[HN Gopher] Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resemblin...
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Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion
Author : rustoo
Score : 288 points
Date : 2021-01-24 13:00 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.osu.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.osu.edu)
| greysteil wrote:
| If you haven't already read it and are interested in sleep
| research, I found "Why we sleep" was a wonderful, accessible
| summary of the literature.
| quichelorraine wrote:
| I remember reading the results of a study a few years ago that
| said people in poverty suffered something like a drop in
| cognitive ability. I wonder if the effect reported here is
| related.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| No mention what consists of "lack" of sleep.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Now I just need a concussion to compare.
| sradman wrote:
| Many of us are wearing devices with continuous optical heart rate
| monitors. Heart rate variability at rest is one of the best
| indicators of stress and these devices are pretty good at
| estimating sleep duration and sleep cycles.
|
| Regulators need to recognize that continuous tracking devices are
| a new tool for establishing a health baseline and they should not
| be expected to match the performance of single-test medical
| devices. Apple, Garmin, and Fitbit need to build standards to
| share this baseline data with medical professionals and offer
| analytics to determine when changes occur.
|
| Questionnaire based medicine seems backwards given the digital
| tools available.
| nitrogen wrote:
| There's a DIY-ish service that can be self hosted (not sure if
| it's still maintained) that tracks all kinds of data in a way
| that you can share with a physician. It's called Fluxtream, and
| might take a few extra keywords to find. Written in
| Java+Spring. I haven't used it myself.
|
| Putting more and more of our data, especially health data, in
| the hands of others is the wrong direction to be moving IMO.
| kiddico wrote:
| Oh boy, you're not wrong. People apparently love using that
| to name projects.
|
| Found it though: https://github.com/fluxtream
| gedy wrote:
| I will say that learning about and monitoring my HRV after
| getting a smart watch has been useful to monitor stress and
| trends. Like with anything though, I've had to try and not
| self-induce more stress watching this number continuously ha.
| klyrs wrote:
| > Many of us are wearing devices with continuous optical heart
| rate monitors.
|
| I don't know how representative you folks are. I know a few
| people who invest time, money, and effort into tracking and
| measuring every aspect of their health. It looks like
| neuroticism to me. Especially when they look for explainations
| of every blip on every chart.
| graeme wrote:
| I'll never be sure, but I may have had this to a high degree. I
| got hit on the ehad by a frisbee two years back, was diagnosed
| with a concussion, and had post concussive symptoms for about
| nine months until I found a therapist who did vestibular and
| visual rehab.
|
| Funny thing was, I had some of the symptoms to a lesser degree
| _before_ the blow. So was it brain damage, or did the blow merely
| worsen my visual and vestibular systems and cause more fatigue?
| I'll never know.
|
| But a key thing is that in the two years prior to the blow I had
| some burnout, seasonal cashflow issues in my business (thankfully
| resolved), and worse sleep. I fixed those and I have my old
| energy back. But for months leading up to the blow I hardly felt
| able to go to the gym, and old tasks felt tiring. Fatigue, some
| headaches, etc
| tombert wrote:
| I used to have really bad insomnia in my early 20s, and
| throughout my 20s I have always been that guy who could push off
| sleeping for long periods of time, and it was something I was
| bizarrely proud of.
|
| In the last couple years I've come to realize how idiotic that
| position is; just because I don't immediately collapse from
| exhaustion every time I get insufficient sleep doesn't mean that
| my body doesn't need it, and that it won't have long term effects
| if I push it off too much.
|
| For the last couple years, and even more since COVID, I've been
| making a point of getting regular exercise, and trying to get at
| least 7 hours of sleep a night (usually 8 or 9). I feel
| healthier, and I do think it has helped a lot with my depression.
| raghuveerdotnet wrote:
| Stress resilience is one of the most important things when it
| comes to knowledge work, also one of the most neglected aspect.
| Mindfulness, stoicism, exercise help, but nothing helps as much
| as a good night sleep. Also the other thing people usually fail
| to note is the vicious stress-sleep cycle (lack of sleep induced
| stress <-> stress induced lack of sleep). It took me years to
| realize that so much of my problems with bedtime revenge,
| burnout, non-clinical depression, permastress was basically just
| lack of quality sleep. FWIW, it helps to think of productivity in
| terms of sleep and stress when you are working in the knowledge
| economy. Just like sleep debt, you can also accumulate
| productivity debt due to lack of stress resilience, lack of
| sleep, which can eventually lead to things like burnout.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| > revenge bedtime procrastination: a phenomenon in which people
| who don't have much control over their daytime life refuse to
| sleep early in order to regain some sense of freedom during
| late night hours.
| hnick wrote:
| For me, it started as more of a reverse-Christmas situation -
| if I go to sleep, the next thing I know I'll be having to got
| to work and I really don't want that!
|
| Which sometimes lead to the strange situation of going to bed
| earlier on weekends.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Wow, "revenge bedtime procrastination" is such an apt term (not
| being cynical).
|
| In Chinese, it's a single, uhm, guess you could call it a word:
| Bao Fu Xing Ao Ye
|
| See also:
|
| https://www.scmp.com/yp/discover/advice/living/article/31130...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The other thing is that if you're not an individual
| contributor, trust your people and let go of things.
