I say this as an always "late" person who now tries to get up at 5 to work out and reflect, it's been very helpful.
Therefore it is aggravating advice to constantly receive, from those for whom it worked, to those for whom it won't.
I don’t necessarily agree with the specific “get up at T”, but generally working towards getting rid of bad sleeping habits (and nutrition etc.) is incredibly beneficial. Seemingly small improvements can have a positive snowball effect.
Negative circumstances (like “my job is shit”) can be overcome more easily the more energy you have.
Seems trite, but it’s trivially true. My mental state improved gradually and I gathered more courage, got more resilient and more creative.
I’m much happier, helpful and have much more impact on my life and my surroundings than ever before. And it all started with the basics.
My key observation is this, no matter how well I sleep, I will wake up groggy eyed, my mind begging me to go back to bed, for my own sake.
I get out of bed as soon as my eyes open unless its before 4am. My mind plays the dirty trick every day, and I have to tell myself, "what good will a few more minutes of sleep do that the whole night could not" and I'm up.
If my head hurts 10 mins after I'm out of bed, I go back to bed.
If I even get just 6 hours, I immediately feel crankiness the next day.
Going to sleep feels like it brings the next day, and if you aren't looking forward to what you have to do the next day....you put it off for as long as possible.
I feel you.
During times when my job is satisfying and I'm on top of everything, I don't even want to touch my pc for fun.
Satisfying work drives me towards social activities in my free time.
It's perhaps irrational, but it's something I struggle with - my perfect way of working unfortunately goes against every social expectation, life/work balance stuff, etc.
To be perfectly honest, usually I'm staying up because of "the hormny" or because I've found something technical/geeky to immerse myself in. But I think the core thing is not "losing track" of time, but for some reason I see the time and just feel apathy like, it doesn't matter that it's 2,3 am or whatever.
Eventually, I realized this wasn't healthy and I switched to doing strenuous exercise. Hard to be wound up when you're exhausted! It's not a cure all. Sometimes I wind up doing so many sets of pushups a night that I feel it the next day, but it's definitely better than nothing.
2 hours to bedtime, 1 hour to bedtime, 30 minutes, etc....
Am I you?
- more likely to avoid hurtful situations (lower attention, zone out events, micro sleep events, reflexes diminished).
- more likely to hurt yourself when such accidents occur
- once hurt, physical recovery is severely hampered
Car accidents are the obvious ones here but it extends to simple things like accidental cuts with knives, slipping in the tub, or sprained ankles or knees just walking down stairs or curbs.
And some other "mind" and "metabolic" things:
- immune system effectiveness plummets, so more chances to get sick
- REM deprivation causes neuronal death
- long term, leads to anxiety, false memories, paranoia, hallucinations, and psychosis (been there, done that; not a good place to be)
We all know that water is essential to not dying, but sleep appears to be on equal footing (3 days without either and you're in catastrophic states), maybe even more important (the - sad - record of a human surviving without water is 18 days, for sleep it's 10)
Supplementing lysine has been helpful in reducing canker sores over a long period of time. Cutting my incidences from 1 a month to 1 every 2-4 months. It also seems to effect how quickly it heals.
Like how long? How did they test this?
I find myself picking fights with anyone and everyone, even inanimate objects. I know it’s crazy.
We don’t have time together any more - I just fall asleep the moment the child is asleep, as I know I’ll be getting up several times in the night and before the birds in the morning, and I just can’t keep my eyes open beyond a certain point.
The flip-side is that she feels that she spends her every waking hour looking after the baby - which isn’t far off the truth, as I look after her while she sleeps - so nobody is happy. My spare time is spent working and building and repairing stuff at home.
I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone has more than one child. How can anyone go “that was fun, let’s do it again”.
This post was brought to you by Sleep Deprivation™
I don't want to overstep, but you guys are doing it wrong. Your wife sleeping 12 hours doesn't sound right to me. We took shifts, but my wife was going to bed very early (9pm) and waking up around 5 or 6pm and then I'd sleep. She did this so we had a solution that worked for both of us. If your wife is not willing to do that, then you should be swapping nights at the very least.
