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Get better sleep – Anecdata and sleep tech

170 points by abalaji 5y ago

brunoqc 5y ago
I heard that the Google Nest Hub (2nd gen) is pretty good for sleep tracking, but there's also a rumor that they will charge like $10 a month for the "fitness tracking" in about a year.
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qwertygerty 5y ago
Like most of you, I myself have been investigating how to sleep better for quite a number of years. The problem with most of what I read here is that you're (which is what I did too) using anecdotal reports to experiment on yourself to come up with something that you feel works for you. I eventually stumbled on a podcast by Andrew Huberman (Neuroscientist/ophthalmology at Stanford) where he shares details of their research. Just a couple of items from my notes (and there are much more) - The quality of light during sunrise, as perceived through your eyes, sets off a "count down timer" of sorts in your brain - The quality of light during sunset, reduces the sensitivity to light you encounter after sunset - Your eye's structure is such that light coming from above enters the eye different from light coming from below. - - Which is why in the morning you want to go outside to allow the sun light from above to enter, and, - - in the evening to switch off the ceiling lights and instead use lamps that are set low. - The old story about "don't use screens and bright lights in the evening" is true to some extent, but there is more to this - - Candle light ; I've decided to go to the extreme, and switch to candle light at 9pm, set at desk or floor height - - - I use this time to perform activities that dont require a lot of light (tidying, dishes, clothes, etc) - circadian rhythms are key - - when you eat and exercise is a way to set your clock ... It just goes on and on with details that I would've taken a lifetime to find. I'd suggest you start at ep1 as it sets you up with some understanding of how your brain works, ep2 & 3 is all about sleep ep 4 - goes into finding your temp minimum, jetlag, sleeplessness I'm sure beyond ep4 [4] the topic of sleep will come up again, as it is the #1 thing that determines the quality of everything else in your life. [1] Podcast https://hubermanlab.com/category/podcast-episodes/ [2] Notes https://podcastnotes.org/category/huberman-lab/ [3] Transcripts https://github.com/lord-denning/Huberman-Lab-Podcast-Transcripts [4] Search 'sleep' https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=sleep+site%3Ahubermanlab.com%2F
LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Lying on the side, cat purring and curring snuggled against your chest, throat and chin, paws clamped crosswise over the hand holding her chest and throat with three fingers, thumb and little finger around/under her 'armpits'. Autonomously releasing 'clutch' if she moves/turns/leaves. Autonomously re-enagagiging 'clutch/coupling' if another one takes over, or comes back. Nothing is more relaxing for me.
LeonB 5y ago
I like this. You give actionable advice, it’s not terribly expensive, even if doesn’t work it’s not harmful, and you’re modest enough that right off the bat you disclaim it as anecdotal. Thank you!
- abalaji 5y ago
  Thanks for the kind words! Hope it helps at least some people some well deserved rest.
throwoutway 5y ago
Married with kids, I don’t even know where to start with sleep tracking. I had an app that measured movement and noise, but it could be my spouse. I think a watch would work, but I don’t want to wear a watch to sleep
- greesil 5y ago
  If you could quantify how many times a night your bed sharer woke you up, what is actionable about that data that is not already obvious? :)
- rs11 5y ago
  I use a sleep tracker ring like the oura
- serp002 5y ago
  I used to use an Oura ring but the accuracy is actually not so great (Potentially going to get better with new algorithm coming out) and switched to a fitbit charge 5. App is pretty slick and really easy to see your sleep data, also quite a small wearable. There's a youtuber who compares all wearables for accuracy with actual sleep measuring equipment and Fitbit charge 5 is (surprisngly) the most accurate. Here's a link to his graph of all devices charted on accuracy: https://youtu.be/6oNGpQZakxU?t=237 https://youtu.be/6oNGpQZakxU?t=237
  - gumby 5y ago
    Unfortunately it’s not a link to a graph but to some video. If you have a link to the graph could you post it.
  - gnz11 5y ago
    Anecdote (and obligatory YMMV): I purchased the Charge 4 when it first came out and after extensive usage, I tossed it in the trash. The final straw for me was when I was having a physical done and compared the HRM data of the watch to what the readings the nurse was getting with her device. The data reported by the Fitbit was wildly inaccurate compared to the readings that the nurse was seeing. I also compared my data to my wife's Apple Watch and noticed large disparities in GPS data when we would go on runs/walks together. In the end, I came to the conclusion that a) if basic heart rate/GPS data is inaccurate, what else is? and b) what's the point of collecting all this data anyway? At the end of the day, it wasn't providing me with anything that fundamentally improved my life and if anything led to more anxiety due to constantly tracking and obsessing over all of this data. tl;dr - My Charge's data was questionable at times and completely inaccurate compared to a medical grade device. In the end, all the data tracking just gave me anxiety.
tatrajim 5y ago
Using a sleep tracker for the past year, one discovery has been that on days I practice reduced caloric intake (usually twice a week), my deep sleep increases and my average heart rate drops. Perhaps dedicated fasters have assembled even more such data? I keep expecting the connection between calorie restriction and better sleep to be explored in research, but have not seen any to date.
- abalaji 5y ago
  I've seen a similar trend in my experience as well. I'd love to see some peer reviewed research on the link between intermittent fasting and deeper sleep.
- ajolly 5y ago
  I've seen a similar trend by not eating later in the day
altcognito 5y ago
This advice is spot on from what I've experienced as well. Those weighted blankets are pretty awesome. Now if I could just get to sleep at a more consistent time...
dnndev 5y ago
Thanks for the tips! Add to your mix air quality. I found when the air has more oxygen - less build up of co2 we sleep better. We have an awair air quality sensor.
tayo42 5y ago
Interesting, I don't like my morning routine but I'm not certain about what to do about it though. I usually get water, bathroom and scroll through apps or jump on my work laptop until I figure out something to do that day. I'm not sure how to effectively use the morning, but I feel like filling it with scrolling isn't ideal
- zrobotics 5y ago
  This sounds trite, but just sitting staring at nothing while waking up helps. I made it a point that my first cup of coffee is not spent in front of a screen or anything stimulating. I just try to blank out as much as possible, looking out the window or stepping outside helps. I find starting my day in the calmest manner possible helps me have better days, and picking up my phone first thing is guaranteed to make me miserable through the day. I don't follow any sort of meditation practice, but having 10-15 minutes of just staring out at the sky helps tremendously. Honestly, staring at a wall would be about as helpful, it's mostly just about having the first bit of your day being calm and unstressful. If I pick up my phone, first thing I see is email and slack notifications about what emergencies are happening, and that's not what I want to deal with when I've been awake for 5 minutes. Those things can wait, spending enough time to get slightly bored in the morning seems to be a better use of that time. I moved my alarm up 1/2 hour, and I feel less tired simply for being less rushed in the morning. Having to rush out the door and do things just makes me crabby all day. So simple suggestion, just try to allot a few minutes of calm at the start of the day. I'm not a parent, but the parents I've suggested this too seemed to appreciate it even more, since early morning was their only truly calm time.
