How to Train Yourself to Go to Sleep Earlier | Hacker News Reader

How to Train Yourself to Go to Sleep Earlier

sleepfoundation.org

267 pointsalecco162 comments

I know that this might sound too obvious to say. But I've found that, it is much easier to maintain good sleep habits when real life is not stressful. If I'm facing a big problem in life, an important deadline for example, it is unlikely that any effort I put into sleeping habits is going to help. Sometimes, I just stay up as late, but instead of working, time is spent in blaming myself for not sleeping in time, and worrying about getting up tomorrow.

The reason I think this is worth saying, is that sometimes, to break the vicious cycle of [stress -> sleep-deprivation -> more stress -> ...], you need to shift the focus to tackle the real life problem first, and don't beat yourself up for not being a good sleeper. Trying and failing to develop sleep hygiene can pile on the frustration and worsen the vicious cycle.

This is certainly true, although many of us have to deal with problems and projects large enough and time-consuming enough that if they prevented us from sleeping properly, we’d never sleep properly. It takes practice, essentially. Experimenting with various approaches until one finds methods that work.

For the particular issue you described, one approach is to journal before bedtime. Write out what is worrying you about the project, its deadline, etc. Put on paper the thoughts that are swirling through your head. Once captured in that manner, they may leave your brain alone for a few hours. It also helps to be organized, so you can reassure yourself that you have a plan.

Then there is the dreaded 3 or 4 am wake up, where all the thoughts can come rushing back in, preventing sleep for the next hour or perhaps even for the rest of the night. I have found that body scan meditation is helpful at these times.

I am not always successful, and these methods won’t work for everyone. The key is, like I said before, experimenting to find methods that work, and practicing the ones that show promise.

Journaling. Ugh. You're not wrong and I don't doubt that it helps, but to most of us it just seems like more work.

Journaling just enhances sleeplessness about serious urgent issues...

This is one reason why I write a short poem for my journaling. Maybe just four lines, does not matter if it rhymes. Poems are for fun, not work. Unless you are a poet, I suppose.

I disagree.

I find journaling a bit like physical exercise: It feels like _work_ in the moment, but you never regret writing it after. And you feel a lot better - there's a therapeutic effect to it. There's studies on this.

And dumping it out by journaling is much better than letting bad thoughts swirl in your head, which leads to even more rumination.

That still sounds like you're describing work & labor - but instead of being paid in dollars or a clean kitchen, you're being paid in feeling better.

It doesn't mean it's not worth doing, but it is an effort, yet another thing to add to the pile.

I've always found that journaling without an intended structure (a few sentences about a baseball game, or some coding paradigm, or a good memory) helps me to relax. If I task myself to "write about my day" like my parents taught me to as a kid I'd have a grand total of about 12 journal entries in my life.

Therapists suggest writing whatever is on your mind, including thoughts about the process itself, unfiltered. E.g. basically start with an F and how you hate all this bs and everything. If journaling itself is an issue, address it first. It’s another stupid …ing thing that you now have to do too for your idiotic mental health and your life became full of this … so quickly and …ing WHY, it was so normal just a few years ago, even with…

This is the fundamental shift - accepting everything including meta. People tend to distance from themselves, as if they were two distinct parts, one broken and one debugging. But the debugging part is also broken.

When I quit work because of burnout some years ago, at some point I just started going to bed every night at like 9pm with no effort whatsoever, really.

Completely broke when I started a job again and has been difficult ever after.

Like in the article, reading in bed helps me. I read something I can get into, get caught up in. Then I can relax, and am likely to let sleep get me.

Doesn't always work, enough anxiety and you can't immerse yourself.

Reading in bed totally does it for me. Most of the time a novel or something. I can do three pages at most before everything becomes blurry and I struggle to stay awake and make it to the end of the page.

you can reuse those three pages the next night... :)

In exactly the same way though I can’t sleep if I’m excited about something, or really interested in solving a problem. That’s basically impossible to switch off, even if I could totally de-stress. This has basically been my experience for as long as I can remember (back to primary school).

In the end I saw a sleep doctor and he prescribed a low-dose melatonin regimen (1mg in a sublingual suspension, I take it about an hour before bed) and it’s actually worked pretty amazingly. Per my sleep tracking I’m averaging more than an hour extra per night and spending a lot less time in bed trying to go to sleep.

I went on a surf holiday to Indonesia, I was asleep by 9pm every night after day 3. Als spent time in various deserts, I'm so far away from my problems there I was in bed asleep by 8pm and up at 4:30am, with plenty of energy.

Do you think the exertion of surfing every day helped you get to sleep?

I've been surfing every day since I was a young child, so I don't really feel exertion from surfing anymore. Sure if I'm in the water for 3 hours, I get tired, but I surf the same intensity and time frames back home and don't necessarily sleep better.

When I'm in another country on a surf holiday, especially in a country with a rich culture like Indonesia, I just forget everything going on back home, and just relax.

Neuroscientist here, been teaching my kids since they were really little to power down: lights off, slower and slower breathing, time to say goodnight to our adventures and thoughts as we’ll have more tomorrow. They are consistently asleep by 7-ish.

