6 ms·

Sleepy America: 60% of adults say they’re more tired than ever before

59 points by harambae 6y ago

jb775 6y ago
We all need to take more naps.
- wincy 6y ago
  I’m going to see a sleep doctor on Friday. I’ve been napping two hours every day from 12-2 like clockwork and I wake up feeling confused and more tired than when I went to sleep. I did a sleep study years ago and was diagnosed with OSA but always felt like I was suffocating wearing the CPAP. Tried in the last few weeks to just force myself to wear the thing and I feel like I’m stopping breathing as I fall asleep. It’s awful and a damned if I do damned if I don’t kind of thing. Hopefully it’s “just” apnea because I feel like I’m literally going crazy from such poor sleep.
  - joshspankit 6y ago
    Try a 20minute nap, or at the very least try out increasing or decreasing the length by 5 minutes at a time. You may be accidentally waking up each day at the lowest valley of a sleep cycle
  - ThrowawayP 6y ago
    You might consider experimenting with different masks and pressure settings to see if it helps a bit. CPAPs are awful but the common alternative is surgery.
    - jb775 6y ago
      Another less invasive option would be to see a chiropractor. I've watched videos claiming they help open nasal passages, but not sure if that's pseudoscience. I think surgery should always be the absolute last option.
  - jb775 6y ago
    Two hour naps will likely put you into a deep slow-wave REM sleep cycle. Waking up mid sleep cycle often leads to grogginess. If you cut your naps to 25 minutes or slightly less, you avoid deep REM sleep and should wake up feeling refreshed. "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker is a good summary on the science behind sleep. The book also recommends to not use the "snooze" function on your alarm clock. It allows you to slip back into a sleep cycle that gets disrupted multiple times everyday.
  - magnetowasright 6y ago
    Trying different masks, different pressure settings, or different ramp up time might help you adjust to the CPAP better. Mandibular advancement splint might be an option? It's definitely worth talking to your sleep specialist about finding something that works for you. There's a reason why sleep deprivation is used as torture, not to mention the long-term effects of unmanaged OSA
vorpalhex 6y ago
I wonder how much of this is anxiety behavior. You have a scary sounding situation outside that you can't do much of anything about actively, so instead you invest your energy in distraction like television and gaming - which is really a "delay" strategy, not a solving strategy. Personally, I've been trying to intentionally invest my time in productive things (writing little games, learning, working out) to try and actually reduce my anxiety instead of just burying it. As the joke goes: "Anxiety must be a liquid because it flows right into your brain as soon as you lay down to sleep."
- sp332 6y ago
  This is definitely my guess. People don't sleep as well when they're anxious even if they're in bed the usual amount of time.
- briangray 6y ago
  I've been working on similar productive things (i.e. reading, jogging, projects), to keep out the 'what-ifs'. One of those projects I intend to start soon is building a small game. I've come across a lot of discussion about engines, frameworks, and hand-built options. A large majority push for larger engines like Unity or Godot that 'do it all' to focus more on the game and less on what's needed to build it. That seems alright, but being a backend dev, I generally enjoy understanding the full operation and building it out as close to my needs as possible. What have you used for your smaller games? And what would you recommend for someone with programming experience, but lacking experience in pretty much every other facet of game development?
  - qmmmur 6y ago
    I am a big fan of the Lua LOVE framework. It's all Lua and very minimal boilerplate code. Recently there was a post about a game called BYTEPATH and the developer put up an entire tutorial on how they made the game including hacking into what little required code there was (the main event loop). https://github.com/a327ex/blog/issues/30 https://github.com/a327ex/blog/issues/30 https://love2d.org/ https://love2d.org/
grumple 6y ago
I’ve felt exhausted for the past month. I also started full-time remote work in December. My previous routine of working out at the gym before work vanished. I don’t know how much of this is anxiety and how much is new bad habits (or lack of good habits). Some of it is stress (my new job is stressful). Some of it is the constant fireworks, instability, and the rise in violence in my area since the protests started. But I definitely relate to feeling tired now.
duxup 6y ago
If you're working from home AND trying to watch / educate your kids you might be like me and trying to fit work in wherever you can, and that can impact sleep.
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  our 2 small kids have decided to spend the pandemic waking up at 5am or earlier. Neat, right?
paxys 6y ago
> About half of participants get out of bed 10 minutes before remote workday starts. Guilty IMO it comes down to good habits and (more importantly) kids. I have never been more relaxed in my life. I get 8+ hours of sleep every night, and sometimes nap during the day. Cutting down on long commutes has made such a positive difference to my life that I'm never doing it again, pandemic or not. Everyone I know with young children is on the opposite end of the spectrum though, now that childcare/daycare/babysitting/family assistance options aren't available anymore.
- Spartan-S63 6y ago
  I've been getting worse at this. The thing is, it leaves me feeling more anxious if I roll out of bed and go straight to work. I like having a slower morning where I can sip coffee, read, or work on a side project before starting work. Between working from home full time, having the pandemic fatigue, and the days being longer, I go to bed later, sleep in later, and wake up closer to when my workday should start. It's a solvable problem, I just need to find the discipline to reset my schedule, again.
verdverm 6y ago
Could be excess CO2, it's summer, AC is on, lockdown had more people at home breathing more air. I've found opening a few windows for an hour to recirculate the air solves this issue. Hour long walks daily helps too
dplgk 6y ago
The older you get, the more tired you are. Last I checked, everyone is getting older.

