also made engaging in addictive behavior like endlessly watching Youtube videos, infinite scrolling of social media/forums etc, much more easy. A phone or a tablet would be physically uncomfortable after a while but staring at things on a 43" screen while slumped on a comfy chair removes that barrier of physical discomfort too.

This post is a clear example of the dangers of Dunning-Kruger and how it can drive someone to insanity.

This guy makes me think of https://youtu.be/_o7qjN3KF8U for some reason.

I know for a fact a lot of people were wrong about inflation, crypto, etc. in 2022. The prevailing narrative was crypto would be a good hedge against inflation. Inflation and crypto went in opposite directions.

I have found that not getting enough sleep just makes me feel slightly weird the next day but not too bad either. Not recommended, but not the end of the world either.

Depends on what you're doing but I find multiple monitors to be useful in only a specific set of contexts. Otherwise I'd rather have one. Even worse is when you're trying to multi-task or context switch between two screens.

The wording in the title reminded me of this deleted scene from The Office (US).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlXIBY2kzUA

I will be the one to bite the bullet and make the least important correction possible here:

The fractional digits of pi rounded to 11 places are 14159[2]65359 :)

For interest sake, why "fuck you, Dostroyevsky"?

Agreed with everything except I would amend:

Multiple monitors < 1 16” screen <<< 1 5k 40” curved ultra wide

Being open to changing your mind is of course admirable but…

From the post:

======

“What I changed my mind about: 1. Meditation was invented to make people get rid of all desires and self-mummify.

Actually, I have no clue why meditation was invented. I think I just saw a picture of a monk who meditated himself into a mummy once and the image got stuck in my head.”

[…]

“As of writing this, I’ve been meditating >=1h/day for 48 days in a row.”

[…]

“By “meditating” I mostly mean sitting around with my eyes closed. I haven’t done any research at all on what meditation is supposed to be.”

======

Clearly this is all a bit tongue in cheek but, I dunno, maybe there’s a lesson here about doing a little more research before forming strong opinions?

>1h a day seems like a lot. What does this look like for you and what benefits have you seen?

Those were all quotes. I’ll edit it to hopefully be more clear.

It clearly lacks a meta lesson about letting go of strong opinions, especially when he held them before doing any prior research.

> Finally, a bit of advice for myself: be just a bit less confident in your beliefs & remember Joel Becker’s minute-long “hmmmmmmmmmmmm” whenever he hears you be 100% confident and just maybe stop at 95%.

Sounds like he got it.

Who is this? Why do I care? I'm sorry, but the amount of absolute tripe people post on the internet is absolutely baffling to me.

I don't give two shits about some 20 year olds ideas with absolutely no credentials. Who wants to read this crap? I don't get it.

Kinda sounds like you could benefit from some meditation. :) I jest. Kinda.

I didn't find the content of the article to be deeply insightful, but I did find the writing style to be comical and the purpose of the writing to be, at least partially, noble.

I don't think I'm better off from having read it, but I certainly found it entertaining enough to read as to not experience the concerns I feel you're expressing.

I agree. I found this article obnoxious and immature, just as I found his anti Why We Sleep tirade back when it was posted last year on HN.

My overriding thought is "why do I care what this random guy thinks about anything?"

That's what I'm saying.

I think I find these types of articles arrogant, or implying narcissism.

That he feels that anyone would find this tedium valuable is almost offensive to me lol. I'm just sick of seeing these kind of articles everywhere.

If there is something to be learned in your 20s, it's that you aren't special, your likely average, and your experiences aren't new or unique.

Live your life in your own way, but for YOURSELF, because no one gives a shit.

This is one of those things that make me feel old (45 here). Articles like these would be the kind I’d either read or write in my 20s. There’s a sense of self importance that you have at that age and everything feels important and new to you. Now I just can’t be bothered to read things like this since I know better.

It helps to at least know the age of the author. There are many articles out there that make me shake my head, but if I knew the author was still relatively young, I’d at least understand the context something was written.

Yup exactly. Haven't really found self-awareness yet. Still thinking your GPA means something, you and your parents will live forever and life is going to be great.

I'm coming off super cynical now, but this just feels like the product of the Twitter/everyone is a blogger mindset and I don't like where it's leading us.

These "conversations" used to happen in bars and the 60 year old regular would laugh this greenhorn out. Now, people just tell their stupid thoughts into the void and pat themselves on the back for expressing their feelings like their therapist told them to.

End rant.

seriously, the about page on this dude's site is more interested in telling me he's a big fan of Slate Star Codex and Gwern than sketching any details of who he is, where he's come from, and why I should care about his opinions.

And half of what it does say about him is that he seems to have written and said a lot about why you don't need to sleep. Hell of a thing to build a reputation on.

I wonder if he's going to write a recantation of the 2020 post that's an extended fellatio session on Elon Musk next. https://guzey.com/why-is-there-only-one-elon-musk/

Alexey Guzey first came across my radar when his blog post on the institutions of Life Science[0] was posted here on HN. I was a neuroscience postdoc at the time. I found it partly true, with some experiences different from my own.

Then or soon after I saw he was working on New Science [1], an attempt at an alternative funding system for science outside of academia (my perspective, not his words). Having left academia myself, I found that intriguing and have always kept an eye on that space.

As for Guzey himself, who I've spoken with briefly on 1 occasion, I think he tries really hard to genuinely understand lots of things analytically and empirically, which is admirable. But anyone who does this will inevitably have blind spots that experts (or those with more life experience) spot immediately.

My hot take after meeting him was that he's very curious. He seemed like he's not afraid to be wrong, perhaps to a fault, and would rather just say what he thinks and have you tell him where he's wrong, than tiptoe with uncertainty.

[0]: https://guzey.com/how-life-sciences-actually-work/

[1]: https://newscience.org/

I think it's better to put aside the 'who' and focus on the 'what'. Knowledge, wisdom/insight can be found in any person, regardless of who they are, their credentials, their geography/location, or their ethnic background etc.

Yeah, the vast majority of content out there is not worth your time, but if you're here then you probably regularly browse Hacker News, and chances are the author does as well, so the author probably wanted to get his blog out there to people who at least shared that one thing in common.

Now putting aside the 'who', in this particular instance, judging the article entirely on its content: it's bullshit. It reads like someone bought into bullshit one year then was proven wrong, but only partially repented the next year. The fact the author arrived at such ludicrous conclusions about sleep in the first place leads me to conclude they're an idiot.

He also has some very unscientific takes on sleep and medication.

Idolising Margaret Thatcher as an “impressive person”, in 2022 is certainly a take.

This piece was not "idolizing" her at all; her "impressive" status can be presumed to pertain merely to her having been a long-serving prime minister of a major country, and she was mentioned only for the purpose of countering an oft-repeated factoid about her.

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