Comment by monktastic1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by monktastic1 | Hacker News Reader

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For anyone else not well-versed in the lingo, I thought I'd share this Smithsonian article and attendant Reddit thread. I found them informative:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-a-study-on-mice...

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1hyychf/scientists...

> The brain’s waste-removal process is “like turning on the dishwasher,” a neurologist says, but common sleep medications may harm it"

> The team then tested the impact of Zolpidem (a common sleep medication also known as Ambien or Zolpimist) on this system, and found that the norepinephrine waves during sleep decreased by 50 percent and fluid transport into the brain decreased by around 30 percent in zolpidem-treated mice. These results suggest that sleeping aids that impact norepinephrine production—which includes most sleeping aids—might harm the brain’s waste-removal system.

> but common sleep medications may harm it

Anecdata (size = 1): I was going through a phase of terrible sleep, and one day decided to take some CBD. I woke up feeling terrible in the head. I had slept like a log, but it felt in my brain as if I hadn't slept at all!

You say you were going through a phase of terrible sleep. Would you say that particular night of sleep was worse than your average night of sleep during that phase?

Basically, it felt like the body had gone through the motions of sleeping, but the brain felt even more tired than usual. It felt very confusing, as all measures seemed to indicate that I had slept for a solid 8+ hours, but I felt less rested than when I'd gone to sleep. It's like someone hit the "pause" button on the brain processing cycle, and sleep never happened for the brain.

The idea that quantity sleep is better than quality is something I see a lot of people im married to struggle with.

Exactly how many people are you married to anyways? ;-D

> “like turning on the dishwasher"

More like a movie theater ? By the end of the day your shoes stick to the floor and there's a crunch under every step and ideally you'd just hit it all with a firehose.

"common sleep medication": not as a percentage of overall usage.

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