Curious if anyone here was taught how to fall asleep by their parents or school? We teach our kids so much, but we don’t seem to teach the importance of sleep as well as we teach the importance of brushing your teeth or nutrition.

I taught both of my kids. Dark room, by themselves, door left open a gap so they could hear us talk. Only stayed with them a few minutes to calm down before i left the room if they had falled asleep by then or not. This was just how i felt it had to be done and even though my wife had doubts it worked out extremly well. Or maybe i was just lucky.

I’ll just add a datapoint that nothing like that works for me. I’ve tried every ‘sleep hygiene’ regime, every technique etc. for 15 years or so after finishing University (and scraping through due to what I later realised was basically chronic sleep deprivation) and literally none of it helps a jot for me.

There’s so much going on with circadian rhythms and the difficulty of trying to go against your natural rhythm can be (in my experience) almost unbelievable to someone who hasn’t experienced having actual disorders in that area.

For some people it’s just not ‘knowing how to sleep’ or an issue with discipline, but for a decent number there’s actually deeper causes that are incredibly difficult to fight against (my sleep doctor literally advised me that I might have the best success in the long term moving somewhere where the culture is to wake later!).

Growing up I had developed a habit of keeping my fingers in my ears to shut out noise in order to sleep. And side sleepping.

Then growing up, I observed my brain was in overdrive. This was circa 2010 and I would spend 7-9 hours online everyday.

I would conjure up things to discuss in my brain and that would consume good chunk of my sleep time and render me tired in mornings.

So, I set out to do the impossible.

I trained myself to shut off my mind. Not think, not to imagine, not to go off on a tangent and build imaginary stories.

That helped a lot.

I am able to fall asleep in 20-30 seconds now thanks to this.

Also, about 7-8 years ago I started listening to audiobooks (thanks MaM) and I found a nice quirk. I am able to follow a story (if I want to) as long as I can actively listen every word. If I start skupping, I will fall asleep.

I found the 20-30 seconds time after recording a start time for a boring book, then listening to the book and trying to fall asleep and next day see how much I can remember. If I do, means I was awake. That gave me an average 20-30 seconds for really boring stuff.

Same for when I am not listening to audiobooks. That time I have to be extra careful and not think.

I'm not saying any of that is wrong but is it really necessary? My kids are older but they've been in competitive travel club sports for years and most days they're tired enough in the evening that falling asleep is no problem. We don't bother with anything about lights or controlled breathing or whatever.

Are they getting enough sleep? If they need an alarm clock, they aren’t. I was surprised that less than 20% of 12th graders in our large metro county report getting 8 hours on school nights. The AAP recommendation is 8-10 hours a night for ages 13-18, that’s just flights less than the 9-12 hours for ages 6 to 12. Deep sleep can be enough to survive but it’s not enough to thrive (for most people).

Probably occasionally sleep deprived. If you have a tournament today and a school project due tomorrow then sometimes you have to sacrifice a little sleep. It's not ideal but it's part of learning time management and how to operate as an adult in the real world. There are always trade-offs.

Yeah all of these modern "hacks" for sleep can be trumped with just being an active person who gets up at a reasonable time, child or adult.

Something I observed while spending time in India with my wife's families is how no one follows any sleep schedule. Everyone from babies, to toddlers, kids, and adults are just really busy all day with various chores (the younger ones with just play of course). Once night rolls around, people just start falling asleep, anywhere they are, even in a crowded room with the lights on and people chatting, and sleep like a rock until the morning. Then you do it all again the next day. Theres also no "sleeping in." By 7:30-8 AM everyone is up and busy with something

I think the idleness of modern culture has created a lot of the "insomnia" we hear about, which is just a mind that seeks some sort of stimulation at night after being disengaged all day.

I am having trouble picturing this. They do not sleep in bedrooms? Or is this just during a big gathering or party? (Or is everyday a gathering?)

While I was there it was obviously a gathering, but for any event, and India being so huge, everyone comes from all over the country. They stay for 1-2 weeks minimum, no hotel rooms.

So people are staying 4-5 families per house. Everyone just sleeps on couches, floor mats, moms & babies get the beds. etc...

But besides that its just a community based culture. Family, cousins, neighbors are always over... there are maids/helpers staying over.

> Curious if anyone here was taught how to fall asleep by their parents or school?

Not really. Never had problems with it, except in high school, when I learned the hard way that worrying about how little sleep time you have left is a good way to not falling asleep.

Nah, I can fall asleep any time, anywhere, at a moment's notice, if I'm in a horizontal position. In fact, I can't really stop it from happening, which is why I actively avoid lying down during the day - otherwise I end up with an unplanned nap. My problem is that I can't possibly make myself to go to bed unless I'm really, really tired.

Did you ever go to a sleep lab to have your sleep checked?

I didn't have this so extremely but could sleep pretty much any time during the day. Turns out I have sleep apnea. Now since using a CPAP machine, sleeping during the day is much less of a thing for me.

