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I've been dealing with a hormonal issue that's been negatively impacting my deep sleep for almost two years. There was a week in early February this year, righ

I've been dealing with a hormonal issue that's been negatively impacting my deep sleep for almost two years. There was a week in early February this year, right after surgery, where I felt like a million bucks. Normally, I have a pretty low-grade chronic headache (yeah, it's as horrible as it sounds). However, that week, my head felt "clear". I don't know how else to explain it other than I felt like my brain had been washed. I was going to bed at 9-9:30pm, and waking up at 5am, and felt incredible. I reverted not long afterwards, and believe I recently figured out the root of the issue (fingers crossed!), but I 100% believe that you need deep sleep to function well. IMO, it's not sufficient to get light and REM sleep; deep sleep is when true brain recovery occurs. I feel like I should know; before I started treatment, I would go to bed at 9-9:30pm and sleep until 8 and still feel exhausted. You need quality sleep in addition to quantity. Wrist-based sleep trackers are basically useless, FWIW. I've been using one pretty consistently since before my health issues started and they really can't discern the difference between light/REM/deep sleep phases. If there's anything which mirrors how I feel after waking up in the morning, it's HR dip, but even that isn't 100% reliable.

bbernoulli 7y ago
What do you think was the issue?! - fellow crappy-quality-sleeper
- xeromal 7y ago
  I had dogshit slip that bordered insomnia for a while. I forced myself into a habit that triggered a sleep response. For the past 4 or 5 years, I shower in the dark and walk to my room and pass out. I avoid "turning on" after that shower. No phones, no lights, no anything Your body needs to know when its time to sleep. Texting, reading, and computer time in bed counters that.
- theli0nheart 7y ago
  I'm really sorry about that. I had full lab work done that indicated my pituitary was shot. I'm now getting hormone injections until we get my body functioning again. I'd recommend seeing your PCP; if they push a depression diagnosis on you, push back and ask to get full lab work. I was getting stuffed with SSRIs for more than 18 months until I couldn't take it any longer.
sorenn111 7y ago
please elaborate signed, a shitty sleeper
myth_drannon 7y ago
Fitbit is pretty good at that I believe.
- fleetingmoments 7y ago
  Yes. They're the best of the commercial trackers, at least from what I have seen. I've worked in depth on this, and we were only able to subtly improve on Fitbit's published results using more advanced models. The best models have a Kappa (measure of agreement) compared to human polysomnography scorers of around 0.6. Where 0 would be random chance and 0.8 is the agreement between different human scorers.
- lsc 7y ago
  Do you have a source? Like, I'd pay money for good sleep tracking, (especially if it's fitbit-level money... I would pay more) but everything I've seen thinks that if I'm in bed and quietly, say, reading a book, I'm asleep until I move.
  - jfim 7y ago
    I've been using the Oura ring for that and it works pretty well for me. Unlike the other fitness trackers, its primary focus is sleep. I don't know how well it would handle reading in bed, however.
    - lsc 7y ago
      I'm mostly concerned about reading in bed 'cause I assume if it can't detect that, it can't detect, you know, staring at the ceiling. (though I guess I'm a lot more likely to fidget while staring at the ceiling.) I mean, I could get out of bed to read, but in my experience, that's even worse for sleep than reading in bed.
      - brlewis 7y ago
        I work for Fitbit. I don't speak for Fitbit; this is my personal experience. If you get a Fitbit with heart rate tracking, which nearly all have now, it won't rely just on motion. For me it's worked great, showing an awake period at the beginning or end of my time in bed. More on how it works: https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/2163#AutomaticDetection https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/2163#Aut... If you buy directly from Fitbit's website, the satisfaction guarantee is 45 days so you have plenty of time to try it out and see how well it works for you.
alanfalcon 7y ago
Similarly, my CPAP changed my life for the better. I went from constantly tired to being a productive member of society again.
