18 ms·

Impacts of lack of sleep

337 points by belkarx 3y ago

starbugs 3y ago
I successfully trained myself to fall asleep using deep brown noise. This obviously is not a cure-all against sleep deprivation, but it's easy to try out and, at least for me, it made falling asleep so much easier.
behnamoh 3y ago
My partner suffers from this. She tried many solutions but to no vail. But it seems having an intentional period of wind down before bed (e.g., 1 hour on the couch, scrolling social media and listening to podcasts) helps. When she goes to bed after that, she never uses her phone and can sleep much better. I'm in the same boat except that I only go to bed when I'm absolutely completely drained and exhausted, which is probably not good...
- makestuff 3y ago
  A similar thing works for me. I don’t use my phone in the bed at night anymore and wait until I am tired before going to bed. After doing this for a few months I began to get tired around the same time every night (midnight for me). I wake up around 8:30am and I am rarely tired in the morning. One thing I would like to improve on is staying asleep throughout the night which I think would allow me to wake up earlier. I have tried Benadryl which works well, melatonin works okay, but the thing that works the best for me is THC. However, I am trying to stop that because I have read that you do not get as good of sleep when you use THC before bed. Another thing that helps is having it freezing cold in the bedroom.
  - kbenson 3y ago
    For me a CPAP machine makes a big difference, but it's not something I would have thought I needed except for my wife telling me I had breathing problems while asleep. Worth getting tested for if you suspect it in any way. > I have tried Benadryl which works well There have been some studies linking anticholinergics like Benadryl to dementia when taken later in life, so that might be worth looking into, if you haven't already, and you use it regularly.
- alwayslikethis 3y ago
  It's not just phones, it's the light. Consider turning lights off as much as possible 1-2 hours before bed.
  - voidhorse 3y ago
    Definitely. I live in an area with a lot of light pollution, so much so that even when it's supposed to be full dark, there's enough ambient light outside that it's more like "late evening" at best. I find that any time I'm away from home, I actually sleep better because there's no extreme light pollution keeping me up.
    - Mawr 3y ago
      Put up black-out curtains on your windows.
- Aurornis 3y ago
  > She tried many solutions but to no vail. But it seems having an intentional period of wind down before bed (e.g., 1 hour on the couch, scrolling social media and listening to podcasts) helps. When she goes to bed after that, she never uses her phone and can sleep much better. It feels so strange to read posts where people rediscover the importance of basic sleep hygiene. Having some time to wind down and not using phones in bed are two of the most basic sleep hygiene practices around. I'm curious what "many solutions" she tried before getting back to the basics, because the exact sleep hygiene practices you described are at the front of the list for things that doctors explore first with patients. Unfortunately, some doctors and/or internet advice places skip straight to medications, supplements, and an assumption that the problem can only be addressed by chemical means. The number of people who jump straight to melatonin or even prescription sedatives without making any attempts to alter their daily practices is worrisome.
foundart 3y ago
The article itself points to prior discussion on HN from 2022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30184796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30184796
- operatingthetan 3y ago
  The article feels like it could have afforded a lot more depth. It's like it was designed as an HN prompt.
  - nehal3m 3y ago
    Is there something you find wrong with that? I generally find comments on HN to be thoughtful and people tend to invest some effort. There’s also a surprising amount of subject matter experts lurking until their subjects come up. A “prompt article” seems a decent way to get some of that going, no?
    - operatingthetan 3y ago
      Then it should just be posted as a text post. No need for this to be posted more than once as well. I don't find low effort attention grabbing interesting or helpful.
000ooo000 3y ago
For me, I find my sleep suffers because of what some describe as "revenge bedtime procrastination". When my job is shit (i.e. now), I'm more inclined to stay on the PC later doing things that bring me some level of joy, or play games to escape the mind spinning its wheels. I seem to more easily recognise that my job is unfulfilling because I'm staying up later or I'm dreading going to bed. Going to bed early for a good night's sleep seems a lot easier a habit to build when my day-life is going well.
- sanroot99 3y ago
  Similar post should be made on effects of screen time and how it effects sleep
- xyzelement 3y ago
  Quick advice - see if you can shift that to getting up earlier. You will probably spend the couple of hours in the morning in a way that sets you up for a better day vs staying up late sets you up for a bad tomorrow. I say this as an always "late" person who now tries to get up at 5 to work out and reflect, it's been very helpful.
  - oulu2006 3y ago
    That's some nice advice, thank you.
  - plorkyeran 3y ago
    A life changing thing for me was specifically scheduling time to do fun things in the morning before doing the things I have to do. If I wake up at six, I still don’t start my day until eight, and instead spend those two hours on things I otherwise would have done the night before. This broke the feeling of dreading mornings that lead to a negative spiral. Even if I know most of the day will be awful, if I can look forward to my me time in the morning I can convince myself to go to bed.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      Wish this worked for me, but my brain straight up ignores[0] any kind of alarm clocks, music, light, etc. until it's something like 10:00 in the morning, or until a person wakes me up (and checks 5-10 minutes later if I'm actually up)[1]. So, shifting time to morning turned out to be impossible to maintain when I was living alone - I could hold such schedule for maybe a week at most, gradually oversleeping more and more. Still, it was possible then and I wish I tried harder, because now it's strictly not - I have two small kids, and one true thing about them is that they always wake up earlier than you[2]. So there's no space for personal time in the morning. Also I wonder if I'm the only one here who feels that their mind takes some 2/3 of the day to get into high gear?.It's probably more about emotional balance than cognitive functions, but I feel like I'm best able to focus only from late afternoon onward, making late night the only time that's useful for anything. -- [0] - I tried all kinds of things. Music blaring from the speakers at 06:30 sharp? Within a week, I've mastered getting up, hitting the power button on the amplifier, and falling back to bed in one, smooth move, with ballet-like fluidity. Got an alarm clock that requires you to solve math problems to turn it off? I quickly realized I must've mastered the art of multiplying 2-digit numbers in memory while unconscious, because I would wake up at 11:00 to discover multiple such alarms disabled, with no memory of doing it, or even hearing them ring. [1] - Yes, that means business trips are especially hard for me. When traveling alone, I rely on wake-up calls from my wife (and check-ups afterward). Even with that, I still almost missed a plane once. [2] - Except when there's an important appointment coming up that we need to get up unusually early for - on those nights, they're near-impossible to wake up.