|
| I once made the mistake of absorbing lots of accountability for
| things under the misguided instinct of "protecting" people. My
| role changed quickly as a result of a crisis and the world
| seemed to change. The reality was that it was really a type of
| selfishness and pride. After a few weeks I got to a point where
| I thought I had a physical problem -- I basically had no short
| term memory.
|
| Took me a bit for my thick skull to grasp, but once it clicked
| it ended up being fairly easy to fix.
| reedf1 wrote:
| I think it goes beyond resilience, at least for me. Sleep is
| _required_ to experience a state without stress.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| The thing is, that when you have a high level of stress, you
| will find it hard to sleep well.
|
| "Mindfulness, stoicism, exercise help, but nothing helps as
| much as a good night sleep"
|
| So those are very connected. If you practice mindfulness and
| work out in a healthy way. And be conscious when and how you go
| to sleep ... things will improve.
| johnnujler wrote:
| I think this is an issue of interpretation.OP does say that
| mindfulness/exercise/stoicism are helpful and also talks
| about the sleep-stress deadlock. I think what they are saying
| is that although these activities help, you need your mind to
| be in a decent shape to sustain these practices, which can
| only be achieved through quality sleep. This is to say that
| even if you have a good meditation practice or an exercise
| routine, if you don't focus on getting your sleep back on
| track, you'll never be able to handle stress in the long run.
| koheripbal wrote:
| During a very difficult time in my life recently, I found it
| impossible to sleep. I would have stress nightmares and even
| when i did fall asleep, I would soon wake myself up with
| specific scenarios my mind was trying to work out.
|
| I was incapacitated by this, which exacerbated my situation.
|
| I eventually noticed that I could fall asleep if I sat with my
| daughters while they watched TV. This evolved to me falling
| asleep with the TV on. ...but the light, noise, and discomfort
| of the couch made this poor quality sleep.
|
| Which then evolved to me falling asleep in bed with earphones
| on just listening to old tv, not watching. But I noticed that
| as soon as the tv show stopped, I would have nightmares again.
|
| This evolved into me selecting 8 hours of movies that, on low
| volume, keep me asleep all night and I've essentially solved my
| sleep problem - despite this stressful situation persists.
|
| My colleagues has instead started taking prescription sleeping
| pills.
|
| I have found that selection of audio is important. It cannot be
| interesting or novel. It cannot be sound only - there must be
| speech. It must be content you enjoy, but have seen multiple
| times before. ...and it must have peaceful audio without
| screaming, shooting, abrupt sounds.
|
| Interestingly, I no longer dream at all. The audio has
| essentially supplanted dreaming. I know this because on the
| occasions that the audio fails, my dreams return and are a
| notable experience.
|
| I have been doing this for over 6 months now. 8 solid hours of
| sleep per night on the same programming all night. No ill
| effects noted. It has been instrumental in coping.
|
| Food for thought. It seems stress caused insomnia can be cured
| without drugs, and dreams are optional for humans.
| __jf__ wrote:
| This very difficult time in your life you appear to have in
| common with your collegues if I'm reading you right. Can you
| elaborate a little bit on your work and maybe other novel
| coping strategies you and your collegues evaluated?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| My wife has tried very similar things for years: having an
| Alexa Echo (or similar) play rainstorm sounds all night seems
| to work fantastically for all here.
| DenisM wrote:
| A possible explanation is that when you are "watching tv"
| you're not obligated to do anything else, hence you loosen up
| and stop thinking about those other things. A safe space of
| sorts.
| steverb wrote:
| I went through a similar phase, but I solved it with audio
| books. You might want to give it a try.
| [deleted]
| drewg123 wrote:
| I had similar issues, and tried to solve them with a similar
| method. I fell asleep to an audiobook about the roman empire
| many nights. I finally realized that the reason I was having
| trouble falling to sleep, and trouble getting back to sleep
| after a noise, etc.
|
| I turns out that the only time when I was not doing
| _something_ that occupied my mind was when I was trying to
| sleep. Eg, I 'm either working, consuming media such as
| Netflix or podcasts, talking with people, etc. I'd even
| listen to podcasts while taking walks. So when trying to
| sleep, I'd be stressing out over my problems, and trying to
| work through them.
|
| For me the solution was to find a better time to remove
| distractions and think about my problems. Eg, taking walks
| without podcasts, driving without the radio on.
| MetalGuru wrote:
| This resonates with me. I've noticed an absolute dependence
| on mental stimulation. I think your solutions is the same
| conclusion I came to. Cheers!
| leandot wrote:
| This is very interesting, this is the easiest way to fall
| asleep for me - reading a book or watching/listening to a
| comedy series. For some reason my brain prefers it to a dark
| & quiet room.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| I've found a similar solution to my sleep problems.
|
| I used to fall asleep listening to audio books. I eventually
| found audio books that are barely interesting, with certain
| narration styles to put me to sleep faster.
|
| I now have a series of audio books, mostly gumshoe detective
| novels, that I use to sleep on nights when I'm dealing with
| stress. I set the sleep timer for 6 hours, and invariably get
| a good night of sleep.
| dsego wrote:
| When I get to sleep with sound in the background it usually
| gets incorporated in my dreams. Recently fell asleep while
| listening to a podcast about file systems and in my dreams
| all my family members were talking about files systems and
| B-trees. Didn't feel well rested in the morning. But
| something like white-noise or different nature sounds could
| be much better. There are apps that play different droning
| sounds like train or plain noises, forest sounds, seaside
| waves etc.
