[HN Gopher] Sleep quality and consistency associated with better...
___________________________________________________________________
Sleep quality and consistency associated with better academic
performance (2019)
Author : wallopingfuture
Score : 161 points
Date : 2022-01-26 10:54 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| Maxburn wrote:
| In the middle of my life I am grateful that I've finally worked
| out a decent sleep system. It took a lot more than people realize
| but diet, exercise, regular schedule, stress management, and
| bedroom environment all played sometimes surprisingly important
| factors. Worst part is it's going to be different for everyone,
| but IMO totally worth the potential years to figure it out. Only
| advice I can offer is to use the scientific method, keep
| everything as static as possible and change one thing at a time
| but to get a real impression of that one thing changing it might
| take a couple weeks.
| bradlys wrote:
| When you get down to that many details - it's no longer sleep
| management but life management. You've had to completely rework
| your entire life in order to somehow get this one aspect of
| your life to be better.
|
| Which is good for you but doesn't seem completely reasonable
| for everyone.
|
| I wish people realized that level of change is just beyond
| reasonable for most folks out there. There are too many things
| that are outside of control for folks. A lot of them due to
| financial troubles and there's nothing they can realistically
| do in the next few years about it. Maybe they get themselves a
| better paying job and so forth but that might take a decade
| until it's sufficient. Even then - they suffer more for the
| whole decade of their life.
| Maxburn wrote:
| Edit; maybe a quick hack would be Steve Gibson's "healthy
| seep formula". I use it sometimes during the week when I know
| stress is a factor and I have trouble shutting down.
| https://www.grc.com/health/sleep/healthy_sleep_formula.htm
| Maxburn wrote:
| If you are only looking for a quick fix to sleep you are
| correct. I would argue that decent sleep was almost
| incidental to all the other positive changes taking care of
| yourself will make in a persons life. It's a holistic
| everything is connected philosophy.
| caskstrength wrote:
| Can you give more details? In such discussions there are always
| a lot of people who struggle with this but very few who
| actually succeeded in fixing their sleep.
| Maxburn wrote:
| I think personally diet and exercise made the biggest impact.
| A diet that works for your body not your ideology, lots of
| real experimentation needed here and stop ignoring how you
| feel. For me getting off of carbs and doing light keto seems
| to be what my body wants.
|
| Mix in some light exercise. Nothing crazy here, with all the
| health tracking available these days just aim for the
| minimums shown there. Doesn't have to be every day, just
| shoot for the majority of the week.
|
| You might be shocked at how improving these two makes a
| difference. Do not take these to extremes, just aim for a
| better baseline than what you are doing now.
|
| Also I'm speaking as an american here, and I was especially
| bad in these two areas. YMMV.
| caskstrength wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. Never thought that carbs could
| significantly impact sleep quality.
| clydethefrog wrote:
| For me it mostly helps avoiding any food, and
| specifically carbs, a few hours before going to sleep. I
| guess otherwise the body wants to stay more awake to
| digest the food.
| Maxburn wrote:
| Very true, once I got adapted to carb free I generally
| don't eat dinner now. A small snack if I want but nothing
| heavy really helps sleep quite a bit.
| manmal wrote:
| For me, Melatonin (just 300mcg, a very small dose) and
| cutting out caffeine and chocolate are sometimes required.
|
| Two less obvious things that work for me:
|
| - Massage the back of my neck rigorously before sleep.
| Probably this improves blood flow to the brain.
|
| - Unlock the window handle slightly, to get a constant flow
| of air towards the head. Probably I need more oxygen (or
| lower CO2) than usual because this doesn't work for my wife.
| Maxburn wrote:
| Good call on the chocolate, caffeine is pretty obvious but
| a lot would take forever to figure out chocolate.
|
| I have tinnitus so a fan is an absolute must for background
| noise but I also find the air movement pleasant.
| [deleted]
| scruple wrote:
| I'm one such person. I've had multiple sleep studies
| performed over my adult life and none of them found anything
| substantial / actionable, yet I would wake every morning
| feeling like I hadn't slept at all, like I hadn't recovered.
|
| Blackout curtains _and_ a comfortable sleep mask.
|
| A comfortable pillow.
|
| Cleaning up my diet.
|
| My phone goes on "wellbeing mode" at 9pm every night.
|
| I get into bed consistently between 9 and 10pm and I read for
| 60-90 minutes every night before falling asleep.
|
| I follow a consistent, no excuses, strength and conditioning
| training program.
|
| Happy to expand on any of this.
|
| I would add that I am in my early 40s and that we have 3
| children in the house that are under 3 years old. There are
| complications here, but, despite that, all of the above
| remains in place, and I actually feel rested today and like I
| am recovering when I sleep.
| bradhoffman wrote:
| What was your experimentation process like? I am in bed for
| 9-10 hours a night but only 3-5% of my sleep is deep. It's
| awfully frustrating because of mood swings and inability to
| focus. I've been trying for a couple years now, but can't
| nail anything down.
| scruple wrote:
| It was a slow, frustrating process. I'd reckon that, for
| me, 80% of it is nutrition and exercise and the other 20%
| is sleep hygiene (and I would include some specific
| supplementation in the hygiene category). I believe that
| consistency with the major contributing factors is where
| I found long-term success. The minor factors are there to
| aid the major ones.