mmanfrin 3y ago
I'd wager most people here who don't get enough sleep aren't doing so out of some sort of grindset mentality, but because they simply cannot. I find it very hard to fall asleep, nearly impossible to sleep in (a consequence of getting older?), and more interrupted sleep. I'm reticent to try drugs to enable sleep because I've heard that the sleep they provide is not true sleep.
- MarkusQ 3y ago
  Physical labor. Or exercise. If you push yourself to the point where you're physically tired, you'll sleep like a rock. If it doesn't, you're either not pushing hard enough or you ought to see a doctor.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Heavy exercise, like lifting weights after work(5PM), makes me fall asleep eve harder. I can still feel the adrenaline and elevated heart rate and body temperature that just makes it even more difficult to fall asleep so I have no idea how people who go to the gym at 9PM manage to fall asleep. I wish I knew their secret or had their genetics. Lighter exercises that don't stress the body, like long walks and yoga are much better for sleeping but not good for building muscle. My problem isn't falling asleep, it's staying asleep for long enough to feel rested. I usually wake up after 4-5h and can't easily fall back to sleep. By the time I get sleepy again(7-8AM) it's already morning and time to get up for work. So far I haven't found a (natural) cure for this. There's medication that aids with getting long sleep but the side effects (drowsy ness and brain fog) are nearly just as bad as the lack of sleep.
    - yahmez 3y ago
      Have you experimented with sleeping while fasted at all? I have heard a few people say they get their best sleep when sleeping on an empty stomach. I also find white noise and a sleep mask have helped a fair bit. I’m a very light sleeper so little background noises wake me easily, so having white noise on helps there. And wearing a sleep mask notably improved my sleep as our bedroom can get quite bright (even with blackout curtains). Anecdotally though, the most important factors for me are sun exposure (particularly morning and evening), weight lifting (or exercise in general), and cutting out caffeine.
swayvil 3y ago
Weakened immune system. Slower healing.
voidhorse 3y ago
Melatonin has been a complete game changer for me in this regard. I've struggled to get decent sleep since my late teens. I'm plagued by an overactive brain at night. About a year ago I started taking just 3mg of melatonin before bed and haven't looked back since. I'm sure my particular circumstances were such that it just happened to be my cureall and won't work for everyone, but if you have trouble sleeping and haven't tried it yet, definitely give it a go. It might be all you need.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  An ounce or two of bourbon works for me. Not enough to get intoxicated but just enough to feel warm and sleepy.
  - 000ooo000 3y ago
    I hope I don't come across as the "well ackshually" guy, and I'm not definitely telling you to change, but maybe this could be useful to you: the alcohol episode of Huberman Lab podcast mentioned briefly at about 1:02:40 that in a discussion with a UC Berkley sleep researcher, it was said that having any alcohol at all on board interferes with sleep to the point that those in the field call it pseudo-sleep because it lacks most of the restorative value of sleep.
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpILY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpILY 1:06 on this video
      - 000ooo000 3y ago
        Cheers - I misremembered that it was a Stanford researcher. Updated my comment.
        quickthrower2 3y ago
        Thanks for the recommendation. I definitely will be geeking out on that series now!
foxfired 3y ago
Hallucinations! Add it to the list [1]. I've experienced most if not all that was described here. And I look 10 years older. But I'm so glad I can sleep normal hours again. [1]:https://idiallo.com/blog/stopped-sleeping-started-hallucinating https://idiallo.com/blog/stopped-sleeping-started-hallucinat...
markus_zhang 3y ago
I have been missing sleep since child was born. The post is pretty accurate. I now fully understand why some people don't want to get kids.
- elteto 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - guidoism 3y ago
    I’m fairly confident that the lack of sleep during my first child’s first two years permanently altered my brain in way that has seriously affected my ability to do my job. I think there is research to back my claim that sleep can change your brain just as trauma does.
    - cma 3y ago
      The thing to realize is your (I am presuming) inflexible job was probably as responsible as your kid. They should let you work very flexible hours if you just had a kid unless by nature it just can't be done for that job.
      - guidoism 3y ago
        Reasonable assumption but in this case I was able to be flexible enough. The problem was my child not sleeping more than a couple hours at a time and our stupid adherence to the "baby should sleep in a different rule" in the US.
    - petemir 3y ago
      Another anecdote, but I remember someone here commenting that after several days without sleep he got his amygdala (maybe?) physically damaged and that permanently f-ed up his sleep schedule. As a terminal procrastinator who frequently pulls all-nighters (this year I even got to two in 3 days) I was terrified (and apparently decided to never comply with any deadline anymore, but that's another story).
kungfufrog 3y ago
Resonates with anyone that has had children. Biggest impact for both my wife and I was overall sleep quality/quantity and sacrificing sleep for a modicum of personal time at the end of the day.
- madaxe_again 3y ago
  My wife still manages 12+ hours per day - I get about 4-6. She wonders why I am gradually becoming irrationally irritable, as in her view being overtired is something that is easily controlled. Easily said when you get to sleep in to 1pm or later every day. I find myself picking fights with anyone and everyone, even inanimate objects. I know it’s crazy. We don’t have time together any more - I just fall asleep the moment the child is asleep, as I know I’ll be getting up several times in the night and before the birds in the morning, and I just can’t keep my eyes open beyond a certain point. The flip-side is that she feels that she spends her every waking hour looking after the baby - which isn’t far off the truth, as I look after her while she sleeps - so nobody is happy. My spare time is spent working and building and repairing stuff at home. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone has more than one child. How can anyone go “that was fun, let’s do it again”. This post was brought to you by Sleep Deprivation™
  - tayo42 3y ago
    She sleeps more then 12 hours a day?
    - madaxe_again 3y ago
      Yes. I don’t know how, but she always has - bed at midnight, and she rises anywhere between midday and 4pm. I envy her amicability with Morpheus. I used to be able to sleep a decent amount, but I burned that part of my brain out during my startup days - I get by ok on six uninterrupted hours, but when my night is more like three two hour naps punctuated by stress, I start to disintegrate - as I learned in my startup days.
      - 3y ago
hannofcart 3y ago
A key thing to note is that if you have sleep apnea, even if you think you're getting 7-8 hrs of sleep, you likely aren't. If you (or likely your partner) suspects you have apnea, talk to your doctor. Doing a sleep study/test and getting treatment for apnea will likely transform your life for the better.
- ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
  Shockingly prevalent too, especially if you're male, and gets more common with age. ~90% of elderly men and ~80% of elderly women have apnea (I point to these stats because they're higher confidence, but somewhere between 1/20 and 1/3 among the general population).
- justinator 3y ago
  Relieving my sleep apnea has been - by far - the biggest impact to my health and well-being. It's like a new lease on life. Just took a $60 retainer from Walgreens (this won't work for everyone). Memory, word recall, mood, energy - you name it: just much better than before. It was a slow process to get below what I would call normal (to say nothing of, "optimal"). It snuck up on me and I just never understood how terrible I was while just trying to live "normally. I would compare it to having a fairly robust drinking problem, and then finally getting sober.
  - abrichr 3y ago
    Can you please clarify which retainer?
    - operatingthetan 3y ago
      Looks like a common one is called "SnoreRX." Lots of random stuff for the same purpose on Amazon.
      - justinator 3y ago
        Correct, but I’m not here to sell you on that brand or say it’ll work for everyone. But for me it is very effective. I can actually have a relationship with someone (and sleep next to them at night!)
Patternnoticer 3y ago
Sleep is a time machine... The sooner I go to sleep, the sooner work comes in the morning.
- blkhawk 3y ago
  Agreed but when I was younger sleep during the night seemed to last forever. Only after I grew up it started to seem instant.
  - betabuckea 3y ago
    [flagged]
mitko 3y ago
As someone who currently runs on decreased sleep, I can relate to a bunch of these. But in my case, the root cause seems to be stress from increased load, and the higher cortisol levels it creates
p-e-w 3y ago
I'm highly skeptical concerning the claimed 'effects' of lack of sleep. I don't doubt those are correlated with lack of sleep, but for many of them, obvious confounding factors exist. As a trivial example, overworked people typically get less sleep than average folks. And excessive work is also correlated with several of the 'effects' from the list, such as "fatigued and demotivated" and "lower libido". This means that even though lack of sleep is (indirectly) linked to those problems, getting more sleep won't necessarily fix them, because the real cause is something else. I find it strange that a post explicitly addressed to HN readers fails to even mention this extremely obvious issue.
- topkai22 3y ago
  Some of the effects may not be casual, but there is substantial evidence for many of the cognitive effects in sleep deprivation studies, which just introduce a lack of sleep. There is probably good evidence for the other effects as well, although I’m not immediately familiar with it. While other issues may be also playing a role or even be the primary cause, the physiological effects of sleep deprivation are likely to make almost any underlying cause worse.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- randomcarbloke 3y ago
  for sure, I set the Set Daily Puzzle world record during a time of my life when I had been subsisting on an average of 1-2 hours sleep a night, if that. It's also the fluffiest thing I've seen on HN in a while.
  - Barrin92 3y ago
    it reminds me of Why We Sleep which turned out to be completely full of scientific errors (https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/ https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/) Obviously that book sold like hot cakes. When it comes to sleep and diet people will repeat anything as long as it sounds intuitive.
gavinhoward 3y ago
Thank you to the author for this. I struggle to have the discipline to get enough sleep. I'm going to bookmark this, pin it in a tab, and use it to remind myself that the consequences of my stupidity are greater than what I would accomplish by staying awak.
telegpt 3y ago
[dead]
totetsu 3y ago
this post for the same author about their decent into madness and loss of sens of self is an interesting read. Specifically its interesting how a universal experience of ego destruction is made send of afterwards in such a way that is so individualized to that persons age and culture. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/L9q5iFJAggvoWNrRf/that-time-i-went-a-little-bit-insane https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/L9q5iFJAggvoWNrRf/that-time-...
bman_kg 3y ago
fighting with this problem for long time, so far my sleep got much better than previous months and years, lots of thanks to author for short and to the point plain English explanation, I like the writing style a lot. I learned a lot in just a minute, thats productive for me.
2devnull 3y ago
I only need 2-3 hours. I wish I could get more. You learn to use it as an advantage.
- ramoz 3y ago
  I thought the same. I didn’t “experience” any of these things. I’ve always been driven, fit, resilient. Procrastinated about my health, and being better about sleep/all-nighters. Then I was diagnosed with cancer at 30. Blessed to have treated it. I don’t take health for granted any longer, sleep is a critical component of my health. Mental and physical state are 10x where they were. Ymmv. There’s no proof that I directly contributed my cancer, but I suspect I did.
  - 2devnull 3y ago
    I cannot sleep and there’s nothing I can do to alter that and no doctor that I’ve found can help. It was not my choice to stop being able to sleep. It’s not my fault either. One finds the benefits in it because the only other option is suicide, which is from what I gather a fairly common outcome. Consider that when you make statements about the negative consequences of insomnia. For many it’s not a choice and they are in a desperate, suicidal state. Telling them, “you’re giving yourself cancer,” is a bit cruel. Lastly, you’d be amazed how many famous people lived long productive lives on 4 hours a night or less. For those of us who the medical establishment has abandoned, these anecdotes are all we have. Be gentler please.
    - ramoz 3y ago
      Sounds like you have other issues to treat. My statement was fair and there is clear science around the effects of poor sleep.
      - 2devnull 3y ago
        I think you are under informed. Science is often clear right before it is not clear. Here’s an example. https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep
charles_f 3y ago
> Depression, anxiety, irritability, distress I'm now at a point where I manage to take a step back when I feel generally down, and just look into whether I had enough sleep, or if the weather is crap. These are the two most important predictors for whether I'll find my job to be terminally depressing, or my situation to be doomed ; and I try to convince myself to take my distress with a fistful of salt then, and wait to be less tired or the weather to get better, before I overanalyze my situation. It does not always work, but sometimes it helps a little with rationalizing
losvedir 3y ago
As the father of a 3 week old, I feel this! I've been very interested in getting more data about just how much and what kind of sleep I'm getting. I know smart watches these days claim to provide that. Anyone know how accurate it is, and which watches are best for it?
- stuxnet79 3y ago
  There is a YouTube channel called 'The Quantified Scientist' that scientifically ranks smart watches on various metrics - https://m.youtube.com/c/TheQuantifiedScientist https://m.youtube.com/c/TheQuantifiedScientist It was incredibly useful for me when I was in the market for a smart watch. TL;DR if you want to track sleep, get an Apple Watch. Or if you are in the Android ecosystem go for one of the entry level Fitbits as they have pretty good tracking for their cost.