- etagobla 7y ago
  Or just sleep on your side like other primates
  - teej 7y ago
    I was always a side sleeper. My CPAP has made a significant difference in the quality of my sleep.
  - beaner 7y ago
    Genuine question, can you elaborate on the supposed relationship between sleep orientation and CPAP?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - DoingIsLearning 7y ago
      Parent is being facetious about this but is also overly simplifying the issue. You can think of your airway as tube of cartilage and soft muscle. As we age (there are also other contributing factors) this tube may be narrowed or collapse under the weight of adjacent tissue. Excess weight (more adjacent tissue), alcohol consumption (more tube muscle relaxation) also contribute to the narrowing/collapsing of this tube. The airway tube has the least amount of pressure from adjacent tisue when you are on your side. And the highest amount of pressure when lying on your back. What parent is dismissing is that Positional Sleep Apnea is a fraction of all sleep apnea cases. I.e. his solution of sleeping on the side would 100% resolve sleep apnea for a fraction of all sleep apnea patients but certainly not everyone. Source: Did contract work for a sleep apnea startup.
      - 7y ago
steve19 7y ago
> I recently figured out the root of the issue (fingers crossed! Don't leave us hanging, what is the root cause?
- ak39 7y ago
  "deep sleep"
  - steve19 7y ago
    Obviously we are asking the parent what was preventing deep sleep.
    - mkagenius 7y ago
      too much hackernews
    - ianai 7y ago
      He said an HR dip which I think means heart rate. That might be achieved by daily exercise, I think?
      - theli0nheart 7y ago
        > He said an HR dip which I think means heart rate. That might be achieved by daily exercise, I think? Unfortunately exercise didn't help me either; I'm convinced it's just body chemistry (although, if you're already somewhat healthy, I think daily exercise can influence that). I was at a point where exercise had no effect. My theory is that HR dips lead to what the article suggests; lower blood flow in the brain opens up space for cranial fluid to flush things out.
- IanSanders 7y ago
  Probably personal. (unless crossed fingers is the cause)
  - theli0nheart 7y ago
anonuser123456 7y ago
>I've been dealing with a hormonal issue that's been negatively impacting my deep sleep for almost two years. How do you know this? Are you going to bed with an EEG every night?
- theli0nheart 7y ago
  > How do you know this? Are you going to bed with an EEG every night? I had a sleep study done which indicated I get very little deep sleep, but no apnea. Another data point is that I remember almost all of my dreams; I could literally write a few short stories if I wanted to every morning. Frequent dream recall is not a good sign since it indicates that REM is getting disrupted. REM is the precursor to deep sleep, so if REM is getting disrupted, you're probably not making it to Phase 3.
  - joveian 7y ago
    I agree that particularly strong and extended dream recall is a bad sign (that kind of thing is supposed to be blocked during sleep), but REM sleep is not a precursor to deep sleep. They are independent and usually deep sleep is entered most early in the night and REM later. REM episodes soon after getting to sleep are a sign of narcolepsy. Some medications (including some antidepressants) reduce or nearly eliminate REM sleep. Dreaming has been connected to dopamine that can also be affected by many medications and a variety of other things (like exercise). There are a bunch of sleep realted substances that still have unknown function so I'm sure there are a bunch of things that can go wrong completely outside the realm of current medical science.
    - theli0nheart 7y ago
      Err. I made a typo. You're correct. Non-REM deep sleep comes first and REM comes second. https://youtu.be/bEbtf7uS6P8?t=6790 https://youtu.be/bEbtf7uS6P8?t=6790
icotyl 7y ago
> I've been dealing with a hormonal issue that's been negatively impacting my deep sleep for almost two years. Also, not getting enough sleep can wreak havoc on your hormones. "Men who sleep 5 hours a night have significantly smaller testicles than men who sleep 7 hours or more. Men who routinely sleep 4-5 hours a night will have a level of testosterone of someone 10 years their senior." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MuIMqhT8DM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MuIMqhT8DM