Your wife sleeping at midnight and waking up so late is not sharing the workload at all and is frankly abusive IMO. I'd also look into postpartum issues since sleeping 12 hours is not normal.
I am a heavy sleeper too, so the agreement my wife and I had, was that she attend her son at night, he needed to be breastfed anyway, while I got to sleep. Then I was up at an ungodly early time and took care of my son while she could get some uninterrupted sleep. We did this for both of our children.
Her being pregnant is not an argument in favour of you having to do everything at night. Perhaps in the first few weeks while she recover, but after that, it's shared in a reasonable way. She does not get to dictate, but in unison you get to find a happy compromise, which includes enough sleep at regular intervals for both of you.
If you are willing to listen, listen to this: You are well on your way to a roommate situation, the first and biggest step towards a divorce. If you do not correct that course, both of you, that is with all likelihood what will happen. This path of a little bit of resentment many times, is a relationship killer.
If she didn't start sleeping those number of hours until after having the baby, this sounds like it could be postpartum depression. I'd recommend she gets evaluated by a psychiatrist to confirm, of course.
I'd have an honest discussion about this wit her.
Spending every waking hour with the baby doesn't entitle her to steal your sleep. If she got 10 and you got 6-8 hours, that would make a huge difference to you and to your family.
Don't let her gaslight you into thinking working a job to support the family and doing home repair and maintenance isn't as mentally and physically taxing as caring for a baby.
And in terms of one child, your brain (and evolution) does a great job at helping you forget and filter out only the positive experiences of a newborn.
Plus once you've had one, you don't stress nearly as much about the subsequent ones which taxes your brain a lot less. You don't feel quite so exhausted by it and you know it doesn't last forver.
My wife will sleep 10 hours. I will usually sleep 6-8 hours. It means I always have at least 2-4 hours to myself in the morning.
A similar scenario happened about 6 months ago. Of course, that round of sinus infections kicked off with a norovirus that had everyone but the baby violently exploding. It was especially fun because my wife also had a severely broken leg. She also suffered permanent hearing loss above 3.5Khz in one ear.
I am very fortunate that the company I work at has been overwhelmingly understanding and supportive.
You'd understand it just fine if you weren't getting gaslit by an entitled and selfish wife.
I remember the sensation of feeling drained of all energy at 8am, after battling to get kids through the door.
Time plays in your favor. It gets easier, much faster than you think.
So on the high end of that scale, if you drink 3 cups of coffee, containing say 300mg of caffeine, between 7 and 10 AM then you still have around 100mg of caffeine kicking around in your system when 11pm rolls around, clogging up your adenosine receptors and disrupting your body's ability to signal to itself (and you) that it wants and is ready for rest.
[And if you don't follow any sleep hygiene practices, you are also probably depriving the body of its primary mechanism for initiating the sleep processes. You can take supplemented melatonin but it is usually only effective for short or medium-term use, and in my personal experience is way less effective than the home-grown good stuff produced in the pineal gland]
So you lose 30 minutes here, and hour there of sleep. Not necessarily every night, but on a weekly basis you find yourself worn out, mentally ready to rest and recharge, but there is a disconnect in your brain and body that doesn't allow a smooth wake-sleep transition. The longer this trend occurs, the more sleep debt you find yourself in, the more you tend to throw in another half-cup around noon from time to time just to make sure you can keep going.
Worst of all is when you hit on the realization that alcohol or some other drug can help to knock you out when you're still too wired to sleep even though you really want or need it.. unfortunately (with the possible exception of a few herbs) basically every medication or drug that puts you to sleep also negatively impacts the quality of that sleep. Which in the above scenario is going to spell out more caffeine in the routine, sooner or later, to compensate further. Do be aware that this doesn't necessarily have to be conscious realization, it is an extremely easy and I assume common habit to fall into.
If you happen to process caffeine at a 1.5 hour half life, and can conk out like a light under most circumstances, I am truly jealous. Enjoy your God-given gifts ya lucky bastard!
I don't know how tolerance plays into this, but I drink like 1L or more of coffee a day, and have done so for more than a decade, and I have never felt any difficulty falling asleep.