tomxor 3y ago
Missing an important bullet point: * Sleep deprivation reduces immune system function. I was surprised when none of the gov advice during covid included "improve your sleep", because that's one of the best ways to strengthen your immune system, reduce your chances of contracting illnesses, and improve your chances of a fast and complication free recovery.
lloeki 3y ago
The post is mostly covering "mind" and "metabolic" things, but the effect extends to "body" things: - more likely to avoid hurtful situations (lower attention, zone out events, micro sleep events, reflexes diminished). - more likely to hurt yourself when such accidents occur - once hurt, physical recovery is severely hampered Car accidents are the obvious ones here but it extends to simple things like accidental cuts with knives, slipping in the tub, or sprained ankles or knees just walking down stairs or curbs. And some other "mind" and "metabolic" things: - immune system effectiveness plummets, so more chances to get sick - REM deprivation causes neuronal death - long term, leads to anxiety, false memories, paranoia, hallucinations, and psychosis (been there, done that; not a good place to be) We all know that water is essential to not dying, but sleep appears to be on equal footing (3 days without either and you're in catastrophic states), maybe even more important (the - sad - record of a human surviving without water is 18 days, for sleep it's 10)
- goda90 3y ago
  I've notice I'm more prone to pimples and canker sores when I'm sleep deprived.
  - stephenitis 3y ago
    Canker sores for me happen if I'm 2-4 days of reduced sleep hours. Supplementing lysine has been helpful in reducing canker sores over a long period of time. Cutting my incidences from 1 a month to 1 every 2-4 months. It also seems to effect how quickly it heals.
- stephenitis 3y ago
  Is there a citation or source on REM deprivation causing neurons to die? Like how long? How did they test this?
  - lloeki 3y ago
    See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation#Lasting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation#Lasting, which has a bunch and is a nice overview. Obviously underresearched for humans due to ethical concerns.
drones 3y ago
I have not slept well since I was 12 years old. I fear I have permanently damaged my cognitive abilities because of this.
throwaway5959 3y ago
I delay sleep because there are a couple of coworkers that are impossible, and the more I delay sleep, the later I will have to deal with them.
- P_I_Staker 3y ago
  Weirdly, I have this terrible habit of avoiding activities that cause the fast passage of time. If I play video games for 2hrs I will teleport to getting back to work sooner.
c7DJTLrn 3y ago
Reading this after staying awake all night. I wish I had control over my sleep like others seem to. It would be awesome if I could pass out at 10pm and wake up 8am. That kind of schedule is just impossible for me though. Night time is when my brain kicks into gear and then when I finally do sleep, I find it extremely difficult to wake up. These days I'm sleeping between roughly 7am to 4pm. Recently I slept 18 hours. If I could fix it somehow I would. It's completely out of my control.
- l5870uoo9y 3y ago
  I find difficulty sleeping also depends on what I read before going to sleep. If I read books I sleep much easier and deeper than if I browse Reddit. I think the alarmism, sensationalism, and aggression triggers the nervous system and fills the mind with worthless thoughts which in turn prevents the falling a sleep.
- jesterson 3y ago
  > It's completely out of my control. It is not. I have been in your shoes not once and lots of recommended things failed, some have not. This will require deep dive into reasons and mitigations, but I suggest you to proactively explore it and hopefully - fix.
- iagooar 3y ago
  Maybe a good start could be not giving your brain what it wants, when it starts getting that active. Just let yourself become bored. And if possible, get outside, walk, run, hike, enjoy nature, build something with your hands, get TIRED. Reduce blue light and if possible remove any screens past 7-8pm (books, podcasts and audiobooks help a lot here!). In the morning, get as much sunlight as possible. Do not stress over your current schedule too much. Try to wake up early in the morning for a few consecutive days, even if you do not go to bed early enough. After some time, your body might adjust again to a normal rhythm. Good luck
iagooar 3y ago
If I could go back 10 years and talk to myself from the past, I would definitely tell myself: get away from that screen from time to time, especially on weekends. Buy a cheap 4x4 and GET OUT THERE. Get exercise, get fresh air, get to see the world through your own eyes instead of through a 2D screen, get physically tired, AVOID if possible any alcohol intake (this is a whole different topic, but alcohol might destroy your sleep, even if you only drink occasionally). I wish I had done it 10 years ago, when my sleep quality and quantity were just depressingly low. These days even with small children I have better quality of sleep than I used to have back then when I would spend hours and hours in front of a computer screen (at work and after work as a hobby).
- WXLCKNO 3y ago
  How old are you?
  - iagooar 3y ago
    Almost in my 40s
l5870uoo9y 3y ago
> More substance abuse/addiction (alcohol and caffiene, specifically) [ironically both depressants and stimulents] Is caffeine really a depressant? I have great joy in consuming caffeine either from Japanese Sencha tea, Matcha, or occasionally a non-watery Americano.
- loa_in_ 3y ago
  It's not, it's neither IIRC.
InSteady 3y ago
The caffeine trap can be particularly insidious, especially for those of us who metabolize it slower. Its half-life can range from as low as 1.5 hours all the way up to 9.5 hours. So on the high end of that scale, if you drink 3 cups of coffee, containing say 300mg of caffeine, between 7 and 10 AM then you still have around 100mg of caffeine kicking around in your system when 11pm rolls around, clogging up your adenosine receptors and disrupting your body's ability to signal to itself (and you) that it wants and is ready for rest. [And if you don't follow any sleep hygiene practices, you are also probably depriving the body of its primary mechanism for initiating the sleep processes. You can take supplemented melatonin but it is usually only effective for short or medium-term use, and in my personal experience is way less effective than the home-grown good stuff produced in the pineal gland] So you lose 30 minutes here, and hour there of sleep. Not necessarily every night, but on a weekly basis you find yourself worn out, mentally ready to rest and recharge, but there is a disconnect in your brain and body that doesn't allow a smooth wake-sleep transition. The longer this trend occurs, the more sleep debt you find yourself in, the more you tend to throw in another half-cup around noon from time to time just to make sure you can keep going. Worst of all is when you hit on the realization that alcohol or some other drug can help to knock you out when you're still too wired to sleep even though you really want or need it.. unfortunately (with the possible exception of a few herbs) basically every medication or drug that puts you to sleep also negatively impacts the quality of that sleep. Which in the above scenario is going to spell out more caffeine in the routine, sooner or later, to compensate further. Do be aware that this doesn't necessarily have to be conscious realization, it is an extremely easy and I assume common habit to fall into. If you happen to process caffeine at a 1.5 hour half life, and can conk out like a light under most circumstances, I am truly jealous. Enjoy your God-given gifts ya lucky bastard!