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    Blue sky light first thing in the morning stimulate melatonin production on a time delay at the right time in the evening, which may be related to why staring at the sky when you wake up helps!
elbigbad 5y ago
I’ve been using the WHOOP tracker for the last few months. Initially did some work to determine what my baseline was, but every morning you answer a journal (it’s most differentiating feature, imo) where you add things like alcohol, caffeine, melatonin, etc consumption and other things like airline travel, sleeping in same bed, etc. After seeing what is correlated and not, I have had an extreme increase in sleep quality. Notably, melatonin doesn’t do much for me (I thought it did), working out less than 45 mins doesn’t have much correlation, lots of alcohol is inversely correlated with sleep (a surprise for me, always felt like it put me to sleep faster, which it seems to but st lower efficiency and quality). Plane travel kills my sleep, as does not sleeping in my own bed (hotels). Overall, and anecdotally, highly recommend the approach of tracking things. Also highly recommend a WHOOP[1] activity monitor device, which is free itself (but data subscription). One particularly interesting thing is it doesn’t take into account weather, though it seems like that could be low correlation since I sleep in climate controlled environment. Interestingly, more anecdata, a friend found out they had Covid before they were able to test positive based on whoop data changing. I realize I may sound like an advertisement, but I have zero affiliation, just very satisfied. [1] https://www.whoop.com/ https://www.whoop.com/
- valzam 5y ago
  What did you end up changing to improve your sleep quality? Based on what you wrote only cutting down on alcohol seemed like something you can change?
- hackernewds 5y ago
  double endorse for WHOOP. Their HRV monitoring got me to quit alcohol entirely - haven't had a sip in the last 3 years since
coding123 5y ago
Want sleep advice? Build physical things and do manual labor. I hauled 10 tons of gravel today and my wife and I chopped up a 15 ft diameter bush and put it in our trailer to be taken to the green waste tomorrow. Tomorrow digging holes for a small shed foundation. Of course that you may not have the same problem we do but we have a 14 pound maine coon that walks all over us when we sleep at random hours of the night. That part doesn't help.
westoncb 5y ago
I feel like any kind of sleep tracking app could only make things worse for my own situation (which I'm guessing is not particularly uncommon), the root of which seems to be around making too much of a big deal about sleep, getting increasingly anxious as I fail to fall asleep, not being able to help but monitor whether I am falling asleep or not etc. When I sleep best are the nights I forget to be concerned about it. Typically once something important comes up (job interview, date, etc.) I remember what a problem inability to sleep has been for me in the past, how it could ruin it all—then it might be another month or two where I'm unable to "forget," lay awake for hours concerned about being unable to sleep. My intuition around tracking is that anything big enough to make a real impact you'd already be aware of. The further micro-optimizing feels good mostly 'cause you've opted into thinking in a framework of sleep optimization so it's goal accomplishment in that context, but probably not a big improvement strictly on a physiological basis. (Or maybe I'm completely wrong and just grumpy I can't find a good solution to my sleep issues :)
- Swizec 5y ago
  The only thing that’s ever worked for me is being tired enough. Physically. We’re built to move and are surprised that sitting in a chair all day leaves us feeling restless and on edge. Kinda silly when you think about it. When I get enough exercise, sleep is easy. You close your eyes, are bored for 5 minutes, and then you’re asleep. Without daily exercise? Forget about it. Tossing and turning, tapping my feet all night, can’t get settled, every little thing an annoyance.
  - westoncb 5y ago
    I've experimented with this a fair bit, but my experience so far is: when I ramp up activity I see improvement in sleep, but once it becomes normal it doesn't help much. I also occasionally run into really annoying situations where I'll do some pretty heavy lifting during the day, then go to sleep knowing how important it will be for me to get rest that night—which creates the kind of self-awareness trap described above and I lay there for hours super tired but also kind of wired, tossing and turning. Most of my experience with this has been relatively high intensity over ~1.5hrs though, not full days of physical activity (like I had with jobs in the past, landscaping or stocking groceries etc.)—but I don't have that much time to dedicate to it with the desk work I'm doing now.
UltraViolence 5y ago
atum47 5y ago
Lowering the temperature of the bedroom also helps a lot. I've been sleeping at 18º C, but some doctors say that about 20º C is a good temperature (I prefer a little colder).
drpancake 5y ago
Don't do this! Sleep tracking/optimisation and generally obsessing over sleep can trigger insomnia for a lot of people. I've had chronic insomnia for two years and I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy. If your sleep is good enough, leave it alone.
- beebmam 5y ago
  Agree; DO NOT make any changes to your sleep outside of medical advice. See a sleep doctor if you don't feel well rested when you wake up.
  - Amasuriel 5y ago
    Unfortunately like many areas of medicine (at least in Canada), sleep specialists will do a sleep study, and unless your sleep is sues fall cleanly inside a condition they can treat (cpap for apnea for example) you are on your own except for some one sized fits all advice about sleep hygiene. If you don’t have restful sleep and don’t have apnea, and you have already tried the basics like melatonin, not using electronics before bed etc, you have few choice but to accept it or try to find your own answers.
- abel_ 5y ago
  Interesting! I hadn't heard this perspective before. Sounds like Goodharting [0] applies to sleep too [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
- Noma 5y ago
  It's ok to try to improve your sleep. But I agree that obsessing over optimizing your sleep can cause issues. I used to get sleep anxiety and would have trouble sleeping. Even sleeping pills didn't work. Luckily I made the realization pretty quickly. I still track but I don't obsess about getting X hours of sleep and such. If I lose some sleep, I know I can just make up for it. Being able to work at home does make this a lot easier, to be fair.
  - loudtieblahblah 5y ago
Havoc 5y ago
How feasible is it to DIY a monitoring system? I’ve got cameras, motion sensors temp sensor co2 sensor and an array microphone so tempted to try No good way of measuring REM though
samtho 5y ago
With regard to sleep tracking apps, I have Idiopathic Hypersomnia, a rare sleep disorder that causes excessive daytime sleepiness, sleeping for long hours, sleep “drunkenness”, central sleep apnea, and resulting short term memory problems. I’ve used literally every sleep app I could get my hands on and they are all terrible. I’ve used the Fitbit and Apple Watch heart monitors, the cpap machine’s app (Philips), and medical grade, at home ones. Most of the apps that supposedly track sleep cycles do so in very lackadaisical fashion. They measure small variations in heart rate to determine the sleep stage you’re on, but I’m the ultimate edge case and they all ways fall short. Even medical grade sleep monitors stuff ends up not working right because half the time it thinks I’ve gone into cardiac arrest because my heart rate falls so low (The random 3 hour block of time in the night being reported as “deceased” was a little jarring). Sleep comes (perhaps too) easy to me, but my partner is not so lucky. She used to obsess over the sleep tracking stuff until the Apple Watch where it just measures time asleep, a way more measurable and meaningful metric. I mean, what are you going to do with the knowledge of being in deep sleep from 1:28am until 2:09am? Nothing. You cannot control it or will it to be better, practicing good sleep hygiene by going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time is way more important than knowing the stage of sleep you’re in at any given part of the night. The most rested I feel is when I have a consistent sleep routine, and contemporary medical advice supports this. Ditch the sleep apps that track your sleep, it’s just another thing to worry a about.