| koheripbal wrote:
| In my case, non-speech background sounds allow me to dream
| - which wakes me up because the crisis I'm currently going
| through changes these dreams into nightmares.
|
| The key for me is that the background sound must contain
| speech. Podcasts don't work either because their is no
| visual component. I need to be able to _imagine_ the
| visual, even if I 'm not watching it. Somehow, that's
| important. Maybe it stimulates that part of my brain to
| prevent it from creating visual dreams. I suppose there's a
| general rule in the brain that when you're listening and
| watching something, that part of your brain goes into
| input-mode rather than compute-mode.
|
| There are two important takeaways here.
|
| 1. I've (for myself) obviated the need for sleeping pills
| (the solution my colleagues have taken).
|
| 2. There are seemingly no ill effects to preventing my
| brain from dreaming naturally for over six months.
|
| If you really think about that 2nd point, this means that
| it would be possible to create sleep specific programming.
| One could use it to incorporate messages to ones self.
|
| Many in this sub-thread are thinking they can use it to
| learn new things - typical HN! ...but since novel content
| wakes your mind, I think it would be more valuable to
| program motivational content. Content that reinforces your
| core principles and might help you focus yourself in the
| subsequent day. It might even be possible to have a small
| portfolio of programming if you're expecting/planning a
| different type of day.
|
| Obviously, I'm going through a temporary crisis, so I
| cannot pursue this, but someone should.
| PKop wrote:
| Sounds similar to why many watch these types of videos: [0]
|
| I can attest to it being very effective at inducing
| sleepiness. Here's a representative type that seems to work
| very well at making me fall asleep: [1]
|
| As a sibling comment mentions, the old Joy of Painting videos
| by Bob Ross were early forms of this. He's kind of the
| unofficial godfather of ASMR
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASMR
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jomUOcwqchA
| xyzelement wrote:
| I am a little surprised that so many responses suggested
| optimization to your technique but not how to solve the
| problem at root.
|
| I am neither a shrink nor your shrink but I think it's
| probably safe to say that whatever is affecting your sleep is
| probably affecting other parts of your life too, and while
| you mentioned a very difficult time - our bodies and brains
| don't by default react in most helpful says (eg - keeping you
| up with nightmares isn't helping anything)
|
| In my experience what helps is a real way to "look within" to
| understand what's really going on. Ideally, this is done with
| the help of a real psychiatrist - someone willing to do real
| deep work of therapy and analysis, not just boredly write a
| prescription.
|
| The other thing is developing self insight techniques
| yourself. For me, a diligent yoga practice and yoga study
| into the meditative aspects has been immensely helpful. But
| even on the purely physical practice level, learning to "look
| within" to understand why a pose is hard or painful teaches
| you the same process that I am talking about.
|
| This all may sound wishy washy but if you are a software
| person you can relate to this - it's often easy to fix
| problems once you understand them. It's impossible to fix
| problems until you do, at best you can manage symptoms.
| dudeman13 wrote:
| The very best way of dealing with stress isn't internal, it
| is making the source of stress go away.
|
| Unless the internal changes fundamentally change how you
| view the world ( i.e. the source of stress no longer causes
| stress, which is the kind of change you'll very rarely see
| in adults ) it will only be a paliative measure.
|
| Being better able to cope with crap is useful, but I don't
| think it can be considered solving the root of the problem
| ( due to lack of neuroplasticity in adults ).
| xyzelement wrote:
| I couldn't disagree with you more, fortunately. You can
| never remove all stressors but you have way more control
| over your reaction than you think.
|
| One example - people's natural emotional reaction to work
| deadlines is something like "I'll die if I don't make it"
| which is almost never literally true, but your body and
| mind torment you as if it was. Everyone can learn to
| reframe it to something more healthy like "I am a hard-
| working processional and I am driving myself to achieve
| this deadline as a matter of achievement and pride". Then
| you can engage with it fully and then still go to sleep
| at night.
|
| Here's the key thing: whether you are able to change how
| you react depends on whether you try, and whether you try
| depends on whether you believe that you can. So at the
| start, you must believe that introspection will empower
| you to make changes, or you are doomed to be stuck
| forever.
|
| The pit that many people fall into is that they take
| themselves very seriously and believe that how they feel
| about something is an objective representation of the
| severity of that thing. My example with deadlines above
| is one example. Another simple one is social anxiety.
| Someone can really believe and feel that "if I go to
| drinks with coworkers, they will judge and laugh at me
| and I will make an ass out of myself somehow" - that
| feels super real to them but objectively it's not real at
| all. So they spend hours of torment and lots of sleepless
| nights fearing and dreading and avoiding something that
| objectively is nothing. If they can reframe it (over the
| course of years, with a lot of help and work) the whole
| thing reduces to "it's just drinks who cares.". Same
| situation, but the person turner a stressor into a
| neutral or maybe even positive.
|
| Don't be stuck where you are, and don't think you can't
| change or feel differently unless the world does. And
| then expect the change to be hard work but worth it.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Having a large rainy day fund is something a lot of
| people are missing.
|
| Paycheck to paycheck drastically increases stress level,
| yet so many won't get away from it.
|
| When I ran an Airbnb, it was shocking to see how cheap
| other cultures would eat. Every meal home made. Despite
| no kitchen access label on listing.