- invalidOrTaken 7y ago
  Welp.
  - jakswa 7y ago
    Up late depriving yourself of sleep? While watching a video arguing for deeper, more healthy sleep? Ya me too.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  > Men who sleep 5 hours a night have significantly smaller testicles than men who sleep 7 hours or more Seems logic. I wonder what this men could do to kill time in all of those extra hours in the bed.
- theli0nheart 7y ago
  > Also, not getting enough sleep can wreak havoc on your hormones. Yep, and that was a part of my problem. Unbalanced hormones lead to poor sleep, and poor sleep leads to unbalanced hormones. My pituitary just stopped working correctly, and no matter how many hours I spent in bed, my body just wasn't doing what it needed to dial up the deep sleep requirements. Horrible negative feedback loop.
- ASalazarMX 7y ago
  My god, popular wisdom right here. In my country, a good-for-nothing, lazy person is called 'huevón', which means 'someone with big testicles' in Spanish. It's applied to both men and women, though.
chimpburger 7y ago
Eliminate caffeine. Increase consumption of animal products. My sleep quality improved significantly after switching to a 90% carnivore diet.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Miserlou57 7y ago
Can you please elaborate? This describes what I have suffered from consistently for years but I haven’t been able to identify
- theli0nheart 7y ago
  I'm so sorry. Have you had full blood work done? My PCP had labs ordered that he normally only does for 70+ year olds. This was after more than a year and a half of suffering. I had plead with him to run everything. Pituitary, testosterone, etc. The most frustrating thing was that doctors doubled down on their initial diagnosis of clinical depression. Surely there's no way that a young, "healthy" male could actually have a problem! I hope you feel better soon. I elaborate in more detail here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21419313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21419313
julian_digital 7y ago
> Wrist-based sleep trackers are basically useless Have you found any good sleep trackers that aren't wrist-based? Any recommendations?
- theli0nheart 7y ago
  > Have you found any good sleep trackers that aren't wrist-based? Any recommendations? Unfortunately not. :( Whoever can crack that nut is going to be very wealthy.
  - Discombulator 7y ago
    I am using the Dreem 2 (dreem.com, use my referral code for a discount: UEXBFMANU). I do not have a certified reference device but those aspects of the recordings that I can assess (start and end of sleep, awakenings, onset of sleep, position) match my experience and are more accurate than the other devices I am using (Withings Sleep, Garmin Fenix 3). There are several in depth reviews on the web comparing the device output with state of the art polysomnogram recordings.
    - guiambros 7y ago
      I'm dying to test Dreem 2, but having burned by so many gadgets that went out of business, including a very similar Zeo Sleep Tracker[1] almost 10 years ago, I'll hold for a while more to see if the company will survive. Their recent research comparing Dreem to a regular PSG [2] is pretty impressive, but I'm skeptical of their business model, and am concerned they won't survive for long. [1] https://www.mobihealthnews.com/20772/exclusive-sleep-coach-company-zeo-is-shutting-down https://www.mobihealthnews.com/20772/exclusive-sleep-coach-c... [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/06/10/662734.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/06/10/662...
- greenhatman 7y ago
  Peter Attia recommends Oura Ring. https://peterattiamd.com/members/discounts/ https://peterattiamd.com/members/discounts/
mtgx 7y ago
And Vitamin D can help you get that "deep sleep": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWe-feh7Twg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWe-feh7Twg
teddyuk 7y ago
What do you think about meditation? I feel if I mediate regularly then I feel on top of the world
- mrmonkeyman 7y ago
  It will make you more aware of the fact that you feel shit.
- theli0nheart 7y ago
  > What do you think about meditation? I feel if I mediate regularly then I feel on top of the world Love it! Do it twice a day for 20 minutes. Sadly it had no positive benefit on sleep. :(