- methyl 5y ago
  > You cannot control it or will it to be better You certainly can. For example, drinking a single beer before going to sleep correlates not with shorter sleep, but much less deep sleep in my case. Just measuring the time asleep would tell me drinking doesn’t affect my sleep at all, which is not true.
  - Majestic121 5y ago
    Another anecdotal data on the effect of alcohol : I use a Garmin watch constantly, and it measure what they call Body Battery,(https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=VOFJAsiXut9K19k1qEn5W5 https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=VOFJAsiXut9K19k1qEn5W5) which is a proxy for overall energy level, based on Heart Rate Variability and stress levels. It's not the most scientific and precise measurement, but from my experience is seems to correlate pretty well with actual 'feeling energized and well' or 'feeling tired and out of energy'. One of the most interesting information I got from it was how drinking alcohol affects my sleep : on a typical day, I go from 100 to 25, and then a night of sleep gets me back to 100. If I drink even moderately, a night of sleep gets me back to 50 max, and sometimes can even pin down my body battery levels for a few days if it's a long drinking night.
pedalpete 5y ago
Sleep is about more than just measuring the time you were asleep. The amount of time spent in N3/4 (Deep Sleep) and REM sleep is very important. The author is using sleep cycle on his phone, which is not a good method of tracking sleep cycles. He says "their ability to wake me in “non-deep” sleep pretty spot on" - you're not in deep sleep in the morning anyway, or very unlikely. So any "app" has a good chance of waking you from REM or N1/2. We've been building a headband which monitors your sleep state, and uses sound to improve your sleep performance. Literally, improving the neurological function of your brain while you sleep. I used one of our early prototypes to win the Sleep World Championships (https://soundmind.co/blog/neurohacking-the-world-sleep-championships https://soundmind.co/blog/neurohacking-the-world-sleep-champ...). We're currently working on improving the fit and comfort before finalizing industrial design. You can find out more, and join the waitlist at https://soundmind.co https://soundmind.co
- mild_blanket 5y ago
  Just signed up for your email list. Please make sure the headband can stay on your head through the night. I have a chinstrap headband that I ordered on Amazon that falls off every single night, making it unusable.
  - pedalpete 5y ago
    Can you link to the "chinstrap headband" that comes off? We have to make it appealing enough that people want to wear it, comfortable enough that you can sleep with it, and with enough stability to maintain a consistent EEG contact. What did you buy it for? What is it's purpose? If you're having trouble with a headband that is strapped to your head over your chin, I'm slightly terrified about what you are doing in bed. But if you can show me what doesn't work, it might help. We're testing in real-world situations, with multiple users, so we should have something that works for most people.
    - nnt38 5y ago
      chinstrap headbands are used to keep your mouth closed to force breathing through the nose while sleeping
poisonborz 5y ago
I track sleep simply to note the amount, not quality. I tried a number of sleep trackers - Android apps, smartwatches - all of the "automated" solutions felt having spotty precision. Not talking about minutes, but hours, when I was staring at my phone or been awake without moving. The only precise auto trackers seem to be bulky headbands. The most comfortable method I found is simply manual button pushing. I track my phone usage, and log time between screen-on time (+-10m to account for time to actually fall asleep). When I can't sleep for longer times, or get up for toilet, I quickly press the power button (phone lights up for a few sec accounting to screen time). I know this probably just _feels_ more precise and needs to have a phone around (generally not that good for sleep), but it still seems to be closer to what I experienced. It baffles me that all the gyro/heartrate based smartwatch platforms don't account for screen time this way.
- oarsinsync 5y ago
  AutoSleep (Apple watch + iPhone app) does account for phone screen time in their calculations of awake vs asleep. It does still suffer from confusing idleness with sleep at times though.
gpas 5y ago
I've never tried the apps that claim to track your sleep, so I will not comment on those. But recently I was about to buy a consumer fitness band until I read a couple of technical reviews that show how they are all essentially worthless except for the Apple watch. Here is reviewed an iOS app but since the Apple watch is not mentioned, I don't know how precise his measurings are. IMHO the phone alone is not enough to track your sleep cycles meaningfully. Anecdotally I've noticed that when I smoke weed I don't remember what I dreamt, every single time. I suspect it alters my sleep cycle in some way.
- danuker 5y ago
  Post links to the technical reviews, or I will continue to believe you are an Apple sales rep.
  - MezzoDelCammin 5y ago
    It seems that when it comes to sleep tracking, Apple HW is pretty decent, but by no means the best tracker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mHPt14meJo&t=393s&ab_channel=TheQuantifiedScientist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mHPt14meJo&t=393s&ab_channe...
  - gpas 5y ago
    Search 'the quantified scientist' on YouTube. He seems a reasonable guy and has uploaded in-depth reviews of most popular fitness bands (Xiaomi, honor, Huawei, etc). I'm not affiliated with him, nor with apple.
skj092 5y ago
Some people have other bigger issue in life to deal with then fixing sleep cycle. They work very hard for the entire life and never have problem with sleep.
Zenst 5y ago
Having sleep issues, I set up a Zoom H4N pro inside a 1meter cardboard box to track low frequency (sub base) noise disturbances and was blown away. Tracked many culprits down and still working on a few (need new windows and pushing landlord upon that). But instances of say another flat up in the wee hours banging about, you get a loud thud, you awake and none the wise and with my setup, was not only able to identify that but have evidence to prove that. Even had instance of waking up chocking, which was again due to a short loud thud noise disturbance by another flat. Equally, noticed changes in flight paths by local airport are seeing some flights use the flight corridor (flying over the country so not originating or departing) at night that also cause resonance in the building. For my part, I've got insulation, added sound dampening to curtail resonance and some frequencies and sound proofing to best I can. Though low frequency noise is hard to cut out beyond source due to the wavelength and a 100mhz low frequency noise you feel( well I do) and that's a 4 meter long soundwave. So hard to block fully, hence rubber dampening strips to curtail harmonic resonance with the building and in this case, my bedroom which is 4 meters in length. Sleep is totally very important for physical and mental health and as somebody who is autistic spectrum, it is key to have a routine with sleep playing a huge factor in this. But I highly recommend recording you night and playing it back and analyzing it with something that you can do spectrum analysis. As seeing a noise trigger you into breathing difficulties, or heart palpitations, or snoring is not good for ones health and being able to identify the issues and address them goes a huge way. Not all issues you can address thru the process's at hand afforded you, but many can and proof is a great asset in progressing that. Not sure if phone best tool to do that as not had great luck myself with those for tracking noise issues, unless blatantly continuous and loud due to microphone's and noise cancelation in such devices as well as varying quality of devices. Equally recording low frequency sounds is not the easiest and in my case, a field recorder inside a box has done the trick nicely, though it is an area of experimentation/learning for myself and still something that may be a better solution. But for me as I had a field recorder, a large cardboard box was a nice cheap modification that did the trick good enough.