| koheripbal wrote:
| I specifically did not want to describe my specific crisis
| because I didn't want to distract from the conversation of
| my solution to the sleep-impacting aspect of the stress.
|
| We are _also_ dealing with the source of my /our stress,
| and it should be resolved one way or another in the next
| few months. It's a 24x7 crisis for us that's complex and
| we're all working on it. This isn't routine work stress.
|
| I have also used some stoic phrases and slow breathing to
| help me during the day. https://iamthemaninthedarkroom.com/
|
| My above comment is strictly about this one technique that
| I stumbled upon.
| kiddico wrote:
| Is that darkroom site a reference to, or pulled from,
| something? A quick search for that string only turned up
| that site, and this ( https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/
| 9781848880528/BP000023.xm... ) which seems unrelated.
|
| Anyways, thanks for the link, I bookmarked it. Might also
| make a local version of it and set it as my homepage.
| baby wrote:
| Two things that work great with me: smoking weed & wearing a
| sleeping mask (a bit of light can really fuck w/ my sleep and
| for some reasons no US apartments seems to have real blinds).
| vinni2 wrote:
| Reminds of days when I could only sleep with the Air crash
| investigations show running in the background. It was
| something about the narrator's voice that put me to sleep.
| luos wrote:
| For anyone who is suffering from this, or on some days finds
| it hard to sleep I recommend Science and Futurism With Isaac
| Arthur podcast.
|
| It has "Narration Only" versions of all episodes and it is
| very interesting, so if you can't sleep you can listen to it
| but it will not have harsh noises.
|
| Also Philosophize This has the same properties (very old
| episodes have some loud music).
|
| Let me know if you know similar podcasts.
| yoz-y wrote:
| +1 to Isaac Arthur videos as lullabies. The only thing I
| regret is that then I also need to rewind each episode
| multiple times because I'm genuinely interested in what's
| said.
|
| Recently I've also started to listen to luetin09's
| Warhammer 40k lore videos. They are in similar vein that
| they could also be podcasts. Skeptoid is another one I've
| used.
| skylanh wrote:
| I had a critical acute stressor a few years ago, I wont
| describe the situation, but the symptoms were:
|
| - panic attacks
|
| - waking up into a panic attack; imagine sleeping, then
| waking hyperventilating, shivering, and for lack of a better
| word "freaking out"
|
| - sleep disturbances
|
| - periodic severe emotional disturbance
|
| - inability to remove the stressors, and critically, I had to
| increase the stressors involved as it was time critical
|
| I was able to take two weeks off from work, and I took
| escitalopram.
|
| I didn't find escitalopram to be ... a game changer, but it
| did allow me to "decide" how I was going to feel, and if I
| felt I was going to have a panic attack, I could head that
| off through feedback and self aware thinking.
| sedgjh23 wrote:
| I am sorry you are going through this. Thank you for sharing.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| I wonder if taking melatonin supplements for a week or two
| could resolve your issue. A very small dose (0.3 mg) of
| melatonin is usually sufficient to restore nighttime plasma
| melatonin levels to those characteristic of young people.
| dageshi wrote:
| Having suffered recently from randomly waking up in the
| middle of the night and not being able to get to sleep
| again I found 2mg time release melatonin the way to go. If
| you do wake up it's much much easier to fall back to sleep
| again.
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| I have used a similar coping strategy in stressful times. Put
| a YouTube video on that's "the right amount of boring" in my
| headphones and just let the auto play play me out.
| raghuveerdotnet wrote:
| Take whatever I say with a grain of salt, but I feel
| intentions(not to be confused with intentionality) help a lot
| here. They play a distinctive role in the etiology of
| attention(and the subsequent process of resilience building),
| one of the fundamental aspect of dealing with psychological
| issues. For eg, Whenever you become aware of these
| nightmares, try to observe the casual chain, eventually your
| mind will be inured to these episodes and will become much
| better at threat detection. Something like a
| mindfulness(Vipassana) retreat can help with this a lot.
|
| My experience has been that most of the psychological issues
| can be resolved to a great extent by employing the
| "redundancy of potential command a.k.a Self-Organization"(See
| McCulloch). Meditation does this by asking you to bring back
| the wandering mind again and again. But you can also do this
| voluntarily by repeatedly observing the stress inducing
| conditions such as nightmare(in your case), which can help
| your brain better adjust and detect patterns.
| koheripbal wrote:
| This makes more sense for someone who might suffer general
| anxiety or "work stress" or relationships stress.
|
| In my case, we're facing a crisis - so we know the source,
| and that it's temporary (one way or another).
| johnnujler wrote:
| What do you mean by we know the source? At best, you can
| track the functional(mri) and structural(pet) aspects
| your brain if you take the neuroscience route, and the
| behavioural(cbt) aspect when you take the route of
| psychology. It seems to me that the unique experience
| i.e., the unwelt is out of reach without some form of
| mindful confrontation/adaptation.
| stephen_cagle wrote:
| I imagine you are still dreaming, but likely you are sleeping
| deeply enough that you don't have the time to "recover" your
| dream upon waking.
| stephen_cagle wrote:
| Putting on my armchair psychologist/anthropologist/whatever
| hat, I find the fact that you can sleep better with people
| speaking around you very interesting. I wonder if we are
| built to feel comfortable when we can hear people whom we
| trust (your background conversations in this case) speaking
| as we sleep? Means someone else we trust is awake and can be
| observant of dangers while we nod off.