Going to sleep isn't a problem (for me) it's going to sleep earlier. It's more about the lack of light in the fall/winter. If I get stuck going sleep really late then I literally can either go forward - like stay up until the next night which is really hard as you get older or inch backwards. Light therapy holds promise.

I'm just an average person here, but I teach my kids to have a wind-down routine that is very similar to my own—making a quick plan for tomorrow, reading something, being bored, or starting lying down in bed, telling/listening to stories. Definitely no devices or anything that has an LED light or produces sounds in the bedroom. If you have a work/study laptop/computer in the bedroom, start winding down and let it sleep.

my mom would make me take a lot of deep breaths when i couldn't sleep. taught me mindfulness breathing without realizing it.

FWIW, “sleepfoundation.org” is owned by Sleep Doctor, and is essentially a sales funnel to sell CPAP machines and other sleep-related therapy.

Nothing wrong with that, but it’s at least a little shady to present themselves this way.

A Sleep Doctor brand, SleepFoundation.org was acquired from the National Sleep Foundation in 2019 and is no longer affiliated with the non-profit organization. The National Sleep Foundation is an independent, 501(c)(3) based in Washington, D.C.

I've been in the sleep industry for almost 5 years, and I never knew this. Wow!! Thanks for opening my eyes. I assumed it was some publicly funded body.

New website for the NSF is thensf.org for those wondering.

Aw I was expecting the Nintendo sound format :(

get up earlier

seriously though after I started getting up every single day without fail at 6:00 am, no matter what happened the day before, no matter what’s on my schedule today, ever since I have had no trouble whatsoever ever falling asleep. Usually by 9:30 pm I am feeling v sleepy and by 10 pm I cannot help but lie down and close my eyes.

The only thing that modulates this is caffeine. No caffeine after 2:00 pm otherwise I may be up until 11:00 pm even midnight.

but even then, wake at 6:00 am the next day without fail, that was the magic bullet for me

all this stuff about bedtime routines, warm bath, soft lighting, etc, seems funny to me - like I said by 9:30 pm and certainly by 10:00 pm I cannot help but lie down and close my eyes, I don’t need any enticements.

It would only seem funny to you if you ignore the most fundamentally important fact of humanity: Humans have much more variance than normality. Even if half the population can get by with what you're saying, there is a full other half filling out a wide variance.

Get up earlier but at a consistent time each day. Add in some daily exercise and that’s what has done the trick for me.

I don't think "early" really matters, but consistency has been the key for me.

I used to set an alarm every night in bed for 7-8 hours later, relative to whatever random time I was getting in bed. For years the only advice I ever heard in terms of sleep quality was "getting a good 7-8 hours", so this led to years of awful sleep.

Now, I set an alarm once and don't ever touch it again. It goes off every day of the week, weekends and all, everyday at the same time. And it's been one of the biggest and most directly noticeable changes I've ever done for my routine and wellbeing. Sure, sometimes I go to bed late and I don't get my 7-8 hours, but for the first time since I was a kid I feel sleepy at night and it doesn't take 1+ hours in bed to fall asleep.

If anyone reading is in the same situation I was, please try it. Even of you usually wake up late, even at noon or later, just wake up at the same "late" hour everyday. "Early" doesn't matter. But after a while you can make small 15-30 minute changes in the wake-up time every month to two months or so, if you wanna start waking up earlier. If you still have trouble falling asleep, even some light exercise like a light walk around the block, helps a lot, particularly if you spent the day sitting.

Maybe this is super obvious for most people, but it wasn't for me, so it might be helpful for someone else.

Getting up earlier is a stress reliever as I have more time in the day to accomplish tasks, therefore I sleep knowing things are ok.

If I get up even an hour later than 5:30am, the stress builds as things fall behind schedule.

I generally go to bet by 12 and get up at 6, generally, I think it’s the set schedule, not necessarily getting up at an exact time no matter what. However, I’ll bring up not everyone is the same, so people have to experiment, but not give up too early, at least a month and keeping honest notes on it, rather than relying on very fallible human memory. Excel is great for this amongst other things.

Well, to wake up earlier, one needs to sleep earlier.

You don't _have_ to, I think previous commenter means that after a few days of feeling tired and groggy you will be tired earlier in the evening and go to bed earlier.

Adjusting in increments truly helps. If you usually sleep 8 hours, try waking half an hour early for a few days. It won't cause sleep deprivation, but you'll feel the need to go to bed early.

> Well, to wake up earlier, one needs to sleep earlier.

Why?

Because if you don’t you’re going to regret it. Been there, done that, it’s torture. Quite literally, sleep deprivation is a form of torture.

Waking up super early without having a decent amount of time is just another form if self harm.

i think the idea isn't to sleep late and wake up early consistently. instead it's about waking up at the exact same time everyday, no matter how late you went to bed the previous night for reasons inside/outside your control. the expectation is that the next night you'll feel sleepy earlier and catch up.

in contrast, walking up late one day because you slept late the previous night will wreak havoc.

I'm only trying to clarify this because it works the same way for me.

