5 ms·

In the middle of my life I am grateful that I've finally worked out a decent sleep system. It took a lot more than people realize but diet, exercise, regular sc

In the middle of my life I am grateful that I've finally worked out a decent sleep system. It took a lot more than people realize but diet, exercise, regular schedule, stress management, and bedroom environment all played sometimes surprisingly important factors. Worst part is it's going to be different for everyone, but IMO totally worth the potential years to figure it out. Only advice I can offer is to use the scientific method, keep everything as static as possible and change one thing at a time but to get a real impression of that one thing changing it might take a couple weeks.

caskstrength 5y ago
Can you give more details? In such discussions there are always a lot of people who struggle with this but very few who actually succeeded in fixing their sleep.
- Maxburn 5y ago
  I think personally diet and exercise made the biggest impact. A diet that works for your body not your ideology, lots of real experimentation needed here and stop ignoring how you feel. For me getting off of carbs and doing light keto seems to be what my body wants. Mix in some light exercise. Nothing crazy here, with all the health tracking available these days just aim for the minimums shown there. Doesn't have to be every day, just shoot for the majority of the week. You might be shocked at how improving these two makes a difference. Do not take these to extremes, just aim for a better baseline than what you are doing now. Also I'm speaking as an american here, and I was especially bad in these two areas. YMMV.
  - caskstrength 5y ago
    Thanks for sharing. Never thought that carbs could significantly impact sleep quality.
    - clydethefrog 5y ago
      For me it mostly helps avoiding any food, and specifically carbs, a few hours before going to sleep. I guess otherwise the body wants to stay more awake to digest the food.
      - Maxburn 5y ago
        Very true, once I got adapted to carb free I generally don't eat dinner now. A small snack if I want but nothing heavy really helps sleep quite a bit.
      - caskstrength 5y ago
        I stopped having late dinners and didn't notice much change. Eating fruits (e.g. carbs) sometimes 1-2 hours before sleep also doesn't seem to impact my sleep, so I guess YMMV.
- manmal 5y ago
  For me, Melatonin (just 300mcg, a very small dose) and cutting out caffeine and chocolate are sometimes required. Two less obvious things that work for me: - Massage the back of my neck rigorously before sleep. Probably this improves blood flow to the brain. - Unlock the window handle slightly, to get a constant flow of air towards the head. Probably I need more oxygen (or lower CO2) than usual because this doesn’t work for my wife.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Maxburn 5y ago
    Good call on the chocolate, caffeine is pretty obvious but a lot would take forever to figure out chocolate. I have tinnitus so a fan is an absolute must for background noise but I also find the air movement pleasant.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  In my case, I needed to eliminate a medical problem first. My sleep problems resolved when I was diagnosed with celiac disease and I stopped eating gluten. Now any sleep problems I have are entirely because I stay up too damn late sometimes. That's effectively an "emotion management" problem, which for me is alleviated by getting regular exercise, eating well, meditation, etc.
- scruple 5y ago
  I'm one such person. I've had multiple sleep studies performed over my adult life and none of them found anything substantial / actionable, yet I would wake every morning feeling like I hadn't slept at all, like I hadn't recovered. Blackout curtains and a comfortable sleep mask. A comfortable pillow. Cleaning up my diet. My phone goes on "wellbeing mode" at 9pm every night. I get into bed consistently between 9 and 10pm and I read for 60-90 minutes every night before falling asleep. I follow a consistent, no excuses, strength and conditioning training program. Happy to expand on any of this. I would add that I am in my early 40s and that we have 3 children in the house that are under 3 years old. There are complications here, but, despite that, all of the above remains in place, and I actually feel rested today and like I am recovering when I sleep.
  - bradhoffman 5y ago
    What was your experimentation process like? I am in bed for 9-10 hours a night but only 3-5% of my sleep is deep. It’s awfully frustrating because of mood swings and inability to focus. I’ve been trying for a couple years now, but can’t nail anything down.
    - scruple 5y ago
      It was a slow, frustrating process. I'd reckon that, for me, 80% of it is nutrition and exercise and the other 20% is sleep hygiene (and I would include some specific supplementation in the hygiene category). I believe that consistency with the major contributing factors is where I found long-term success. The minor factors are there to aid the major ones. I used to wear sleep trackers to bed and I also had (have?) very poor deep sleep. I've left the sleep trackers out of the equation for a couple of years now, so I can't really comment on where I am today, other than to say that I wake up feeling refreshed. A little groggy, for sure, but I don't feel extreme fatigue like I used to. I don't like making drive-by, blanket recommendations about this stuff when it starts to wade into medical advice / specific nutrition or supplementation, but... My last sleep study (way back in early 2016) pointed me in the direction of blood work. There was a thought