|
| I used to wear sleep trackers to bed and I also had
| (have?) very poor deep sleep. I've left the sleep
| trackers out of the equation for a couple of years now,
| so I can't really comment on where I am today, other than
| to say that I wake up feeling refreshed. A little groggy,
| for sure, but I don't feel extreme fatigue like I used
| to.
|
| I don't like making drive-by, blanket recommendations
| about this stuff when it starts to wade into medical
| advice / specific nutrition or supplementation, but... My
| last sleep study (way back in early 2016) pointed me in
| the direction of blood work. There was a thought that I
| may have thyroid dysfunction (I don't, or at least I
| didn't). I understand that it's fairly common and is a
| source for sleep troubles for many.
|
| I'd also encourage you to look into ZMA or zinc
| supplementation if you're an active person. I don't have
| any specific sources that I can point you to,
| unfortunately. There's a little controversy here, too, to
| be aware of, because there is a lot of marketing hype
| around ZMA, about it being a "testosterone booster" (a
| zinc deficiency will lower your testosterone, hence
| supplementing it "boosts" your testosterone) and also in
| terms of the recommended dosages (zinc has an
| antagonistic relationship with copper, iron, and
| magnesium -- you can easily overdo it and create other
| mineral deficiencies). Having said that, and again just
| speaking for myself, I think that ZMA or zinc alone,
| _after everything else was in place_ , is _the thing_
| that pushed my sleep quality over the edge from "meets
| goals" to "exceeds expectations".
|
| I really, really want to make it abundantly clear that I
| don't think taking ZMA or zinc before bedtime will work
| for people that don't have these other major factors in
| place and/or don't have a (training-induced) deficiency
| to begin with.
|
| In terms of my experimentation process... I didn't keep a
| notebook but I can sort of walk you down the path that I
| took.
|
| I started with exercise but for years I was only doing
| cardio. I was a competitive distance runner from 12 to 18
| and then maintained the habit until I was 25. Then I
| abruptly stopped running. I picked it back up at 32.
| Distance running specifically because I really knew
| nothing else. In my late 30s, I picked up strength
| training. Today, I maintain a clear balance between
| strength and conditioning. Endurance work is only used to
| develop or maintain specific physiological adaptations.
|
| Also around that 32 mark, I realized that frequent
| alcohol consumption wasn't doing me any favors. Of course
| I already knew this but I wasn't serious about it before
| this point. Today, I try to strictly limit alcohol intake
| to Friday / Saturday evenings with limits of no more than
| 3 drinks per night and no alcohol after ~8:30-9pm. I'd
| wager that I average 2-4 drinks per week today and I find
| that this doesn't appreciably impact my sleep.
|
| I also noticed a big difference when I started to tap the
| brakes on my caffeine intake. Dr. Walker's book on sleep,
| which also comes with it's own controversy, highlighted
| something very important to me: The quarter-life on
| caffeine is ~12 hours. That realization was enough to get
| me to take rate limiting caffeine seriously.
|
| By the time we had our twins, I was 38. I had dialed in
| my nutrition and exercise to a healthy place at this
| point. But my sleep quality was still lacking. I knew
| that I needed to really focus on it if I was going to
| survive the first few years of multiple young children.
| That's when I started to look into hygiene factors.
|
| I run hot. Higher body temperatures can disrupt sleep. I
| stopped eating after 8pm. We bought "cooling" sheets. I
| started to sleep with a lightweight comforter. I started
| wearing cotton boxers and socks to bed. We invested in a
| fairly expensive mattress. I started to actually feel
| _comfortable_ in our bed. I also invested in a pillow
| that didn 't leave me waking up with a tight, sore neck.
| The sheets, comforter, and pillow went through a trial
| and error process.
|
| One of our twins is highly susceptible to sleep
| disruptions from light. Once we figured that out, we
| outfitted our bedroom (they were still sleeping in their
| cribs in our room at that time) with blackout curtains.
| That made an immediately noticeable difference. Waking up
| that following morning, my wife and I both looked at each
| other and wondered why we'd waited so long. Now every
| bedroom in our home has blackout shades or curtains.
|
| It's an agonizingly slow process. And I think it's also
| very subjective, especially the nutrition and exercise
| pieces. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Dr. Andrew
| Huberman but he has his own podcast, as well as multiple
| podcast appearances, where he gets into improving sleep /
| sleep quality. I'd recommend checking those out. Should
| be easy enough to find on YouTube.
| nerdponx wrote:
| In my case, I needed to eliminate a medical problem first. My
| sleep problems resolved when I was diagnosed with celiac
| disease and I stopped eating gluten.
|
| Now any sleep problems I have are entirely because I stay up
| too damn late sometimes. That's effectively an "emotion
| management" problem, which for me is alleviated by getting
| regular exercise, eating well, meditation, etc.
| diatone wrote:
| The results are interesting. It seems like there is a lot of
| clustering going on in the regression data. It could be worth
| investigating if instead of a _linear_ relationship between sleep
| quality and consistency with academic performance, there is a
| _logarithmic_ (or some other superlinear) relationship instead.
