12 ms·

Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

178 points by dtien 8y ago

dtien 8y ago
As someone who also has atypical sleep patterns ( late sleeper, early riser ), there were some interesting points in here. I know there's been research done as well on the number of hours of sleep required rather than 'when' it occurs, but those haven't seem to have reached a consensus yet. I will say some of these articles sometimes read satirically. Notably, they have a diagnosis for people who can't sleep at 'normal' hours: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. Then the kicker at the end, "The term “chronotype diversity” is starting to find traction, as business managers explore concepts like team energetic asynchrony". At this point, I stopped and looked up at the URL to make sure I wasn't on a parody site. But all joking aside, it would be interesting to explore what societal as well as productivity improvements could be had if people's sleep patterns were viewed as varied rather than forcing everyone on the same schedule.
- wpietri 8y ago
  Yeah, I'm suspicious of putting people into big buckets based on an easily observable characteristic. I think it erases useful complexity. Personally, I shifted from being a night owl to an early riser years ago. I think it had a lot to do with a complex series of changes I made in my life. Trying to force it by just changing my wake time wouldn't have done anything good, but improving other things eventually resulted in a mode of life I like more that happens to be early rising.
  - egjerlow 8y ago
    Is that complex series something you'd care to elaborate on? I'm sure I'm not alone in trying to understand what really makes us sleep the way we do, and every data point helps!
    - wpietri 8y ago
      It was a bunch of stuff. One strand was about me recognizing that my baseline level of stress and anxiety was too high and working to lower that. Another was about improving sleep quality, so I was sharper during the day. A third was recognizing that I was an irresponsible electric light user; I automated my home lights to follow a consistent day-night cycle. [1] And a fourth was around physical exercise; over a few years I went from the stereotypical hates-exercise guy to somebody who regularly runs races. And possibly related, of course, was that I got older during this period. [1] https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise
  - kyteland 8y ago
    I shifted to being an early riser around 30. All it really took was for me to move into a place with unobstructed east-facing windows. Within a matter of months I was waking up at sunrise and bedtime had shifted from 2am to 10pm without any effort on my part. Honestly, the only difference in my day to day has been when I do stuff. I'm still sleeping the exact same amount. I'm not more/less rested or alert during the day. I just do the same stuff in the morning that I'd have done in the evening previously. The only benefit is that I no longer use an alarm. Work has flex hours and I don't have to be in until 10am, so I just wake up whenever I wake up and don't worry about it because there's plenty of time.
- bena 8y ago
  I also get a little eye-rolly when they went into the whole "we see things differently" bit. The whole "I'm so special and unique thing" just grates after a while. If you're like roughly 30% of the population, that whole "seeing things differently" means you see things like 30% of the population. Which ain't too shabby.
  - lev99 8y ago
    Being in a 30% doesn't make you an oddball, maverick, or outsider. (Words used to describe 'nightowls' in this article)
    - bena 8y ago
      That was the point I was trying to make.
      - lev99 8y ago
        I was agreeing with you.
- krapsna 8y ago
  Note: I pounded this out pretty quickly and don't have time to proofread. Sorry for any grammatical errors. I will say some of these articles sometimes read satirically. Notably, they have a diagnosis for people who can't sleep at 'normal' hours: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. I have been struggling with being unable to sleep during normal hours my entire life. My parents would yank the covers off of me in the morning, or maybe my mother would start vacuuming my room at 8 AM frustrated that I wasn't already up. All through my school years, from elementary to HS I was barely functional. I was often late or missed the bus because I was a walking zombie, struggling to get dressed and out of the house without falling asleep. Keep in mind that I'm 45, none of this was due to too much TV time or smart phone use. (One TV in the house, no such thing as notebooks, ipads, or smart phones back then). No matter how much I struggled through the day to just stay awake, and how much I was looking forward to going to bed that night, at 9 PM I would be fully awake. I laid in bed night after night watching the click tick by as I tried to unsuccessfully "just go to sleep". Then, when my alarm went off I'd be exhausted again and struggle to get up and out the door. I was a terrible student to say the least. You're told for years that you're lazy, unmotivated, a slacker, etc. During my High School summers, I would get into a pattern of going to sleep at between 3 and 6 AM, waking at noon. I was a fully functioning human being. I had the most creative and productive days (evenings) of my life as an artist. I was naturally alert and creative Ispent the wee hours of the morning drawing, painting, reading. Then I'd be plunged back into misery when the school year began. I once again drove my teachers crazy. I got in trouble for falling asleep in class. I was told again that I was a lazy slacker. I don't know how many times I was spoken to by faculty about not living up to my potential. When you're told your whole life that you're only problem is that you're lazy, and you can't figure out why you can't find the motivation to do the things you want to do, you start to believe it. After HS, I had a few menial jobs, stumbling into one where I worked from 8 PM to 4 AM. It was great, except for the fact that my mother still harassed my by trying to wake me up at 9 AM because... I don't know. I guess she just didn't want some lazy slacker sleeping the day away? Later I worked my way into tech and had jobs requiring normal office hours. I was self medicating by drinking most nights, trying to get to sleep to maintain a normal-ish schedule. It didn't work all that well. I was working at a company as a technical lead that I'd help get up and running with a couple of friends from school, and even though we were supposed to be "flex" hours, not surprisingly the morning people kept setting up 8 AM meetings that I was almost always late for and sometimes missed. Out of frustration I spoke to my Dr about it, and he sent me to a a medical sleep center. I had a couple of sleep studies done, electrodes glued to my head and all that. The Dr told me I had DSPS, something I'd never heard of, nor sought a diagnosis of. This was roughly 20 years ago. I looked it up, and found that it was a real thing. So, I told my friends that I'd started that company with what was up... I had thing thing called "DSPS" and what it was, how it worked and all that. And I'll never forget how my best friend looked me square in the eye and told me he basically had lost all respect for me, for coming to them with some kind of bullshit made up medical diagnosis, trying to excuse my inability to keep the same schedule as everybody else. The relationship between the two of us quickly went down hill. I spent some time after that out of tech, working jobs that were more amenable to later hours. For the last 6 I've been back in it, and it's still a frustrating struggle to stay on "normal" hours. In an effort to go to sleep when I should, I take benadryl and melatonin almost every night. Sometimes it works, sometimes it seems to have no effect. I know that I'm not as effective at my job as I could be, my mind is often in a fog during the day. And again... I spend the whole day looking forward to climbing into bed at 9 PM to get a good night's rest, only to have my brain begin firing on all cylinders that night. I get tremendously motivated to do all of the things I was too tired to accomplish all day, and I have to try to shut it down by taking that benadryl and melatonin cocktail so I don't stay up all night. Then I get into bed and toss and turn, unable to sleep usually until 1 or 2 AM. My paternal grandmother had it. I have it. One of my four children has it. The article linked to here says that genetic mutations have been found that are linked to it. And still, you make a comment illustrating society's skeptical attitude toward DSPS. You obviously don't believe that it's real. That's what we deal with, and I don't expect that it will change any time soon.