that I may have thyroid dysfunction (I don't, or at least I didn't). I understand that it's fairly common and is a source for sleep troubles for many. I'd also encourage you to look into ZMA or zinc supplementation if you're an active person. I don't have any specific sources that I can point you to, unfortunately. There's a little controversy here, too, to be aware of, because there is a lot of marketing hype around ZMA, about it being a "testosterone booster" (a zinc deficiency will lower your testosterone, hence supplementing it "boosts" your testosterone) and also in terms of the recommended dosages (zinc has an antagonistic relationship with copper, iron, and magnesium -- you can easily overdo it and create other mineral deficiencies). Having said that, and again just speaking for myself, I think that ZMA or zinc alone, after everything else was in place, is the thing that pushed my sleep quality over the edge from "meets goals" to "exceeds expectations". I really, really want to make it abundantly clear that I don't think taking ZMA or zinc before bedtime will work for people that don't have these other major factors in place and/or don't have a (training-induced) deficiency to begin with. In terms of my experimentation process... I didn't keep a notebook but I can sort of walk you down the path that I took. I started with exercise but for years I was only doing cardio. I was a competitive distance runner from 12 to 18 and then maintained the habit until I was 25. Then I abruptly stopped running. I picked it back up at 32. Distance running specifically because I really knew nothing else. In my late 30s, I picked up strength training. Today, I maintain a clear balance between strength and conditioning. Endurance work is only used to develop or maintain specific physiological adaptations. Also around that 32 mark, I realized that frequent alcohol consumption wasn't doing me any favors. Of course I already knew this but I wasn't serious about it before this point. Today, I try to strictly limit alcohol intake to Friday / Saturday evenings with limits of no more than 3 drinks per night and no alcohol after ~8:30-9pm. I'd wager that I average 2-4 drinks per week today and I find that this doesn't appreciably impact my sleep. I also noticed a big difference when I started to tap the brakes on my caffeine intake. Dr. Walker's book on sleep, which also comes with it's own controversy, highlighted something very important to me: The quarter-life on caffeine is ~12 hours. That realization was enough to get me to take rate limiting caffeine seriously. By the time we had our twins, I was 38. I had dialed in my nutrition and exercise to a healthy place at this point. But my sleep quality was still lacking. I knew that I needed to really focus on it if I was going to survive the first few years of multiple young children. That's when I started to look into hygiene factors. I run hot. Higher body temperatures can disrupt sleep. I stopped eating after 8pm. We bought "cooling" sheets. I started to sleep with a lightweight comforter. I started wearing cotton boxers and socks to bed. We invested in a fairly expensive mattress. I started to actually feel comfortable in our bed. I also invested in a pillow that didn't leave me waking up with a tight, sore neck. The sheets, comforter, and pillow went through a trial and error process. One of our twins is highly susceptible to sleep disruptions from light. Once we figured that out, we outfitted our bedroom (they were still sleeping in their cribs in our room at that time) with blackout curtains. That made an immediately noticeable difference. Waking up that following morning, my wife and I both looked at each other and wondered why we'd waited so long. Now every bedroom in our home has blackout shades or curtains. It's an agonizingly slow process. And I think it's also very subjective, especially the nutrition and exercise pieces. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Dr. Andrew Huberman but he has his own podcast, as well as multiple podcast appearances, where he gets into improving sleep / sleep quality. I'd recommend checking those out. Should be easy enough to find on YouTube.
bradlys 5y ago
When you get down to that many details - it’s no longer sleep management but life management. You’ve had to completely rework your entire life in order to somehow get this one aspect of your life to be better. Which is good for you but doesn’t seem completely reasonable for everyone. I wish people realized that level of change is just beyond reasonable for most folks out there. There are too many things that are outside of control for folks. A lot of them due to financial troubles and there’s nothing they can realistically do in the next few years about it. Maybe they get themselves a better paying job and so forth but that might take a decade until it’s sufficient. Even then - they suffer more for the whole decade of their life.
- Maxburn 5y ago
  If you are only looking for a quick fix to sleep you are correct. I would argue that decent sleep was almost incidental to all the other positive changes taking care of yourself will make in a persons life. It's a holistic everything is connected philosophy.
- Maxburn 5y ago
  Edit; maybe a quick hack would be Steve Gibson's "healthy seep formula". I use it sometimes during the week when I know stress is a factor and I have trouble shutting down. https://www.grc.com/health/sleep/healthy_sleep_formula.htm https://www.grc.com/health/sleep/healthy_sleep_formula.htm

caskstrength 5y ago

Can you give more details? In such discussions there are always a lot of people who struggle with this but very few who actually succeeded in fixing their sleep.