I didn't know that "revenge bedtime procrastination" was a term but it definitely describes me.

I have to set an alarm for bedtime, but I still struggle with being disciplined about it.

One thing I've done is create a "color clock" using a smart bulb that changes color based on a daily schedule. So at 8:00pm the bulb has a dim orange glow, this changes to dim red glow at 9pm and then turns off at 10pm (sleep time). Its a really nice relaxing way of ensuring a regular sleep pattern (no longer clock watching etc).

That's a great idea! I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it because I did the opposite for my toddler to let him know when it was okay to get up in the morning (otherwise he'd be up before 5am). I had a dim red as a whole room nightlight that transitioned to dim yellow-green to signal that is was now okay to get up.

how did you make it?

I have a Philips Hue bridge plus Hue smart bulb. The Hue system has an "Automations" function you can configure via their phone app. So I just created a set of custom automations to change the bulb color on a set daily schedule. There are lots of other ways of doing this depending on your setup. I think you could probably use IFTTT or Zapier to do the same thing with other brands of smart bulb.

I regularly go to sleep at around 6 am, when the sun starts coming up, and wake up at around 2 / 3 pm. It doesn't matter where I am, or the time of the year. That's my natural bed time.

I appreciate that a lot. I'm generally sleeping 4:30am-12:30pm. Recent travel puts me at 10:30pm-6:30am which I'm trying to artificially maintain for a month. I'm sorry that you felt you had to create a throwaway account to post what you did, it's telling about the prejudices that circadian-divergent people (my term, mostly called DSPS) face in society. (e.g. parallel response talking about being called lazy by family). I try hard to locate myself in places (time zones) where I can exploit 'circadian arbitrage'. Remote work is the big enabler, and I consciously work to help folks maintain & expand the remote work ecosystem's momentum.

the funny thing is that because of such sleep times i never had a problem with jetlag. if i am forced to get up early and work all day then i can also get to sleep earlier. the issue though is that since i have kids, i only get time for myself, eg to watch tv or a movie after the rest of the family is asleep, thus pushing my bedtime again back late into the night. i haven't found a way to solve that without completely giving up watching tv. (and i don't watch much to begin with. 1-2 hours per day)

That is unfortunate. Mine is 2am and it has been that way for 3 decades. It is a pain in the ass because I only sleep well at the weekend but then my mornings are gone and family give no end of grief about being lazy.

6am is a whole new ball game. Not sure how I could deal with that.

That sounds like Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder [1]. There is a subreddit on it with some sad stories of people having to give up good careers to work as security guards because society can't find a role for them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder

What do you do for a living? That's my natural schedule too. Flexible dev jobs are not as common as I was led to believe, and this has affected my life deeply.

I found job to be an easy part - eventually, everyone got used to not expect to see me in the office before 10 AM. When I switched to remote work for a team in a different timezone, it got even easier (occasional flying in to the office get tricky, though).

It's the family bit that's hell, with a partner who lives on almost a perfect 06:00 - 22:00 schedule and can adjust that to waking earlier if needed, and now kids who also don't like to sleep past 07:00. I'm now stuck in a limbo of family forcing me to get up early, and all my body and mind and soul making me stay up late. A tug of war that's been going on for years now.

Here's a method that worked for me and i am able to consistently fall asleep within 15 minutes or less:

Direct your attention to sleep. Whenever you go to bed and notice yourself actively thinking about something just direct that attention back to sleep. Think about it, it's the attention that keeps you awake. Note that 'actively thinking' is different than mind-wandering which is passive and actually helps in falling asleep. This will be difficult initially but you will get better over time at controlling attention. This is because attention is like a muscle so you need to train over time.

I have been doing this for months and it works.

I think for a lot of us that directs us to actively think about sleep instead of actually directing our attention toward sleep.

My strategy is to try to jumpstart the memory reconciliation process, which is kind of a passive way of directing my attention toward sleep. It basically just recounting the day from the beginning when I woke up and tracing back to the current moment. It does cause my mind to wander and sometimes be too active, but if I notice that, I will just start restart the recounting process. I think this might also be what makes journaling so useful - memory and thought reconciliation.

My personal tip is to slow your breathing, slow it down enough that you breath too slow and feel a bit deprived from oxygen. Then slowly breath faster but try to keep it as low as possible.

I think (but I am not an expert in this) it slows down the heart and with that, allows you to fall asleep easier.

You probably can't really "feel" oxygen deprivation from that breath work. More likely you're feeling hypercapnia.

> slow it down enough that you breath too slow and feel a bit deprived from oxygen

A resource that I've been using lately that has some details regarding this particular part of the breathing process: https://midlmeditation.com/meditation-for-anxiety

I used to try and stare at the inside of my eyelids, as if looking at a TV screen. It seemed like once images started to appear, while my eyes were closed, my brain began to think it was dreaming and just gave up on being awake :-)

Hallucinationes hypnopompicae. I've had them too, and they do help falling asleep. I've had them for years, and then I got treated for anixiety and changed jobs, and – poof! – they were gone. Now I only experience them if I'm very tired or stressed. I had two friends that also saw them, but they only saw them when they were very-very stressed and didn't get enough sleep. I don't know if they are always a sign of stress, or if some people do see them naturally. My friend group is certainly screwed towards "it's a stress thing" category.