| coldtea wrote:
| Isn't that what cats who trust their human do all the time?
| Come to sleep on their lap for protection?
| hnick wrote:
| I have struggled with sleep at night for at least 15 years
| now. I get very sleepy in food courts (general hubbub in a
| safe feeling surrounding) and as a child who hated cricket
| I dozed off on the couch more than once when it was on.
| There's something calming about a low level of crowd noise.
| newsclues wrote:
| Sounds about right.
|
| Also, teenagers, adults and elderly people have different
| sleep schedules that would allow for a tribe to have
| constant fire watch.
| closeparen wrote:
| I get a lot more done as a knowledge worker than I ever did in
| college, because in the real world nobody cares if something is
| a day or three later than the nominal deadline, and "this
| turned out to be harder than I anticipated" is a legitimate
| excuse. Consequently I never start the cycle of staying up to
| meet a deadline and then blowing the next deadline because I
| was trying to work on it sleep deprived.
|
| This is easy to recognize from outside but at the time I did
| not really understand the problem, I thought it was just my
| capability/identity and the inherent difficulty of the work.
| mcbuilder wrote:
| In the real world, 2 or 3 days doesn't mean a failing grade
| most of the time. However, when you start to get 2 to 3 weeks
| behind the deadline in the real world there is no escape
| hatch.
|
| Worst case in college, you submit the later assignment,
| settle for a D, and vow to study hard for the final. In the
| real world, you manager calls you to his office, asks you why
| you're weeks behind, it's going down now in your evaluation.
| Maybe you're in a start up, you loose that crucial client,
| now you're wondering how to pay your expenses as well. You
| have a family, kids, the stress compounds, pretty soon you're
| a mess at home and at work.
|
| And, I've got 12 years of higher education under my belt.
| When I made the final push for my PhD thesis corrections, I
| stayed up 4 days straight right before the deadline dotting
| my 'i's and crossing my 't's. 6 years into the "real world",
| I often look back on that time as the good ole days.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| Anecdotally, the symptoms of a concussion resemble feeling sleep
| deprived and even the slightest adverse situation will lead to
| excessive stress.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Anyone have tips for managing sleep in the winter months? It
| seems like I can stay up forever (until 02-04) and don't get so
| tired. I need to be in bed by 23 actually.
| jusssi wrote:
| I got plenty of help from a wake-up light, set up so that it
| reaches full brightness by the time the alarm sounds. I didn't
| want an extra gadget in the bedroom so I just replaced all the
| lights in the bedroom with Hue bulbs.
| graeme wrote:
| I had this, now much improved:
|
| * have an early dinner. I eat at 4 or 5 pm. This is extreme,
| but _earlier_ will probably help if possible. No snacks after
| dinner
|
| * Get light exposure as early as possible after waking. A
| morning walk is good
|
| * Exercise close to waking. In practice I do a 7 min workout,
| eat and walk
|
| * blue light blocking glasses help
|
| * A sleep mask can help. I use a manta mask + their glasses. I
| don't actually sleep with the mask as I side sleep, but I wear
| it for 10 min or so while laying in bed and I fall asleep, then
| shift to my side to continue. (For whatever reason I can't
| sleep on my back)
|
| * Fewer household lights in evening. Lamps are good.
|
| * Decide to get ready for bed even if you're not sleepy. If you
| start a wind down routine by dimming lights, brushing teeth,
| reading, whatever you do before bed, you'll start to get
| sleepier. It sounds dumb, but if you are, say, staring at your
| phone for three hours waiting to get tired you won't get tired.
|
| * Keep a log. You may identify changes or factors specific to
| you that help improve things
| kzrdude wrote:
| > Decide to get ready for bed even if you're not sleepy.
|
| Thank you for reminding me of this.
|
| Two years ago I had a sleeping revolution and I had success
| with a barrage of efforts I did, most notably giving up
| caffeine and having this routine, and ensuring 100% darkness.
| But I have to recognize that I lost the routine now.
| graeme wrote:
| Oh I forgot, I stopped caffeine too. That helped I think, I
| just drink decaf now.
|
| But yeah simply deciding to start each night is the
| stupidest yet most effective thing. I think it's easy to
| forget this as sleep sort of feels like a non activity vs.
| say working out or reading etc where deciding to do the
| thing is obviously the first step.
| toast0 wrote:
| There's lots of good tips in replies, but some things that work
| for me that I didn't see mentioned.
|
| Avoid caffeine. If not entirely, at least don't have any after
| noon. Everytime I have a really hard time falling asleep it'a
| because I had a (delicious) coffee or cola after lunch. Enough
| times that I've almost learned my lesson. ;)
|
| Go to bed quickly if you're feeling drowsy in the evening, even
| if it's before your preferred time. I often feel sleepy just
| before 21; and if I get into bed then, I usually sleep through
| the night and wakeup rested; but if I push through it, for
| whatever reason, I'm no longer drowsy in 30 minutes, and I will
| have a hard time sleeping until much later.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| - Exercise, not too late in the day.
|
| - Do not eat or drink anything but water at least 3 hours
| before when you are going to bed.
|
| - Do not have screens in the bedroom.
|
| - No screens 1 hour before before bed.
|
| (That last one I utterly fail at, but I am mainly doing textual
| things not from an attention-economy leach on the screen so,
| and it works out. Either the other 3 is enough or that screen
| time is sufficiently less stimulating.)