- ianai 5y ago
  There’s sound dampening as a route. Have you tried ear plugs? It won’t block all frequencies, but might be a low investment, high return area. Or adding background noise? I’ve used brown noise before and it seemed to help. No idea how to help with the low frequencies though. At least, not that wouldn’t make your apartment/flat a problem to those around it. Sleep is a fundamental need for everyone. For me, it’s migraines that I could say I need to focus on sleep to ameliorate. For you, it’s “the spectrum”. It’s really just being a living being that makes sleep fundamental.
NKosmatos 5y ago
No mention about noise from neighbors or surrounding noisy environment. If you remove all these noisy distractions you can get better sleep.
duk 5y ago
Get a sleep test. It turned out that I had severe sleep apnea and using cPap has been god send. I rarely dreamed before cPap, but now I dream almost everyday and dreams are vivid too.
- dsr_ 5y ago
  If you're doubtful about getting a sleep test, set up a camera to record your sleep. Events that should trigger you getting a sleep study: long pauses between breaths. Snoring. Gasping. Touching your face with your hands while asleep.
konietzschewa 5y ago
I used to sleep really bad, in part this was because I thought I was sleeping really bad. In a way I convinced myself that I (always) had awful sleep and it became a self fulfilling prophecy. Waking up in the middle of the night would cause severe stress about bad sleep which would then lead to bad sleep. What helped me snap out of it was having a sleep dairy. Everyday for a month or so I would write down the qualitative experience of my sleep and soon realized that sometimes I might not sleep that good but most of the times I did. So now when I wake up in the middle of the night I just enjoy lying in bed awake resting knowing that it is not all bad. Also, taking 100mg of 5HTP before going to bed transforms my (now) good sleep into pretty damn good sleep.
hasmanean 5y ago
They mentioned how the sound of rain and white noise improves sleep quality, but throughout history humans lived and slept in tribes. In the spring there would have been sounds of waking babies, and in the warm summer night the sound of making babies. I wonder if silence produces anxiety and poor sleep…a spring without babies should be a trigger for the tribe to take some sort of action.
- merpnderp 5y ago
  I mean don't we all have enough data on this? When I lived in apartments, the neighbor's babies crying through the walls definitely kept me up. People making babies make it hard to sleep. Barking dogs definitely make it hard to sleep. People talking loud next door make it hard to sleep. Just last night the high winds kept waking me up. No one makes or would want a device that mimics the noises we're trying to drown out to sleep.
  - hasmanean 5y ago
    Yes, but in a primitive setting all those babies would be your relatives, all those people making love would be your friends and family and all the people in your world. You’d perceive it differently.
gilbetron 5y ago
I've posted this before, but a key feature that can help with falling back to sleep and/or insomnia is recognizing that we fall asleep when we warm up, not (necessarily) when we are warm. So if you aren't falling asleep, take off the blankets, make sure the room is as cold as possible/practical and then let yourself get really cold. Like shivering cold. When you can't stand it anymore, then cover yourself up lightly. You'll have a much better chance of falling asleep. This approach has helped several people I know, although not everyone that I've told, as we are all different and insomnia comes from many sources. Also, try a sleep study! Sleep apnea is not just something that affects people that are overweight - I had it for nearly all my life, turns out, as do my siblings. It isn't a magic cure but my sleeping is probably 3x better with a cpap.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  yes - What happens is that most people fall asleep during the steepest drop toward circadian temperature minimum. Our core temp drops toward sleep onset, and with it cortisol, and melatonin spikes as well. Warming your skin helps promote bloodflow and expels heat, thereby lowering your core temperature (more efficiently if ambient air is cool enough). We tend to lose most heat in our extremities, like the head, hands and feet. This is why pre-warming feet can reduce onset latency. If you've shifted your circadian rhythm, your core temperature falls later. What may happen then is you'll get hotter in bed as you're expelling more heat in it, and if the material is not particularly breathable it won't be as easy for you to cool down. Anyway, avoiding a shift and keeping a robust circadian rhythm really helps with onset and overall sleep quality. To this end, a consistent waking time, limited total time in bed, and sufficient exposure to sunlight after waking helps.
mettamage 5y ago
Here's my anecdata on getting better sleep. I've struggled with sleep a lot, I still do but not as much to the extent of previous years. I used to be at "Welcome to Hell, prepare to suffer, you'd wish you'd not be awake." (if one would follow this to its logical conclusion, one could see why this is problematic) And it is now at: "If you'd have slept 9 hours instead of 8, you'd probably feel at peak mental condition mate, try to sleep 9 hours, you can feel you could use the extra hour in this particular case :)" I suffer from two things: being able to fall asleep and waking up after 4 hours. Here's what I currently do/use/what works: 1. Airpods Max for suppressing noise in my room [1]. Plane flying by? I didn't hear it. The soft white noise is also nice. Playing music at night can sometimes regulate my mood. I don't sleep with it every night, only when I notice things in my room are too loud. 2. 0.3mg melatonin (taken 1 hour before sleep). 3. 10mg CBD (taken 1 hour before sleep). 4. A girlfriend to hug with during the night. 5. Meditation: in most cases this doesn't work at all, but around 10 to 20% of the time it knocks me out cold and then it's all I need. 6. Blue light blocking glasses (Flux for real life :) ). 7. A cold-ish room. 8. A heavy weighted blanket. This is especially helpful when I really feel like turning all the time, the heavy weight tires me out physically. 9. A sleeping mask. These 9 things completely solve for being able to fall asleep. I don't have issues with it. They partially solve for being able to stay asleep. I sometimes still wake up. However, I have a higher likelihood to fall back asleep because the CBD + melatonin make me feel a bit woozy. Moreover, my girlfriend (if she's around), meditation, my heavy weighted blanket and chill music with Spotify + Airpods Max can all play their part. [1] I have tinnitus so I need something over my ear as earplugs will amplify my tinnitus. Because of this, I need the best noise cancellation for headphones, and in my testing the Airpods Max won hands down. Moreover, it was the only white noise I could tolerate. I've tested Sony and Bose as well. Their white noise sound is too loud for me to be able to comfortably fall asleep. The white noise of the Airpods Max lowers my tinnitus a bit, but in return I hear white noise, which to me feels like a different tinnitus, albeit a bit nicer. I do suffer a bit in comfort and need to fix that with extra pillows which makes my position in bed a bit weird. If anyone has alternatives for this tip / setup (e.g. something else than the Airpods Max?), I'm curious :)
rednerrus 5y ago
I like the CBT-I course at slumbercamp.co for insomnia stuff. It's step by step and scientifically backed.