This is exactly what I do and it seems to be the most effective method I have found. It helps to get me out of whatever rumination I am having and into a more mindful state.

Whenever I have trouble sleeping, I like to imagine myself floating in the air with clouds underneath and I slowly drift into the clouds. Just keeping this in my head crowds out the other stuff and I drift off pretty consistently.

This feels completely stupid, but I noticed what seems like an unmistakable improvement in my sleep quality (more restful, less waking up too early) a few days after I adjusted my diet to include a lot more fiber intake. After googling it, it seems like it might be supported by studies, but I'm always a bit skeptical. Either way, if you have trouble getting good sleep, it's another dietary consideration to make. Increased fiber intake seems like it mostly has upsides.

(The other advice in the article is obviously also solid, but none of it, including changing caffeine habits, really ever seemed to do much for me. So I guess it will vary a lot from person to person.)

The article, for all of its other faults, also manages to breeze over another crucial point:

“Research shows that blue light suppresses the body’s production of melatonin, the sleep hormone. This can be helpful in the morning, when you want to wake up…”

I find this to be a much easier habit to maintain, at least during summer: as close as possible after waking up, get as much light as you can, and at a regular time if possible. Sun lamps are an expensive but effective option during darker months, but they generally aren’t covered by insurance.

The first I heard of this was when I spoke to a sleep doctor, and it has worked much better for me than melatonin ever did.

Blue light effects on sleep have been utterly debunked as far as I know. If you google for blue light myth you'll find very convincing arguments that it was all bullshit.

I am a firm believer in sleep hygiene especially the rule “reserve the bedroom for sleep”.

I have had conversations with friends when they complain about not enough sleep and one common theme is they use electronics in the bedroom before sleep.

When I share similar recommendations as this article about not using tv or phone in the bed and to leave the bedroom and meditate if you can’t sleep after 20min I get a lot of pushback.

The most common is that they can’t fall asleep without watching a show or movie on. This is right after they complained about not being able to sleep. The second one is around not wanting to change anything about their weed or alcohol use to improve their sleep.

I think a lot of it has to do with trying to avoid other anxieties which makes their sleep worse which increases anxiety in a cycle.

This is just anecdotal without much else to say other than in people in general seem pretty skeptical about sleep hygiene. And almost seem reluctant to experiment. But I’m a firm believer.

> This is just anecdotal without much else to say other than in people in general seem pretty skeptical about sleep hygiene. And almost seem reluctant to experiment. But I’m a firm believer.

As someone who often has difficulty getting to sleep, I have tried every sleep hygiene thing I have seen suggested but none of it works for me, at least in terms of getting to sleep, and conversely I find actually find doing special things around sleep to be counterproductive since they make me more more stressed out about getting to sleep, so I have decided to simply not worry about them.

I do think they may be helpful for people who either don't really have issues getting to sleep but simply tend to get absorbed watching tv or something and go to sleep to late or who can get to sleep easily but have sleep quality issues, though.

> „reserve the bedroom for sleep“

That’s unfortunately a luxury many people can’t afford.

I’m literally sitting in my in—laws apartment in Poland right now. About 40sqm total, and for forty years they’ve slept on a fold—out—sofa bed.

I am both for avoiding electronics but also enjoy TV in bed. Not necessary but it’s not something that I restrain much.

Haven’t seen too many people suggest this: train yourself to wake up earlier. I wake up at 5. That’s not a hustle culture thing. Just the time when I can fit in my personal time, fitness, and a bit of free thinking before my kids wake up and the day starts.

I can barely keep my eyes open past 930.

> reluctant to experiment

I stuck steadfast to “sleep hygiene” for most of my life, including zero electronics and my sleep stayed as horrid as it’s been since I was a child. No caffeine/alcohol, bed only for sex and sleep, wind down periods, reading/not reading and the rest, all useless.

One day I came to a realisation that the only time I never had issues falling asleep was ironically normally when attempting to ever watch TV on the couch during the day. For whatever reason whenever I try to watch TV, it always just makes me drowsy I realised. Despite this, I refused traditionally to have one in my bedroom.

I decided to “experiment” and break my no electronics/TV in the room rule.

A TV is now my personal sleep aid. Brightness goes to zero, volume goes to barely audible levels, and I deliberately tune into it. I’m guaranteed passed out in less than 15 minutes everytime and a timer turns it off at 30 minutes.

Id almost describe it as life saving for me. Following damage to my spinal cord I was getting less sleep than ever due to now permanent pain and I’ve now largely developed a natural sleep pattern and I’ve been able to go off the strong drugs I was prescribed that whilst they knocked me out, always left me feeling shitty and groggy the next day.

I wish I had not been a such an extreme stickler for “I must keep endlessly repeating what’s recommended for sleep because obviously it must be accurate”, because for me, it wasn’t.