- collyw 8y ago
  "what societal as well as productivity improvements" In my experience it is likely to give some sort of decrease. I have worked in places with very flexible working hours and my team leader was always in later than me (officially we were supposed to be in by 10 am, but 11 am was more normal for him. I on the other hand got woken up by my girlfriend for her job, so i started at 9 like most other people). Basically if I had something to ask him in those two hours I had to wait, which ended up being a bit of a pain in the arse overall.
acconrad 8y ago
This feels like this article was written in response to this article from Slate Star Codex since this also mentions DSPS: http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-tha... > I have it fairly bad. My body naturally wants to go to bed around 2 a.m. and rise around 10 a.m. That was my cycle as well and I wouldn't describe it as "fairly bad" it's definitely later but not egregious. The SSC article recommends .3mg melatonin 7 hours before desired sleep and it worked like a charm for me (along with rituals for earlier sleep and better sleep hygiene). Within a few weeks I was going to bed at 10pm and naturally waking up at around 7am. Now I regularly operate on this schedule and I was kind of surprised at how quickly I was able to adjust.
- wycy 8y ago
  Did you need to use melatonin only for those few weeks that it took to adjust your schedule, or have you had to continue using it indefinitely to maintain this schedule?
  - luminiferous 8y ago
    Not OP but I read the Slate Star Codex article, and buried about halfway down was: "These don’t “cure” the condition permanently; you have to keep doing them every day, or your circadian rhythm will snap back to its natural pattern." So it looks like you have to take the melatonin on a continuous basis.
  - acconrad 8y ago
    I only started a few weeks ago so I'll let you know, but I can say so far I haven't been militant about using melatonin every day and already I'm still able to go to (and fall) asleep at the earlier time.
- barleymash 8y ago
  Do you feel like your "new" schedule is more beneficial than it was before?
  - 8y ago
wpietri 8y ago
Based on the title, I was hoping it was about something else, something I talk about frequently with people who think they have sleep problems: human sleep is naturally biphasic. I know a lot of people who think waking up in the middle of the night means they have a disease, insomnia. When the truth is that before electric light, normal sleep was going to bed when it got dark, being awake for a while in the middle of the night, and then sleeping more until first light. A nice look at it is in this history podcast: https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/on-the-clock-4/ https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/on-the-clock-4/ (Especially the segments "Friday Night Lights" and "'Til Morning is Nigh".) For those who prefer text, here's a writeup of the historian's book: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783 When I mention people to this they're generally both shocked and relieved. The problem often wasn't with their bodies or their minds, but their expectations.
- BrandoElFollito 8y ago
  I heard about this through my interest in the French Middle Ages sociology. I was always wondering, though how this worked in summer when the nights are short and one can hardly afford a meaningful break in the middle (if not napping in the afternoon)
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  Insomnia probably isn't limited to a simple reflection of a biphasic sleep-related problem. As an example, someone with naturally high anxiety could get on the most biphasic sleep schedule possible and still suffer from insomnia due to their anxiety about what tomorrow brings, etc.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    Sure. My point is not that insomnia doesn't exist, only that waking up in the middle of the night is not necessarily an indication of insomnia.
- enceladus_ice 8y ago
  I recently listened to an interview with Matthew Walker (author of "Why We Sleep" book mentioned in article). Dr. Walker stated the scientific consensus is now trending toward historical biphasic sleep being a social trend rather than how we're "supposed" to sleep.
soufron 8y ago
So little research, so many anecdotes. There are MDS and scientists dealing with these issues. The trouble is not so much when you sleep, but whether you're well in the end. And as someone mentioned, our sleep cycles used to be vastly different. Not to mention that people who take a nap during the day might have a completely different type of sleep cycle.
commandlinefan 8y ago
When I start to feel like I'm not performing like I used to, I worry that my sleep patterns are the culprit. Then I worry that worrying about sleep patterns is causing performance problems...
d0m 8y ago
TL&DR: Some people have different circadian sleep cycle and that's okay.
- tstieff 8y ago
  Well, it's only okay if you are able to function from 9-5, otherwise it's probably a huge issue.
danman1222 8y ago
Love this article! There is some really interesting research on the sleep patterns of indigenous tribes. Researchers found that while studying the tribe for like a 3 month period there was only around 30 minutes where the entire tribe was asleep. Humans are built to live together in communities to create the greatest likelihood of survival. Its most advantageous for someone to be awake to make sure that lion doesn't eat us after all. So while industrialization and the workaholism of Americans has pushed us to all wake up earlier - based on our chronobiology - its probably pretty unhealthy for many. I'm trying to get companies to realize this. Just my 2 cent. Dan Gartenberg, PhD, CEO of Sonic Sleep Coach
macNchz 8y ago
The author's experience is very similar to my own–my parents called me 'the sleepless wonder' when I was a kid, and by high school getting out of bed for morning classes was excruciating. In college I mostly chose classes that started later in the day and wound up doing much better academically. Since college I've made a point of taking jobs that offer flexible hours, which thankfully seems to be increasingly common. I have no interest in going back to having that conflicted feeling around midnight, knowing that if I stay up much later the morning will be torture, but feeling wide awake, productive and creative. In recent years I've found myself tending to wake up earlier in the morning, but regardless of when I wake up my brain is still fuzzy until 10 or 11am. It turns out that this makes the mornings an ideal time for me to get some exercise, which I've discovered to be a great way to start the day.
- Raphmedia 8y ago
  > In college I mostly chose classes that started later in the day and wound up doing much better academically. Those are the only days of my life I can remember not feeling jet lagged. I should follow your lead and get jobs with flexible hours.
- gascan 8y ago
  1) I was much like you. My performance in college suffered as I couldn't rouse in the morning. I recently discovered I actually did have a medical problem affecting sleep quality (partially obstructed airway from childhood injury). Can't help but wonder how things would be different if I'd figured it out sooner. 2) Had a kid, and sleeping in late is simply no longer an option. Which makes me think that despite how I covet late nights and sleeping in, it really was never the natural order of things, at least for adults.
  - isodude 8y ago
    My problem was two fold: * My eyesight was a bit poor, got glasses for the first time * Snored a lot, got a mouth guard as a sleeping aide On top of that going through a period with vitamine suppliment really boosted me. My take from is if you don't wake up when the sunrise (if you went to bed in ok fashion) and feel somewhat rested, start to look at your sleeping behaviour/daily stress.
DonHopkins 8y ago
And maybe my OCD is actually Obsessive Compulsive Order.
mmaunder 8y ago
What really bugs me is the self-righteousness of the early riser. There's definitely some kind of power dynamic going on. Perhaps the joke should be: How do you know if someone gets up at 5am? Because they tell you.
- amelius 8y ago
  There's also an asymmetry: the person who works late can't rub it in, because the early person has already left the building.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    "Why can't you be here at 8:00am?" "But I was the only person here at 7:00pm when the server fell over."
    - hinkley 8y ago