| This would help confirm the intuitive notion that there are
| diminishing returns to optimising one 's sleep.
| contravariant wrote:
| You'll want to have a stronger link before you can worry about
| what kind of relation it is exactly. And if you ignore the
| people with scores <60% you lose most of the correlation
| entirely, which to me suggest there's something causing both
| bad sleep and bad academic performance rather than there being
| some continuous relation. In fact the distribution looks
| bimodal which suggests there's something splitting the
| population in 2.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Binodality appears in feedback loops: bad sleep makes good
| sleep harder to get.
| troydavis wrote:
| The URL should be changed to the actual post:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-019-0055-z
| bserge wrote:
| someelephant wrote:
| lower anxiety => higher sleep quality => higher academic
| performance
|
| poverty => higher anxiety => lower life performance
|
| higher instagram use => lower baseline dopamine => higher anxiety
| => lower life performance
| tinyhouse wrote:
| I agree. Anxiety has a huge impact on sleep. A lot of sleep
| experts focus on sleep hygiene which is important but not very
| helpful when anxiety is the main cause for the sleep problems.
| Sometimes people are not even aware of the problem cause
| anxiety can trickle in very subtly.
| janandonly wrote:
| No shit, Sherlock.
|
| But seriously, as a society as a whole, we undervalue sleep. By
| using an app [1] I've noticed that i sleep less than i thought i
| did. The thing is, i might be in bed 8,5 hours, but i only fall
| asleep after an hour or so, and also, i seem to wake up during
| the night.
|
| No wonder my academic performance is lacking...
|
| [1] https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/sleep-cycle-sleep-
| tracker/id32...
| Tenoke wrote:
| There's no reason to think that 7-730 hours is so little for
| you that it's hurting your performance if it's just based on
| those measures. Don't give yourself sleep anxiety over
| pointless chasing of 9 hours sleep.
| topkai22 wrote:
| A) This is probably casual, because sleep is good B) The most
| interesting part is that sleep the night before exams wasn't
| associated with any change to grades. This actually suggests to
| me that sleep in and of itself is less casual and more correlated
| to general lifestyle choices. I recall my college freshman year
| in particular to be full of temptations and distractions.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| My take is that sleep the night before doesn't help you a whole
| bunch, or not nearly as much as sleep while you are learning
| the material. (i.e., consistent, quality sleep leading up to
| exams).
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| It could still be correlative; 'lifestyle choices' are
| basically the definition of correlation not causation. Or were
| you being sarcastic?
|
| For another (probably unhelpful) anecdote, got great grades in
| my senior year of college when I had a scholarship. One
| semester in my junior year I took 18 credits and also worked 32
| hours a week through a 45-minute-one-way commute...I got very
| little sleep and my grades suffered for it. The primary things
| I learned that year were (1) don't over-commit yourself, (2)
| make a schedule and stick to it if you need to get the bare
| minimum done and don't have time to do everything, (3) you
| don't actually have to attend every lecture or turn in/complete
| every assignment to pass a class, (4) long commutes suck, and
| (5) a little bit of VHDL syntax stuck around was about the only
| thing I learned in those classes. My bad grades were not caused
| by poor sleep, poor sleep was a side effect of a larger issue
| (namely, the perpetual problem of money).
| tpoacher wrote:
| Bad sleep quality associated with an increased risk of starting
| to drink coffee! Rejections at bars associated with an increased
| risk of ugliness! Overloaded servers associated with HN article
| voting! Wrinkles associated with an increased risk of ageing!
| Tendency to reject loaded titles implying causality is associated
| with an increased risk of studying statistics! Facial bruises
| associated with an increased risk of punches!
| ryannevius wrote:
| Something that has been revolutionary for me has been to set a
| _bed time_ alarm, instead of (or in addition to) a morning alarm.
| maccard wrote:
| It's not bed time for me, it's wind down time. I can reliably
| get into bed for 11:30 every night, but how quickly I fall
| asleep depends on what I was doing at 10:30
| Sahilchopramd wrote:
| This article stimulated an interesting discussion. Sleep problems
| are very fixable/treatable. Improving sleep starts with objective
| good quality sleep data- a sleep test. FDA grade multi night
| sleep test give us great insight into sleep to rule out sleep
| disorders (over 80% of people are usually not aware). Using data
| from a sleep test allows clinicians to guide us on what would be
| the most effective intervention to improve sleep. I work at
| empowersleep.com; it's a digital sleep health platform. Not
| selling here but, I see so many people suffering I felt obligated
| to share there are solutions and guidance to better sleep. Just
| for context, I'm a board certified Harvard trained sleep doctor.
| We've helped thousands of people improve their sleep.
| sovietmudkipz wrote:
| I want a better sleep schedule but not bad enough to put it into
| practice. My day is full of stuff, and when my wife goes to sleep
| is when I feel like it's finally quiet enough to get some
| programming done. Or do whatever I want.
|
| My sleep cycle is that I go 4 days until I have to take a longer
| sleep (10 hours) and the rest of the time I operate on 6-7 hours
| of sleep. I usually wake up at 7-7:30 and I usually go to bed at
| 12-1 or 9-10 on my long sleep days. It's inconsistent and I worry
| about that fact.