The damage a lifetime of poor sleep has done to me and now knowing I could have solved it by ignoring the generally recommended advice is…depressing.

Since doing this I’ve been able to turn huge chunks of my life around. It’s been nothing short of life changing.

Similar to the journal idea, I keep a notebook by my bed where I can write down any thoughts or concerns I think of that needs attention the next day. This lets my mind relax so that I'm not worried about forgetting it or trying to solve it

I just go to GitHub and read random project's code, it makes me sleepy in 5 mins.

I just go to HN and read the comments.

Have a toddler.

No, seriously: Since we have now a toddler running around who absolutely does not want to go to sleep when the adults are still running around has led US to much more healthy sleeping habbits

As a parent of a toddler who currently wakes up every 1-2 hours, I'm not so sure this is the key to sleep hygiene!

Right? As another parent of a toddler, neither I nor any other parent I know of toddlers are getting as much sleep as we’d like want…

Yes they wake up in the middle of the night, but ideally you try and put them down to sleep and enforce a regular bedtime, which is prime sleep hygiene.

Hate to ask but did you ever try sleep training? We started it super early after about 6 months and the only times our daughter has issues is rare. She will sleep the entire night most nights.

Iirc 6 months is the recommended time to do it, as later on they've formed more attachments to parental figures.

No, we haven't gone down that route ourselves. We did discuss it but decided against it. Partly because of how horrific it can be those first few nights, partly because we had friends who did it and had to redo it every time they hit a regression, and partly because of studies which suggest that the baby doesn't actually get more sleep, it just stops crying when it wakes up.

For me it's, in no particular order:

- Shower before bed. Going to bed clean feels so much better. - No programming just before sleep - A cold-ish bedroom - Read before sleep (a novel, not HN). - As little light as possible in the bedroom

Huh, how did a mattress review website stuffed with affiliate links make it on HN?

A couple of years ago I realized sleep is really one of the most important factors for my overall wellbeing.

I have an alarm on my phone at 10pm which signals the end of any activity other than reading with my Kindle in bed. It has worked wonders. The first couple of weeks I took 1mg of melatonin which helped my body reset the clock.

I fall asleep around 11pm every day and wake up without alarms around 7am. I work at home on my own projects so I don't need a fixed schedule but my body is very happy with this.

I used to stay up until around 1am every night. I found it very easy to fix this - I now go to the gym at 5:30am. Within a couple of weeks I found it very easy to go to sleep at 10pm or earlier. It’s more than just getting up early - you’re telling your body you need it to be ready to perform early in the morning. Just like a muscle grows when you demand more of it, I think this sets off an adaptive reaction that results in earlier and easier sleep.

Okay, but now you're going to the gym at 5:30 in the morning. For everyone who isn't an early bird, that's literal torture. In other words, it's nice if that works for you, but this is not really generalizable.

Going to the gym at 5:30am is torture for everyone. I’m not some weirdo who enjoys getting out of my warm bed and going out into the cold and dark to pick up weights. I do it precisely because it’s hard. The workout that happens in the gym is great, but the real workout happens in my head every time I have to tell myself to get up and go.

I was a big time night owl before we had kids. Now, I get up without an alarm around 5-5:30 most days and am able to fall asleep around 10.

I don’t mind the change at all and don’t think it’s impossible for most people to habituate themselves to a different schedule.

I'm not an early bird. I work out with a group at start times between 4:45 and 5:45 AM five days a week. Most of the other people I work out with are also not early birds. We workout early in the morning because that is the only time of day where we don't have other demands on our time.

Nobody is being tortured (literally or figuratively) and it is highly generalizable.

Meh. Anyone can get used to it after a while. A little torture is good for you.

I go to sleep at 1am. I wake up at 9:45am. Is there something wrong with this?

I have my daily standup at 10:30, so I have enough time to drink water, and do morning rituals before I start to work. Feels good. I don’t know what would be the advantage of going to sleep at 10pm and waking up at 6:45.

I would say there's nothing wrong with it if it keeps you happy and healthy. For me, getting out of bed at 10:30am would feel like I'm leaving a lot on the table. I like to be productive with as many daylight hours as possible. It's personal preference. If I were retired and looking to relax a bit more, I might adopt a bit later schedule.

That’s approximately 4 hours of work per day (excluding the ‘whatever comes’ time). For most businesses, availability during standard office hours might be too limited with this schedule.

Where do you get "4 hours of work per day" based on when their work day starts? It's missing the second half of the equation - the end of the work day.

Always at 5am whether I like it or not. I'd love to be able to hit the gym then, but my morning poop is a mandatory piece of my wellbeing routine, but that requires me to eat breakfast to get the works going. I can't lift with a full belly and my high protein diet means that proper digestion is a 2+ hour affair.

I have always been curious how people manage this to workout so early. Do you skip pooping? That would wreak havok on my workday.

Surprised bright morning late not mentioned. Camping usually resets circadian rhythm in as little as 3 days. Bright sun in the morning gets a person up with the birds, no lights at night puts a person to sleep.

Artificially, similar can be done: turn on all lights when you get up. After sunset, use minimal light, with as much red hue as possible.