| kzrdude wrote:
| Excercise is maybe the most important, but it's hard when
| it's cold outside (and gyms are shut) :)
|
| I've figured lately that working "hard" at chores at home can
| replace some of it, the point is to not be too lazy.
| watwut wrote:
| > Excercise is maybe the most important, but it's hard when
| it's cold outside (and gyms are shut) :
|
| Good quality sports cloth are not that expensive anymore
| and make winter outside exercising possible and pleasant.
| Really, buy merino shirt and sport pants.
|
| The other option is fast wall outside, but that have to be
| longer to amount to exercise.
|
| Third option is to have a look at bodyweight exercising.
| Most of it you can do at home with zero equipment and don't
| require much space. Some of it requires stomping, so you
| may have to skip those is someone lives under you.
| bloodorange wrote:
| I found that (for me) the key to making a habit out of some
| things is to eliminate as much friction as possible in just
| getting started. If I were you, I'd look at the simplest
| things like "7 minute workout" to just get started with
| something easy enough to fit into my routine and once it
| becomes a habit, one could consider making it more intense.
| There are interesting challenges like the "100 pushups" or
| "200 squats" challenge for which you only need a bit of
| free space on the floor.
| watwut wrote:
| For me, colder room makes me more sleepy. So take down heater
| in the evening and then more for sleep. Open window to get cold
| fresh air into room before sleeping and if you can, have it
| little open whole night.
| seibelj wrote:
| I have anxiety / stress / depression issues and when it gets
| really bad I toss and turn all night, unable to sleep. By day 3
| all of my muscles and joints ache terribly. During sleep your
| body is clearing itself of waste and healing. So not only are you
| a miserable zombie, your body itself is falling apart! I have
| enormous empathy for anyone who suffers from mental health
| issues.
|
| I take Lexapro daily, have a low-dose benzo for situational
| anxiety that I try never to take except it true emergencies,
| practice mindfulness / meditation, see a therapist off and on.
| You get better at managing it but it's a problem that never truly
| goes away.
| posix_me_less wrote:
| I experienced similar things and eventually I concluded they
| were due to lack of sleep and taking "being active/productive"
| too seriuosly. If you work a lot I recommend trying to get more
| vegetative time. Lots of guilty pleasure meals (sugar can be
| helpful here), take work less seriously and get a lot of
| relaxation/rest or doing only activities you enjoy. Got rid of
| the symptoms and SSRIs that way.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Whenever I'm showing symptoms of sleep deprivation my SO, who at
| a certain point in her life spent a few weeks helping a young man
| regain basic communication skills after a stroke, asks me if I'm
| having one at the moment.
|
| One sign, which I observed in a few other sleep-deprived people
| as well, is the inability to form a coherent sentence - or even
| say a single word sometimes.
| ZacharyPitts wrote:
| And with that... I'm going to go take a nap
| snappieT wrote:
| Sorry to hear you're suffering through this experience. I can
| emperically recommend Moana (the pixar movie) for perfect
| familiar background noise - it was my go-to on red-eye flights
| for a long time.
| gedy wrote:
| One challenge I've found is it gets harder to sleep long as you
| get older. That coupled with knowledge work stress staring at a
| screen all day makes things doubly hard.
| waihtis wrote:
| I had great success picking up a consistent meditation habit with
| the greasing the groove-approach[1].. in essence, every time I
| would feel a bit foggy in the head, I would take a 3-15 minute
| meditation session. It usually results to 3-5 sessions per day.
| It's such a great mental reset, and I haven't since experienced
| the kind of complete depletion that you get from pushing yourself
| hard through the day.
|
| I bet some Zen master would reprimand me for this being the wrong
| approach, but I found it quite difficult to get into the habit of
| doing, say, a single 30-60 minute session per day. Now I can
| consistently drop into the meditation session with no urge for
| procrastination and have also successfully experimented with
| longer ones.
|
| [1] refers to the method of increasing your pull-up capability by
| installing a pull-up bar in your office / bedroom doorway and
| doing a set every time you pass through the doorway
| amirs wrote:
| Highly doubt any Zen master would reprimand you. Any habit you
| want to keep needs to be sustainable, if it doesn't fit the way
| your life works, you probably won't keep it. They would however
| most likely encourage you to challenge yourself from time to
| time when possible to see if you can get comfortable doing a
| longer session once in a while.
| pedalpete wrote:
| Seriously... a zen master who reprimands doesn't sound very
| zen. :)
| hh3k0 wrote:
| > ... every time I would feel a bit foggy in the head, I would
| take a 3-15 minute meditation session.
|
| Hey, that's what I do too! I've never read anything meditation-
| related and consequently do not know any of those approaches
| but I once realized that lying in bed/on the couch/on the floor
| for a few minutes while freeing my head of all thoughts really
| helps with mental fog (I have ADHD and fog tends to build up
| even with meds). I tend to jokingly refer to the process as
| 'clearing my cache'.
| zackmorris wrote:
| This mirrors what I experienced when I went through a severe
| burnout 2 years ago. I had some health issues like sleep apnea
| and digestive problems converge before I knew about them, so even
| though I was working out heavily 5 times per week, I was fat and
| unhealthy and had lost my resilience.