Well, besides some reluctance during weekdays because I just don't want the next day to arrive, because of work, so I sometimes just go to sleep later and suffer the consequences for the next following days; but during long vacations (1-2 consecutive weeks long) it's all good, even with little to no variation on how much coffee I drink or the times I wake up and go to bed compared to outside vacation, so I think the problems are not related to coffee (at least not too much).
I don't even feel "awoken" when I drink coffee, and it's always weird when I read people saying they drink coffee to feel more awake. Or to get more energy, or something.
So I don't think I've ever drank it for any reason other than the taste. Caffeinated or decaffeinated; a 325ml mug full of undiluted?[1][2] espresso, vs milk coffee; literally no (perceivable) difference to me other than taste.
If anything, when I want to "stay awake", I try to drink something very sweet. It doesn't "wake me up" like I hear people say with coffee, but it very slowly takes away just a little bit of sleepyness.
[1]: Probably the wrong term. But I mean, taking a coffee "capsule", serve with the recommended "size" (which is very small), and repeat with more "capsules" until the mug is full. I don't do this very often though.
[2]: And yes, I want to learn how to make myself a coffee that tastes almost as good, so that I can stop polluting with these disposable capsules.
Edit: the mechanism seems to be due to inducing Cytochrome P450 1A2, an enzyme responsible for caffeine metabolism and many other drugs. This is also induced by diet with cruciferous vegetables and medications like Prilosec/Omeprazole. So if you find yourself sleeping better or needing more caffeine to get through the day, ingestion of these could potentially explain it. Likewise it can be inhibited by foods such as cumin or turmeric and medications, so if you notice more energy after turmeric supplementation or heightened caffeine sensitivity after eating more Indian food or your sleep is impacted when you start taking oral contraceptives, this could potentially explain why.
See inducers and inhibitors here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CYP1A2
I wish I had done it 10 years ago, when my sleep quality and quantity were just depressingly low. These days even with small children I have better quality of sleep than I used to have back then when I would spend hours and hours in front of a computer screen (at work and after work as a hobby).
As a trivial example, overworked people typically get less sleep than average folks. And excessive work is also correlated with several of the 'effects' from the list, such as "fatigued and demotivated" and "lower libido". This means that even though lack of sleep is (indirectly) linked to those problems, getting more sleep won't necessarily fix them, because the real cause is something else.
I find it strange that a post explicitly addressed to HN readers fails to even mention this extremely obvious issue.
While other issues may be also playing a role or even be the primary cause, the physiological effects of sleep deprivation are likely to make almost any underlying cause worse.
It's also the fluffiest thing I've seen on HN in a while.
Obviously that book sold like hot cakes. When it comes to sleep and diet people will repeat anything as long as it sounds intuitive.
* No coffee after 12.00 - No black tea after this time on most days either
* Peppermint tea a few hours before bed
* Magnesium before bed
* No alarm (I naturally wake up between 7 and 8am, though sometimes stay in bed for longer)
* Ereader in bed - reading helps put me to sleep
* Blackout curtains (a must in Swedish summer)
* Sometimes, visualizing scenes from whatever story I'm writing as I fall asleep. This can both help me get ideas for the story and help me fall asleep.
I am very bad with controlling screen time before bed and have pretty much given up on doing that at this point... For now. I still find myself waking up at 4am sometimes and then going back to sleep. It doesn't take long to get back, but it takes a lot of effort not to grab my phone and start scrolling in these times. If I must put my eyes on _something_, I try to make it my Kobo reader.
This is how I would fall asleep as a kid (when I had a flip phone). My mind was so active yet I fell into some amazing sleep.
It’s been better recently, but some years ago, I would come home from work just completely exhausted and pass out immediately. I would only sleep for a few hours, but then wouldn’t get tired again until 4-5am at which point I often would just power through it because I’d have to get ready and go to work in a couple hours anyway. It peaked a few years ago when I completely wrecked my sleep and didn’t sleep for a few days straight. I remember waking up, thinking about something I believe was just utter nonsense, and a second later being unable to recall what I was even thinking about. I ended up getting my sleep schedule back by cycling some light stimulants during the day and crappy sleep aids at night until I was back to a normal schedule, but that probably wasn’t very healthy itself.