The other points I think hold pretty well and also are important: get exercise, avoid caffeine later in the day, etc..

This writing is as unhelpful as telling an obese person simply to exercise and eat less. Everyone is different; I'm one of those people who were made to protect the tribe while they sleep. I'm naturally nocturnal, and the silence of the night makes me more alert. Turning on a not-so-interesting documentary or political commentary on YouTube actually helps me relax and fall asleep.

For night owls, all these habits are temporary.

I've done a stretch of 2 weeks to 2 months of being an early riser, but inevitably, like clockwork, the sleep schedule drifts back to me going to bed around 2 AM and waking up around 10AM.

And yes, I've tried everything.

As a parent of a 5 and 3 year old, I can confirm. No matter how long I’m forced successfully into getting up early, I’m still more alert and focused and happy as soon as the sun sets, and given the opportunity I’ll instantly slip back into sleeping at 1-2 am again.

My secret has just been consistently going to bed and getting up at the same time as my wife, who is not a night owl, every night. Some nights are frustrating and take me longer to fall asleep, most mornings I feel bit groggy, and I'm overall not thrilled with my experience with sleep, but I'm able to keep a consistent schedule without rubberbanding amounts of sleep, I'm rarely truly exhausted during the day, and my waking hours overlaps consistently with society and businesses.

It's certainly an imperfect compromise, but it works well enough.

I've tried to chase down the literature on the genetic basis for DSPS. It's still a developing field, but there have been some compelling studies that are narrowing down gene loci for night-owls.

1. https://www.nature.com/articles/npp2009230 2. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00125-015-3533-8 3. https://www.sjweh.fi/article/3299

Same, I'm nocturnal and a naturally anxious person. If I lie in bed doing nothing, I will just think about things that make me more anxious.

A nice podcast or documentary will focus my thoughts on whatever I'm listening to and help me fall asleep easier.

Ugh. Does that affect the other people around you?

Asking because I live with a relative who has a similar problem (needs a tv on to fall asleep) and that noise directly stops me from falling asleep in the next room much of the time.

It really sucks. :(

I live alone so no :)

If it was bothering other people around me I'd listen with my airpods.

Interestingly, my parents who are in their 60s, have no problems getting to sleep early, and they both fall asleep together to TV all the time, mostly watching reruns of old shows like Columbo

As said relative to do what I do. For the last 30 years I've fallen asleep with one earphone in my ear. I nod off quick, wife not disturbed.

Unfortunately, the relative isn't receptive to requests nor negotiation. Oh well. :(

I take that back. For the first time ever, last night the relative actually turned down the volume without cracking the shits, turning it up instead, etc. (!)

I wonder how big the cohort of users that turn on mildly interesting content to fall asleep to is?

How would a creator feel to find out most of their views are people falling asleep?

An advertising supported YouTube creator would be delighted!

No, literally a lot of creators target this market now — for instance by making a mega mix of their existing content which runs for two to three hours. Or releasing a video „xxx hours of yyy to fall asleep to“

It’s the new ‚meta’, apparently a big part of the YouTube algorithm is watch time, and it doesn’t know if the viewers are awake or not. Even if those viewers aren’t being shown adverts, it means your other videos may get additional promotion. Plus if your viewers have YouTube premium I believe watch—time literally translates directly to payment rates.

How it's Made does it for me. Based on a lot of the youtube comments, there are quite a lot of others as well!

I've tried to chase down the literature on the genetic basis for DSPS. It's still a developing field, but there have been some compelling studies that are narrowing down gene loci for night-owls.

Edit link: https://x.com/EMSKEPhyto/status/1774210043971305814

It is funny that my comment was upvoted at night and downvoted in the morning by early birds. Dear early birds, your lifestyle is not canonical. Yes, our civilization was built by you guys, but it wouldn't have happened if we night owls had not protected you while you slept.

There are HN readers in almost every time zone, so it's not night owls and early birds. I think it's downvoted because it's a shallow dismissal.

Generic article, which does nothing to address biological, environmental, and many many other factors.

Having young children is conveniently not mentioned.

But I don’t want my free time to end.

This! 23:00 is when my free time starts.

I did my military service (25 years ago). After that I rarely wait more than 3 minutes to fall asleep.

Not many books get read that way unfortunately, I used to read a lot before that.

These days I do wake up at weird hours though, not sure what to do when I wake 4AM.

Could you elaborate? Was it from total exhaustion? Were you taught a special technique to help you sleep? Or was it from knowing you MUST get your rest or you'll suffer the entire next day?

Right! Should have been in my comment.

I think an important part of it is that is made me stop worrying. Sleep will come to me eventually and meanwhile my body will continue working. Maybe my brain does not work optimally, but well enough.

Sleep is my friend.

(I was not anything like a navy seal but a commander of ~25 soldiers).

So being in the military made you stop worrying? How did it do that?

By pushing your limits.

Probably. Military service in Sweden in the 90s did not mean you had to worry about going to Iraq or Afghanistan.