170 points by abalaji 5y ago

I heard that the Google Nest Hub (2nd gen) is pretty good for sleep tracking, but there's also a rumor that they will charge like $10 a month for the "fitness tracking" in about a year.

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qwertygerty 5y ago

Like most of you, I myself have been investigating how to sleep better for quite a number of years. The problem with most of what I read here is that you're (which is what I did too) using anecdotal reports to experiment on yourself to come up with something that you feel works for you. I eventually stumbled on a podcast by Andrew Huberman (Neuroscientist/ophthalmology at Stanford) where he shares details of their research. Just a couple of items from my notes (and there are much more) - The quality of light during sunrise, as perceived through your eyes, sets off a "count down timer" of sorts in your brain - The quality of light during sunset, reduces the sensitivity to light you encounter after sunset - Your eye's structure is such that light coming from above enters the eye different from light coming from below. - - Which is why in the morning you want to go outside to allow the sun light from above to enter, and, - - in the evening to switch off the ceiling lights and instead use lamps that are set low. - The old story about "don't use screens and bright lights in the evening" is true to some extent, but there is more to this - - Candle light ; I've decided to go to the extreme, and switch to candle light at 9pm, set at desk or floor height - - - I use this time to perform activities that dont require a lot of light (tidying, dishes, clothes, etc) - circadian rhythms are key - - when you eat and exercise is a way to set your clock ... It just goes on and on with details that I would've taken a lifetime to find. I'd suggest you start at ep1 as it sets you up with some understanding of how your brain works, ep2 & 3 is all about sleep ep 4 - goes into finding your temp minimum, jetlag, sleeplessness I'm sure beyond ep4 [4] the topic of sleep will come up again, as it is the #1 thing that determines the quality of everything else in your life. [1] Podcast https://hubermanlab.com/category/podcast-episodes/ [2] Notes https://podcastnotes.org/category/huberman-lab/ [3] Transcripts https://github.com/lord-denning/Huberman-Lab-Podcast-Transcripts [4] Search 'sleep' https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=sleep+site%3Ahubermanlab.com%2F

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago

Lying on the side, cat purring and curring snuggled against your chest, throat and chin, paws clamped crosswise over the hand holding her chest and throat with three fingers, thumb and little finger around/under her 'armpits'. Autonomously releasing 'clutch' if she moves/turns/leaves. Autonomously re-enagagiging 'clutch/coupling' if another one takes over, or comes back. Nothing is more relaxing for me.

LeonB 5y ago

I like this. You give actionable advice, it’s not terribly expensive, even if doesn’t work it’s not harmful, and you’re modest enough that right off the bat you disclaim it as anecdotal. Thank you!

abalaji 5y ago
Thanks for the kind words! Hope it helps at least some people some well deserved rest.

throwoutway 5y ago

Married with kids, I don’t even know where to start with sleep tracking. I had an app that measured movement and noise, but it could be my spouse. I think a watch would work, but I don’t want to wear a watch to sleep

greesil 5y ago
If you could quantify how many times a night your bed sharer woke you up, what is actionable about that data that is not already obvious? :)
rs11 5y ago
I use a sleep tracker ring like the oura
serp002 5y ago
I used to use an Oura ring but the accuracy is actually not so great (Potentially going to get better with new algorithm coming out) and switched to a fitbit charge 5. App is pretty slick and really easy to see your sleep data, also quite a small wearable. There's a youtuber who compares all wearables for accuracy with actual sleep measuring equipment and Fitbit charge 5 is (surprisngly) the most accurate. Here's a link to his graph of all devices charted on accuracy: https://youtu.be/6oNGpQZakxU?t=237 https://youtu.be/6oNGpQZakxU?t=237
- gumby 5y ago
  Unfortunately it’s not a link to a graph but to some video. If you have a link to the graph could you post it.
- gnz11 5y ago
  Anecdote (and obligatory YMMV): I purchased the Charge 4 when it first came out and after extensive usage, I tossed it in the trash. The final straw for me was when I was having a physical done and compared the HRM data of the watch to what the readings the nurse was getting with her device. The data reported by the Fitbit was wildly inaccurate compared to the readings that the nurse was seeing. I also compared my data to my wife's Apple Watch and noticed large disparities in GPS data when we would go on runs/walks together. In the end, I came to the conclusion that a) if basic heart rate/GPS data is inaccurate, what else is? and b) what's the point of collecting all this data anyway? At the end of the day, it wasn't providing me with anything that fundamentally improved my life and if anything led to more anxiety due to constantly tracking and obsessing over all of this data. tl;dr - My Charge's data was questionable at times and completely inaccurate compared to a medical grade device. In the end, all the data tracking just gave me anxiety.

tatrajim 5y ago

Using a sleep tracker for the past year, one discovery has been that on days I practice reduced caloric intake (usually twice a week), my deep sleep increases and my average heart rate drops. Perhaps dedicated fasters have assembled even more such data? I keep expecting the connection between calorie restriction and better sleep to be explored in research, but have not seen any to date.

abalaji 5y ago
I've seen a similar trend in my experience as well. I'd love to see some peer reviewed research on the link between intermittent fasting and deeper sleep.
ajolly 5y ago
I've seen a similar trend by not eating later in the day

altcognito 5y ago

This advice is spot on from what I've experienced as well. Those weighted blankets are pretty awesome. Now if I could just get to sleep at a more consistent time...

dnndev 5y ago

Thanks for the tips! Add to your mix air quality. I found when the air has more oxygen - less build up of co2 we sleep better. We have an awair air quality sensor.

tayo42 5y ago

Interesting, I don't like my morning routine but I'm not certain about what to do about it though. I usually get water, bathroom and scroll through apps or jump on my work laptop until I figure out something to do that day. I'm not sure how to effectively use the morning, but I feel like filling it with scrolling isn't ideal

zrobotics 5y ago
This sounds trite, but just sitting staring at nothing while waking up helps. I made it a point that my first cup of coffee is not spent in front of a screen or anything stimulating. I just try to blank out as much as possible, looking out the window or stepping outside helps. I find starting my day in the calmest manner possible helps me have better days, and picking up my phone first thing is guaranteed to make me miserable through the day. I don't follow any sort of meditation practice, but having 10-15 minutes of just staring out at the sky helps tremendously. Honestly, staring at a wall would be about as helpful, it's mostly just about having the first bit of your day being calm and unstressful. If I pick up my phone, first thing I see is email and slack notifications about what emergencies are happening, and that's not what I want to deal with when I've been awake for 5 minutes. Those things can wait, spending enough time to get slightly bored in the morning seems to be a better use of that time. I moved my alarm up 1/2 hour, and I feel less tired simply for being less rushed in the morning. Having to rush out the door and do things just makes me crabby all day. So simple suggestion, just try to allot a few minutes of calm at the start of the day. I'm not a parent, but the parents I've suggested this too seemed to appreciate it even more, since early morning was their only truly calm time.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  Blue sky light first thing in the morning stimulate melatonin production on a time delay at the right time in the evening, which may be related to why staring at the sky when you wake up helps!

