Does Bedtime Honey Improve Sleep? Reasons to Think So

The previous comments already identify this as a poorly reasoned post. I read it anyway, and I have to agree. Why don't we upvote submissions that have more evidence behind them, as the The Hacker News welcome message[1] implicitly suggests? "A crap link is one that's only superficially interesting. Stories on HN don't have to be about hacking, because good hackers aren't only interested in hacking, but they do have to be deeply interesting."

[1] http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Seems to make a lot of big claims ("this might explain Dutch height!") based on an overall evidence of 'it worked for me and two other people I found on the internet, and for one friend, but not for the other' being called 'lightning doesn't strike twice' (which of course is a ridiculous claim itself).

I'll use this excuse when I gorge on halva just before going to bed.

Best method for sleeping is running everyday at least 5miles per day.

Most of the comments here are mindlessly skeptical basically boiling down to "citation needed", and "not peer reviewed".

The whole approach Seth Roberts takes is based on a philosophy of self-experimentation and personal science. His writing needs to be evaluated in that context.

Comments that react in these default ways really add nothing other than to assert that anything that is not conventional science should be dismissed without further consideration.

Doesn't seem very hackerish to me.

> Stuart King, an Australian musician in his thirties, recently commented:

>> Most days I wake up feeling more tired than when I went to bed the night before,

This guy should do a sleep study.

Honey is basically sugar. Just Fructose and Glucose. There is some plant matter, but not much.

Thinking that Honey does much more than taste good is silly. The reason it does things like help when you are sick is just that it is really easy to digest sugar and that gives you a kick of energy, and because of the distinct flavor it also helps with nausea. But basically anything Honey will do maple syrup will do just as well, as they are really similar chemically.

In truth most the things honey will do a caffeine free soda will do.

Really?! Ever heard of the placebo effect?

Seth Roberts:"The Growth of Personal Science: Implications for Statistics"

"Personal science is science done for personal reasons (to help yourself) rather thanprofessional ones (as a job). The most common personal science is health self-measurement, which has recently become much more popular. This article describes 14examples of personal science involving health. The topics include blood sugar, sleep,mood, body weight, resistance to infection, and brain function. Most of the examples areabout new ways to improve these measures. For example, the results suggest that: 1.Skipping breakfast reduces early awakening. 2. Looking at faces in the morningimproves mood. 3. Flaxseed oil improves balance. 4. Butter improves arithmetic speed.Overall, the results suggest that personal science plus expert advice can produce betterhealth than expert advice alone. Personal science may influence statistics in two ways: 1.A new audience. Personal scientists want to learn statistics. 2. Better understanding.Learning about personal science may help statisticians understand science in general"

http://media.sethroberts.net/blog/pdf/2012-09-24-The-Growth-...

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Seth Roberts:"The unreasonable effectiveness of my self-experimentation"

"Over 12years, my self-experimentation found new and useful ways to improve sleep, mood, health, and weight. Why did it work so well? First, my position was unusual. I had the subject-matter knowledge of an insider, the freedom of an outsider, and the motivation of a person with the problem. I did not need to publish regularly. I did not want to display status via my research. Second, I used a powerful tool. Self-experimentation about the brain can test ideas much more easily (by a factor of about 500,000) than conventional research about other parts of the body. When you gather data, you sample from a power-law-like distribution of progress. Most data helps a little; a tiny fraction of data helps a lot. My subject-matter knowledge and methodological skills (e.g., in data analysis) improved the distribution from which I sampled (i.e., increased the average amount of progress per sample). Self-experimentation allowed me to sample from it much more often than conventional research. Another reason my self-experimentation was unusually effective is that, unlike professional science, it resembled the exploration of our ancestors, including foragers, hobbyists, and artisans."

Medical Hypotheses

Volume 75, Issue 6 , Pages 482-489, December 2010

http://media.sethroberts.net/articles/2010%20The%20unreasona...

A little hit of insulin suppresses stress hormones, which probably helps get you to sleep faster. Also, by 3 or 4 AM you can burn down glycogen stores. Your body will ramp up fat metabolism, which entails an increase of stress hormones, which can wake you up. So topping up glycogen before bed can help you sleep more soundly through the night.