Simple Ways That I Optimize My Sleep | Hacker News Reader

Simple Ways That I Optimize My Sleep

brianmartinek.com

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Three Simple Ways That I Optimize My Sleep, not backed by science:

1. Work hard and find time to exercise during the day

2. Relax my mind towards the end of the day, have a beer, watch some TV, etc.

3. Read a little before dozing off

There has to be some science behind exercising during the day and reading / reading at night.

I recommend Sleepfaring by Prof Jim Horne.

http://www.amazon.com/Sleepfaring-Journey-through-Science-Sl...

Reading it can put you to sleep, but there's interesting stuff there. Some highlights, off the top of my head:

1) 'Coffee naps' are effective - i.e. if you're really tired and have to stay awake, drink a coffee quickly and nap for 15 minutes or so.

2) If you are sleep deprived, you only have to make up a fraction (I think it was something like 1/4) of the lost sleep - not the entire amount. It's easy to sleep too much.

3) If you can't sleep, instead of tossing and turning it might be better to simply get up and do a boring routine activity (e.g. puzzles), until you get tired again.

YMMV etc. - sleep is still not that well understood.

There's no need to spend hundreds of dollars on a sunrise alarm clock. Just buy some super-bright, flat white bulbs[1] and a timer[2]. (And a lamp if you need one, of course.) Sure, it doesn't get gradually light, but the main thing is that it's very bright when you get out of bed, which is really pleasant!

[0] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00198U6U6

[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0040718V4

I don't think you have understood the point of a sunrise alarm clock. The reason they turn on gradually is to simulate sunrise, which makes it the most comfortable way for your body to wake up.

I don't know about you, but when I'm sleeping in a dark room and someone suddenly turns on a bright light, I hate it.

Different things work for different people, I guess. I think the clocks have two points, both aimed at simulating the conditions we evolved in--one, they turn on gradually, and two, they wake you up with light rather than noise. I personally don't care about the first point--my timed light flips on while I'm still asleep, I wake up gradually, and at the point when, in a dark room, I'd probably come up from a doze, roll over, and go back to sleep, I notice it looks like daylight in my room and get up. In fact, I prefer this, because the sunrise alarm clocks I've used haven't been bright enough to feel like dawn instead of a lamp.

Yeah, you don't get all the benefits of a sunrise alarm clocks, and it might not work for everyone. It's a hack to get some of the benefits at a lower cost, that's all.

I would LOVE to use the bedside lamp I already have to progressively turn on every morning at a specific time.

I'm sure there's a timer out there combined with a dimer that will replace expensive sunrise alarm clocks. Concerning the nature sounds adapted to your sleepcycle, there's already many apps doing that for free.

Anyone knows of a dimer/timer like this?

If you have some crappy early-generation CFLs that have been used a lot, they can take 10-15 mins to come up to maximum intensity (although that max is still pretty puny, output wise).

I hate these articles. Not because they aren't useful, but because I wake up a couple hours before my partner, and she sleeps on a schedule that's so precise I'm not sure she's human. I'm jealous, and in order to not get killed in a domestic dispute, changes like temperature control ("It's too cold!"), sunrise alarm clocks ("Turn that goddamned light off!") and light control ("Those black out shades are ugly!") are not practical.

Tl;dr: if you want to use these techniques to get a good night's sleep, get used to sleeping alone.

Your SO is oscar the grouch?? Realistically though just alter your schedule or ask her to alter hers.

Switch to a bucket of water being dumped on you to wake you up. After she has a nervous breakdown that the bed is soaking wet suggest that you tried temperature changes, sunrise alarm clocks and darker shades. But she was against all of them.

She's not if I let her keep her sleep schedule! A couple of days off of it and I'm afraid she's going to move in to a tin garbage can though...

I am trying/have tried other methods of sleep optimisation though. I tried Gnaural (brain entrainment software - placebo or not I found it worked reasonably well) combined with Sleep Phones (http://www.sleepphones.com/). The sleep phones also help with an alarm that I can hear and she can't.

> Why: Before the light bulb the only lights at night were the stars and the moon

Seem to be forgetting fire. Campfires were surely used by our ancestors, for hundreds of thousands of years, and it is plausible that we evolved to adapt to them.

> Humans have evolved to wake up with the sunrise and fall asleep with the sunset

Evidence? Are we sure that ancient hunter-gatherers did not hunt/gather by the light of the moon? And after the discovery of fire, there would be even more flexibility. Using fire to hunt animals during the night, when they are most vulnerable, sounds pretty useful.

> Seem to be forgetting fire. Campfires were surely used by our ancestors, for hundreds of thousands of years, and it is plausible that we evolved to adapt to them.

He does lightly touch on the subject of fire:

> The blue wavelengths of light suppress melatonin production so daylight triggers the body to stop producing it (interestingly red, orange, and yellow wavelengths don’t suppress melatonin production and are the same wavelengths produced by fire)

As the parent of two young children who are terrible sleepers I LOLed, then cried a little bit, then what was I talking about again?

One simple way to optimize your sleep: make your spouse deal with kids in the middle of the night.

