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Ask HN: Do you sleep better by the ocean?

36 points by freshthought 5y ago

I always sleep better by the ocean. My RHR drops 5-10 beats, and I wake up feeling much more relaxed. Am I alone? What causes this effect? Is it negative ions? Clean air? Ocean sound? I’ve tried with the windows closed, and the effect holds. I’ve tried it on and off vacation, and the effect holds. So I’m really at a loss for what it could be.

mikewarot 5y ago
I've only been near the ocean when on vacation, so YES!
- blitzar 5y ago
  I wonder if there might be some causation to this correlation.
GaryTang 5y ago
Negative ions — There are various studies that show their impact on physiological and psychological health.
chestertn 5y ago
How do you measure your RHR while sleeping?
- 1123581321 5y ago
  One of the cheaper Apple Watches with the HeartWatch app provides good data.
- pedalpete 5y ago
  Oura and I believe Whoop provide this data.
forgotmypw17 5y ago
I sleep better outside in the open air, or at least with windows open and lots of outdoor air circulating.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throwaway888abc 5y ago
Same here. Over time I would attribute it more to nature. If off the grid = sleep like a baby. Ocean is also very calming. BTW. I was trying to "replicate it" in city with various dolby atmos etc. gimmicks and headphones/etc. and without any similar results. Mother nature
silisili 5y ago
I believe it's the noise of it. A rainy(but not stormy) night has the same effect on me, also.
alx__ 5y ago
I'm sure there probably research on it. But my guess is that we're in a womb of water for 9 months so subconsciously are soothed by it. Personal anecdotal evidence is any time I've slept where i could hear ocean/rain/rivers I've had great sleep. Would 100% move to Hawaii in the future
- brezelgoring 5y ago
  >Would 100% move to Hawaii in the future I wish you best of luck in chasing your dream but I feel compelled to tell you that the word is that in non-tourist areas there is some pretty heavy racism going on against non-islanders. It is based on them (you) driving up property prices and basic goods availability. Maybe you already knew but still.
  - deathanatos 5y ago
    > It is based on them (you) driving up property prices and basic goods availability. Sounds like where I am now. Near as I can tell, nobody wants my generation to settle anywhere, because we "drive up" property prices. Like we want to pay $1M for a home, or had any hand in the local zoning idiocracy.
    - stavros 5y ago
      You don't want to, but you do. That's the problem.
      - deathanatos 5y ago
        At some point, there simply isn't going to be much choice; I have a job that now requires space for a home office, and at some point, a family will require space, and it can only be delayed so long. Rent goes up year after year without so much as skipping a beat for the pandemic, and so it might, in some ways, be nice to put that into equity — even equity that might crash — rather than just continuing to enrich my local landlords.
Rygian 5y ago
Humidity off the right kind.
stonecharioteer 5y ago
I used to take vacations to go home, where I'd sleep by a river throughout the day. I'd just take books, go read under a tree by the river and take a nap as well. I have to walk about 4 km to get to the river bank, so that might account for the fact that I sleep really well there. But I have never slept as well as I have under the tree by the river. If covid has taken anything from me, it is the opportunity to go do that. The river is by an archaeological site, so it is cordoned off most of the time. I want to return to see the tree, and the river, and to sleep by it. I don't know when I'll be able to do so.
- desertraven 5y ago
  I’m glad you’ve found a place special to you, and hope you can enjoy it again soon. What a pleasure.
sbacic 5y ago
I've never slept anywhere as well as on a boat. Even if the boat is moving, the waves are smashing against the structure and it feels like you're in a washing machine it's still the most restful sleep I've had.
- machinelearning 5y ago
  The periodicity of the boat on waves is calming in a similar way to rocking on a cradle. Something about the consistency of the motion offers security. I’d guess it serves as an additional equilibrioceptive cue to the sleeping brain that’s sensitive to changes in the environment (e.g. an intruder).
aaron695 5y ago
The contribution of sea salt to PM10 and PM2.5 in the Netherlands - https://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/The-contribution-of-sea-salt-to-PM10-and-PM2.5-in-the-Netherlands https://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/The-contribution-of-sea-s... There's been a few studies that show as PM2.5 goes up people sleep less, I assume because they sleep better so need less sleep.
fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
Does a speaker with a noise machine produce the same effect? Some kind of candle or other device producing an ocean scent?
withinboredom 5y ago
If I had to guess, it’s about security. Sleeping on a boat, no one is getting on there without you knowing. Animals generally stay away from the undrinkable ocean and you can basically run into the ocean to escape from a predator. Most things don’t hunt in the rain. All these things aren’t permanent security, but they are a temporary reprieve from the day-to-day dangers for our ancestors. Maybe.
pvaldes 5y ago
Boats are surprisingly comfortable to sleep. The problem is when you wake up.
roudaki 5y ago
Best time of my life was living next to the coast. I would leave train one station early and just walk 30 minutes. My social anxiety gets triggered if there is any friction in my surroundings. I know I could take a buss to the beach or go to the park but having any kind of negative experience pushes me back to my gaming station. Living in small town in Alps also had similar effect as the beach. Lots of woods where you only meet other people who want quiet walk so nothing but short hello and good day. My five years living in city center seem the same even though I move 3 times because I never left the room. Esp after 20h. My job is stressful and I just dont have patience and energy to deal with other people problems constantly.
cafard 5y ago
Actually, I sleep pretty soundly in general. I prefer vacations to cities or mountains, so I haven't spent that much time near the ocean.
codingdave 5y ago
Where do you normally live? I'm totally speculating based on my years living at high altitude, but if you also mostly reside at a higher altitude, you are acclimated to less oxygen, which could decrease your rate when you change to a location with more. If that were the reason, you could expect to see your RHR go back up to "normal" after a few weeks at sea level. Or it could be something completely unrelated, I just didn't see this in your list of possible causes.
_9omd 5y ago
Honesty, it's probably everything you listed. Also, if you were on vacation, reduced stress, sun exposure, movement, etc. would contribute too. I looked into the negative ion thing a few years ago, and there does appear to be something to it. It seems it can have a positive impact on the lungs, which actually handle more than just breathing. Serotonin is inactivated in the lungs, so in theory negative ions could help reduce circulating serotonin, which could have a mood boosting effect. This is of course if you buy into the argument that serotonin is not so much the happy chemical but the chemical of stress [1]. https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/serotonin-depression-aggression.shtml https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/serotonin-depression-a...
machinelearning 5y ago
The probability of finding prey animals is low near a beach. This is bad if you’re a predator and need to find food. However it is also good if you want to sleep because the probability of being found by a predator is low. There are several other things that make a beach inconvenient for hunting, e.g. large open spaces which compromise stalking behaviors, sand/water slows you down, tall skinny palm trees equipped with coconuts that serve as projectiles which land predators can’t climb but primates can. I would imagine that there’s a similar explanation related to ease of hunting that could explain why rain sounds are calming.