- quectophoton 3y ago
  I'm probably your complete opposite on this lol. I don't know how tolerance plays into this, but I drink like 1L or more of coffee a day, and have done so for more than a decade, and I have never felt any difficulty falling asleep. Well, besides some reluctance during weekdays because I just don't want the next day to arrive, because of work, so I sometimes just go to sleep later and suffer the consequences for the next following days; but during long vacations (1-2 consecutive weeks long) it's all good, even with little to no variation on how much coffee I drink or the times I wake up and go to bed compared to outside vacation, so I think the problems are not related to coffee (at least not too much). I don't even feel "awoken" when I drink coffee, and it's always weird when I read people saying they drink coffee to feel more awake. Or to get more energy, or something. So I don't think I've ever drank it for any reason other than the taste. Caffeinated or decaffeinated; a 325ml mug full of undiluted?[1][2] espresso, vs milk coffee; literally no (perceivable) difference to me other than taste. If anything, when I want to "stay awake", I try to drink something very sweet. It doesn't "wake me up" like I hear people say with coffee, but it very slowly takes away just a little bit of sleepyness. [1]: Probably the wrong term. But I mean, taking a coffee "capsule", serve with the recommended "size" (which is very small), and repeat with more "capsules" until the mug is full. I don't do this very often though. [2]: And yes, I want to learn how to make myself a coffee that tastes almost as good, so that I can stop polluting with these disposable capsules.
morjom 3y ago
As a narcoleptic these always remind me that I'm kind of screwed on many fronts. I still try to do the good things (been going for morning walks, slowly getting to the point I don't have my phone with me in bed, drinking lots of water). Sorry kind of a rant.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  Yeah, it's like when they talk about all the negative effects of anxiety - what is that supposed to do to an anxious person?
iilfat 3y ago
<< No one likes talking to you or being around you in general because you become asshole-ish and/or a loner Like this one :) It definitely happens all the time
drakonka 3y ago
Below have been my strategies to improve my sleep over the years: * No coffee after 12.00 - No black tea after this time on most days either * Peppermint tea a few hours before bed * Magnesium before bed * No alarm (I naturally wake up between 7 and 8am, though sometimes stay in bed for longer) * Ereader in bed - reading helps put me to sleep * Blackout curtains (a must in Swedish summer) * Sometimes, visualizing scenes from whatever story I'm writing as I fall asleep. This can both help me get ideas for the story and help me fall asleep. I am very bad with controlling screen time before bed and have pretty much given up on doing that at this point... For now. I still find myself waking up at 4am sometimes and then going back to sleep. It doesn't take long to get back, but it takes a lot of effort not to grab my phone and start scrolling in these times. If I must put my eyes on _something_, I try to make it my Kobo reader.
- GinsengJar 3y ago
  >Sometimes, visualizing scenes from whatever story I'm writing as I fall asleep. This can both help me get ideas for the story and help me fall asleep. This is how I would fall asleep as a kid (when I had a flip phone). My mind was so active yet I fell into some amazing sleep.
  - drakonka 3y ago
    Same here! Remembering that I used to fall asleep like this as a kid is what inspired me try it again.
specialist 3y ago
Agree with all. TIL: One way I know I'm behind on my sleep is I can't stop eating (noshing). My insomnia journey... I had turrible insomnia for decades, worse over time. I tried All The Things, multiple times. Which everyone should try, if only to learn more about oneself. But if you try All The Things and still suffer, do not give up. Keep looking, keep asking. Turns out my root cause was bone spurs on my spine. Tiny little pinches of my nerves, which prevented my mind and my body from ever relaxing. It took years to get a proper diagnosis, separate from the insomnia concern, and then even more time to get an effective treatment. Happily, "fixing" those bone spurs resolved most of my anxiousness and insomnia. Now I sleep like a corpse. It's glorious. This is my personal example of an apparent phantom chronic illness. Where care providers offer what they know and then basically give up. Which makes sense, for them, because healthcare is basically triage. A care provider does their best in moment given the knowledge and resources they have. Then they do the same for another dozen patients, every single day. But you shouldn't give up. If you're suffering, there's a cause. Keep asking. Keep searching. Someone out there has the answers you need.
- agos 3y ago
  I love comments like yours. Modern medicine is amazing but still full of uncharted areas and hard to diagnose stuff, especially when it's not immediately life threatening. It's ultimately up to us to insist, to say "no, this is not right, I'm not functioning correctly" and to find what's going on. But it's a long, difficult path and it requires insane amounts of grit to go through it, though the rejection and the indifference and the dead ends. So it makes me super happy when someone is actually able to find out what was going on and - cherry on top! - fix it
- euph0ria 3y ago
  How did they determine this and what is the fix?
  - specialist 3y ago
    I had weird muscle issues. Fasciculations. Something usually dismissed out of hand. But with the severity and some other stuff, I presented a bit like MS, ALS, restless leg syndrome, and some other stuff I now forget. Did tests, drugs, therapies -- nothing conclusive, nothing helped. Eventually, finally, got some MRIs done. Was immediately obvious my nerves were impinged. Which led to surgeries. Happily, surgery resolved most of my anxiety symptoms (which had also been treatment resistant). Of which my care providers are very skeptical. Specifically, that my physical sensation of anxiety, like clinching, induced my emotional state. Maybe not. But lacking a better theory, I'm preceding with the info that I have.
thejackgoode 3y ago
For anyone interested, there's an interesting fact that adenosine build-up due to sleep deprivation improves depression briefly, in many cases [1]. It's not a treatment, obviously, personally I have used it as an immediate relief technique. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3566717/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3566717/
skeeter2020 3y ago
Not saying most or all of these are not true, but this list liberally mixes causation and correlation, without any sort of reference to the controlling for second and third-order effects. So if you stay up late AND eat shitty food AND don't exercise, yep you'll be at risk of weight gain, diabetes and a shorter lifespan, and maybe lack of sleep plays a role but you can't say it's the root cause.
swah 3y ago
I can sleep 6~7 hours most nights and never wake up rested and energized. Usually I attribute this to getting older, but then once every couple months I wake up feeling like a young guy, full of energy... and can't really trace that back to diet or caffeine intake easily. Next thing I plan to try is some kind of optimism... I'm naturally a melancholic, a pessimist, like always thinking about the worst case kind of person and wonder how much all that worry (health, kids, savings, job...) affects the sleep.