There are older and newer classes of drugs on the market that are being used as first-line therapies which not only preserve sleep architecture but in many cases even enhance it. Trazodone (a very old SARI) for example increases the amount of slow-wave sleep in healthy individuals and amount of time spent asleep. There are many newer drugs, suvorexant, ramelteon, etc. These medications are of course not without side effects but for many patients they work very well.
I'd say if you're suffering from chronic sleep deprivation then the cost-benefit analysis strongly leans in the direction of a pharmaceutical that fixes that since sleep is second to none in improving health and wellness outcomes.
There are many insults that can cause disrupted sleep architecture like you're describing—impaired gut microbiota, stress, lack of exercise, etc—all of which may respond to their own remedies. I experimented for years and finally have wonderful sleep with desmopressin + trazodone. And I was at a place where my sleep was seemingly uncureable—waking up every hour or every few hours on most nights.
If you want great sleep, you might have to fight to find the correct path for your own situation.
In the last 6 months the level of exercise I get has skyrocketed, and I thought it would help but it's ironically made it worse. Stress is definitely a possible factor, but there's nothing in my life that is particularly more stressful than it was before. That's why this has all been perplexing: my sleep hygiene and everything surrounding it has gotten better as my ability to sleep has gotten worse.
I used this the most when traveling and dealing with jet lag, but I still occasionally find it useful to take an OTC sleep aid when my schedule gets “off.”
Interrupted sleep is tougher. I’ve had some success by just accepting that if I haven’t fallen back asleep in 15-20 minutes I probably should get up and walk around for a bit and maybe try the couch instead, but it’s not great.
This gives me more attempts at sleep. Better to have more opportunities then fewer.
14-18yo I went to the gym 1hr/day every weekday, boxing 1-2hrs 3x/wk, karate 1hr 2x/wk.
18yo+ I've boxed, run 30-40 miles/wk (some 3/4hr runs in there too leading up to ultras), climbed 2-10hrs/wk, and gym 2-3x/wk for the last 5 years although that schedule and activity level has varied since I have no real reason to kill myself training now that I don't compete in anything.
None of the above have an impact on sleep or ability to fall asleep, I have taken weeks off due to injury or months off due to burnout after a 12hr race, and my sleep schedule hasn't changed. Still tired-ish around 5-7, then 7-2am find it impossible to fall asleep, followed by 5-6hrs sleep and repeat. I 100% agree with the guy who replied to you that got heavily downvoted that "just exercise" is a vastly oversimplified response to the complex issues most people have with sleep. Not everybody's sleep issues are due to an inactive lifestyle, and I'd bet that is not the case for the majority of people.
I can still feel the adrenaline and elevated heart rate and body temperature that just makes it even more difficult to fall asleep so I have no idea how people who go to the gym at 9PM manage to fall asleep. I wish I knew their secret or had their genetics.
Lighter exercises that don't stress the body, like long walks and yoga are much better for sleeping but not good for building muscle.
My problem isn't falling asleep, it's staying asleep for long enough to feel rested. I usually wake up after 4-5h and can't easily fall back to sleep. By the time I get sleepy again(7-8AM) it's already morning and time to get up for work.
So far I haven't found a (natural) cure for this. There's medication that aids with getting long sleep but the side effects (drowsy ness and brain fog) are nearly just as bad as the lack of sleep.
I find I get the best sleep when I go camping. No artificial light and sync'd with the sun.
I'm now at a point where I manage to take a step back when I feel generally down, and just look into whether I had enough sleep, or if the weather is crap. These are the two most important predictors for whether I'll find my job to be terminally depressing, or my situation to be doomed ; and I try to convince myself to take my distress with a fistful of salt then, and wait to be less tired or the weather to get better, before I overanalyze my situation.
It does not always work, but sometimes it helps a little with rationalizing
I was prescribed melatonin by a doctor, and the dose went up little by little from 3mg to 10mg before we decided it didn't work for me. Sure it helped me fall asleep, but then I woke up a few hours later and couldn't sleep again. Years later I have started taking 0.5mg (1mg is the smallest pill I could find, and I split them in two) and it's much better that way.