ironmagma 5y ago
Isn’t the issue equally that people (presumably poor people, since it’s poor neighborhoods) are selling their houses to rich buyers? It’s entirely possible to only sell to a poor person for a lower price.
blitzar 5y ago
> That makes it sound like you're forced to spend 1M on a home No they are 'forced' to buy a home. The home that fulfills their needs is 1M. If they could find a home that fulfilled their needs for $5 and 10c they would spend $5.10 on their home. The 'poor' person who sold their house to them in the poor area for $1mil ('where back in my day a house cost nothing') now has $1mil. The 'rich' person has a mortgage.
- stavros 5y ago
  The poor person didn't have a house to sell. Poor people don't have assets. This discussion feels like talking to people from another reality. I live in a country where $900/mo is considered a good salary. New 120 m^2 flats in my city now cost $600k because people from abroad have come in, bought stuff and raised prices. What are regular people here, who have no "houses to sell", supposed to do? Move away from the place they've lived for decades because people from rich countries are "forced" to buy a home? Has nobody heard of gentrification?
  - blitzar 5y ago
    > Poor people don't have assets. But they could afford before the gentrificaion. They were not buying assets when they could afford them, they certainly are not buying assets now that they can not afford them. As you have written them off as "poor" for all eternity then they will never be able to afford them. Therefore the purchase price of the property in question is entirely irrelevant to your poor person, those flats could be $6, $600k, or $6mil they are not buying them.
  - spurgu 5y ago
    Yeah, the same thing has happened in Malta.
mvc 5y ago
There really isn't a choice. Nobody pays more than they have to, to secure a house purchase. If the price paid is 1M, that's because that's the price the seller wanted. They'd have demanded that price whoever bought it. And if the price is 1M in whatever town we're gentrifying, then a similar house in SF would be considerably more (and thus not affordable). I get the frustration with gentrification. But what's the alternative? Everyone must live and die in the town/city in which they were born? What's more, if nobody is coming to your town to live/work, it just slowly declines as the population ages out of work. Visit some of the old mining towns in the UK to see what that's like. At least if you have a steady stream of incoming "rich people", then the entrepreneurial folk in the town have a chance at extracting some of that wealth.
jelliclesfarm 5y ago
It could also mean that there is an erosion of poverty and more people want to buy property. Only the poverty is visible. The reality is that a larger percentage of the worlds population is more prosperous and richer and consuming/desiring luxury more than any other time of our planet’s existence.