      Lately I’ve been toying with running my own company, and if I did (which I probably won’t)... Everything is 24/7 these days. It’s fucking ridiculous that we’re trying to have all of our employees in the office during exactly the same hours the same five days a week, and then outsource to a place 12 time zones away which can cover most of the rest of the day, except that you can’t even have a meeting without inconveniencing literally everybody. It’s stupid, wearing a clown suit backward. We should have heterogenous shifts. Say 9 days a fortnight with the 9th being a weekend. 25% of the staff is available on any weekend day, and everyone has one weekday off per week, and some fraction of the staff is available for extended hours the rest of the week. That might mean that Scrum and scrumbut don’t work but I’m perfectly fine with that.
  - macNchz 8y ago
    As much as I dislike having to play the game, late-in-late-out people can benefit by saving some email replies until the tail end of their workday...it always feels gross to me to do it intentionally, but I've found it'll often placate the types of busybodies who conflate arrival time with productivity.
  - 8y ago
pg_bot 8y ago
I'm the only person I've encountered that naturally runs on a 25 hour clock. I get the same amount of sleep per day (~8 hours) but I follow it with 17 hours of wakefulness so my clock moves forward by an hour every day. To my knowledge there are no adverse health effects, but it's certainly out of the ordinary. I often wonder if more people are like me since sleep problems are so common, but they cannot follow their natural rhythm since it does not fit into the traditional 9-5 work week.
- tomglynch 8y ago
  So you then have periods where you sleep during the day? Work for yourself or have a very flexible employer?
  - pg_bot 8y ago
    Yes, I sleep during the day quite often. I currently work for myself, it's never been an issue for other people I've worked for.
- mercutio2 8y ago
  Funny, I thought living with a 25 hour day was a nearly universal desire for people under 40. Certainly most of my close friends in my teens and 20s would regularly discuss that this would make our lives better. Once I experienced the pain of needing to wake up for a small child, I was forced out of my historical sleep pattern. Fortunately I, like my parents, need less and less sleep as I get older, so 24 hours with an early rising child is more tolerable now than when I initially experienced it.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    I suspect there is a pattern -- have kids, learn to wake up earlier. For me it was self-reinforcing; the act of putting the kids down for bed at 8:30PM is like drawing a line in the sand, with quiet hours afterward. It makes it sensible to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier.
- sleepnoob 8y ago
elhudy 8y ago
>According to Dr. Walker, about 40 percent of the population are morning people, 30 percent are evening people, and the remainder land somewhere in between. I'm not a sleep expert or a neuroscientist, but I take issue with being branded into a sleep-band that is "hard-written" into my DNA. I perform at my worst when I wake at times other than my current habit allows for - whether that is early or late. I don't believe this leaves me in the 30% of in-between people. It just means that my habits are most telling of my performance. Don't assume my chronotype.
- coldtea 8y ago
  It's not some random commenter that assumed the cronotype though, it's scientists. So, you can take it with them. Or you could an outlier, but it's not like this flexibility you mention is statistically true for most people. What has been studied is statistically true.
  - yqx 8y ago
    > It's not some random commenter that assumed the cronotype though, it's scientists. However, what is actually known about the human body is often a lot more fuzzy and uncertain than how the popular press, or sometimes scientists, would have use believe. If the second paragraph of the Wikipedia article on the chronotype is to be believed there is plenty of room for believing that environment and habits play a role in your Chronotype as is the case for most behaviours. > The causes and regulation of chronotypes, including developmental change, individual propensity for a specific chronotype, and flexible versus fixed chronotypes have yet to be determined. However, research is beginning to shed light on these questions, such as the relationship between age and chronotype. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotype
  - elhudy 8y ago
    It is understandable that my ethos is not on par with Dr. Walker's, and that my anecdote would indeed make me an outlier. With that being said, I am legitimately unable to find any conclusive research that says there are effectively three "cronotype" bands, and 100% of the population falls into one of these three bands, and that these bands are completely DNA-driven and non-dynamic. Every source of this information seems to be behind a "buy my book" paywall from some inspirational speaker like Daniel Pink. The article says: "For further proof, researchers at Rockefeller University last year announced the discovery of a gene mutation that apparently accounts for D.S.P.S." In that study, the author says, " According to the new research, the mutation may be present in as many as one in 75 people in some populations." While there might be more genes which lend themselves to DSPS, the numbers from the study don't exactly lend extra credibility to the argument. Can you help me to understand where it has been statistically proven that 100% of humans fall into roughly three equal bands of morning/evening/between, and that this has been solidly linked to genetics rather than environmental/habits or a combination of both? Most studies on humans don't make such bold claims because genetics are so diverse across populations that the study population itself would need to be enormous.
sebringj 8y ago
I've noticed if you are passionate about something, you don't track time, you don't care about your surroundings and lose yourself in what you are doing. That's when productivity happens and it doesn't respect sunlight always. However, it is easier on most human beings to have a circadian rhythm aligned with sunlight and workout first thing in the morning to jump start the day. It is more sustainable in the long run to do that to have a healthy routine from my perspective and backed by research. Shawn Stevenson has some good insight on that to get you started.
- InclinedPlane 8y ago
  Or... this could be ADHD hyperfocus or bipolar II hypomania. Not everyone is the same, and not everyone experiences periods of just losing themselves in their work completely without any knowledge of time passing.
  - sebringj 8y ago
    Where did "time flies when your having fun" come from? Time seems to move faster when you are actively doing something that envelopes your faculties, even if it has something to do with tracking time, like completing a complicated algorithm with a limited time to do it. Maybe you don't like general statements even if they are not implied to cover all cases?
  - stagas 8y ago
    Wow, what a quick jump to pathologize someone's behavior based on some pattern you spotted that bares some resemblance to a mental disorder. Psychiatry is not an exact science, and this labelling does more harm than good when used out of context. A person can be classified with a mental disorder _only_ when that behavior starts having negative effects to their lives, and not merely by satisfying some of the symptoms. Someone can act hypomanic or depressed and that can fluctuate through their life but until that starts having severe negative effects that they can't escape from on their own, it is simply the expression of their character and their uniqueness as a human being, rich and complex. Otherwise you can classify with a mental disorder pretty much everyone.
sn41 8y ago
I am an early riser. One issue I have is that I am very sleepy around 2 pm. I hope siestas are seriously studied, and the stigma on them removed.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  I can tell you quite reliably when it is 2:30PM without looking at my watch. That's nap time.
komali2 8y ago
>When night owls are forced to rise early, their prefrontal cortex, which controls sophisticated thought processes and logical reasoning, “remains in a disabled, or ‘offline,’ state,” Dr. Walker writes. “Like a cold engine in an early-morning start, it takes a long time before it warms up to operating temperature.” My friends and I call this "poo brain." We all had the same rhythm back in highschool which did not give with the 7:15am first bell. By about 2pm we'd be zombies, capable of no kind of creative thought. To this day if we're visiting each other and suffering jet lag, inevitable accusations of poo brain get thrown around. It feels like every part of the brain works except the part that thinks - that's a swamp.