bbernoulli 7y ago

What do you think was the issue?! - fellow crappy-quality-sleeper

xeromal 7y ago
I had dogshit slip that bordered insomnia for a while. I forced myself into a habit that triggered a sleep response. For the past 4 or 5 years, I shower in the dark and walk to my room and pass out. I avoid "turning on" after that shower. No phones, no lights, no anything Your body needs to know when its time to sleep. Texting, reading, and computer time in bed counters that.
theli0nheart 7y ago
I'm really sorry about that. I had full lab work done that indicated my pituitary was shot. I'm now getting hormone injections until we get my body functioning again. I'd recommend seeing your PCP; if they push a depression diagnosis on you, push back and ask to get full lab work. I was getting stuffed with SSRIs for more than 18 months until I couldn't take it any longer.

sorenn111 7y ago

please elaborate signed, a shitty sleeper

myth_drannon 7y ago

Fitbit is pretty good at that I believe.

fleetingmoments 7y ago
Yes. They're the best of the commercial trackers, at least from what I have seen. I've worked in depth on this, and we were only able to subtly improve on Fitbit's published results using more advanced models. The best models have a Kappa (measure of agreement) compared to human polysomnography scorers of around 0.6. Where 0 would be random chance and 0.8 is the agreement between different human scorers.
lsc 7y ago
Do you have a source? Like, I'd pay money for good sleep tracking, (especially if it's fitbit-level money... I would pay more) but everything I've seen thinks that if I'm in bed and quietly, say, reading a book, I'm asleep until I move.
- jfim 7y ago
  I've been using the Oura ring for that and it works pretty well for me. Unlike the other fitness trackers, its primary focus is sleep. I don't know how well it would handle reading in bed, however.
  - lsc 7y ago
    I'm mostly concerned about reading in bed 'cause I assume if it can't detect that, it can't detect, you know, staring at the ceiling. (though I guess I'm a lot more likely to fidget while staring at the ceiling.) I mean, I could get out of bed to read, but in my experience, that's even worse for sleep than reading in bed.
    - brlewis 7y ago
      I work for Fitbit. I don't speak for Fitbit; this is my personal experience. If you get a Fitbit with heart rate tracking, which nearly all have now, it won't rely just on motion. For me it's worked great, showing an awake period at the beginning or end of my time in bed. More on how it works: https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/2163#AutomaticDetection https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/2163#Aut... If you buy directly from Fitbit's website, the satisfaction guarantee is 45 days so you have plenty of time to try it out and see how well it works for you.

alanfalcon 7y ago

Similarly, my CPAP changed my life for the better. I went from constantly tired to being a productive member of society again.

etagobla 7y ago
Or just sleep on your side like other primates
- teej 7y ago
  I was always a side sleeper. My CPAP has made a significant difference in the quality of my sleep.
- beaner 7y ago
  Genuine question, can you elaborate on the supposed relationship between sleep orientation and CPAP?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - DoingIsLearning 7y ago
    Parent is being facetious about this but is also overly simplifying the issue. You can think of your airway as tube of cartilage and soft muscle. As we age (there are also other contributing factors) this tube may be narrowed or collapse under the weight of adjacent tissue. Excess weight (more adjacent tissue), alcohol consumption (more tube muscle relaxation) also contribute to the narrowing/collapsing of this tube. The airway tube has the least amount of pressure from adjacent tisue when you are on your side. And the highest amount of pressure when lying on your back. What parent is dismissing is that Positional Sleep Apnea is a fraction of all sleep apnea cases. I.e. his solution of sleeping on the side would 100% resolve sleep apnea for a fraction of all sleep apnea patients but certainly not everyone. Source: Did contract work for a sleep apnea startup.
    - 7y ago

steve19 7y ago

> I recently figured out the root of the issue (fingers crossed! Don't leave us hanging, what is the root cause?

ak39 7y ago
"deep sleep"
- steve19 7y ago
  Obviously we are asking the parent what was preventing deep sleep.
  - mkagenius 7y ago
    too much hackernews
  - ianai 7y ago
    He said an HR dip which I think means heart rate. That might be achieved by daily exercise, I think?
    - theli0nheart 7y ago
      > He said an HR dip which I think means heart rate. That might be achieved by daily exercise, I think? Unfortunately exercise didn't help me either; I'm convinced it's just body chemistry (although, if you're already somewhat healthy, I think daily exercise can influence that). I was at a point where exercise had no effect. My theory is that HR dips lead to what the article suggests; lower blood flow in the brain opens up space for cranial fluid to flush things out.
IanSanders 7y ago
Probably personal. (unless crossed fingers is the cause)
- theli0nheart 7y ago

anonuser123456 7y ago

>I've been dealing with a hormonal issue that's been negatively impacting my deep sleep for almost two years. How do you know this? Are you going to bed with an EEG every night?

theli0nheart 7y ago
> How do you know this? Are you going to bed with an EEG every night? I had a sleep study done which indicated I get very little deep sleep, but no apnea. Another data point is that I remember almost all of my dreams; I could literally write a few short stories if I wanted to every morning. Frequent dream recall is not a good sign since it indicates that REM is getting disrupted. REM is the precursor to deep sleep, so if REM is getting disrupted, you're probably not making it to Phase 3.
- joveian 7y ago
  I agree that particularly strong and extended dream recall is a bad sign (that kind of thing is supposed to be blocked during sleep), but REM sleep is not a precursor to deep sleep. They are independent and usually deep sleep is entered most early in the night and REM later. REM episodes soon after getting to sleep are a sign of narcolepsy. Some medications (including some antidepressants) reduce or nearly eliminate REM sleep. Dreaming has been connected to dopamine that can also be affected by many medications and a variety of other things (like exercise). There are a bunch of sleep realted substances that still have unknown function so I'm sure there are a bunch of things that can go wrong completely outside the realm of current medical science.
  - theli0nheart 7y ago
    Err. I made a typo. You're correct. Non-REM deep sleep comes first and REM comes second. https://youtu.be/bEbtf7uS6P8?t=6790 https://youtu.be/bEbtf7uS6P8?t=6790