elbigbad 5y ago

I’ve been using the WHOOP tracker for the last few months. Initially did some work to determine what my baseline was, but every morning you answer a journal (it’s most differentiating feature, imo) where you add things like alcohol, caffeine, melatonin, etc consumption and other things like airline travel, sleeping in same bed, etc. After seeing what is correlated and not, I have had an extreme increase in sleep quality. Notably, melatonin doesn’t do much for me (I thought it did), working out less than 45 mins doesn’t have much correlation, lots of alcohol is inversely correlated with sleep (a surprise for me, always felt like it put me to sleep faster, which it seems to but st lower efficiency and quality). Plane travel kills my sleep, as does not sleeping in my own bed (hotels). Overall, and anecdotally, highly recommend the approach of tracking things. Also highly recommend a WHOOP[1] activity monitor device, which is free itself (but data subscription). One particularly interesting thing is it doesn’t take into account weather, though it seems like that could be low correlation since I sleep in climate controlled environment. Interestingly, more anecdata, a friend found out they had Covid before they were able to test positive based on whoop data changing. I realize I may sound like an advertisement, but I have zero affiliation, just very satisfied. [1] https://www.whoop.com/ https://www.whoop.com/

valzam 5y ago
What did you end up changing to improve your sleep quality? Based on what you wrote only cutting down on alcohol seemed like something you can change?
hackernewds 5y ago
double endorse for WHOOP. Their HRV monitoring got me to quit alcohol entirely - haven't had a sip in the last 3 years since

coding123 5y ago

Want sleep advice? Build physical things and do manual labor. I hauled 10 tons of gravel today and my wife and I chopped up a 15 ft diameter bush and put it in our trailer to be taken to the green waste tomorrow. Tomorrow digging holes for a small shed foundation. Of course that you may not have the same problem we do but we have a 14 pound maine coon that walks all over us when we sleep at random hours of the night. That part doesn't help.

westoncb 5y ago

I feel like any kind of sleep tracking app could only make things worse for my own situation (which I'm guessing is not particularly uncommon), the root of which seems to be around making too much of a big deal about sleep, getting increasingly anxious as I fail to fall asleep, not being able to help but monitor whether I am falling asleep or not etc. When I sleep best are the nights I forget to be concerned about it. Typically once something important comes up (job interview, date, etc.) I remember what a problem inability to sleep has been for me in the past, how it could ruin it all—then it might be another month or two where I'm unable to "forget," lay awake for hours concerned about being unable to sleep. My intuition around tracking is that anything big enough to make a real impact you'd already be aware of. The further micro-optimizing feels good mostly 'cause you've opted into thinking in a framework of sleep optimization so it's goal accomplishment in that context, but probably not a big improvement strictly on a physiological basis. (Or maybe I'm completely wrong and just grumpy I can't find a good solution to my sleep issues :)

Swizec 5y ago
The only thing that’s ever worked for me is being tired enough. Physically. We’re built to move and are surprised that sitting in a chair all day leaves us feeling restless and on edge. Kinda silly when you think about it. When I get enough exercise, sleep is easy. You close your eyes, are bored for 5 minutes, and then you’re asleep. Without daily exercise? Forget about it. Tossing and turning, tapping my feet all night, can’t get settled, every little thing an annoyance.
- westoncb 5y ago
  I've experimented with this a fair bit, but my experience so far is: when I ramp up activity I see improvement in sleep, but once it becomes normal it doesn't help much. I also occasionally run into really annoying situations where I'll do some pretty heavy lifting during the day, then go to sleep knowing how important it will be for me to get rest that night—which creates the kind of self-awareness trap described above and I lay there for hours super tired but also kind of wired, tossing and turning. Most of my experience with this has been relatively high intensity over ~1.5hrs though, not full days of physical activity (like I had with jobs in the past, landscaping or stocking groceries etc.)—but I don't have that much time to dedicate to it with the desk work I'm doing now.

UltraViolence 5y ago

atum47 5y ago

Lowering the temperature of the bedroom also helps a lot. I've been sleeping at 18º C, but some doctors say that about 20º C is a good temperature (I prefer a little colder).

drpancake 5y ago

Don't do this! Sleep tracking/optimisation and generally obsessing over sleep can trigger insomnia for a lot of people. I've had chronic insomnia for two years and I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy. If your sleep is good enough, leave it alone.

beebmam 5y ago
Agree; DO NOT make any changes to your sleep outside of medical advice. See a sleep doctor if you don't feel well rested when you wake up.
- Amasuriel 5y ago
  Unfortunately like many areas of medicine (at least in Canada), sleep specialists will do a sleep study, and unless your sleep is sues fall cleanly inside a condition they can treat (cpap for apnea for example) you are on your own except for some one sized fits all advice about sleep hygiene. If you don’t have restful sleep and don’t have apnea, and you have already tried the basics like melatonin, not using electronics before bed etc, you have few choice but to accept it or try to find your own answers.
abel_ 5y ago
Interesting! I hadn't heard this perspective before. Sounds like Goodharting [0] applies to sleep too [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
Noma 5y ago
It's ok to try to improve your sleep. But I agree that obsessing over optimizing your sleep can cause issues. I used to get sleep anxiety and would have trouble sleeping. Even sleeping pills didn't work. Luckily I made the realization pretty quickly. I still track but I don't obsess about getting X hours of sleep and such. If I lose some sleep, I know I can just make up for it. Being able to work at home does make this a lot easier, to be fair.
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago

Havoc 5y ago

How feasible is it to DIY a monitoring system? I’ve got cameras, motion sensors temp sensor co2 sensor and an array microphone so tempted to try No good way of measuring REM though

samtho 5y ago

With regard to sleep tracking apps, I have Idiopathic Hypersomnia, a rare sleep disorder that causes excessive daytime sleepiness, sleeping for long hours, sleep “drunkenness”, central sleep apnea, and resulting short term memory problems. I’ve used literally every sleep app I could get my hands on and they are all terrible. I’ve used the Fitbit and Apple Watch heart monitors, the cpap machine’s app (Philips), and medical grade, at home ones. Most of the apps that supposedly track sleep cycles do so in very lackadaisical fashion. They measure small variations in heart rate to determine the sleep stage you’re on, but I’m the ultimate edge case and they all ways fall short. Even medical grade sleep monitors stuff ends up not working right because half the time it thinks I’ve gone into cardiac arrest because my heart rate falls so low (The random 3 hour block of time in the night being reported as “deceased” was a little jarring). Sleep comes (perhaps too) easy to me, but my partner is not so lucky. She used to obsess over the sleep tracking stuff until the Apple Watch where it just measures time asleep, a way more measurable and meaningful metric. I mean, what are you going to do with the knowledge of being in deep sleep from 1:28am until 2:09am? Nothing. You cannot control it or will it to be better, practicing good sleep hygiene by going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time is way more important than knowing the stage of sleep you’re in at any given part of the night. The most rested I feel is when I have a consistent sleep routine, and contemporary medical advice supports this. Ditch the sleep apps that track your sleep, it’s just another thing to worry a about.

