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I feel that most people would benefit from knowing more about how to get a good night's sleep, but have a hard time figuring out what to do exactly. So this th

I feel that most people would benefit from knowing more about how to get a good night's sleep, but have a hard time figuring out what to do exactly. So this thread helps but also something like this article about sleep hacking is very helpful: https://medium.com/better-humans/what-i-learned-from-six-months-of-obsessive-sleep-hacking-2128b76f042a https://medium.com/better-humans/what-i-learned-from-six-mon... I recently experimented with bed linen made by bamboo, but did not experience any big effect. Bamboo is supposed to regulate the temperature at night, but didn't seem able to on warm summer nights.

pizza234 6y ago
> I feel that most people would benefit from knowing more about how to get a good night's sleep, but have a hard time figuring out what to do exactly. I personally don't agree. For pretty much all the people I know who won't sleep enough (that is, most of the people I known), it falls into the more general problem of health hygiene denial: - knowing that one should sleep more, but for <any reason> one doesn't, - having anxiety problems (eg. waking up early and not falling back asleep due to "mind rush"). While the second is certainly a serious problem that needs a medical (in a broad sense) approach, I'm very skeptical about dealing effectively with the first. The negative effects of eating junk and smoking are extremely well known, and still, there's a large amount of people who do it. Sleep deprivation on the other hand has obvious negative effects, buy they're not documented/perceived, in common culture, as being catastrophic (eg. you risk to die); it has also the perception of being a time waste, which conflicts with the busy requirements of a modern life. Call me pessimistic, but I can hardly see a way to realistically (I stress "reastically") improve the situation on large scale (like smoke campaigns decrease smokers).
- vladvasiliu 6y ago
  You may be on to something with the smoke campaigns. Maybe there could be some campaigning directly for sleep quality. For example, I sometimes smoke "socially", sometimes up to half a pack during a night out. I never perceived it as "catastrophic", just as you say people don't perceive not sleeping enough as catastrophic. I would bet a lot of people don't feel like dying after smoking a cigarette or ten. The point is that maybe those campaigns do work, even when the issue isn't perceived as "critical" by the people. It could be launched as an education campaign, for the long haul. Another thing which helped me a lot with sleep quality is exercise. And this is something for which there already are campaigns, at least in France, and from what I see it becomes more and more common to see people advocating for it. However, I don't see those campaigns talk about the effect of exercise on sleep. When I started lifting some weights (nothing much, just a bunch of dumbbell exercises in my apartment) and going for short, light runs (around 30 minutes around my neighborhood) I noticed my sleep quality had improved enormously. A few weeks in, I actually started to sleep less than before. Went from around 7-8 hours and having a hard time waking up to around 6 hours and waking up refreshed and without an alarm. So what I found out was that exercise actually turned out to be "free" from a time standpoint. But the overall levels of energy during the day went through the roof. Of course, the first two to three weeks were hard, especially waking up in the morning, but it was worth it.
  - john4534243 6y ago
    Don't underestimate smoking, especially it must be avoided at all costs as a programmer. The minute you stumble on a problem which happens all day in the life of a programmer, the brain cues to smoke which actually causes digestive problem leading to constipation and sleep deprivation. Occasional smoking is a joke. Take a look at other profession and you can see smokers have an amazing career such as movies. I have not found a single programmer who has rose to the top of the field while still being a smoker.

pizza234 6y ago

> I feel that most people would benefit from knowing more about how to get a good night's sleep, but have a hard time figuring out what to do exactly. I personally don't agree. For pretty much all the people I know who won't sleep enough (that is, most of the people I known), it falls into the more general problem of health hygiene denial: - knowing that one should sleep more, but for <any reason> one doesn't, - having anxiety problems (eg. waking up early and not falling back asleep due to "mind rush"). While the second is certainly a serious problem that needs a medical (in a broad sense) approach, I'm very skeptical about dealing effectively with the first. The negative effects of eating junk and smoking are extremely well known, and still, there's a large amount of people who do it. Sleep deprivation on the other hand has obvious negative effects, buy they're not documented/perceived, in common culture, as being catastrophic (eg. you risk to die); it has also the perception of being a time waste, which conflicts with the busy requirements of a modern life. Call me pessimistic, but I can hardly see a way to realistically (I stress "reastically") improve the situation on large scale (like smoke campaigns decrease smokers).

vladvasiliu 6y ago
You may be on to something with the smoke campaigns. Maybe there could be some campaigning directly for sleep quality. For example, I sometimes smoke "socially", sometimes up to half a pack during a night out. I never perceived it as "catastrophic", just as you say people don't perceive not sleeping enough as catastrophic. I would bet a lot of people don't feel like dying after smoking a cigarette or ten. The point is that maybe those campaigns do work, even when the issue isn't perceived as "critical" by the people. It could be launched as an education campaign, for the long haul. Another thing which helped me a lot with sleep quality is exercise. And this is something for which there already are campaigns, at least in France, and from what I see it becomes more and more common to see people advocating for it. However, I don't see those campaigns talk about the effect of exercise on sleep. When I started lifting some weights (nothing much, just a bunch of dumbbell exercises in my apartment) and going for short, light runs (around 30 minutes around my neighborhood) I noticed my sleep quality had improved enormously. A few weeks in, I actually started to sleep less than before. Went from around 7-8 hours and having a hard time waking up to around 6 hours and waking up refreshed and without an alarm. So what I found out was that exercise actually turned out to be "free" from a time standpoint. But the overall levels of energy during the day went through the roof. Of course, the first two to three weeks were hard, especially waking up in the morning, but it was worth it.
- john4534243 6y ago
  Don't underestimate smoking, especially it must be avoided at all costs as a programmer. The minute you stumble on a problem which happens all day in the life of a programmer, the brain cues to smoke which actually causes digestive problem leading to constipation and sleep deprivation. Occasional smoking is a joke. Take a look at other profession and you can see smokers have an amazing career such as movies. I have not found a single programmer who has rose to the top of the field while still being a smoker.