59 points by harambae 6y ago

jb775 6y ago

We all need to take more naps.

wincy 6y ago
I’m going to see a sleep doctor on Friday. I’ve been napping two hours every day from 12-2 like clockwork and I wake up feeling confused and more tired than when I went to sleep. I did a sleep study years ago and was diagnosed with OSA but always felt like I was suffocating wearing the CPAP. Tried in the last few weeks to just force myself to wear the thing and I feel like I’m stopping breathing as I fall asleep. It’s awful and a damned if I do damned if I don’t kind of thing. Hopefully it’s “just” apnea because I feel like I’m literally going crazy from such poor sleep.
- joshspankit 6y ago
  Try a 20minute nap, or at the very least try out increasing or decreasing the length by 5 minutes at a time. You may be accidentally waking up each day at the lowest valley of a sleep cycle
- ThrowawayP 6y ago
  You might consider experimenting with different masks and pressure settings to see if it helps a bit. CPAPs are awful but the common alternative is surgery.
  - jb775 6y ago
    Another less invasive option would be to see a chiropractor. I've watched videos claiming they help open nasal passages, but not sure if that's pseudoscience. I think surgery should always be the absolute last option.
- jb775 6y ago
  Two hour naps will likely put you into a deep slow-wave REM sleep cycle. Waking up mid sleep cycle often leads to grogginess. If you cut your naps to 25 minutes or slightly less, you avoid deep REM sleep and should wake up feeling refreshed. "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker is a good summary on the science behind sleep. The book also recommends to not use the "snooze" function on your alarm clock. It allows you to slip back into a sleep cycle that gets disrupted multiple times everyday.
- magnetowasright 6y ago
  Trying different masks, different pressure settings, or different ramp up time might help you adjust to the CPAP better. Mandibular advancement splint might be an option? It's definitely worth talking to your sleep specialist about finding something that works for you. There's a reason why sleep deprivation is used as torture, not to mention the long-term effects of unmanaged OSA

vorpalhex 6y ago

I wonder how much of this is anxiety behavior. You have a scary sounding situation outside that you can't do much of anything about actively, so instead you invest your energy in distraction like television and gaming - which is really a "delay" strategy, not a solving strategy. Personally, I've been trying to intentionally invest my time in productive things (writing little games, learning, working out) to try and actually reduce my anxiety instead of just burying it. As the joke goes: "Anxiety must be a liquid because it flows right into your brain as soon as you lay down to sleep."

sp332 6y ago
This is definitely my guess. People don't sleep as well when they're anxious even if they're in bed the usual amount of time.
briangray 6y ago
I've been working on similar productive things (i.e. reading, jogging, projects), to keep out the 'what-ifs'. One of those projects I intend to start soon is building a small game. I've come across a lot of discussion about engines, frameworks, and hand-built options. A large majority push for larger engines like Unity or Godot that 'do it all' to focus more on the game and less on what's needed to build it. That seems alright, but being a backend dev, I generally enjoy understanding the full operation and building it out as close to my needs as possible. What have you used for your smaller games? And what would you recommend for someone with programming experience, but lacking experience in pretty much every other facet of game development?
- qmmmur 6y ago
  I am a big fan of the Lua LOVE framework. It's all Lua and very minimal boilerplate code. Recently there was a post about a game called BYTEPATH and the developer put up an entire tutorial on how they made the game including hacking into what little required code there was (the main event loop). https://github.com/a327ex/blog/issues/30 https://github.com/a327ex/blog/issues/30 https://love2d.org/ https://love2d.org/

grumple 6y ago

I’ve felt exhausted for the past month. I also started full-time remote work in December. My previous routine of working out at the gym before work vanished. I don’t know how much of this is anxiety and how much is new bad habits (or lack of good habits). Some of it is stress (my new job is stressful). Some of it is the constant fireworks, instability, and the rise in violence in my area since the protests started. But I definitely relate to feeling tired now.

duxup 6y ago

If you're working from home AND trying to watch / educate your kids you might be like me and trying to fit work in wherever you can, and that can impact sleep.

schwartzworld 6y ago
our 2 small kids have decided to spend the pandemic waking up at 5am or earlier. Neat, right?

paxys 6y ago

> About half of participants get out of bed 10 minutes before remote workday starts. Guilty IMO it comes down to good habits and (more importantly) kids. I have never been more relaxed in my life. I get 8+ hours of sleep every night, and sometimes nap during the day. Cutting down on long commutes has made such a positive difference to my life that I'm never doing it again, pandemic or not. Everyone I know with young children is on the opposite end of the spectrum though, now that childcare/daycare/babysitting/family assistance options aren't available anymore.

Spartan-S63 6y ago
I've been getting worse at this. The thing is, it leaves me feeling more anxious if I roll out of bed and go straight to work. I like having a slower morning where I can sip coffee, read, or work on a side project before starting work. Between working from home full time, having the pandemic fatigue, and the days being longer, I go to bed later, sleep in later, and wake up closer to when my workday should start. It's a solvable problem, I just need to find the discipline to reset my schedule, again.

verdverm 6y ago

Could be excess CO2, it's summer, AC is on, lockdown had more people at home breathing more air. I've found opening a few windows for an hour to recirculate the air solves this issue. Hour long walks daily helps too

dplgk 6y ago

The older you get, the more tired you are. Last I checked, everyone is getting older.