methyl 5y ago
> You cannot control it or will it to be better You certainly can. For example, drinking a single beer before going to sleep correlates not with shorter sleep, but much less deep sleep in my case. Just measuring the time asleep would tell me drinking doesn’t affect my sleep at all, which is not true.
- Majestic121 5y ago
  Another anecdotal data on the effect of alcohol : I use a Garmin watch constantly, and it measure what they call Body Battery,(https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=VOFJAsiXut9K19k1qEn5W5 https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=VOFJAsiXut9K19k1qEn5W5) which is a proxy for overall energy level, based on Heart Rate Variability and stress levels. It's not the most scientific and precise measurement, but from my experience is seems to correlate pretty well with actual 'feeling energized and well' or 'feeling tired and out of energy'. One of the most interesting information I got from it was how drinking alcohol affects my sleep : on a typical day, I go from 100 to 25, and then a night of sleep gets me back to 100. If I drink even moderately, a night of sleep gets me back to 50 max, and sometimes can even pin down my body battery levels for a few days if it's a long drinking night.

pedalpete 5y ago

Sleep is about more than just measuring the time you were asleep. The amount of time spent in N3/4 (Deep Sleep) and REM sleep is very important. The author is using sleep cycle on his phone, which is not a good method of tracking sleep cycles. He says "their ability to wake me in “non-deep” sleep pretty spot on" - you're not in deep sleep in the morning anyway, or very unlikely. So any "app" has a good chance of waking you from REM or N1/2. We've been building a headband which monitors your sleep state, and uses sound to improve your sleep performance. Literally, improving the neurological function of your brain while you sleep. I used one of our early prototypes to win the Sleep World Championships (https://soundmind.co/blog/neurohacking-the-world-sleep-championships https://soundmind.co/blog/neurohacking-the-world-sleep-champ...). We're currently working on improving the fit and comfort before finalizing industrial design. You can find out more, and join the waitlist at https://soundmind.co https://soundmind.co

mild_blanket 5y ago
Just signed up for your email list. Please make sure the headband can stay on your head through the night. I have a chinstrap headband that I ordered on Amazon that falls off every single night, making it unusable.
- pedalpete 5y ago
  Can you link to the "chinstrap headband" that comes off? We have to make it appealing enough that people want to wear it, comfortable enough that you can sleep with it, and with enough stability to maintain a consistent EEG contact. What did you buy it for? What is it's purpose? If you're having trouble with a headband that is strapped to your head over your chin, I'm slightly terrified about what you are doing in bed. But if you can show me what doesn't work, it might help. We're testing in real-world situations, with multiple users, so we should have something that works for most people.
  - nnt38 5y ago
    chinstrap headbands are used to keep your mouth closed to force breathing through the nose while sleeping

poisonborz 5y ago

I track sleep simply to note the amount, not quality. I tried a number of sleep trackers - Android apps, smartwatches - all of the "automated" solutions felt having spotty precision. Not talking about minutes, but hours, when I was staring at my phone or been awake without moving. The only precise auto trackers seem to be bulky headbands. The most comfortable method I found is simply manual button pushing. I track my phone usage, and log time between screen-on time (+-10m to account for time to actually fall asleep). When I can't sleep for longer times, or get up for toilet, I quickly press the power button (phone lights up for a few sec accounting to screen time). I know this probably just _feels_ more precise and needs to have a phone around (generally not that good for sleep), but it still seems to be closer to what I experienced. It baffles me that all the gyro/heartrate based smartwatch platforms don't account for screen time this way.

oarsinsync 5y ago
AutoSleep (Apple watch + iPhone app) does account for phone screen time in their calculations of awake vs asleep. It does still suffer from confusing idleness with sleep at times though.

gpas 5y ago

I've never tried the apps that claim to track your sleep, so I will not comment on those. But recently I was about to buy a consumer fitness band until I read a couple of technical reviews that show how they are all essentially worthless except for the Apple watch. Here is reviewed an iOS app but since the Apple watch is not mentioned, I don't know how precise his measurings are. IMHO the phone alone is not enough to track your sleep cycles meaningfully. Anecdotally I've noticed that when I smoke weed I don't remember what I dreamt, every single time. I suspect it alters my sleep cycle in some way.

danuker 5y ago
Post links to the technical reviews, or I will continue to believe you are an Apple sales rep.
- MezzoDelCammin 5y ago
  It seems that when it comes to sleep tracking, Apple HW is pretty decent, but by no means the best tracker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mHPt14meJo&t=393s&ab_channel=TheQuantifiedScientist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mHPt14meJo&t=393s&ab_channe...
- gpas 5y ago
  Search 'the quantified scientist' on YouTube. He seems a reasonable guy and has uploaded in-depth reviews of most popular fitness bands (Xiaomi, honor, Huawei, etc). I'm not affiliated with him, nor with apple.

skj092 5y ago

Some people have other bigger issue in life to deal with then fixing sleep cycle. They work very hard for the entire life and never have problem with sleep.

Zenst 5y ago

Having sleep issues, I set up a Zoom H4N pro inside a 1meter cardboard box to track low frequency (sub base) noise disturbances and was blown away. Tracked many culprits down and still working on a few (need new windows and pushing landlord upon that). But instances of say another flat up in the wee hours banging about, you get a loud thud, you awake and none the wise and with my setup, was not only able to identify that but have evidence to prove that. Even had instance of waking up chocking, which was again due to a short loud thud noise disturbance by another flat. Equally, noticed changes in flight paths by local airport are seeing some flights use the flight corridor (flying over the country so not originating or departing) at night that also cause resonance in the building. For my part, I've got insulation, added sound dampening to curtail resonance and some frequencies and sound proofing to best I can. Though low frequency noise is hard to cut out beyond source due to the wavelength and a 100mhz low frequency noise you feel( well I do) and that's a 4 meter long soundwave. So hard to block fully, hence rubber dampening strips to curtail harmonic resonance with the building and in this case, my bedroom which is 4 meters in length. Sleep is totally very important for physical and mental health and as somebody who is autistic spectrum, it is key to have a routine with sleep playing a huge factor in this. But I highly recommend recording you night and playing it back and analyzing it with something that you can do spectrum analysis. As seeing a noise trigger you into breathing difficulties, or heart palpitations, or snoring is not good for ones health and being able to identify the issues and address them goes a huge way. Not all issues you can address thru the process's at hand afforded you, but many can and proof is a great asset in progressing that. Not sure if phone best tool to do that as not had great luck myself with those for tracking noise issues, unless blatantly continuous and loud due to microphone's and noise cancelation in such devices as well as varying quality of devices. Equally recording low frequency sounds is not the easiest and in my case, a field recorder inside a box has done the trick nicely, though it is an area of experimentation/learning for myself and still something that may be a better solution. But for me as I had a field recorder, a large cardboard box was a nice cheap modification that did the trick good enough.

ianai 5y ago
There’s sound dampening as a route. Have you tried ear plugs? It won’t block all frequencies, but might be a low investment, high return area. Or adding background noise? I’ve used brown noise before and it seemed to help. No idea how to help with the low frequencies though. At least, not that wouldn’t make your apartment/flat a problem to those around it. Sleep is a fundamental need for everyone. For me, it’s migraines that I could say I need to focus on sleep to ameliorate. For you, it’s “the spectrum”. It’s really just being a living being that makes sleep fundamental.