saghm 5y ago

The problem is people having the audacity to want to choose where they live and buy a house there? It was reasonable to do that if you were born more than 35 years ago, but if not, you're just out of luck?

stavros 5y ago
No, that's perfectly sensible. Unless you were born in a poor area, I guess, in which case fuck you, you don't get to choose where to live OR buy a house there because all the rich people from out of town are driving you out of your own city. But that's fine, poor people shouldn't be alive anyway.
- jklein11 5y ago
  > But that's fine, poor people shouldn't be alive anyway. I am glad that you are finally speaking sensibly. /s
- blitzar 5y ago
  I was born and raised in a rich area. It is unfair that I can not get a 12 bedroom detached house on the upper west side of New York, where I was born and raised for $50,000. I demand someone gives it to me.
  - roudaki 5y ago
    People always push the argument into extreme but for practical example you have housing around industrial zones going 250% up and being turned into gated communities and factories cant move because of nearby high way and harbor. So it is not socialism but common sense to call for residency zoning area reserved for workers. In tourist zones this is normal: from Alps to Mediterranean. But if you mention big cities suddenly nobody ever heard of workers working there only landlords and retail shops. And I am not talking across the street where you work I am talking 1h commute area around industrial zone rejecting cheap apartments and building gated communities where one foreign firm can buy all 128 houses at once. If we can talk against concert ticket/ps5/3070ti scalping and overcharging we can talk about housing without being mocked at and called greedy lazy socialist. I just dont wanna live in a shoe box or be 3h in traffic every day.
    - blitzar 5y ago
      I do not believe my desire, having been born in a $5million house, and wanting to also live in an equivalent house is at all extreme. It is no differnt to being born in the bronx and wanting to live in the bronx or the projects and feeling entitled to also be given project housing. > If we can talk against concert ticket/ps5/3070ti scalping and overcharging I was able to buy a ps4 on release for $399.99. How is it fair that they want $499 for a ps5. Is this really equivalent?
  - deathanatos 5y ago
    My childhood home, for example, was $60k when my parents bought it. It's over $600k now, appreciating at over 7% per year, well in excess of inflation. There is a difference between my lament for a $1M on the outskirts of a city that has maybe 3 bed being cheaper, and wishing for a 12 bed for $50k in literal Manhattan.