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Comment by robg | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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