337 points by belkarx 3y ago

I successfully trained myself to fall asleep using deep brown noise. This obviously is not a cure-all against sleep deprivation, but it's easy to try out and, at least for me, it made falling asleep so much easier.

behnamoh 3y ago

My partner suffers from this. She tried many solutions but to no vail. But it seems having an intentional period of wind down before bed (e.g., 1 hour on the couch, scrolling social media and listening to podcasts) helps. When she goes to bed after that, she never uses her phone and can sleep much better. I'm in the same boat except that I only go to bed when I'm absolutely completely drained and exhausted, which is probably not good...

makestuff 3y ago
A similar thing works for me. I don’t use my phone in the bed at night anymore and wait until I am tired before going to bed. After doing this for a few months I began to get tired around the same time every night (midnight for me). I wake up around 8:30am and I am rarely tired in the morning. One thing I would like to improve on is staying asleep throughout the night which I think would allow me to wake up earlier. I have tried Benadryl which works well, melatonin works okay, but the thing that works the best for me is THC. However, I am trying to stop that because I have read that you do not get as good of sleep when you use THC before bed. Another thing that helps is having it freezing cold in the bedroom.
- kbenson 3y ago
  For me a CPAP machine makes a big difference, but it's not something I would have thought I needed except for my wife telling me I had breathing problems while asleep. Worth getting tested for if you suspect it in any way. > I have tried Benadryl which works well There have been some studies linking anticholinergics like Benadryl to dementia when taken later in life, so that might be worth looking into, if you haven't already, and you use it regularly.
alwayslikethis 3y ago
It's not just phones, it's the light. Consider turning lights off as much as possible 1-2 hours before bed.
- voidhorse 3y ago
  Definitely. I live in an area with a lot of light pollution, so much so that even when it's supposed to be full dark, there's enough ambient light outside that it's more like "late evening" at best. I find that any time I'm away from home, I actually sleep better because there's no extreme light pollution keeping me up.
  - Mawr 3y ago
    Put up black-out curtains on your windows.
Aurornis 3y ago
> She tried many solutions but to no vail. But it seems having an intentional period of wind down before bed (e.g., 1 hour on the couch, scrolling social media and listening to podcasts) helps. When she goes to bed after that, she never uses her phone and can sleep much better. It feels so strange to read posts where people rediscover the importance of basic sleep hygiene. Having some time to wind down and not using phones in bed are two of the most basic sleep hygiene practices around. I'm curious what "many solutions" she tried before getting back to the basics, because the exact sleep hygiene practices you described are at the front of the list for things that doctors explore first with patients. Unfortunately, some doctors and/or internet advice places skip straight to medications, supplements, and an assumption that the problem can only be addressed by chemical means. The number of people who jump straight to melatonin or even prescription sedatives without making any attempts to alter their daily practices is worrisome.

foundart 3y ago

The article itself points to prior discussion on HN from 2022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30184796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30184796

operatingthetan 3y ago
The article feels like it could have afforded a lot more depth. It's like it was designed as an HN prompt.
- nehal3m 3y ago
  Is there something you find wrong with that? I generally find comments on HN to be thoughtful and people tend to invest some effort. There’s also a surprising amount of subject matter experts lurking until their subjects come up. A “prompt article” seems a decent way to get some of that going, no?
  - operatingthetan 3y ago
    Then it should just be posted as a text post. No need for this to be posted more than once as well. I don't find low effort attention grabbing interesting or helpful.

000ooo000 3y ago

For me, I find my sleep suffers because of what some describe as "revenge bedtime procrastination". When my job is shit (i.e. now), I'm more inclined to stay on the PC later doing things that bring me some level of joy, or play games to escape the mind spinning its wheels. I seem to more easily recognise that my job is unfulfilling because I'm staying up later or I'm dreading going to bed. Going to bed early for a good night's sleep seems a lot easier a habit to build when my day-life is going well.

sanroot99 3y ago
Similar post should be made on effects of screen time and how it effects sleep
xyzelement 3y ago
Quick advice - see if you can shift that to getting up earlier. You will probably spend the couple of hours in the morning in a way that sets you up for a better day vs staying up late sets you up for a bad tomorrow. I say this as an always "late" person who now tries to get up at 5 to work out and reflect, it's been very helpful.
- oulu2006 3y ago
  That's some nice advice, thank you.
- plorkyeran 3y ago
  A life changing thing for me was specifically scheduling time to do fun things in the morning before doing the things I have to do. If I wake up at six, I still don’t start my day until eight, and instead spend those two hours on things I otherwise would have done the night before. This broke the feeling of dreading mornings that lead to a negative spiral. Even if I know most of the day will be awful, if I can look forward to my me time in the morning I can convince myself to go to bed.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Wish this worked for me, but my brain straight up ignores[0] any kind of alarm clocks, music, light, etc. until it's something like 10:00 in the morning, or until a person wakes me up (and checks 5-10 minutes later if I'm actually up)[1]. So, shifting time to morning turned out to be impossible to maintain when I was living alone - I could hold such schedule for maybe a week at most, gradually oversleeping more and more. Still, it was possible then and I wish I tried harder, because now it's strictly not - I have two small kids, and one true thing about them is that they always wake up earlier than you[2]. So there's no space for personal time in the morning. Also I wonder if I'm the only one here who feels that their mind takes some 2/3 of the day to get into high gear?.It's probably more about emotional balance than cognitive functions, but I feel like I'm best able to focus only from late afternoon onward, making late night the only time that's useful for anything. -- [0] - I tried all kinds of things. Music blaring from the speakers at 06:30 sharp? Within a week, I've mastered getting up, hitting the power button on the amplifier, and falling back to bed in one, smooth move, with ballet-like fluidity. Got an alarm clock that requires you to solve math problems to turn it off? I quickly realized I must've mastered the art of multiplying 2-digit numbers in memory while unconscious, because I would wake up at 11:00 to discover multiple such alarms disabled, with no memory of doing it, or even hearing them ring. [1] - Yes, that means business trips are especially hard for me. When traveling alone, I rely on wake-up calls from my wife (and check-ups afterward). Even with that, I still almost missed a plane once. [2] - Except when there's an important appointment coming up that we need to get up unusually early for - on those nights, they're near-impossible to wake up.

mmanfrin 3y ago

I'd wager most people here who don't get enough sleep aren't doing so out of some sort of grindset mentality, but because they simply cannot. I find it very hard to fall asleep, nearly impossible to sleep in (a consequence of getting older?), and more interrupted sleep. I'm reticent to try drugs to enable sleep because I've heard that the sleep they provide is not true sleep.