|
| The biggest blocker for me is my time alone and distraction free.
| I like and want distractions to be gone when I work on personal
| projects. Early morning doesn't get me that as my wife wakes up
| at 5:15 (maybe if I woke up at 4?). If she's up and I'm up there
| are interactions which is great. And then there's text messages
| from friends and family and work chat all day. I can mute both
| and do but it's there, beckoning me for my attention. To take my
| focus...
|
| Look I know what the answer is for me. I need to replace work
| time with project time. My life would be in more balance if I had
| my 9-5 chunk of time where I do what I like doing (vs work stuff)
| so I don't feel like I'm living 3 lives in a single day.
|
| That implies my personal projects make enough money to have a
| family on. Not true now so the grind continues.
| Little_Fish wrote:
| I know what you mean - never enough time in the day. I'm also
| based in Spain and they are all night owls, which doesn't
| help...
| adflux wrote:
| Maybe consider working 32hours and project on friday?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I want a better sleep schedule but not bad enough to put it
| into practice
|
| This sums up the issue. Most people could get decent sleep if
| they wanted to or even made a basic effort, but their current
| poor-sleep compromise isn't bad enough to make them want to
| give anything up. Or they don't understand what they're losing
| because it has been so long since they tried a reasonable sleep
| schedule.
|
| > That implies my personal projects make enough money to have a
| family on. Not true now so the grind continues.
|
| Consider giving up the side projects for a month or two. Side
| projects are one of the topics where people think they're going
| to miss it more than they actually do. A month or two of total
| disconnectedness won't sink your side projects, but it's long
| enough to test the waters of a healthier sleep schedule.
|
| You may find that after getting your sleep under control, your
| daily efficiency and energy levels improve such that you're
| getting your work done faster, spending more quality time with
| your spouse, and ultimately freeing up a nice slot of usable
| free time in the day that could spend on side projects without
| wrecking your sleep schedule.
| rkk3 wrote:
| >> I want a better sleep schedule but not bad enough to put
| it into practice
|
| > This sums up the issue. Most people could get decent sleep
| if they wanted to or even made a basic effort
|
| Agreed.
|
| > but their current poor-sleep compromise isn't bad enough to
| make them want to give anything up. Or they don't understand
| what they're losing because it has been so long since they
| tried a reasonable sleep schedule.
|
| I think that just like with Diet or Exercise with sleep the
| feedback loops are longer/delayed and that stops people from
| engaging in overwhelmingly healthy behavior - because the
| habit is harder to form.
| ouid wrote:
| I think that there's a reasonable definition of "healthy
| sleep schedule" in "any sleep schedule you can maintain
| without an alarm clock (and also maybe stimulants).
| DerArzt wrote:
| If we go by that metric, then the entire modern world has
| been built such that nobody will have a "healthy sleep
| schedule". I have to start work when I start work
| regardless of when I would be best suited to rising without
| my morning alarm.
| echelon wrote:
| I have never been efficient enough with more sleep. The hours
| simply disappear into the ether.
|
| Running on 4-7 hours of sleep (with intermittent 10 hour
| catch up days) has let me build and launch a lot of stuff.
|
| - https://fakeyou.com
|
| - A vtubing engine for virtual production (film, improv,
| streaming)
|
| - https://storyteller.io , tools for streamers (in-stream
| TTS, deepfaked gifs, a voxel camera), which should be done
| this weekend
|
| I don't think I could prepare for YC or any other sort of
| funding any other way, short of quitting my other
| responsibilities. There's not enough time in the day, so you
| have to give up something.
|
| I'll sleep more when I'm funded or when I'm dead, basically.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> if they wanted to or even made a basic effort
|
| For a great many people their sleep schedule is not something
| they control. You have to work when your boss needs you to
| work. The specific hours you sleep on a given day will change
| randomly (ie I had to be in at 0500 rather than my normal
| 0630 today).
|
| >> such that you're getting your work done faster
|
| So? Lots of people (most people?) work in jobs where speed is
| largely irrelevant. Working faster just means doing or being
| assigned more work, not going home sooner or getting any more
| free time for sleep.
| YuukiRey wrote:
| This perfectly describes my situation as well. I've been
| pondering this subject for some time now but I don't see a way
| out. In my case I could get that focus time if I simply got rid
| of almost all of my hobbies and interests. That way it would be
| feasible to dedicate 1 or 2 hours per day to the disciplined
| pursuit of just a single activity. But that's about it.
|
| The other day I had what I consider an extremely disciplined
| day. I woke up at 7am, was at the bouldering gym at 8am, went
| straight to work from that at 10:00am and worked until maybe
| 6:00pm. Then I went home, immediately started to make food and
| took care of some tax stuff, planning for upcoming vacations,
| and so on.
|
| At the end this leaves me with more or less no time for
| anything on that day. So essentially bouldering in the morning
| was my theme on that day and that's it. But of course I don't
| want to accept this and then I'm disappointed that I didn't
| dedicate any time to my 5 other hobbies.
| the_af wrote:
| > _In my case I could get that focus time if I simply got rid
| of almost all of my hobbies and interests._
|
| The problem is that the human mind doesn't work like this.