LifeQuestioner 8y ago
'sever
simonebrunozzi 8y ago
Tangentially related, I am regularly waken up by garbage trucks at ~2am and ~4:30am, and then sometimes again at ~6am. (I live in San Francisco). It's becoming unbearable. Unfortunately there are a couple of commercial activities nearby, and my understanding is that there's no way to force these trucks to come at a more decent time. Any of you have any idea on how to fix this? Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but not sleeping well for months is something that deeply affects your well being...
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Any of you have any idea on how to fix this? Move out of an urban environment. Or consider investing in soundproofing?
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  Marpac Sound Machine and perhaps add some heavy, heavy curtains over the windows. Other than that, I suspect moving somewhere with better soundproofing or away from commercial traffic may be the only viable alternative.
- rajjalan 8y ago
  Something like this (it has helped me): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HD0ELFA https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HD0ELFA
- cimmanom 8y ago
  Earplugs?
- jm__87 8y ago
  I moved to a very noisy part of the city and found that practicing a different reaction to noise actually helped me. I just decided to treat it as not such a big deal and I'm able to sleep quite well now. White noise helps too.
5partan 8y ago
First of all, I wouldn’t consider someone who sleeps from 2a.m. To 10a.m. A night owl, everything before noon is stil morning for me :) And why do those articles never mention daylight saving time or the fact that that there is a 3 hour difference between sunrise in winter and summer? I’m pretty sure DNA doesn’t care about fixed time schedules but that it rather synchronizes to natural sun and moon light. I’m convinced that a shifting sleep cicle (compared to a fixed time, but fixed to the sun or moon or some overlap) is the most natural and healthiest one, that’s also how our ancestors took shifts, D.S.P.S. just being a fancy new name, while in reality nature selects a few people being in tune with moon light, another few with sun light and some being in between, or maybe even that changes during the year, so that there are fair overlaps for everyone while watching out for those sabre tooth tigers when others sleep, those tigers don’t attack just at night ;)
- kazagistar 8y ago
  Nice gatekeeping.
  - dang 8y ago
    Please don't do this here.
mschuster91 8y ago
I believe a big part of the problem is that the old larks, and with them their belief about lark superiority, simply don't retire as they used to, thus keeping young people and fresh ideas from moving up the "chain of command". Being a hard night owl myself, I'm happy to work at a place with flexible hours, but then again most of my company is <40-50 years of age. People in BigCos often aren't as lucky and to make it worse "office politics" with the competitiveness associated there (and mentioned in the article) effectively kill off any motivation to chsnge.
- nradov 8y ago
  This is the worst sort of ageism. In my professional experience there is no correlation between youth and fresh ideas. Big companies with competent leaders are perfectly capable of rapid change when survival is at stake. The classic example is the pivot from desktop software toward the Internet that Bill Gates led at Microsoft.
  - mschuster91 8y ago
    > This is the worst sort of ageism. In my professional experience there is no correlation between youth and fresh ideas. Look into politics, no matter the country, or any big corporation - it is usually an old-white-men club (exceptions confirm the rule). And they are hell-bent on keeping the situation so that they benefit, and the younger generations suffer for it. The social contract was that at reaching ~65 (here in Germany) years, you retire, and someone younger rises to your position. The current situation with people working way past their 80s, either due to stubbornness (rich old white men) or due to economic need (poor old people, PoC), breaks that contract, and young people are locked into lower-paying positions because they cannot rise up. To provide my claims with data: average age of DAX company boardmembers is 61, with some companies at 70 (!!) [1], only 7% of CxO posts are held by women [2]. In addition, the government commission "Deutscher Corporate Governance Kodex" actually has literally asked for "fresh blood" in boards [1]. 1: https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article137859180/Zu-viele-Senioren-in-Aufsichtsraeten-der-Dax-Firmen.html https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article137859180/Zu-viele-Sen... 2: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/beruf-chance/beruf/dax-unternehmen-durchschnittsalter-im-vorstand-gestiegen-13586901.html http://www.faz.net/aktuell/beruf-chance/beruf/dax-unternehme...
person_of_color 8y ago
I'm currently having an issue where I get to sleep on time but keep waking up 1-2 sleep cycles too early. Any ideas why? Help.
- cimmanom 8y ago
  I’ve been having this problem too. It’s the worst. Going to bed at 10 and waking up at 3 when your alarm is set for 6; exhausted but weirdly alert too. Then feeling like a zombie all day, collapsing into bed, and doing it all over again.
  - person_of_color 8y ago
    Do you think it's sleep apnoea? Or poor sleep hygiene?
    - cimmanom 8y ago
      I’m waking between cycles, not because of apnea; and apnea shouldn’t prevent getting back to sleep afaik - it just prevents deep sleep and leaves you less rested. I think my sleep hygiene’s been ok. The one cause that seems most likely to me is a decrease in exercise (due to an injury).
NeoBasilisk 8y ago
I can't remember the last time I went to bed before midnight. I think it was in 2012.
InclinedPlane 8y ago
I've had DSPS for my entire adult life and it has been incredibly difficult to manage. For me the biggest improvements have come with maintaining extremely strict sleep hygiene: F.lux or the equivalent on all my devices, setting a "start getting ready to go to bed" alarm on my smartwatch, generally avoiding caffeine and alcohol entirely, wearing blue blocking glasses when I'm going to bed, and maintaining the same bed time and wake up times even during the weekend. As well as using a light based alarm clock as my primary alarm. It can still be a challenge to be well rested but I do a vastly better job of it than I had previously. I don't always make it to work at the time I want but compared to the "bad old days" where I might come to work on only 3-4 hours of sleep one day and I might roll in at 1pm, 2pm, even 3pm some days it's like a quantum leap improvement. The other major factor is getting regular exercise.
sguav 8y ago
funny how I am reading this while trying to instill in my infant daughter the "conventional time" habit... I am really left with doubts on whether it's better to support a baby's time schedule or to "force" the standard's.
collyw 8y ago
Can someone convince me that this problem isn't in your head? I used to consider myself a "night owl" until I observed something: I was travelling in Chile and went up to Peru. There was a two hour time difference despite being at more or less the same longitude (I think Chile shifted its clocks in summer while Peru didn't, and there was a one hour difference on top of that). Guess what? I got used to it in a few days. Likewise Spain is an hour ahead of the UK, despite being both being similar longitude. We shift our sleeping patterns by and hour a couple of times each year with daylight saving. It usually only takes a couple of days to get used to it. I enjoy my sleep and the answer seems to be going to bed earlier, and not convincing yourself that you can't sleep because its too early. The time of day is a social construct.
- collyw 8y ago
  I was actually hoping for some constructive rebuttals of this.
creep 8y ago
I've never been able to figure out my sleep schedule and have always conformed to these positive ideas we associate with early risers, but this article, despite its weird elitism, has given me some hope. I like to go to bed late, but I also like to wake up early. Sometimes I can't wake up until noon. Sometimes waking up at noon feels like shit. Sometimes I'll spontaneously awaken at 7am and feel amazing until about noon. Sometimes I'll be dead-tired at 9pm. Sometimes I'll set my alarm for 9am and wake up at 8am-- sometimes its the opposite. It makes no sense because I go to bed at pretty much the same time every night (between 1 and 3 am, usually 2am). I feel inspired to monitor my natural sleep now and figure out what's going on, rather than constantly trying (and failing) to conform to 10pm-6am.