|
| My work put us on call at night 1 week out of 3 to monitor an
| ailing server and my productivity fell precipitously almost
| immediately. That was the last straw, so even though I thought I
| had the discipline to handle it, my body thought otherwise and I
| started crashing (falling asleep at my desk, having so much brain
| fog that I struggled with basic chores, etc). I miss that job
| often, but the writing was on the wall at least a year before
| that when I noticed that nobody listened to my expertise, they
| just wanted output. That's the surest route to burnout that I
| know of so far.
|
| I did have a lot of concussions in elementary school, but all I
| remember is the nausea and laying in bed for days. Severe
| burnout/depression feels similar in that one loses their
| executive function. To me, burnout felt like what I imagine
| having a stroke might feel like. My problem-solving faculties
| shut down, so it was like my mental muscle memory of everything I
| had learned was no longer there so I was consciously aware of
| every single step I had to perform (which left me frequently
| overwhelmed). It also felt like maybe the left and right sides of
| my brain weren't talking. When I thought about doing any task at
| all, no matter how minor, I felt low grade pain over my entire
| body like the feeling you get as you walk slowly into a cold body
| of water. Where there used to be excitement at the anticipation
| of doing things I enjoyed, there was now only a void of
| apprehension and dread. Everything felt like work, even
| recreation.
|
| I had to start from the beginning and relearn how to write todo
| lists, journal about what I wanted out of life, address all of
| the physical issues I could, etc etc etc. The self-help stuff is
| all true. The only part they are missing is that IMHO as much as
| 80% of our mood is derived from physical sources. The science of
| vegetarianism isn't quite there yet. So for example, I was eating
| more beans (legumes) and nightshades each day than most people
| probably eat all week. The anti-nutrients had lowered my
| absorption of iron, zinc and I'm pretty sure iodine, not to
| mention that I wasn't taking enough of the basics like B
| vitamins. Each time I reintroduced traditional foods like bacon,
| I received outsized returns because of things like tryptophan
| turning into serotonin. Nutrition is huge.
|
| Anyway, when it's all said and done, the best treatment for me
| was to slow down and emphasize things like how priceless
| consciousness is (dignity), and deemphasize artificial human
| constructs like worth/productivity (materialism). Also I learned
| that habits take about 2 weeks to form, so it was helpful to list
| 1 or 2 things I was struggling with, then perform them manually
| and dispassionately until the habit stuck. Negative self-talk is
| huge too. I adopted a continuous mindfulness as a set of rules so
| that whenever my inner monologue is critical, I note it and file
| it away without engaging. Over time, the positive thoughts grew
| as my inner child learned that positive reinforcement works.
|
| I'll stop there since I could talk about this literally forever,
| but I highly recommend talking to someone and seeing a doctor or
| nutritionist and trying some integrative and holistic approaches.
| Don't lose years like I did.
| KMag wrote:
| Working from home, needing to log in to work with 2FA, if I'm
| very tired, I find it difficult to keep the 6 pseudorandom digits
| in memory simultaneously for long enough to log in.
|
| Also, I should learn to touch-type the digits. It's funny that
| I've been touch-typing Dvorak for 20 years, but still haven't
| picked up the digits.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Number pads are a bit out of fashion, but they are awesome for
| touch-typing digits.
|
| That being said, if you can't remember 6 digits, just imagine
| how the rest of your work suffers at that point. Everyone is
| better served by you taking a nap first
| toast0 wrote:
| Finding a way to get better sleep is, of course, the proper
| answer to this problem, however there are mant situations where
| better sleep is elusive, so...
|
| As a former sender of six digit codes, I worked hard to make
| them visually (and auditorially) appear to be two three digit
| codes; we thought that would make it easier for people to
| process. If you make a habit of processing the codes as two
| three digit codes, it might help when you're over tired.
| uppsalax wrote:
| Thank you so much for sharing, this is a really insightful
| article!
|
| By the way, a friend of mine is doing a Master's thesis in work
| psychology at the University of Turin on this subject.
|
| I am a bit ignorant about this topic since I have a business
| background + work in tech-startups. But I am genuinely passionate
| about this kind of thing.
|
| The gist of the thesis is that all these dynamic and
| interdependent aspects (e.g. lack of sleep, stress, social
| pressures, even for athletes before, after and during a race,
| even if we think about the influence on self-perception in
| relation to other people and related expectations on personal
| performance) can lead to somatization which can come in the form
| of concussion, but also to burnout or multiple injuries (as my
| friend is researching on the thesis) and as it happened to me
| too, in my life.
|
| Practicing yoga or simply going for a walk daily, helped me a lot
| along that path... and helped many friends of mine as well. But
| some people can argue that it is the natural outcome of a
| "placebo effect".
|
| All of these are very interesting talking points and the inherent
| dynamics behind vicious cycles (echoing @raghuveerdotnet's
| comment) is still not crystal clear and needs further research
| and experimentation.
|
| What are your thoughts?
| wongarsu wrote:
| > But some people can argue that it is the natural outcome of a
| "placebo effect".
|
| What would a placebo effect even be when talking about lack of
| sleep, stress, etc.?
|
| In medicine the size of the placebo effect seems to depend on
| the procedure. A placebo surgery is more effective than a
| placebo injection, which is more effective than a placebo pill.