Maxburn 5y ago
I think personally diet and exercise made the biggest impact. A diet that works for your body not your ideology, lots of real experimentation needed here and stop ignoring how you feel. For me getting off of carbs and doing light keto seems to be what my body wants. Mix in some light exercise. Nothing crazy here, with all the health tracking available these days just aim for the minimums shown there. Doesn't have to be every day, just shoot for the majority of the week. You might be shocked at how improving these two makes a difference. Do not take these to extremes, just aim for a better baseline than what you are doing now. Also I'm speaking as an american here, and I was especially bad in these two areas. YMMV.
- caskstrength 5y ago
  Thanks for sharing. Never thought that carbs could significantly impact sleep quality.
  - clydethefrog 5y ago
    For me it mostly helps avoiding any food, and specifically carbs, a few hours before going to sleep. I guess otherwise the body wants to stay more awake to digest the food.
    - Maxburn 5y ago
      Very true, once I got adapted to carb free I generally don't eat dinner now. A small snack if I want but nothing heavy really helps sleep quite a bit.
    - caskstrength 5y ago
      I stopped having late dinners and didn't notice much change. Eating fruits (e.g. carbs) sometimes 1-2 hours before sleep also doesn't seem to impact my sleep, so I guess YMMV.
manmal 5y ago
For me, Melatonin (just 300mcg, a very small dose) and cutting out caffeine and chocolate are sometimes required. Two less obvious things that work for me: - Massage the back of my neck rigorously before sleep. Probably this improves blood flow to the brain. - Unlock the window handle slightly, to get a constant flow of air towards the head. Probably I need more oxygen (or lower CO2) than usual because this doesn’t work for my wife.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Maxburn 5y ago
  Good call on the chocolate, caffeine is pretty obvious but a lot would take forever to figure out chocolate. I have tinnitus so a fan is an absolute must for background noise but I also find the air movement pleasant.
nerdponx 5y ago
In my case, I needed to eliminate a medical problem first. My sleep problems resolved when I was diagnosed with celiac disease and I stopped eating gluten. Now any sleep problems I have are entirely because I stay up too damn late sometimes. That's effectively an "emotion management" problem, which for me is alleviated by getting regular exercise, eating well, meditation, etc.
scruple 5y ago
I'm one such person. I've had multiple sleep studies performed over my adult life and none of them found anything substantial / actionable, yet I would wake every morning feeling like I hadn't slept at all, like I hadn't recovered. Blackout curtains and a comfortable sleep mask. A comfortable pillow. Cleaning up my diet. My phone goes on "wellbeing mode" at 9pm every night. I get into bed consistently between 9 and 10pm and I read for 60-90 minutes every night before falling asleep. I follow a consistent, no excuses, strength and conditioning training program. Happy to expand on any of this. I would add that I am in my early 40s and that we have 3 children in the house that are under 3 years old. There are complications here, but, despite that, all of the above remains in place, and I actually feel rested today and like I am recovering when I sleep.
- bradhoffman 5y ago
  What was your experimentation process like? I am in bed for 9-10 hours a night but only 3-5% of my sleep is deep. It’s awfully frustrating because of mood swings and inability to focus. I’ve been trying for a couple years now, but can’t nail anything down.
  - scruple 5y ago
    It was a slow, frustrating process. I'd reckon that, for me, 80% of it is nutrition and exercise and the other 20% is sleep hygiene (and I would include some specific supplementation in the hygiene category). I believe that consistency with the major contributing factors is where I found long-term success. The minor factors are there to aid the major ones. I used to wear sleep trackers to bed and I also had (have?) very poor deep sleep. I've left the sleep trackers out of the equation for a couple of years now, so I can't really comment on where I am today, other than to say that I wake up feeling refreshed. A little groggy, for sure, but I don't feel extreme fatigue like I used to. I don't like making drive-by, blanket recommendations about this stuff when it starts to wade into medical advice / specific nutrition or supplementation, but... My last sleep study (way back in early 2016) pointed me in the direction of blood work. There was a thought that I may have thyroid dysfunction (I don't, or at least I didn't). I understand that it's fairly common and is a source for sleep troubles for many. I'd also encourage you to look into ZMA or zinc supplementation if you're an active person. I don't have any specific sources that I can point you to, unfortunately. There's a little controversy here, too, to be aware of, because there is a lot of marketing hype