178 points by dtien 8y ago

As someone who also has atypical sleep patterns ( late sleeper, early riser ), there were some interesting points in here. I know there's been research done as well on the number of hours of sleep required rather than 'when' it occurs, but those haven't seem to have reached a consensus yet. I will say some of these articles sometimes read satirically. Notably, they have a diagnosis for people who can't sleep at 'normal' hours: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. Then the kicker at the end, "The term “chronotype diversity” is starting to find traction, as business managers explore concepts like team energetic asynchrony". At this point, I stopped and looked up at the URL to make sure I wasn't on a parody site. But all joking aside, it would be interesting to explore what societal as well as productivity improvements could be had if people's sleep patterns were viewed as varied rather than forcing everyone on the same schedule.

wpietri 8y ago
Yeah, I'm suspicious of putting people into big buckets based on an easily observable characteristic. I think it erases useful complexity. Personally, I shifted from being a night owl to an early riser years ago. I think it had a lot to do with a complex series of changes I made in my life. Trying to force it by just changing my wake time wouldn't have done anything good, but improving other things eventually resulted in a mode of life I like more that happens to be early rising.
- egjerlow 8y ago
  Is that complex series something you'd care to elaborate on? I'm sure I'm not alone in trying to understand what really makes us sleep the way we do, and every data point helps!
  - wpietri 8y ago
    It was a bunch of stuff. One strand was about me recognizing that my baseline level of stress and anxiety was too high and working to lower that. Another was about improving sleep quality, so I was sharper during the day. A third was recognizing that I was an irresponsible electric light user; I automated my home lights to follow a consistent day-night cycle. [1] And a fourth was around physical exercise; over a few years I went from the stereotypical hates-exercise guy to somebody who regularly runs races. And possibly related, of course, was that I got older during this period. [1] https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise https://github.com/wpietri/sunrise
- kyteland 8y ago
  I shifted to being an early riser around 30. All it really took was for me to move into a place with unobstructed east-facing windows. Within a matter of months I was waking up at sunrise and bedtime had shifted from 2am to 10pm without any effort on my part. Honestly, the only difference in my day to day has been when I do stuff. I'm still sleeping the exact same amount. I'm not more/less rested or alert during the day. I just do the same stuff in the morning that I'd have done in the evening previously. The only benefit is that I no longer use an alarm. Work has flex hours and I don't have to be in until 10am, so I just wake up whenever I wake up and don't worry about it because there's plenty of time.
bena 8y ago
I also get a little eye-rolly when they went into the whole "we see things differently" bit. The whole "I'm so special and unique thing" just grates after a while. If you're like roughly 30% of the population, that whole "seeing things differently" means you see things like 30% of the population. Which ain't too shabby.
- lev99 8y ago
  Being in a 30% doesn't make you an oddball, maverick, or outsider. (Words used to describe 'nightowls' in this article)
  - bena 8y ago
    That was the point I was trying to make.
    - lev99 8y ago
      I was agreeing with you.
krapsna 8y ago
Note: I pounded this out pretty quickly and don't have time to proofread. Sorry for any grammatical errors. I will say some of these articles sometimes read satirically. Notably, they have a diagnosis for people who can't sleep at 'normal' hours: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. I have been struggling with being unable to sleep during normal hours my entire life. My parents would yank the covers off of me in the morning, or maybe my mother would start vacuuming my room at 8 AM frustrated that I wasn't already up. All through my school years, from elementary to HS I was barely functional. I was often late or missed the bus because I was a walking zombie, struggling to get dressed and out of the house without falling asleep. Keep in mind that I'm 45, none of this was due to too much TV time or smart phone use. (One TV in the house, no such thing as notebooks, ipads, or smart phones back then). No matter how much I struggled through the day to just stay awake, and how much I was looking forward to going to bed that night, at 9 PM I would be fully awake. I laid in bed night after night watching the click tick by as I tried to unsuccessfully "just go to sleep". Then, when my alarm went off I'd be exhausted again and struggle to get up and out the door. I was a terrible student to say the least. You're told for years that you're lazy, unmotivated, a slacker, etc. During my High School summers, I would get into a pattern of going to sleep at between 3 and 6 AM, waking at noon. I was a fully functioning human being. I had the most creative and productive days (evenings) of my life as an artist. I was naturally alert and creative Ispent the wee hours of the morning drawing, painting, reading. Then I'd be plunged back into misery when the school year began. I once again drove my teachers crazy. I got in trouble for falling asleep in class. I was told again that I was a lazy slacker. I don't know how many times I was spoken to by faculty about not living up to my potential. When you're told your whole life that you're only problem is that you're lazy, and you can't figure out why you can't find the motivation to do the things you want to do, you start to believe it. After HS, I had a few menial jobs, stumbling into one where I worked from 8 PM to 4 AM. It was great, except for the fact that my mother still harassed my by trying to wake me up at 9 AM because... I don't know. I guess she just didn't want some lazy slacker sleeping the day away? Later I worked my way into tech and had jobs requiring normal office hours. I was self medicating by drinking most nights, trying to get to sleep to maintain a normal-ish schedule. It didn't work all that well. I was working at a company as a technical lead that I'd help get up and running with a couple of friends from school, and even though we were supposed to be "flex" hours, not surprisingly the morning people kept setting up 8 AM meetings that I was almost always late for and sometimes missed. Out of frustration I spoke to my Dr about it, and he sent me to a a medical sleep center. I had a couple of sleep studies done, electrodes glued to my head and all that. The Dr told me I had DSPS, something I'd never heard of, nor sought a diagnosis of. This was roughly 20 years ago. I looked it up, and found that it was a real thing. So, I told my friends that I'd started that company with what was up... I had thing thing called "DSPS" and what it was, how it worked and all that. And I'll never forget how my best friend looked me square in the eye and told me he basically had lost all respect for me, for coming to them with some kind of bullshit made up medical diagnosis, trying to excuse my inability to keep the same schedule as everybody else. The relationship between the two of us quickly went down hill. I spent some time after that out of tech, working jobs that were more amenable to later hours. For the last 6 I've been back in it, and it's still a frustrating struggle to stay on "normal" hours. In an effort to go to sleep when I should, I take benadryl and melatonin almost every night. Sometimes it works, sometimes it seems to have no effect. I know that I'm not as effective at my job as I could be, my mind is often in a fog during the day. And again... I spend the whole day looking forward to climbing into bed at 9 PM to get a good night's rest, only to have my brain begin firing on all cylinders that night. I get tremendously motivated to do all of the things I was too tired to accomplish all day, and I have to try to shut it down by taking that benadryl and melatonin cocktail so I don't stay up all night. Then I get into bed and toss and turn, unable to sleep usually until 1 or 2 AM. My paternal grandmother had it. I have it. One of my four children has it. The article linked to here says that genetic mutations have been found that are linked to it. And still, you make a comment illustrating society's skeptical attitude toward DSPS. You obviously don't believe that it's real. That's what we deal with, and I don't expect that it will change any time soon.
collyw 8y ago
"what societal as well as productivity improvements" In my experience it is likely to give some sort of decrease. I have worked in places with very flexible working hours and my team leader was always in later than me (officially we were supposed to be in by 10 am, but 11 am was more normal for him. I on the other hand got woken up by my girlfriend for her job, so i started at 9 like most other people). Basically if I had something to ask him in those two hours I had to wait, which ended up being a bit of a pain in the arse overall.