MarkusQ 3y ago
Physical labor. Or exercise. If you push yourself to the point where you're physically tired, you'll sleep like a rock. If it doesn't, you're either not pushing hard enough or you ought to see a doctor.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Heavy exercise, like lifting weights after work(5PM), makes me fall asleep eve harder. I can still feel the adrenaline and elevated heart rate and body temperature that just makes it even more difficult to fall asleep so I have no idea how people who go to the gym at 9PM manage to fall asleep. I wish I knew their secret or had their genetics. Lighter exercises that don't stress the body, like long walks and yoga are much better for sleeping but not good for building muscle. My problem isn't falling asleep, it's staying asleep for long enough to feel rested. I usually wake up after 4-5h and can't easily fall back to sleep. By the time I get sleepy again(7-8AM) it's already morning and time to get up for work. So far I haven't found a (natural) cure for this. There's medication that aids with getting long sleep but the side effects (drowsy ness and brain fog) are nearly just as bad as the lack of sleep.
  - yahmez 3y ago
    Have you experimented with sleeping while fasted at all? I have heard a few people say they get their best sleep when sleeping on an empty stomach. I also find white noise and a sleep mask have helped a fair bit. I’m a very light sleeper so little background noises wake me easily, so having white noise on helps there. And wearing a sleep mask notably improved my sleep as our bedroom can get quite bright (even with blackout curtains). Anecdotally though, the most important factors for me are sun exposure (particularly morning and evening), weight lifting (or exercise in general), and cutting out caffeine.

swayvil 3y ago

Weakened immune system. Slower healing.

voidhorse 3y ago

Melatonin has been a complete game changer for me in this regard. I've struggled to get decent sleep since my late teens. I'm plagued by an overactive brain at night. About a year ago I started taking just 3mg of melatonin before bed and haven't looked back since. I'm sure my particular circumstances were such that it just happened to be my cureall and won't work for everyone, but if you have trouble sleeping and haven't tried it yet, definitely give it a go. It might be all you need.

SoftTalker 3y ago
An ounce or two of bourbon works for me. Not enough to get intoxicated but just enough to feel warm and sleepy.
- 000ooo000 3y ago
  I hope I don't come across as the "well ackshually" guy, and I'm not definitely telling you to change, but maybe this could be useful to you: the alcohol episode of Huberman Lab podcast mentioned briefly at about 1:02:40 that in a discussion with a UC Berkley sleep researcher, it was said that having any alcohol at all on board interferes with sleep to the point that those in the field call it pseudo-sleep because it lacks most of the restorative value of sleep.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpILY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS1pkKpILY 1:06 on this video
    - 000ooo000 3y ago
      Cheers - I misremembered that it was a Stanford researcher. Updated my comment.
      - quickthrower2 3y ago
        Thanks for the recommendation. I definitely will be geeking out on that series now!

foxfired 3y ago

Hallucinations! Add it to the list [1]. I've experienced most if not all that was described here. And I look 10 years older. But I'm so glad I can sleep normal hours again. [1]:https://idiallo.com/blog/stopped-sleeping-started-hallucinating https://idiallo.com/blog/stopped-sleeping-started-hallucinat...

markus_zhang 3y ago

I have been missing sleep since child was born. The post is pretty accurate. I now fully understand why some people don't want to get kids.

elteto 3y ago
[flagged]
- guidoism 3y ago
  I’m fairly confident that the lack of sleep during my first child’s first two years permanently altered my brain in way that has seriously affected my ability to do my job. I think there is research to back my claim that sleep can change your brain just as trauma does.
  - cma 3y ago
    The thing to realize is your (I am presuming) inflexible job was probably as responsible as your kid. They should let you work very flexible hours if you just had a kid unless by nature it just can't be done for that job.
    - guidoism 3y ago
      Reasonable assumption but in this case I was able to be flexible enough. The problem was my child not sleeping more than a couple hours at a time and our stupid adherence to the "baby should sleep in a different rule" in the US.
  - petemir 3y ago
    Another anecdote, but I remember someone here commenting that after several days without sleep he got his amygdala (maybe?) physically damaged and that permanently f-ed up his sleep schedule. As a terminal procrastinator who frequently pulls all-nighters (this year I even got to two in 3 days) I was terrified (and apparently decided to never comply with any deadline anymore, but that's another story).

kungfufrog 3y ago

Resonates with anyone that has had children. Biggest impact for both my wife and I was overall sleep quality/quantity and sacrificing sleep for a modicum of personal time at the end of the day.

madaxe_again 3y ago
My wife still manages 12+ hours per day - I get about 4-6. She wonders why I am gradually becoming irrationally irritable, as in her view being overtired is something that is easily controlled. Easily said when you get to sleep in to 1pm or later every day. I find myself picking fights with anyone and everyone, even inanimate objects. I know it’s crazy. We don’t have time together any more - I just fall asleep the moment the child is asleep, as I know I’ll be getting up several times in the night and before the birds in the morning, and I just can’t keep my eyes open beyond a certain point. The flip-side is that she feels that she spends her every waking hour looking after the baby - which isn’t far off the truth, as I look after her while she sleeps - so nobody is happy. My spare time is spent working and building and repairing stuff at home. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone has more than one child. How can anyone go “that was fun, let’s do it again”. This post was brought to you by Sleep Deprivation™
- tayo42 3y ago
  She sleeps more then 12 hours a day?
  - madaxe_again 3y ago
    Yes. I don’t know how, but she always has - bed at midnight, and she rises anywhere between midday and 4pm. I envy her amicability with Morpheus. I used to be able to sleep a decent amount, but I burned that part of my brain out during my startup days - I get by ok on six uninterrupted hours, but when my night is more like three two hour naps punctuated by stress, I start to disintegrate - as I learned in my startup days.
    - 3y ago

hannofcart 3y ago

A key thing to note is that if you have sleep apnea, even if you think you're getting 7-8 hrs of sleep, you likely aren't. If you (or likely your partner) suspects you have apnea, talk to your doctor. Doing a sleep study/test and getting treatment for apnea will likely transform your life for the better.

ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
Shockingly prevalent too, especially if you're male, and gets more common with age. ~90% of elderly men and ~80% of elderly women have apnea (I point to these stats because they're higher confidence, but somewhere between 1/20 and 1/3 among the general population).
justinator 3y ago
Relieving my sleep apnea has been - by far - the biggest impact to my health and well-being. It's like a new lease on life. Just took a $60 retainer from Walgreens (this won't work for everyone). Memory, word recall, mood, energy - you name it: just much better than before. It was a slow process to get below what I would call normal (to say nothing of, "optimal"). It snuck up on me and I just never understood how terrible I was while just trying to live "normally. I would compare it to having a fairly robust drinking problem, and then finally getting sober.
- abrichr 3y ago
  Can you please clarify which retainer?
  - operatingthetan 3y ago
    Looks like a common one is called "SnoreRX." Lots of random stuff for the same purpose on Amazon.
    - justinator 3y ago
      Correct, but I’m not here to sell you on that brand or say it’ll work for everyone. But for me it is very effective. I can actually have a relationship with someone (and sleep next to them at night!)