As I mentioned I was also a platoon leader so I guess I had som more freedom.

But some weeks we had to go on without much sleep. (And you are constantly freezing).

Another thing I learned involuntarily was being a timekeeper. There is always a clock counting towards the next event in my head.

Sounds like a good opportunity to read

Correct observation :) Or reply to relevant replies to my half baked comments on HN.

What works is to sleep outside (bivouac), no artificial light besides maybe your device screens, and nature is an amazing lullaby. When I'm living in an apartment, with neightbors noise and smell, I can't easily sleep before they stop their mess, so near midnight; when outside I sleep soon after the night comes, 19:00 currently. I often wake up super early because of all that excess sleep

The most important thing for me was to lay down at the same time no matter what, even if I rolled around for 2 hours. Also no stimulants of any sort after 6pm. I stick to the Schedule though, even if it has pissed off some of my friends. If they want me to alleviate it they get me on Friday night, or nothing. I think you have to have a “day off” day for just about everything whether it’s exercise or a diet.

Bedtime routines increase sleep anxiety in some people. Consistency, i.e. the time you go to bed and the time that you wake up, is the most important factor.

This is my hack and your millage* may vary. Lately I close my eyes and scan via eyeballs for a light point and focus on it as much as I can, not sure how others perceive this. Obviously with eyes closed you cannot see anything so maybe I imagine this point, but in any case it makes me fall asleep instantly. Hopefully that makes sense ...

It's not a strict routine, but I sometimes listen to fairy tales from Myths And Legends [0] podcast and put myself to sleep. And I'm supposedly a grown ass adult. #noshame

[0] https://www.mythpodcast.com/

1. abstain from coffee and tea for 3 weeks

2. wake up at desired hour using alarm clock and drink one coffee

3. don't fall asleep before your desired hour of going to bed

4. rince an repeat until the alarm clock is no longer needed

5. Never drink coffee or tea again unless it's just one after waking up timely (not late)

I'm 31 and not too long ago have started to wake up at night needing to go pee despite not drinking liquids at least 3-4 hours before bed. What gives? Am I getting old? Is this normal?

Urinating once or maybe twice at night is pretty normal. If you think that something might be wrong then you can get checked by a urologist but most likely they won't find anything worth treating.

You may find it beneficial to workout some pelvic floor muscles. It's possible that your muscles got weaker and struggle with doing their job as well as they used to.

Watch sunrise and sunset. Get lots of sunlight throughout the day. Never wear sunglasses. No lights after sunset, red light or at least blue light blocking glasses after sunset.

I wish I could train myself to sleep on my back. I've been trying for years, but I can't seem to fall asleep without the pressure of the pillow on my face.

While I can sleep on my back, I feel like I get better rest when on my side. It's not about how the pillow feels or anything like that, but my whole body and brain just seem to relax more.

Apparently [1] sleeping on the side is better for your health, as well.

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=O8UoAASCUsQ

Sleeping on your back is worse for the spine and worse for breathing.

I had to learn to sleep on the side after smashing a vertibrae in a climbing accident, no other position offloads the spine as effectively.

Legit question, what's the reason for wanting to sleep in what seems to be an uncomfortable position for you?

I also can't sleep on my back but have no urge to change that.

I have a lot of shoulder issues that are worsened by sleeping on my side or stomach. I also have a flat spot on the side of my face from always sleeping on it, and it gets worse the older I get. I'd like to be able to use overnight skin treatments without it getting all over my pillow.

Fair enough. For what it’s worth, I fixed shoulder problems with a combination of mattress, pillow and arm position thought the latter is less important.

I don’t have a flat face (yet?) though I can see how that could be annoying.

Wonder if making some kind of custom shaped bed (ie from memory foam) might be a useful solution?

Me too. I can sort of "trick" myself by putting a balled-up blanket on my pillow and turning my face to rest against it.

My SO used to sleep on her belly.

Then we got an overpriced mattress with the same material that NASA uses...

I'm an endless chaser of value. I hate to overpay for things. That mattress was $5k (king sized).

She sleeps on her back, and her sleep quality has measurably improved.

I like to sleep on my back, but with a pillow over my forehead and eyes (i.e., nose and mouth exposed to fresh air).

One nice thing about sleep apnea treatment (CPAP) is that you always have fresh air.

since i started working bakers hours at about age 16 I have had to force myself to sleep on demand.

many decades later (now I'm a white collar 9-5er) I can still do it.

It realy is just a matter of self control. (for me at least)

I'm surprised the article did not mention speaking to a doctor about the possibility of underlying medical conditions (physical/mental health/neurological), if all suggestions fail.

I'm not.

I have "good" insurance in the States and I still had to pay $700 out of pocket for a sleep study and another $750 to rent a CPAP that my insurance company demanded nightly uploaded logs from.

exactly… speaking to a doctor eliminates 97.34% of all readers

That is not good insurance.

It's good by the standards of the US - low deductible, broad prescription coverage, no need to get a referral to see a specialist, and low/no copay for normal doctor visits.

That's literally any PPO post ACA. The story above makes it not good insurance.

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