acconrad 8y ago

This feels like this article was written in response to this article from Slate Star Codex since this also mentions DSPS: http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-tha... > I have it fairly bad. My body naturally wants to go to bed around 2 a.m. and rise around 10 a.m. That was my cycle as well and I wouldn't describe it as "fairly bad" it's definitely later but not egregious. The SSC article recommends .3mg melatonin 7 hours before desired sleep and it worked like a charm for me (along with rituals for earlier sleep and better sleep hygiene). Within a few weeks I was going to bed at 10pm and naturally waking up at around 7am. Now I regularly operate on this schedule and I was kind of surprised at how quickly I was able to adjust.

wycy 8y ago
Did you need to use melatonin only for those few weeks that it took to adjust your schedule, or have you had to continue using it indefinitely to maintain this schedule?
- luminiferous 8y ago
  Not OP but I read the Slate Star Codex article, and buried about halfway down was: "These don’t “cure” the condition permanently; you have to keep doing them every day, or your circadian rhythm will snap back to its natural pattern." So it looks like you have to take the melatonin on a continuous basis.
- acconrad 8y ago
  I only started a few weeks ago so I'll let you know, but I can say so far I haven't been militant about using melatonin every day and already I'm still able to go to (and fall) asleep at the earlier time.
barleymash 8y ago
Do you feel like your "new" schedule is more beneficial than it was before?
- 8y ago

wpietri 8y ago

Based on the title, I was hoping it was about something else, something I talk about frequently with people who think they have sleep problems: human sleep is naturally biphasic. I know a lot of people who think waking up in the middle of the night means they have a disease, insomnia. When the truth is that before electric light, normal sleep was going to bed when it got dark, being awake for a while in the middle of the night, and then sleeping more until first light. A nice look at it is in this history podcast: https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/on-the-clock-4/ https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/on-the-clock-4/ (Especially the segments "Friday Night Lights" and "'Til Morning is Nigh".) For those who prefer text, here's a writeup of the historian's book: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783 When I mention people to this they're generally both shocked and relieved. The problem often wasn't with their bodies or their minds, but their expectations.

BrandoElFollito 8y ago
I heard about this through my interest in the French Middle Ages sociology. I was always wondering, though how this worked in summer when the nights are short and one can hardly afford a meaningful break in the middle (if not napping in the afternoon)
themodelplumber 8y ago
Insomnia probably isn't limited to a simple reflection of a biphasic sleep-related problem. As an example, someone with naturally high anxiety could get on the most biphasic sleep schedule possible and still suffer from insomnia due to their anxiety about what tomorrow brings, etc.
- wpietri 8y ago
  Sure. My point is not that insomnia doesn't exist, only that waking up in the middle of the night is not necessarily an indication of insomnia.
enceladus_ice 8y ago
I recently listened to an interview with Matthew Walker (author of "Why We Sleep" book mentioned in article). Dr. Walker stated the scientific consensus is now trending toward historical biphasic sleep being a social trend rather than how we're "supposed" to sleep.

soufron 8y ago

So little research, so many anecdotes. There are MDS and scientists dealing with these issues. The trouble is not so much when you sleep, but whether you're well in the end. And as someone mentioned, our sleep cycles used to be vastly different. Not to mention that people who take a nap during the day might have a completely different type of sleep cycle.

commandlinefan 8y ago

When I start to feel like I'm not performing like I used to, I worry that my sleep patterns are the culprit. Then I worry that worrying about sleep patterns is causing performance problems...

d0m 8y ago

TL&DR: Some people have different circadian sleep cycle and that's okay.

tstieff 8y ago
Well, it's only okay if you are able to function from 9-5, otherwise it's probably a huge issue.

danman1222 8y ago

Love this article! There is some really interesting research on the sleep patterns of indigenous tribes. Researchers found that while studying the tribe for like a 3 month period there was only around 30 minutes where the entire tribe was asleep. Humans are built to live together in communities to create the greatest likelihood of survival. Its most advantageous for someone to be awake to make sure that lion doesn't eat us after all. So while industrialization and the workaholism of Americans has pushed us to all wake up earlier - based on our chronobiology - its probably pretty unhealthy for many. I'm trying to get companies to realize this. Just my 2 cent. Dan Gartenberg, PhD, CEO of Sonic Sleep Coach

macNchz 8y ago

The author's experience is very similar to my own–my parents called me 'the sleepless wonder' when I was a kid, and by high school getting out of bed for morning classes was excruciating. In college I mostly chose classes that started later in the day and wound up doing much better academically. Since college I've made a point of taking jobs that offer flexible hours, which thankfully seems to be increasingly common. I have no interest in going back to having that conflicted feeling around midnight, knowing that if I stay up much later the morning will be torture, but feeling wide awake, productive and creative. In recent years I've found myself tending to wake up earlier in the morning, but regardless of when I wake up my brain is still fuzzy until 10 or 11am. It turns out that this makes the mornings an ideal time for me to get some exercise, which I've discovered to be a great way to start the day.

Raphmedia 8y ago
> In college I mostly chose classes that started later in the day and wound up doing much better academically. Those are the only days of my life I can remember not feeling jet lagged. I should follow your lead and get jobs with flexible hours.
gascan 8y ago
1) I was much like you. My performance in college suffered as I couldn't rouse in the morning. I recently discovered I actually did have a medical problem affecting sleep quality (partially obstructed airway from childhood injury). Can't help but wonder how things would be different if I'd figured it out sooner. 2) Had a kid, and sleeping in late is simply no longer an option. Which makes me think that despite how I covet late nights and sleeping in, it really was never the natural order of things, at least for adults.
- isodude 8y ago
  My problem was two fold: * My eyesight was a bit poor, got glasses for the first time * Snored a lot, got a mouth guard as a sleeping aide On top of that going through a period with vitamine suppliment really boosted me. My take from is if you don't wake up when the sunrise (if you went to bed in ok fashion) and feel somewhat rested, start to look at your sleeping behaviour/daily stress.