icotyl 7y ago

> I've been dealing with a hormonal issue that's been negatively impacting my deep sleep for almost two years. Also, not getting enough sleep can wreak havoc on your hormones. "Men who sleep 5 hours a night have significantly smaller testicles than men who sleep 7 hours or more. Men who routinely sleep 4-5 hours a night will have a level of testosterone of someone 10 years their senior." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MuIMqhT8DM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MuIMqhT8DM

invalidOrTaken 7y ago
Welp.
- jakswa 7y ago
  Up late depriving yourself of sleep? While watching a video arguing for deeper, more healthy sleep? Ya me too.
pvaldes 7y ago
> Men who sleep 5 hours a night have significantly smaller testicles than men who sleep 7 hours or more Seems logic. I wonder what this men could do to kill time in all of those extra hours in the bed.
theli0nheart 7y ago
> Also, not getting enough sleep can wreak havoc on your hormones. Yep, and that was a part of my problem. Unbalanced hormones lead to poor sleep, and poor sleep leads to unbalanced hormones. My pituitary just stopped working correctly, and no matter how many hours I spent in bed, my body just wasn't doing what it needed to dial up the deep sleep requirements. Horrible negative feedback loop.
ASalazarMX 7y ago
My god, popular wisdom right here. In my country, a good-for-nothing, lazy person is called 'huevón', which means 'someone with big testicles' in Spanish. It's applied to both men and women, though.

chimpburger 7y ago

Eliminate caffeine. Increase consumption of animal products. My sleep quality improved significantly after switching to a 90% carnivore diet.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Miserlou57 7y ago

Can you please elaborate? This describes what I have suffered from consistently for years but I haven’t been able to identify

theli0nheart 7y ago
I'm so sorry. Have you had full blood work done? My PCP had labs ordered that he normally only does for 70+ year olds. This was after more than a year and a half of suffering. I had plead with him to run everything. Pituitary, testosterone, etc. The most frustrating thing was that doctors doubled down on their initial diagnosis of clinical depression. Surely there's no way that a young, "healthy" male could actually have a problem! I hope you feel better soon. I elaborate in more detail here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21419313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21419313

julian_digital 7y ago

> Wrist-based sleep trackers are basically useless Have you found any good sleep trackers that aren't wrist-based? Any recommendations?

theli0nheart 7y ago
> Have you found any good sleep trackers that aren't wrist-based? Any recommendations? Unfortunately not. :( Whoever can crack that nut is going to be very wealthy.
- Discombulator 7y ago
  I am using the Dreem 2 (dreem.com, use my referral code for a discount: UEXBFMANU). I do not have a certified reference device but those aspects of the recordings that I can assess (start and end of sleep, awakenings, onset of sleep, position) match my experience and are more accurate than the other devices I am using (Withings Sleep, Garmin Fenix 3). There are several in depth reviews on the web comparing the device output with state of the art polysomnogram recordings.
  - guiambros 7y ago
    I'm dying to test Dreem 2, but having burned by so many gadgets that went out of business, including a very similar Zeo Sleep Tracker[1] almost 10 years ago, I'll hold for a while more to see if the company will survive. Their recent research comparing Dreem to a regular PSG [2] is pretty impressive, but I'm skeptical of their business model, and am concerned they won't survive for long. [1] https://www.mobihealthnews.com/20772/exclusive-sleep-coach-company-zeo-is-shutting-down https://www.mobihealthnews.com/20772/exclusive-sleep-coach-c... [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/06/10/662734.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/06/10/662...
greenhatman 7y ago
Peter Attia recommends Oura Ring. https://peterattiamd.com/members/discounts/ https://peterattiamd.com/members/discounts/

mtgx 7y ago

And Vitamin D can help you get that "deep sleep": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWe-feh7Twg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWe-feh7Twg

teddyuk 7y ago

What do you think about meditation? I feel if I mediate regularly then I feel on top of the world

mrmonkeyman 7y ago
It will make you more aware of the fact that you feel shit.
theli0nheart 7y ago
> What do you think about meditation? I feel if I mediate regularly then I feel on top of the world Love it! Do it twice a day for 20 minutes. Sadly it had no positive benefit on sleep. :(