around ZMA, about it being a "testosterone booster" (a zinc deficiency will lower your testosterone, hence supplementing it "boosts" your testosterone) and also in terms of the recommended dosages (zinc has an antagonistic relationship with copper, iron, and magnesium -- you can easily overdo it and create other mineral deficiencies). Having said that, and again just speaking for myself, I think that ZMA or zinc alone, after everything else was in place, is the thing that pushed my sleep quality over the edge from "meets goals" to "exceeds expectations". I really, really want to make it abundantly clear that I don't think taking ZMA or zinc before bedtime will work for people that don't have these other major factors in place and/or don't have a (training-induced) deficiency to begin with. In terms of my experimentation process... I didn't keep a notebook but I can sort of walk you down the path that I took. I started with exercise but for years I was only doing cardio. I was a competitive distance runner from 12 to 18 and then maintained the habit until I was 25. Then I abruptly stopped running. I picked it back up at 32. Distance running specifically because I really knew nothing else. In my late 30s, I picked up strength training. Today, I maintain a clear balance between strength and conditioning. Endurance work is only used to develop or maintain specific physiological adaptations. Also around that 32 mark, I realized that frequent alcohol consumption wasn't doing me any favors. Of course I already knew this but I wasn't serious about it before this point. Today, I try to strictly limit alcohol intake to Friday / Saturday evenings with limits of no more than 3 drinks per night and no alcohol after ~8:30-9pm. I'd wager that I average 2-4 drinks per week today and I find that this doesn't appreciably impact my sleep. I also noticed a big difference when I started to tap the brakes on my caffeine intake. Dr. Walker's book on sleep, which also comes with it's own controversy, highlighted something very important to me: The quarter-life on caffeine is ~12 hours. That realization was enough to get me to take rate limiting caffeine seriously. By the time we had our twins, I was 38. I had dialed in my nutrition and exercise to a healthy place at this point. But my sleep quality was still lacking. I knew that I needed to really focus on it if I was going to survive the first few years of multiple young children. That's when I started to look into hygiene factors. I run hot. Higher body temperatures can disrupt sleep. I stopped eating after 8pm. We bought "cooling" sheets. I started to sleep with a lightweight comforter. I started wearing cotton boxers and socks to bed. We invested in a fairly expensive mattress. I started to actually feel comfortable in our bed. I also invested in a pillow that didn't leave me waking up with a tight, sore neck. The sheets, comforter, and pillow went through a trial and error process. One of our twins is highly susceptible to sleep disruptions from light. Once we figured that out, we outfitted our bedroom (they were still sleeping in their cribs in our room at that time) with blackout curtains. That made an immediately noticeable difference. Waking up that following morning, my wife and I both looked at each other and wondered why we'd waited so long. Now every bedroom in our home has blackout shades or curtains. It's an agonizingly slow process. And I think it's also very subjective, especially the nutrition and exercise pieces. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Dr. Andrew Huberman but he has his own podcast, as well as multiple podcast appearances, where he gets into improving sleep / sleep quality. I'd recommend checking those out. Should be easy enough to find on YouTube.

bradlys 5y ago

When you get down to that many details - it’s no longer sleep management but life management. You’ve had to completely rework your entire life in order to somehow get this one aspect of your life to be better. Which is good for you but doesn’t seem completely reasonable for everyone. I wish people realized that level of change is just beyond reasonable for most folks out there. There are too many things that are outside of control for folks. A lot of them due to financial troubles and there’s nothing they can realistically do in the next few years about it. Maybe they get themselves a better paying job and so forth but that might take a decade until it’s sufficient. Even then - they suffer more for the whole decade of their life.

Maxburn 5y ago
If you are only looking for a quick fix to sleep you are correct. I would argue that decent sleep was almost incidental to all the other positive changes taking care of yourself will make in a persons life. It's a holistic everything is connected philosophy.
Maxburn 5y ago
Edit; maybe a quick hack would be Steve Gibson's "healthy seep formula". I use it sometimes during the week when I know stress is a factor and I have trouble shutting down. https://www.grc.com/health/sleep/healthy_sleep_formula.htm https://www.grc.com/health/sleep/healthy_sleep_formula.htm