| So if you want to test if an injection is better than a placebo
| you compare it to a placebo injection like saline water,
| something where there's no way it can have a medical effect
| beyond the psychological effect. But that would mean that to
| evaluate meditation you would have to compare it to some kind
| of fake meditation, maybe breathing exercises that have no
| viable way to be effective beyond the placebo effect. But we
| don't know nearly enough about neuroscience to come up with
| such a thing.
| markc wrote:
| I wake up after about 4.5 hours of sleep "no matter what".
| Bedtime of 10pm or 2am, exercise or no, light exposure or no,
| late eating or no - always the same result. Then I'm awake for a
| few hours, then get my "second sleep" of 1 to 2 hours. I've been
| going like this for a decade without daytime sleepiness (a few oz
| of coffee and I'm charged up for the day), but these kinds of
| articles really worry me.
|
| I have light sleep apnea, but a CPAP didn't help either. I'm old
| (60) so I'm considering trying melatonin to replace what I'm no
| longer producing, but I'm also wondering if I'm missing some
| other potential "staying asleep" lifestyle factors. Anyone here
| successfully dealt with the "stay asleep"issue other than with
| the variables I listed?
| porcc wrote:
| This seems perfectly healthy:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biphasic_and_polyphasic_sleep
| markc wrote:
| I had not heard of this. Reading now - thanks!
| carlmr wrote:
| You probably have a very natural sleep rhythm.
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sleepless-in-america...
| markc wrote:
| Good read, really interesting. Thanks!
| loceng wrote:
| If you're overweight at all, even by a little, losing that
| weight that greatly impact your sleep and health overall. Also
| if you eat any inflammatory foods - sugar, carbohydrates,
| dairy, etc - then that inflammation can cause issues with
| sleep, especially for brain related inflammation, sleep time
| when brain channels are meant to open up to clear waste;
| inflammation is linked to Alzheimer's now because of this
| process.
| sandstrom wrote:
| The science behind "inflammatory foods" is pretty shaky:
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-messy-
| facts-a...
|
| https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/05/05/closer-look-anti-
| inflam...
| markc wrote:
| Interesting. I've been interested in anti-inflammation
| unrelated to the sleep stuff. Sad if there's not much to
| it, since it seemed like a hopeful no-drugs way of
| improving health.
| markc wrote:
| Skinny guy, no obvious source of airway obstruction. Maybe
| that's why the cpap doesn't work. I think I literally hold my
| breath (some variant of so-called "central" apnea?) and foil
| the cpap that way.
|
| I'll consider the inflammation stuff. I've been trying to cut
| out down on sugar anyway.
| Balgair wrote:
| Try cutting the caffeine intake and see if that helps?
| markc wrote:
| It's literally at 3oz a day though, so "cutting" would
| effectively be zero. Maybe I could try decaf since I seem to
| need a bit of coffee for, ahem, regularity.
| Balgair wrote:
| Yeah, that's pretty small as is.
|
| Anecdata: I cut out all caffeine during quarantine and I've
| never slept better. But I was drinking ~12oz a day prior to
| that. And I also cut out all the other drugs in my life
| too. And the commute due to WFH. Honestly, trying to say it
| was one thing that made my sleep better isn't really
| possible, it's all entangled. But the SO says that caffeine
| was the major culprit.
| e40 wrote:
| Dude, this is exactly me. Same age. 4.5 hours. Read for a
| while. 1-2 hours more.
|
| Just this morning, I think I finally diagnosed my central sleep
| apnea. I was laying there and just as I fell asleep I started
| awake because I wasn't breathing. My diary has notes about this
| happening all the way back to last March. This happened to me
| after my first sleep.
|
| To add to that, I've become hyper-sensitive to caffeine. It
| causes palpitations (started in late 2019).
|
| I don't snore, but I have been using Breathe Right strips to
| make sure I have adequate air flow, and so I'm really sure I
| don't snore. Curiously, I haven't used them for a couple of
| weeks (long story).
|
| EDIT: if you want to contact me, my info is in my profile
| dsego wrote:
| Sleep seems so essential to our lives and yet we understand very
| little. I had two car accidents due to lack of sleep the night
| before. Whenever I don't get my sleep I can't focus, my
| recollection is poor and I have trouble doing basic stuff. You
| can find texts online about people literally dying from chronic
| insomnia. I always wonder how some people can function well with
| little sleep and almost everybody seems to do better than me. And
| I'm convinced that lack of sleep accumulates because I can sleep
| till noon if I have no obligations that day.
|
| For my schizophrenic sibling one of the most troubling aspects of
| his condition is bad irregular sleep. Sometimes he can't sleep
| all night and then he sleeps the whole next day. But it's never
| enough sleep, nothing but constant drowsiness and lack of energy.
| Psychosis sure does resemble dreaming while awake, you accept
| weird ideas, things just happen etc, same as in a dream. And once
| medication kicks in, seems like slowly waking up and dream fades
| out.
|
| Somehow it's all connected and whoever figures out the puzzle of
| sleep will make the world a much happier place.
| hntrader wrote:
| Related (on how to fall asleep quickly):
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16671944
| hnick wrote:
| Thanks for this, I learned the word Hypnagogia from the
| discussion. Now I know what to say without sounding as crazy
| when I mention seeing things to a doctor next time. For some
| reason it's always spiders.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| I once had a seizure because of sleep deprivation. I try to keep
| a better hold of it now - if nothing else, I want to be allowed
| to keep on driving - but I'm far from comfortable telling my
| employer I'll be late because I want to sleep in.
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