(note, this may work for one night, after which you'll be optimizing on the couch)

And if your BMI is over 23, or you ever have been teased about snoring, have a sleep study done to check for apnea

I'm trying to branch into MC programming by building a sunrise alarm clock. All I can say so far is don't accidentally turn on an 800 lumen LED while you're staring directly at it.

A white (pink/purple...) noise generator has greatly helped me sleep. I was regularly woken up by intermittent traffic noise until I started using one. I keep recommending it to everyone.

*there are many selections on the App Store and Play store. FWIW, I use the one by TMSOFT which provides different kinds of noise. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tmsoft.whi...

I'm very keen to try this. Did you notice any side effects?

In the beginning, it took me a few minutes to be comfortable with the extra noise. Now it's reassuring.

Just put in ear plugs. I use generic dollar store orange ones and I sleep like a king now.

I've used ear plugs as well, to lesser success. Many people are uncomfortable with the pressure it puts on their ears.

I've long been used to earplugs for a while (a couple years in a boarding school dorm necessitates them), but my ears just adapt to the lower noise level. I suppose the noise generator raises the noise floor, so external disturbing sounds have a lower SNR and thus you're less likely to react to them.

I find that my Sleep Phones (www.sleepphones.com) work pretty well without putting the pressure on my ears. The only problem is that the speakers in the headband can move, so you have to fiddle a little bit to get them over your ears.

The number one way I have optimized my sleep lately is with The Original Bed Band. It keeps my sheet on my mattress, which is awesome because I am a toss n turner plus 2 dogs to boot. Try them out if you have a problem with sheets coming off the bed.

http://www.amazon.com/The-ORIGINAL-Bed-Band-Adjustable/dp/B0...

"1. Sleep In A Pitch Black Room Why: Before the light bulb the only lights at night were the stars and the moon."

"2. Simulate The Sunrise/Sunset With An Alarm Clock Why: Humans have evolved to wake up with the sunrise and fall asleep with the sunset. It’s only been the last 100 years or so, basically once the light bulb started becoming common in households, that the natural balance of the sleep/wake cycle became decoupled from the sun."

Humans haven't been without fire, candles, lamps, and artificial light for perhaps 400,000 years. We have evolved with artificial light, not without it.

Sunrise alarm clock = epic. Definitely need to look into getting one. Seems like a better alternative than using my phone as an alarm, which I feel like throwing across the room in the morning when it wakes me up :)

It makes such a difference in my mornings since I have been using a sunrise alarm clock. I still use my phone alarm but only as a backup (I am almost always awake by the time it goes off)

It sounds great but 200 dollars is a rip off. Someone should hack together a cheap one and sell it. Perhaps linked to a smartphone

An alternative to #2 seems to be to set your alarm in line with sleep cycles. Work out how long it takes you to go to sleep (I'm actually not sure how you do this, 14 minutes is average and works great for me), add 6 hours or 7:30 (or some interval of 90 minutes), wake up at the resulting time. I do it using DoubleTwist (which defaults to the 14 minute to get to sleep thing), but it's easy enough to work out and works really well.

I think the point is that the light signals your body to stop production of melatonin, waking you up naturally.

That's interesting. Something I've never thought about before.

You should try using http://sleepyti.me/

Supplementing melatonin, even in people without insomnia is worth pursuing. I'll allow you to do your own research on the claims for longetivity but this is a good aggregator of studies for the other benefits:

http://examine.com/supplements/Melatonin/

It's important to get the dose right, specially if you're still <50 don't jump in at 3mg.

My partner and I sleep alone. We are both light sleepers.

Is this a repost? I feel like I've seen this specific article on HN before.

Or maybe all of these sleep articles give similar advice and seem the same.

This is not a repost, just what I find works for me. I have seen similar articles about sleep on HN before but I'm not sure they make the same observations I have.

yeesh, Mercola

I have fought the encroaching light battle for almost 25 years. It's not as easy as the author makes it sound while still having a normal human looking room.

Here is the pack-rat/shut in version: If you have any windows in your room the only real solution is some combination of a lightproof sheeting (light proof fabric, aluminum foil etc...) and light proof adhesive (black gaffers tape is the best or aluminum foil tape). Since there are very few window frames that give good clearance around them for affixing things, and don't have wild trim or corners the latter material really makes or breaks your situation.

Congratulations, now you have to work on your door. Door sweeps usually do a good enough job but those pesky door cracks can be a nightmare. The easiest solution to this is a blackout drape hung over your door as though it was another door. Reasonable people can disagree about whether to put this inside the room or outside the room - as long as you have a good "seal" on the sides and top it should be fine. This causes problems for egress if needed however.

The last and simplest thing is to just move all devices that cause light completely out of the room or disable their persistent light sources completely.

The good citizen version: Using your standard draping you will need to sew blackout fabric to the back of your draping with basically no gaps. Stitch Witchery does not work. Hot glue peels away. Sewing is the only reliable option.