Low-dose doxepin (3mg) has also helped, but I find that I have to take breaks from it, because it stops working after a while. This dose is much lower than the usual dose for depression, but a local pharmacy manufactures the pills based on a doctor's prescription.
I remember going to a presentation where the presenter was describing a clinical trial they were performing where they gave melatonin to some people for some reason I can't remember. But when they mentioned that they were giving 20mg each night the presenter noticed the look of absolute horror on my face. I almost asked them whether they wanted the participants to wake up again the next day.
I used to take half a milligram nightly, and did for about ten years. Recently I have been so exhausted all the time that I no longer have any trouble getting to sleep. Also, I think my body clock has changed now that I'm ten years older, because it does. I slept better when I stopped taking it, even though I definitely found it useful for a long time.
If you (or likely your partner) suspects you have apnea, talk to your doctor.
Doing a sleep study/test and getting treatment for apnea will likely transform your life for the better.
I would compare it to having a fairly robust drinking problem, and then finally getting sober.
I'm in the same boat except that I only go to bed when I'm absolutely completely drained and exhausted, which is probably not good...
It feels so strange to read posts where people rediscover the importance of basic sleep hygiene. Having some time to wind down and not using phones in bed are two of the most basic sleep hygiene practices around.
I'm curious what "many solutions" she tried before getting back to the basics, because the exact sleep hygiene practices you described are at the front of the list for things that doctors explore first with patients.
Unfortunately, some doctors and/or internet advice places skip straight to medications, supplements, and an assumption that the problem can only be addressed by chemical means. The number of people who jump straight to melatonin or even prescription sedatives without making any attempts to alter their daily practices is worrisome.
One thing I would like to improve on is staying asleep throughout the night which I think would allow me to wake up earlier. I have tried Benadryl which works well, melatonin works okay, but the thing that works the best for me is THC. However, I am trying to stop that because I have read that you do not get as good of sleep when you use THC before bed.
Another thing that helps is having it freezing cold in the bedroom.
> I have tried Benadryl which works well
There have been some studies linking anticholinergics like Benadryl to dementia when taken later in life, so that might be worth looking into, if you haven't already, and you use it regularly.
My insomnia journey...
I had turrible insomnia for decades, worse over time. I tried All The Things, multiple times. Which everyone should try, if only to learn more about oneself.
But if you try All The Things and still suffer, do not give up. Keep looking, keep asking.
Turns out my root cause was bone spurs on my spine. Tiny little pinches of my nerves, which prevented my mind and my body from ever relaxing.
It took years to get a proper diagnosis, separate from the insomnia concern, and then even more time to get an effective treatment.
Happily, "fixing" those bone spurs resolved most of my anxiousness and insomnia. Now I sleep like a corpse. It's glorious.
This is my personal example of an apparent phantom chronic illness. Where care providers offer what they know and then basically give up.
Which makes sense, for them, because healthcare is basically triage. A care provider does their best in moment given the knowledge and resources they have. Then they do the same for another dozen patients, every single day.
But you shouldn't give up.
If you're suffering, there's a cause. Keep asking. Keep searching. Someone out there has the answers you need.
Eventually, finally, got some MRIs done. Was immediately obvious my nerves were impinged. Which led to surgeries.
Happily, surgery resolved most of my anxiety symptoms (which had also been treatment resistant). Of which my care providers are very skeptical. Specifically, that my physical sensation of anxiety, like clinching, induced my emotional state. Maybe not. But lacking a better theory, I'm preceding with the info that I have.
Not sure if this is truly what you meant but I would find it highly abnormal that a child does not bring your sufficient joy and meaning that would offset sleep loss.
1. Most people would never say bad things about parenting because it makes them look like demons. I basically tell my friends and colleagues that it is OK and I'm still not sure whether it worths it or not. That's as far honest as I'm willing, although it is pretty close to truth nowadays. I was a lot more snarky a year ago.