DonHopkins 8y ago

And maybe my OCD is actually Obsessive Compulsive Order.

mmaunder 8y ago

What really bugs me is the self-righteousness of the early riser. There's definitely some kind of power dynamic going on. Perhaps the joke should be: How do you know if someone gets up at 5am? Because they tell you.

amelius 8y ago
There's also an asymmetry: the person who works late can't rub it in, because the early person has already left the building.
- mcguire 8y ago
  "Why can't you be here at 8:00am?" "But I was the only person here at 7:00pm when the server fell over."
  - hinkley 8y ago
    Lately I’ve been toying with running my own company, and if I did (which I probably won’t)... Everything is 24/7 these days. It’s fucking ridiculous that we’re trying to have all of our employees in the office during exactly the same hours the same five days a week, and then outsource to a place 12 time zones away which can cover most of the rest of the day, except that you can’t even have a meeting without inconveniencing literally everybody. It’s stupid, wearing a clown suit backward. We should have heterogenous shifts. Say 9 days a fortnight with the 9th being a weekend. 25% of the staff is available on any weekend day, and everyone has one weekday off per week, and some fraction of the staff is available for extended hours the rest of the week. That might mean that Scrum and scrumbut don’t work but I’m perfectly fine with that.
- macNchz 8y ago
  As much as I dislike having to play the game, late-in-late-out people can benefit by saving some email replies until the tail end of their workday...it always feels gross to me to do it intentionally, but I've found it'll often placate the types of busybodies who conflate arrival time with productivity.
- 8y ago

pg_bot 8y ago

I'm the only person I've encountered that naturally runs on a 25 hour clock. I get the same amount of sleep per day (~8 hours) but I follow it with 17 hours of wakefulness so my clock moves forward by an hour every day. To my knowledge there are no adverse health effects, but it's certainly out of the ordinary. I often wonder if more people are like me since sleep problems are so common, but they cannot follow their natural rhythm since it does not fit into the traditional 9-5 work week.

tomglynch 8y ago
So you then have periods where you sleep during the day? Work for yourself or have a very flexible employer?
- pg_bot 8y ago
  Yes, I sleep during the day quite often. I currently work for myself, it's never been an issue for other people I've worked for.
mercutio2 8y ago
Funny, I thought living with a 25 hour day was a nearly universal desire for people under 40. Certainly most of my close friends in my teens and 20s would regularly discuss that this would make our lives better. Once I experienced the pain of needing to wake up for a small child, I was forced out of my historical sleep pattern. Fortunately I, like my parents, need less and less sleep as I get older, so 24 hours with an early rising child is more tolerable now than when I initially experienced it.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  I suspect there is a pattern -- have kids, learn to wake up earlier. For me it was self-reinforcing; the act of putting the kids down for bed at 8:30PM is like drawing a line in the sand, with quiet hours afterward. It makes it sensible to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier.
sleepnoob 8y ago

elhudy 8y ago

>According to Dr. Walker, about 40 percent of the population are morning people, 30 percent are evening people, and the remainder land somewhere in between. I'm not a sleep expert or a neuroscientist, but I take issue with being branded into a sleep-band that is "hard-written" into my DNA. I perform at my worst when I wake at times other than my current habit allows for - whether that is early or late. I don't believe this leaves me in the 30% of in-between people. It just means that my habits are most telling of my performance. Don't assume my chronotype.

coldtea 8y ago
It's not some random commenter that assumed the cronotype though, it's scientists. So, you can take it with them. Or you could an outlier, but it's not like this flexibility you mention is statistically true for most people. What has been studied is statistically true.
- yqx 8y ago
  > It's not some random commenter that assumed the cronotype though, it's scientists. However, what is actually known about the human body is often a lot more fuzzy and uncertain than how the popular press, or sometimes scientists, would have use believe. If the second paragraph of the Wikipedia article on the chronotype is to be believed there is plenty of room for believing that environment and habits play a role in your Chronotype as is the case for most behaviours. > The causes and regulation of chronotypes, including developmental change, individual propensity for a specific chronotype, and flexible versus fixed chronotypes have yet to be determined. However, research is beginning to shed light on these questions, such as the relationship between age and chronotype. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotype
- elhudy 8y ago
  It is understandable that my ethos is not on par with Dr. Walker's, and that my anecdote would indeed make me an outlier. With that being said, I am legitimately unable to find any conclusive research that says there are effectively three "cronotype" bands, and 100% of the population falls into one of these three bands, and that these bands are completely DNA-driven and non-dynamic. Every source of this information seems to be behind a "buy my book" paywall from some inspirational speaker like Daniel Pink. The article says: "For further proof, researchers at Rockefeller University last year announced the discovery of a gene mutation that apparently accounts for D.S.P.S." In that study, the author says, " According to the new research, the mutation may be present in as many as one in 75 people in some populations." While there might be more genes which lend themselves to DSPS, the numbers from the study don't exactly lend extra credibility to the argument. Can you help me to understand where it has been statistically proven that 100% of humans fall into roughly three equal bands of morning/evening/between, and that this has been solidly linked to genetics rather than environmental/habits or a combination of both? Most studies on humans don't make such bold claims because genetics are so diverse across populations that the study population itself would need to be enormous.

sebringj 8y ago

I've noticed if you are passionate about something, you don't track time, you don't care about your surroundings and lose yourself in what you are doing. That's when productivity happens and it doesn't respect sunlight always. However, it is easier on most human beings to have a circadian rhythm aligned with sunlight and workout first thing in the morning to jump start the day. It is more sustainable in the long run to do that to have a healthy routine from my perspective and backed by research. Shawn Stevenson has some good insight on that to get you started.

InclinedPlane 8y ago
Or... this could be ADHD hyperfocus or bipolar II hypomania. Not everyone is the same, and not everyone experiences periods of just losing themselves in their work completely without any knowledge of time passing.
- sebringj 8y ago
  Where did "time flies when your having fun" come from? Time seems to move faster when you are actively doing something that envelopes your faculties, even if it has something to do with tracking time, like completing a complicated algorithm with a limited time to do it. Maybe you don't like general statements even if they are not implied to cover all cases?
- stagas 8y ago
  Wow, what a quick jump to pathologize someone's behavior based on some pattern you spotted that bares some resemblance to a mental disorder. Psychiatry is not an exact science, and this labelling does more harm than good when used out of context. A person can be classified with a mental disorder _only_ when that behavior starts having negative effects to their lives, and not merely by satisfying some of the symptoms. Someone can act hypomanic or depressed and that can fluctuate through their life but until that starts having severe negative effects that they can't escape from on their own, it is simply the expression of their character and their uniqueness as a human being, rich and complex. Otherwise you can classify with a mental disorder pretty much everyone.

sn41 8y ago

I am an early riser. One issue I have is that I am very sleepy around 2 pm. I hope siestas are seriously studied, and the stigma on them removed.

rootusrootus 8y ago
I can tell you quite reliably when it is 2:30PM without looking at my watch. That's nap time.

komali2 8y ago

>When night owls are forced to rise early, their prefrontal cortex, which controls sophisticated thought processes and logical reasoning, “remains in a disabled, or ‘offline,’ state,” Dr. Walker writes. “Like a cold engine in an early-morning start, it takes a long time before it warms up to operating temperature.” My friends and I call this "poo brain." We all had the same rhythm back in highschool which did not give with the 7:15am first bell. By about 2pm we'd be zombies, capable of no kind of creative thought. To this day if we're visiting each other and suffering jet lag, inevitable accusations of poo brain get thrown around. It feels like every part of the brain works except the part that thinks - that's a swamp.