| You're interested in the stuff you're interested in, and your
| brain is probably wired to find interesting things.
|
| If you simply say "I'll work during business hours, then
| spend time with my family, then sleep" you're probably going
| to be healthy... and disappointed. You cannot switch off your
| brain, some friend or acquaintance will show you something
| they did and suddenly it's on again -- you have a new hobby!
|
| Note I don't give side-projects in the sense of "I could make
| a living out of this" a real consideration. That's what my
| regular work hours are for. I want to spend the rest of my
| time doing things I enjoy, not simply look for an angle to
| make more money.
| the_af wrote:
| > _when my wife goes to sleep is when I feel like it 's finally
| quiet enough to get some programming done_
|
| I tend to do this when I want to work on my hobbies, but then
| the relationship with my wife suffers. We enjoy going to bed
| together, it's part of the ritual of being a couple. I tried
| going to bed, then after she falls asleep getting up, but by
| then I'm too sleepy myself.
| sovietmudkipz wrote:
| That's also a dimension. I feel bad that she goes to bed
| alone when I stay up. We say good night and it's nice but
| then I leave to stay up. It feels off balance from my
| perspective, although she is used to it and has adapted.
| piker wrote:
| I have a similar schedule, but go to bed slightly earlier.
| I sit next to my wife in bed and code on my laptop for 2
| hours before sleep. It's kind of the best of both worlds,
| but ergonomically imperfect. I'm definitely more productive
| at my desk, but have the same issues as you describe.
| orev wrote:
| That seems like a really bad idea. You're setting
| yourself up for sleep problems by associating your bed
| with work, and programming in particular is not a great
| thing to be doing just before bed, as it gets your brain
| really worked up.
|
| If your wife is sleeping that whole time, what are you
| really gaining? The laptop screen light is probably
| affecting her sleep, and you're possibly creating issues
| for yourself. It sounds like multitasking where you end
| up with two things in a mediocre state instead of giving
| full focus to each.
| the_af wrote:
| Agreed, plus the screen glow is bad for your sleep cycle
| and eyes as well.
|
| I don't think there's an easy solution. Either your side
| projects suffer, or your relationship. I choose to keep
| my relationship healthy, but at some point, if you keep
| postponing every project and hobby, frustration starts to
| mount and that's not good for relationships either.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I also really appreciate my time alone after my wife goes to
| bed, but we have a 3 month old baby now and I'm assuming once
| she's a couple years older that'll no longer be an option. I
| also have a hard time deciding between doing something fun for
| myself (like playing a video game) guilt-free or getting work
| done during that time.
|
| As an aside, I'd think our sex life would be better if we went
| to bed together. As it stands right now it's something we need
| to specifically decide to do, and I'm guessing with couples
| that go to bed together there's more of an assumption there.
| sovietmudkipz wrote:
| We're about to enter into the phase of our lives where we
| want children. This year will be the year we start, erm,
| trying.
|
| I know I need to get balance into my life because a child
| will be very destabilizing to my current lifestyle. * sigh *
| It feels like I don't have enough time to buy my own freedom.
| the_af wrote:
| > _we have a 3 month old baby now and I'm assuming once she's
| a couple years older that'll no longer be an option_
|
| Starting from right now, it's no longer an option for you, if
| your share of parenting responsibilities is a fair one and
| you don't just dump the caregiving of the baby unto your
| wife.
|
| So kiss your spare time goodbye starting from right now.
| Until your daughter is old enough that she can play on her
| own for extended periods of time without constantly needing
| attention, and that's a long road ahead in the future.
|
| Whenever this reality gets me down, a smile from my daughter
| and some playtime with her is enough to bring joy to my life.
| I love her. But my hobbies suffer and this frustrates me.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Actually it's worked out really well so far - my wife would
| go to bed around 9 and I'd stay up until after midnight so
| I could handle her and do the first feeding of the night.
|
| The past few weeks she's largely been sleeping through the
| night though, so that system is no longer needed. I'm a
| photographer and this is my off season so I've been
| watching the baby during the day until her daycare starts
| in a few weeks. It's on the way to my wife's work so in the
| short term I don't think our schedules need to change quite
| yet.
| woliveirajr wrote:
| I couldn't find where they relate at what time those exams /
| grades were given.
|
| Sleep early -> wake up early -> have higher grades when exams are
| done in the morming? If you're a night owl, probably you'd grade
| better at night...
| tombert wrote:
| I think I have anecdotal evidence of the corollary on this: poor
| sleep quality leads to not-good academic performance.
|
| When I was 20, I had an almost Fight-Club level of insomnia,
| where I would go multiple days at a time without sleeping, not
| for lack of trying. I would quit caffeine, bike multiple miles a
| day, try eating healthy, eventually getting a prescription for
| ambien which had so-so results but for a period of about 4-5
| months I got the worst sleep of my life. My already-mediocre
| college performance took a steep nosedive, leading me to
| eventually drop out. It was hard for me to justify to myself
| going to class when I was, at some level, in physical pain.
|
| Fortunately, I haven't had anywhere near that level of insomnia
| in 11 years, so the only thing I can think of was that it was the
| final throws of puberty.