2. Humans are very good at adapting. If you told me 3 years ago that I have to go through all these, I'd never think about getting a kid. But somehow it actually feels OK now. And that's what I tell other people.
3. Having kids basically means having a completely different life style for me. I can see why some people actually feel so excited about it because their life style actually fit. It's about trading one life style to another, and this is something we rarely told others, who nevertheless never bother to ask anyway, because they don't know what to ask. Nowadays, I'd tell any young people to get their dreams done before getting a kid, unless they really really want it. You want to go travel the world? Do it before getting a kid. You want to teach yourself a long chain of Mathematics/Physics topics? Do it before getting a kid. I'm not saying you can't do them after having kids, but it's a LOT safer to do them before.
I don't know if this is your first or second, but I found that everything was significantly easier the second time around. I didn't realize how much my wife and I had learned to handle things more efficiently and split the load better over time.
You learn quickly.
> I now fully understand why some people don't want to get kids.
I don't know about that. I think the current trend is greatly overestimating the lifetime impact of some of these short-term difficulties of child raising. If someone actually wants kids but avoids it because they don't want their sleep inconvenienced for a couple percent of their entire life, I'd question if they're weighing the tradeoffs appropriately. It's a choice for the rest of your life, but some people treat it like those first several months are the entirety of the decision making process, which is weird.
It's definitely not just a few months. It has been 3 years for me and I don't really think it's going to end soon. Again this is just personal, not an average experience.
* Sleep deprivation reduces immune system function.
I was surprised when none of the gov advice during covid included "improve your sleep", because that's one of the best ways to strengthen your immune system, reduce your chances of contracting illnesses, and improve your chances of a fast and complication free recovery.
I've experienced most if not all that was described here. And I look 10 years older. But I'm so glad I can sleep normal hours again.
[1]:https://idiallo.com/blog/stopped-sleeping-started-hallucinat...
I wish I had control over my sleep like others seem to. It would be awesome if I could pass out at 10pm and wake up 8am. That kind of schedule is just impossible for me though. Night time is when my brain kicks into gear and then when I finally do sleep, I find it extremely difficult to wake up.
These days I'm sleeping between roughly 7am to 4pm. Recently I slept 18 hours. If I could fix it somehow I would. It's completely out of my control.
It is not. I have been in your shoes not once and lots of recommended things failed, some have not. This will require deep dive into reasons and mitigations, but I suggest you to proactively explore it and hopefully - fix.
And if possible, get outside, walk, run, hike, enjoy nature, build something with your hands, get TIRED.
Reduce blue light and if possible remove any screens past 7-8pm (books, podcasts and audiobooks help a lot here!).
In the morning, get as much sunlight as possible.
Do not stress over your current schedule too much. Try to wake up early in the morning for a few consecutive days, even if you do not go to bed early enough. After some time, your body might adjust again to a normal rhythm.
Good luck
Sorry kind of a rant.
This obviously is not a cure-all against sleep deprivation, but it's easy to try out and, at least for me, it made falling asleep so much easier.
Is caffeine really a depressant? I have great joy in consuming caffeine either from Japanese Sencha tea, Matcha, or occasionally a non-watery Americano.
I've been very interested in getting more data about just how much and what kind of sleep I'm getting. I know smart watches these days claim to provide that. Anyone know how accurate it is, and which watches are best for it?
It was incredibly useful for me when I was in the market for a smart watch.
TL;DR if you want to track sleep, get an Apple Watch. Or if you are in the Android ecosystem go for one of the entry level Fitbits as they have pretty good tracking for their cost.
I struggle to have the discipline to get enough sleep. I'm going to bookmark this, pin it in a tab, and use it to remind myself that the consequences of my stupidity are greater than what I would accomplish by staying awak.
But in my case, the root cause seems to be stress from increased load, and the higher cortisol levels it creates
Like this one :) It definitely happens all the time
Slower healing.
Then I was diagnosed with cancer at 30.
Blessed to have treated it. I don’t take health for granted any longer, sleep is a critical component of my health. Mental and physical state are 10x where they were.
Ymmv. There’s no proof that I directly contributed my cancer, but I suspect I did.
