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Comment by abstractbill | Hacker News Reader

Couldn't agree more. I've done all-nighters, but when I'm refreshed I get more done in a couple of hours than I do in a whole day when I'm tired.

Unfortunately I sometimes get bouts of insomnia... anyone have good tips on how to cure that?

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Something that always worked for me: start watching a movie that you've already seen. After a lot of work if I try to go to bed I'll find myself thinking about work even more. I found out that watching a movie can easily distract me but it has to be a movie that I've already watch otherwise I'd end up watching the whole movie.

Try some melatonin. You can buy it at any drug store with the vitamins. It comes in 1mg or 3mg size, most doctors only recommend the 1mg size but there's nothing wrong with the 3mg size if you don't make a habit of it.

Even if you do make a habit of it, some anecdotal evidence shows it is good for you.

It also has a side effect of giving you extremely vivid or even lucid dreams.

They don't recommend the 3mg size because it offers no benefit over the 1mg, and it could possibly be bad for you. There's no point. If you get the 3mg size, get a pill cutter and cut them in half.

Making a habit out of it sounds like a bad idea, because there hasn't been much research done into its long term safety.

If the 1mg doesn't cure your insomnia, then the larger dose might work. It's also more likely to induce dreams. Wikipedia mentions a study of individuals given 50mg of Melatonin that experienced measurably enhanced REM sleep time.

News reports a few years ago said that studies had shown that 3mg worked less well than none at all.

Over time you start to need it to sleep. Not hard to break the dependency but worth keeping in mind.

Exercise during the day and your body will be less restless at night.

I already go to the gym for an hour every day at 5am. It's actually not so much a problem of getting to sleep - I can almost always do that. The trouble is more that I'm a very light sleeper and if anything disturbs me at night I can never get back to sleep.

For that you have to either eliminate the disturbance, or make sure the same kind of disturbance is happening at the time you go to sleep.

There's a book called "Solving Your Child's Sleep Problems" by Ferber that is good not just in relation to children. It contains a long explanation of how the sleep process works and what causes anyone (child or adult) to be unable to return to sleep after waking.

drink a cup of hot milk and eat a banana.

I once read that it helps if you go to sleep only when you're exhausted (can't keep your eyes open), but set like 10 alarms to make sure you get up at the same time every single day (7 or 8 AM, whenever you need to). It'll suck forcing yourself to get up in the morning, but over time you'll settle into the schedule.

Best cure for insomnia, is to go to bed.

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