| o10449366 wrote:
| Speaking as someone who is actually diagnosed with chronic
| insomnia and delayed sleep phase disorder, college sucked because
| my lack of sleep would affect my focus and concentration and that
| would kill me on exams where a sloppy mistake (circling the wrong
| answer) or running out of town would drop my grade significantly
| even if I fully understood the material.
|
| I performed much better on homework assignments where there was
| less time pressure because I could work on them around my
| irregular sleep schedule. I'm grateful now for working as a
| programmer because it affords me the same luxury - with my
| condition I simply can't exist in a 9-5 society.
|
| (Before people comment, yes I have tried melatonin and no,
| recreational drugs don't help me sleep either)
| [deleted]
| pure_simplicity wrote:
| Have you considered some form of light therapy ? (Very bright
| lights in the morning, no artificial light in the evening)
|
| I hope there's something out there to help you. Not for the
| sake of conformity to society, but just for the benefits of
| high quality sleep.
| djohnston wrote:
| I would give a lot for a drug or machine that could improve my
| sleep quality. A lot.
| pedalpete wrote:
| We're working on it. https://soundmind.co :)
| Cenk wrote:
| Link to paper: https://oa.mg/paper?doi=10.1038/s41539-019-0055-z
| bloqs wrote:
| Waking up at exactly the same time every day, so zero sleeping in
| on holidays
|
| And
|
| Eating a large protein/fat based breakfast with as few carbs as
| possible as soon as you get up regardless of being a "breakfast
| person" or not
|
| Have, together, completely transformed my capabilities as a human
| being.
| mypastself wrote:
| I've been doing the former for over a decade, and something
| similar to the latter for half that time.
|
| Despite that, any time I turn the alarm clock off on holidays,
| my sleep cycle tends to shift a few hours forward. My energy
| levels seem to correlate with the hours _when_ I sleep as much
| as they do with their number.
|
| I've concluded that I'm (a bit of) a night owl living in an
| early bird world. I'm fine with it, because a couple of hours
| is not an enormous difference, but it means I'm rarely at my
| fullest focus or energy levels, especially early in the day.
|
| And the experience has convinced me (n=1) that the early
| bird/night owl dychotomy is primarily biological.
| maccard wrote:
| i agree - i do the same (although i do take 30 minutes extra
| on the weekends if im being honest).
|
| > but it means I'm rarely at my fullest focus or energy
| levels, especially early in the day.
|
| At the moment I'm trying to lean into this. I have the brain
| power and focus to work late at night, so I use that to do
| the mental work of planning/organising the evening before
| (clothes laid out for the mornings task, breakfast/lunch made
| in advance, gym bag packed, etc etc) and decide what I'm
| doing the following morning. I've found that it's the perfect
| time to go to the gym, do the "long" dog walk, scrub the
| bathroom tiles with a toothbrush etc; anything that can be
| somewhat autopiloted but requires physical effort.
|
| I've been doing it for about 6 months now to great effect (so
| far)
| mypastself wrote:
| That's eerily similar to what I've been doing for years
| now.
|
| After the first year of very difficult morning workouts, I
| moved gym time to after work, and it became significantly
| easier.
|
| I do as much preparation as possible the evening before.
| After a while, all those minor things became deeply
| embedded into my routine. As long as you keep it up at the
| start (and other responsibilities don't intrude), it gets
| easier and easier.
|
| One of the good things about growing older is knowing
| yourself better, and learning how to use that knowledge to
| your advantage.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| For me it's just the scheduled wake-up. Having pets has helped
| me, they let me know it's 5 am regardless of the day of the
| week.
|
| I don't eat breakfast but I do have a coffee and that'll tide
| me over until I have a piece of fruit at 9 or 10 then an early-
| ish lunch at 11:30.
| bennysomething wrote:
| Not eating breakfast all, I've found this really helps me be
| alert. If I avoid lunch too I'm also less tired
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| "Eating a large protein/fat based breakfast with as few carbs
| as possible as soon as you get up regardless of being a
| "breakfast person" or not"
|
| As much as this might have helped you, this advice isn't going
| to work for everyone. Breakfast being the most important meal
| of the day was an advertising slogan, after all, and it isn't
| like dieticians are going to try to convince someone to eat
| breakfast if they are generally healthy.
|
| For me, your advice means that I eat more during the day. I'm
| most hungry in the evening, so that's when I eat more.
| pydry wrote:
| I dont think nutrition-wise breakfast really makes any
| difference and I'm likewise extra triple skeptical of
| corporate "advice" but it has helped greatly to modulate my
| sleeping patterns.
|
| It helps my body get attuned to falling asleep and waking up
| when I schedule it.
|
| First few times it feels horrible but it's worth fighting
| through that knot in my stomach.
| Flankk wrote:
| I have the exact same experience with a rigid sleep schedule
| and large breakfast. It's a big deal. I don't even need
| coffee anymore.