NKosmatos 5y ago

No mention about noise from neighbors or surrounding noisy environment. If you remove all these noisy distractions you can get better sleep.

duk 5y ago

Get a sleep test. It turned out that I had severe sleep apnea and using cPap has been god send. I rarely dreamed before cPap, but now I dream almost everyday and dreams are vivid too.

dsr_ 5y ago
If you're doubtful about getting a sleep test, set up a camera to record your sleep. Events that should trigger you getting a sleep study: long pauses between breaths. Snoring. Gasping. Touching your face with your hands while asleep.

konietzschewa 5y ago

I used to sleep really bad, in part this was because I thought I was sleeping really bad. In a way I convinced myself that I (always) had awful sleep and it became a self fulfilling prophecy. Waking up in the middle of the night would cause severe stress about bad sleep which would then lead to bad sleep. What helped me snap out of it was having a sleep dairy. Everyday for a month or so I would write down the qualitative experience of my sleep and soon realized that sometimes I might not sleep that good but most of the times I did. So now when I wake up in the middle of the night I just enjoy lying in bed awake resting knowing that it is not all bad. Also, taking 100mg of 5HTP before going to bed transforms my (now) good sleep into pretty damn good sleep.

hasmanean 5y ago

They mentioned how the sound of rain and white noise improves sleep quality, but throughout history humans lived and slept in tribes. In the spring there would have been sounds of waking babies, and in the warm summer night the sound of making babies. I wonder if silence produces anxiety and poor sleep…a spring without babies should be a trigger for the tribe to take some sort of action.

merpnderp 5y ago
I mean don't we all have enough data on this? When I lived in apartments, the neighbor's babies crying through the walls definitely kept me up. People making babies make it hard to sleep. Barking dogs definitely make it hard to sleep. People talking loud next door make it hard to sleep. Just last night the high winds kept waking me up. No one makes or would want a device that mimics the noises we're trying to drown out to sleep.
- hasmanean 5y ago
  Yes, but in a primitive setting all those babies would be your relatives, all those people making love would be your friends and family and all the people in your world. You’d perceive it differently.

gilbetron 5y ago

I've posted this before, but a key feature that can help with falling back to sleep and/or insomnia is recognizing that we fall asleep when we warm up, not (necessarily) when we are warm. So if you aren't falling asleep, take off the blankets, make sure the room is as cold as possible/practical and then let yourself get really cold. Like shivering cold. When you can't stand it anymore, then cover yourself up lightly. You'll have a much better chance of falling asleep. This approach has helped several people I know, although not everyone that I've told, as we are all different and insomnia comes from many sources. Also, try a sleep study! Sleep apnea is not just something that affects people that are overweight - I had it for nearly all my life, turns out, as do my siblings. It isn't a magic cure but my sleeping is probably 3x better with a cpap.

slothtrop 5y ago
yes - What happens is that most people fall asleep during the steepest drop toward circadian temperature minimum. Our core temp drops toward sleep onset, and with it cortisol, and melatonin spikes as well. Warming your skin helps promote bloodflow and expels heat, thereby lowering your core temperature (more efficiently if ambient air is cool enough). We tend to lose most heat in our extremities, like the head, hands and feet. This is why pre-warming feet can reduce onset latency. If you've shifted your circadian rhythm, your core temperature falls later. What may happen then is you'll get hotter in bed as you're expelling more heat in it, and if the material is not particularly breathable it won't be as easy for you to cool down. Anyway, avoiding a shift and keeping a robust circadian rhythm really helps with onset and overall sleep quality. To this end, a consistent waking time, limited total time in bed, and sufficient exposure to sunlight after waking helps.

mettamage 5y ago

Here's my anecdata on getting better sleep. I've struggled with sleep a lot, I still do but not as much to the extent of previous years. I used to be at "Welcome to Hell, prepare to suffer, you'd wish you'd not be awake." (if one would follow this to its logical conclusion, one could see why this is problematic) And it is now at: "If you'd have slept 9 hours instead of 8, you'd probably feel at peak mental condition mate, try to sleep 9 hours, you can feel you could use the extra hour in this particular case :)" I suffer from two things: being able to fall asleep and waking up after 4 hours. Here's what I currently do/use/what works: 1. Airpods Max for suppressing noise in my room [1]. Plane flying by? I didn't hear it. The soft white noise is also nice. Playing music at night can sometimes regulate my mood. I don't sleep with it every night, only when I notice things in my room are too loud. 2. 0.3mg melatonin (taken 1 hour before sleep). 3. 10mg CBD (taken 1 hour before sleep). 4. A girlfriend to hug with during the night. 5. Meditation: in most cases this doesn't work at all, but around 10 to 20% of the time it knocks me out cold and then it's all I need. 6. Blue light blocking glasses (Flux for real life :) ). 7. A cold-ish room. 8. A heavy weighted blanket. This is especially helpful when I really feel like turning all the time, the heavy weight tires me out physically. 9. A sleeping mask. These 9 things completely solve for being able to fall asleep. I don't have issues with it. They partially solve for being able to stay asleep. I sometimes still wake up. However, I have a higher likelihood to fall back asleep because the CBD + melatonin make me feel a bit woozy. Moreover, my girlfriend (if she's around), meditation, my heavy weighted blanket and chill music with Spotify + Airpods Max can all play their part. [1] I have tinnitus so I need something over my ear as earplugs will amplify my tinnitus. Because of this, I need the best noise cancellation for headphones, and in my testing the Airpods Max won hands down. Moreover, it was the only white noise I could tolerate. I've tested Sony and Bose as well. Their white noise sound is too loud for me to be able to comfortably fall asleep. The white noise of the Airpods Max lowers my tinnitus a bit, but in return I hear white noise, which to me feels like a different tinnitus, albeit a bit nicer. I do suffer a bit in comfort and need to fix that with extra pillows which makes my position in bed a bit weird. If anyone has alternatives for this tip / setup (e.g. something else than the Airpods Max?), I'm curious :)

rednerrus 5y ago

I like the CBT-I course at slumbercamp.co for insomnia stuff. It's step by step and scientifically backed.