You will then need to choose your affixing method. I personally like using neodymium magnets, but in the quantity that you need them, they get pricey. They are also more complicated to line up. The easier version, which is still pricey is to use industrial strength velcro. You will have to measure and line up near perfectly where you affix the velcro on the drape to where your hooks/loops on the window/wall go. This is way more complicated that it sounds in practice - again because windows rarely are simple flat squares with no trim. Affixing to the wall/window is always a tradeoff. Anything that "sticks" will peel off eventually and take any paint with it. If you nail/staple it on, now you have holes in your wall. So pick your poison. Even after all this work, you will still likely have some leakage. That is where the extra fabric comes in handy to drape over the velcro sides. In general it will cover you night or day, but this one is really hard to get perfectly.

Treat the door the same - generally you can have the drape roll up during the day without issue.

This option lets you open the windows and drapes with minimal amount of tell to your mole-like behavior. It ends up being cumulatively a lot more work however.

I have tried to think up simple consumer solutions (I see lots of aluminum foil in windows -- watch you'll see it too now)to this, but windows are so damn variable that it is near impossible and the only major consumer solutions right now are not worth the price.

I recently gave up on making my room blackout dark when I sleep. Instead, I wear sleep masks. They're not perfect: they slip a little as I sleep, and the cheap ones wear out fast. But it's still not expensive ($10 for 3), and the masks themselves block all light. I'm happy with them. They do the job, and they come with me when I travel. Plus, it makes some intuitive sense to block light at the narrowest point - just in front of your eyes, versus from every possible source.

Great point and I should have added that because it is my solution now as well. FWIW if you have the opportunity to snag a sleep mask from an Emirates international business or first class, do so; it is by far the finest I have used and mine has lasted 6 years now.

Sleep masks make me sweaty and squish my eyeballs. I opted for tying a silk scarf around my head instead. Luxury.

I highly recommend http://www.mindfold.com/

The branding is a bit silly. But. You can open your eyes and it remains pitch black--zero light leakage. I started using them on flights, now use at home when I really need the extra z's.

Awesome!

I only find this to be a problem when I travel abroad. Because in my home country (Spain), the vast majority of residential buildings have blinds like this:

http://www.persianas-ruiz.com/Contenidos/NotaA1.jpg

These blinds don't go behind the window frames, but in the window, fitting in grooves carved in the window itself. With that, absolutely zero light will enter through your windows at night.

I have seen that most other countries don't use this kind of blinds, and I wonder why that is. They seem like a win-win to me. If you want an absolutely dark room you get it, and if you don't, you only need to not lower them 100% and then little rays of light will get through the horizontal grooves that you see (which close if you fully lower the blind).

When I travel abroad I always have to do all kinds of involved stuff (like you describe) to get my room reasonably dark, and it's so incredibly easy if you have the right kind of blinds...

I think it may be the only thing where Spain can give the rest of the world a lesson :)

We have the same in Italy, and I still don't understand why other countries don't use the same blinds everywhere too.

According to the Spanish Wikipedia, "with the mentality that the wealth of a country depends on its citizen's labor, the use of these blinds was discouraged in some countries, to the extreme that Benjamin Franklin even proposed that church bells should ring at dawn so that the people are ready to work from dawn to dusk".

It cites no sources, but some Googling uncovers this letter by Franklin:

http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin3.html

which in fact contains the remark about church bells, and also proposes that "a tax be laid of a louis per window, on every window that is provided with shutters to keep out the light of the sun".

However, that letter seems like very scanty evidence to say that using that kind of blinds was actually "discouraged" anywhere...

It's definitely worthwhile to take extreme measures to lightproof your room. Foil works, but if the budget permits, you can use a layer of Dynamat, Auralex Sheetblok, or a similar substance to block a fair bit of external sound from your bedroom while eliminating light entirely.

Yes, your bedroom will look like a schizophrenic's sex dungeon after you do this. Yes, that's fine, because you may be able to get much better sleep, which is more important than the aesthetics of your bedroom.

My bedroom is so dark that I can't use LED light bulbs in the ceiling fixtures. It turns out that they use an incredibly efficient fluorescent coating that glows brightly for hours, enough to let me make out objects on the floor. That's how I knew the room was finally dark enough.

If the point is to match our natural heritage of the stars and moon, then 100% blackout is not actually accurate. Even on a moonless night, starlight is quite bright--bright enough to see contours of the landscape.

I've slept outside in remote places many times, far away from city lights. It's not even near 100% black. So I would not kill yourself to get every little stray bit of light.

For me it is not the point to match a "natural" (whatever that is) sleeping environment. Rather, it is to reduce the number of things that will disturb me while I am trying to sleep.

I don't prefer to wake up when the sun comes up mostly because I don't prefer to sleep when it goes down. So it is a guarantee that I will want to be asleep when there is a significant light source outside my house. Eliminating that will optimize my sleep. End of story.

What's the difference between 99.9% effective and 100%? I velcroed my blind to my window and turned off any light sources. J I can see a very, very, very faint glow in a couple spots around the blind, and if I look sideways I can catch a tiny bit under the door. Is there any benefit to going further?

Probably not. As pointed out above in the open you'll usually have stars which, away from light sources, give off a fair amount of light on their own.

That is a personal preference in my opinion and largely rests on how much you think your sleep would be impacted by those sources.

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