| globular-toast wrote:
| There might have been some truth to the importance of
| breakfast, but it's completely outdated advice for most
| people. People are sitting down for 90% of their lives, with
| the occasional slow walk to the coffee machine or car, but
| eating like they're working in the fields for 10 hours every
| day.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| zeta0134 wrote:
| For whatever reason I _cannot do this._ Every time I think I
| have my sleep schedule stabilized, and I 'm falling asleep at
| night and waking up 7.5 hours later with perfect mental
| clarity, inevitably I can only hold onto it for a few days in a
| row. Then it slips; the bedtime drowsiness arrives later, and
| later, and later in the evening. Eventually I end up shorting
| my big sleep at night to make it to work on time, and shortly
| after that I crash, the schedule goes to hell for a few days
| during which I am biphasic or worse, and then it stabilizes at
| a new earlier time again. Lather rinse repeat for my entire
| adult life.
|
| So far I haven't found a magic solution to this. Monitoring my
| diet certainly _helps,_ and so does regular exercise, and so
| did greatly restricting my caffeine intake, but nothing seems
| to stop the slow, steady drift of the sleep clock into the
| future. It 's like my body just ignores the daylight cycle and
| does whatever it wants.
|
| What I did instead was talk to my manager, explain the
| situation, and gain an OK to essentially work for one big block
| of time in a day _wherever it falls._ That didn 't solve the
| sleep drift, but it _did_ relieve most of the associated social
| pressure and stigma. But I 'd like to solve this properly,
| since it's a massive pain even when mitigated in this way, and
| I might not be so lucky to have a support network at my
| workplace in the future.
| puzzlingcaptcha wrote:
| > It's like my body just ignores the daylight cycle and does
| whatever it wants.
|
| How about artificial light cycle? I found that cutting light
| to just a yellow reading lamp after 9 p.m has really helped
| me sleep regularly.
| maximus-decimus wrote:
| I'm reading Why We Sleep and it sounds like your circadian
| cycle isn't syncing.
|
| Basically our internal clocks are not exactly 24 hours (can
| differ by even a few hours) so your body relies on some
| signals like sunlight and a meal in the morning to resync.
| pydry wrote:
| I had this problem too. For me it was solved by dimming
| lights and screens right down about 4 hours before I went to
| sleep and routinely eating as soon as I got up (especially
| when my stomach felt knotted).
|
| I used to think my body had a 25 hour schedule lol.
| jgwil2 wrote:
| Interestingly, I recall reading that when they've
| experimented with having people live in caves, absent of
| sunlight, for extended periods, they did tend to shift
| their "day" length to 25 hours.
| globular-toast wrote:
| > but nothing seems to stop the slow, steady drift of the
| sleep clock into the future.
|
| I've always struggled with this. When I was still in school
| (pre-university) was the most extreme. I would stay up late
| on Friday nights (01:00-02:00) then sleep until at least
| midday on Saturday. By Sunday night I couldn't sleep until
| 03:00-04:00 so got a very short sleep before Monday.
|
| There was a reason for it back then: night time was when I
| could use the internet. Because there was no pressure to get
| up early the next day, I would spend as long as I could
| online. I wonder if this caused my later problems or if they
| were innate.
|
| Later in uni it was normal for me to be completely nocturnal.
| I overslept my alarm every single morning, which just became
| more and more of a joke as it would go off a mere hour or two
| into my "night". I remember well the first time I "lost" a
| day. Woke up and made a cup of tea and it was already dark. I
| hated it. I hated that other people had actually done stuff
| that day and all I'd done was slept.
|
| Now I'm older I find it much easier to stay on top of. At
| some point something in me switched and now I can't stand it
| if I'm not ready to do something by 09:00. I remember my
| brother expressing a similar sentiment when he was 12 (me
| being 15 and in the aforementioned weekend routine). I wonder
| why it took me until my late 20s to feel the same way.
| wallopingfuture wrote:
| Sleep quality, duration, and consistency are associated with
| better academic performance in college students
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| The more sleep-deprived I am - the worse my working memory feels
| to work, nevertheless the more productive I am. A sleepless night
| gives highly elevated productivity during the next day. I feel
| boost of attention capacity, inspiration and creativity. It even
| gets easier to do mental math.
|
| Obviously a sleepless night also causes some physical discomfort
| but 500 mg of L-tyrosine cures it (and itself also gives some
| extra boost).
|
| I also used to practice taking a nap every time I come home from
| the office but such an evening nap always (since my early
| childhood) makes my mood horrible (grouchy, unenthusiastic and
| asexual) for hours to come.
| d3ad1ysp0rk wrote:
| I don't have any research to back this up, but it's possible
| that framing it as being more focused on less interesting work
| rather than "productive" helps clarify what might cause it.
| When we are well rested, our brains are functioning at a higher
| level, which includes spending energy making micro decisions
| about how important things are, what the priority is, what work
| is related to what you are currently looking at, and so on.
| When over tired, our bodies exert less energy on non critical
| processes, which might mean not overanalyzing or being
| distracted away from a task you'd rather not have to do.
|
| So getting certain work done is easier when tired, but
| productivity would arguably include doing the "right" thing,
| mapping the right information together, and so on, which you'd
| want to be better rested for.
|
| Curious to hear if you agree on the productivity vs focus
| clarification, or if you feel like you're truly more productive
| in the sense that you do some of your best work (greatest
| ideas, executed efficiently, with minimal errors) when tired?