LifeQuestioner 8y ago

'sever

simonebrunozzi 8y ago

Tangentially related, I am regularly waken up by garbage trucks at ~2am and ~4:30am, and then sometimes again at ~6am. (I live in San Francisco). It's becoming unbearable. Unfortunately there are a couple of commercial activities nearby, and my understanding is that there's no way to force these trucks to come at a more decent time. Any of you have any idea on how to fix this? Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but not sleeping well for months is something that deeply affects your well being...

dragonwriter 8y ago
> Any of you have any idea on how to fix this? Move out of an urban environment. Or consider investing in soundproofing?
rootusrootus 8y ago
Marpac Sound Machine and perhaps add some heavy, heavy curtains over the windows. Other than that, I suspect moving somewhere with better soundproofing or away from commercial traffic may be the only viable alternative.
rajjalan 8y ago
Something like this (it has helped me): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HD0ELFA https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HD0ELFA
cimmanom 8y ago
Earplugs?
jm__87 8y ago
I moved to a very noisy part of the city and found that practicing a different reaction to noise actually helped me. I just decided to treat it as not such a big deal and I'm able to sleep quite well now. White noise helps too.

5partan 8y ago

First of all, I wouldn’t consider someone who sleeps from 2a.m. To 10a.m. A night owl, everything before noon is stil morning for me :) And why do those articles never mention daylight saving time or the fact that that there is a 3 hour difference between sunrise in winter and summer? I’m pretty sure DNA doesn’t care about fixed time schedules but that it rather synchronizes to natural sun and moon light. I’m convinced that a shifting sleep cicle (compared to a fixed time, but fixed to the sun or moon or some overlap) is the most natural and healthiest one, that’s also how our ancestors took shifts, D.S.P.S. just being a fancy new name, while in reality nature selects a few people being in tune with moon light, another few with sun light and some being in between, or maybe even that changes during the year, so that there are fair overlaps for everyone while watching out for those sabre tooth tigers when others sleep, those tigers don’t attack just at night ;)

kazagistar 8y ago
Nice gatekeeping.
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't do this here.

mschuster91 8y ago

I believe a big part of the problem is that the old larks, and with them their belief about lark superiority, simply don't retire as they used to, thus keeping young people and fresh ideas from moving up the "chain of command". Being a hard night owl myself, I'm happy to work at a place with flexible hours, but then again most of my company is <40-50 years of age. People in BigCos often aren't as lucky and to make it worse "office politics" with the competitiveness associated there (and mentioned in the article) effectively kill off any motivation to chsnge.

nradov 8y ago
This is the worst sort of ageism. In my professional experience there is no correlation between youth and fresh ideas. Big companies with competent leaders are perfectly capable of rapid change when survival is at stake. The classic example is the pivot from desktop software toward the Internet that Bill Gates led at Microsoft.
- mschuster91 8y ago
  > This is the worst sort of ageism. In my professional experience there is no correlation between youth and fresh ideas. Look into politics, no matter the country, or any big corporation - it is usually an old-white-men club (exceptions confirm the rule). And they are hell-bent on keeping the situation so that they benefit, and the younger generations suffer for it. The social contract was that at reaching ~65 (here in Germany) years, you retire, and someone younger rises to your position. The current situation with people working way past their 80s, either due to stubbornness (rich old white men) or due to economic need (poor old people, PoC), breaks that contract, and young people are locked into lower-paying positions because they cannot rise up. To provide my claims with data: average age of DAX company boardmembers is 61, with some companies at 70 (!!) [1], only 7% of CxO posts are held by women [2]. In addition, the government commission "Deutscher Corporate Governance Kodex" actually has literally asked for "fresh blood" in boards [1]. 1: https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article137859180/Zu-viele-Senioren-in-Aufsichtsraeten-der-Dax-Firmen.html https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article137859180/Zu-viele-Sen... 2: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/beruf-chance/beruf/dax-unternehmen-durchschnittsalter-im-vorstand-gestiegen-13586901.html http://www.faz.net/aktuell/beruf-chance/beruf/dax-unternehme...

person_of_color 8y ago

I'm currently having an issue where I get to sleep on time but keep waking up 1-2 sleep cycles too early. Any ideas why? Help.

cimmanom 8y ago
I’ve been having this problem too. It’s the worst. Going to bed at 10 and waking up at 3 when your alarm is set for 6; exhausted but weirdly alert too. Then feeling like a zombie all day, collapsing into bed, and doing it all over again.
- person_of_color 8y ago
  Do you think it's sleep apnoea? Or poor sleep hygiene?
  - cimmanom 8y ago
    I’m waking between cycles, not because of apnea; and apnea shouldn’t prevent getting back to sleep afaik - it just prevents deep sleep and leaves you less rested. I think my sleep hygiene’s been ok. The one cause that seems most likely to me is a decrease in exercise (due to an injury).

NeoBasilisk 8y ago

I can't remember the last time I went to bed before midnight. I think it was in 2012.

InclinedPlane 8y ago

I've had DSPS for my entire adult life and it has been incredibly difficult to manage. For me the biggest improvements have come with maintaining extremely strict sleep hygiene: F.lux or the equivalent on all my devices, setting a "start getting ready to go to bed" alarm on my smartwatch, generally avoiding caffeine and alcohol entirely, wearing blue blocking glasses when I'm going to bed, and maintaining the same bed time and wake up times even during the weekend. As well as using a light based alarm clock as my primary alarm. It can still be a challenge to be well rested but I do a vastly better job of it than I had previously. I don't always make it to work at the time I want but compared to the "bad old days" where I might come to work on only 3-4 hours of sleep one day and I might roll in at 1pm, 2pm, even 3pm some days it's like a quantum leap improvement. The other major factor is getting regular exercise.

sguav 8y ago

funny how I am reading this while trying to instill in my infant daughter the "conventional time" habit... I am really left with doubts on whether it's better to support a baby's time schedule or to "force" the standard's.

collyw 8y ago

Can someone convince me that this problem isn't in your head? I used to consider myself a "night owl" until I observed something: I was travelling in Chile and went up to Peru. There was a two hour time difference despite being at more or less the same longitude (I think Chile shifted its clocks in summer while Peru didn't, and there was a one hour difference on top of that). Guess what? I got used to it in a few days. Likewise Spain is an hour ahead of the UK, despite being both being similar longitude. We shift our sleeping patterns by and hour a couple of times each year with daylight saving. It usually only takes a couple of days to get used to it. I enjoy my sleep and the answer seems to be going to bed earlier, and not convincing yourself that you can't sleep because its too early. The time of day is a social construct.

collyw 8y ago
I was actually hoping for some constructive rebuttals of this.

creep 8y ago

I've never been able to figure out my sleep schedule and have always conformed to these positive ideas we associate with early risers, but this article, despite its weird elitism, has given me some hope. I like to go to bed late, but I also like to wake up early. Sometimes I can't wake up until noon. Sometimes waking up at noon feels like shit. Sometimes I'll spontaneously awaken at 7am and feel amazing until about noon. Sometimes I'll be dead-tired at 9pm. Sometimes I'll set my alarm for 9am and wake up at 8am-- sometimes its the opposite. It makes no sense because I go to bed at pretty much the same time every night (between 1 and 3 am, usually 2am). I feel inspired to monitor my natural sleep now and figure out what's going on, rather than constantly trying (and failing) to conform to 10pm-6am.