| Jensson wrote:
| You probably aren't more productive, you just feel more
| productive in that you can sit and grind for a long time. I did
| a lot of practice programming where I measured myself, some
| things that would take hours when I was tired but I felt I was
| doing a lot of things took like half an hour when I was rested.
| However when I was rested I didn't feel that I accomplished
| much, it was just an easy task and then I moved on, while when
| I was tired I was feeling like I was moving mountains. Also
| code quality issues and bugs were much more common when I was
| tired.
| noiwillnot wrote:
| Sleep deprivation migth help to focus and do those tasks at
| all instead of procrastinating. That's my experience at least
| dealing with boring and unpleasant tasks.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > You probably aren't more productive, you just feel more
| productive in that you can sit and grind for a long time.
|
| And when I am well-slept I can't sit and grind for a minute,
| I'm 95% anxiety and procrastination then. Even reading an
| article which doesn't fit in a single screen feels almost
| unbearable. But when I'm severely underslept it feels easy
| and joy to read anything almost no matter how long.
|
| I would rather sleep 2 hours a night every night, be happy
| and productive (but astonishingly dumb when talking to others
| in real time though) if I didn't believe this probably is
| harmful for overall health in the long run.
|
| Nevertheless it always is hard to get up and it requires a
| lot of sleep to feel good physically so I always sleep ~13
| hours/night on weekends&vacations.
| Jensson wrote:
| Have you tried adhd meds? Probably a healthier solution
| than trying to constantly sleep deprive yourself, and most
| likely more effective as well as you then no longer
| handicap your mental abilities.
| wallopingfuture wrote:
| Funny you mention L-tyrosine, it "Tyrosine promotes cognitive
| flexibility" - Source:
| https://www.grelin.net/post/ztwmC7c43thoriuAFVaC
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_therapy
| pure_simplicity wrote:
| I have experienced that too and I wonder why that is...
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| So do I - that's why I share. Perhaps somebody may have an
| idea.
| radu_floricica wrote:
| Sleep is important, but this article is kinda useless in itself.
| First, yes, sure, of course sleep matters.
|
| But also it's measuring association, not causation. It's easy to
| think of reasons it works in reverse: of course people with good
| grades sleep better, they don't worry about having poor grades.
|
| And it's even saying that " Sleep measures accounted for nearly
| 25% of the variance in academic performance". That's causation
| language, and I don't think they determined that.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| I've felt this. For me, the most important factor for good sleep
| is going to bed and waking the same time every day. If I have one
| late night that causes me to sleep in the next day, it'll take up
| to a week for me to recover my normal routine.
| musicale wrote:
| In other news, water is still wet.
|
| I recall a talk describing a study to evaluate how the sleep-
| deprived lifestyle of college students was affecting their
| grades. Unfortunately the researchers had trouble finding a non-
| sleep-deprived control group at the school. They ended up paying
| students to (try to) sleep 8 hours a night (self-reported, though
| presumably somewhat accurately.) Unsurprisingly the less sleep-
| deprived group had better outcomes.
|
| Another study observed high school students found that in any
| class at any given time around 1/3 of them appeared to be asleep
| (not merely "not paying attention" but actually unconscious.) The
| effect did not appear to depend on the teacher or course
| material.
| r2_pilot wrote:
| For all the discussion on the forums here, I control-f 'ed and
| didn't see a single mention of sleep apnea. It's very common in
| men, even more so as time goes on. If you have a family history
| of it or snore loudly, it may be worth seeing a sleep specialist.
| kovek wrote:
| I like to mention Mouth Taping since so few people know about
| it. Keeping the mouth closed at night helps with a few issues.
| This idea is unpolular (unlike CPAP, for example), but it can
| help, do check it out
| chromanoid wrote:
| Creative insomnia is probably not an anti-thesis to the research,
| but I wonder how this relates to each other.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_and_creativity#Creative_...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I recently dropped caffeine. For about 3 weeks, I have been
| drinking decaffeinated tea and coffee only. Fortunately I wasn't
| dependent on caffeine. I like the taste of those two beverages,
| but my body does not crave caffeine.
|
| The effect on sleep is very notable. I wake up spontaneously
| between 6 and 7 am, even though it is dark in January in CZ and
| we have massive exterior blinds in our bedroom which make it
| completely dark. And I feel very fine and productive throughout
| the day.
|
| I tried melatonin before, it sort-of works, but the effect of
| dropping caffeine seems to be much stronger.
| Little_Fish wrote:
| Very interesting. I believe there is also the concept of sleep
| hygiene (nope - not a shower!) which involves creating a bedroom
| environment and routine to ensure consistent, uninterrupted
| sleep. A good night's sleep isn't just good for your mental
| health and productivity, it's also a good healer for your body.
| tennis_sort wrote:
| I stayed briefly in a real dive in NY one time while I was
| studying there. The room was used to dry clothes or something.
|
| I literally couldn't focus on anything in College. It was like I
| was perpetually hungover everyday.
|
| Also I wasn't great at self care when I was younger, first thing
| I'm going to teach my kids.
| blueyes wrote:
| I highly recommend Andrew Huberman's podcast and especially its
| sleep episodes for anyone interested in understanding sleep and
| turning the knobs to improve it:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=andrew+huberman+sleep+podcas...
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