Patternnoticer 3y ago

Sleep is a time machine... The sooner I go to sleep, the sooner work comes in the morning.

blkhawk 3y ago
Agreed but when I was younger sleep during the night seemed to last forever. Only after I grew up it started to seem instant.
- betabuckea 3y ago
  [flagged]

mitko 3y ago

As someone who currently runs on decreased sleep, I can relate to a bunch of these. But in my case, the root cause seems to be stress from increased load, and the higher cortisol levels it creates

p-e-w 3y ago

I'm highly skeptical concerning the claimed 'effects' of lack of sleep. I don't doubt those are correlated with lack of sleep, but for many of them, obvious confounding factors exist. As a trivial example, overworked people typically get less sleep than average folks. And excessive work is also correlated with several of the 'effects' from the list, such as "fatigued and demotivated" and "lower libido". This means that even though lack of sleep is (indirectly) linked to those problems, getting more sleep won't necessarily fix them, because the real cause is something else. I find it strange that a post explicitly addressed to HN readers fails to even mention this extremely obvious issue.

topkai22 3y ago
Some of the effects may not be casual, but there is substantial evidence for many of the cognitive effects in sleep deprivation studies, which just introduce a lack of sleep. There is probably good evidence for the other effects as well, although I’m not immediately familiar with it. While other issues may be also playing a role or even be the primary cause, the physiological effects of sleep deprivation are likely to make almost any underlying cause worse.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
randomcarbloke 3y ago
for sure, I set the Set Daily Puzzle world record during a time of my life when I had been subsisting on an average of 1-2 hours sleep a night, if that. It's also the fluffiest thing I've seen on HN in a while.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  it reminds me of Why We Sleep which turned out to be completely full of scientific errors (https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/ https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/) Obviously that book sold like hot cakes. When it comes to sleep and diet people will repeat anything as long as it sounds intuitive.

gavinhoward 3y ago

Thank you to the author for this. I struggle to have the discipline to get enough sleep. I'm going to bookmark this, pin it in a tab, and use it to remind myself that the consequences of my stupidity are greater than what I would accomplish by staying awak.

telegpt 3y ago

[dead]

totetsu 3y ago

this post for the same author about their decent into madness and loss of sens of self is an interesting read. Specifically its interesting how a universal experience of ego destruction is made send of afterwards in such a way that is so individualized to that persons age and culture. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/L9q5iFJAggvoWNrRf/that-time-i-went-a-little-bit-insane https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/L9q5iFJAggvoWNrRf/that-time-...

bman_kg 3y ago

fighting with this problem for long time, so far my sleep got much better than previous months and years, lots of thanks to author for short and to the point plain English explanation, I like the writing style a lot. I learned a lot in just a minute, thats productive for me.

2devnull 3y ago

I only need 2-3 hours. I wish I could get more. You learn to use it as an advantage.

ramoz 3y ago
I thought the same. I didn’t “experience” any of these things. I’ve always been driven, fit, resilient. Procrastinated about my health, and being better about sleep/all-nighters. Then I was diagnosed with cancer at 30. Blessed to have treated it. I don’t take health for granted any longer, sleep is a critical component of my health. Mental and physical state are 10x where they were. Ymmv. There’s no proof that I directly contributed my cancer, but I suspect I did.
- 2devnull 3y ago
  I cannot sleep and there’s nothing I can do to alter that and no doctor that I’ve found can help. It was not my choice to stop being able to sleep. It’s not my fault either. One finds the benefits in it because the only other option is suicide, which is from what I gather a fairly common outcome. Consider that when you make statements about the negative consequences of insomnia. For many it’s not a choice and they are in a desperate, suicidal state. Telling them, “you’re giving yourself cancer,” is a bit cruel. Lastly, you’d be amazed how many famous people lived long productive lives on 4 hours a night or less. For those of us who the medical establishment has abandoned, these anecdotes are all we have. Be gentler please.
  - ramoz 3y ago
    Sounds like you have other issues to treat. My statement was fair and there is clear science around the effects of poor sleep.
    - 2devnull 3y ago
      I think you are under informed. Science is often clear right before it is not clear. Here’s an example. https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep

charles_f 3y ago

> Depression, anxiety, irritability, distress I'm now at a point where I manage to take a step back when I feel generally down, and just look into whether I had enough sleep, or if the weather is crap. These are the two most important predictors for whether I'll find my job to be terminally depressing, or my situation to be doomed ; and I try to convince myself to take my distress with a fistful of salt then, and wait to be less tired or the weather to get better, before I overanalyze my situation. It does not always work, but sometimes it helps a little with rationalizing

losvedir 3y ago

As the father of a 3 week old, I feel this! I've been very interested in getting more data about just how much and what kind of sleep I'm getting. I know smart watches these days claim to provide that. Anyone know how accurate it is, and which watches are best for it?

stuxnet79 3y ago
There is a YouTube channel called 'The Quantified Scientist' that scientifically ranks smart watches on various metrics - https://m.youtube.com/c/TheQuantifiedScientist https://m.youtube.com/c/TheQuantifiedScientist It was incredibly useful for me when I was in the market for a smart watch. TL;DR if you want to track sleep, get an Apple Watch. Or if you are in the Android ecosystem go for one of the entry level Fitbits as they have pretty good tracking for their cost.

tomxor 3y ago

Missing an important bullet point: * Sleep deprivation reduces immune system function. I was surprised when none of the gov advice during covid included "improve your sleep", because that's one of the best ways to strengthen your immune system, reduce your chances of contracting illnesses, and improve your chances of a fast and complication free recovery.

lloeki 3y ago

The post is mostly covering "mind" and "metabolic" things, but the effect extends to "body" things: - more likely to avoid hurtful situations (lower attention, zone out events, micro sleep events, reflexes diminished). - more likely to hurt yourself when such accidents occur - once hurt, physical recovery is severely hampered Car accidents are the obvious ones here but it extends to simple things like accidental cuts with knives, slipping in the tub, or sprained ankles or knees just walking down stairs or curbs. And some other "mind" and "metabolic" things: - immune system effectiveness plummets, so more chances to get sick - REM deprivation causes neuronal death - long term, leads to anxiety, false memories, paranoia, hallucinations, and psychosis (been there, done that; not a good place to be) We all know that water is essential to not dying, but sleep appears to be on equal footing (3 days without either and you're in catastrophic states), maybe even more important (the - sad - record of a human surviving without water is 18 days, for sleep it's 10)

goda90 3y ago
I've notice I'm more prone to pimples and canker sores when I'm sleep deprived.
- stephenitis 3y ago
  Canker sores for me happen if I'm 2-4 days of reduced sleep hours. Supplementing lysine has been helpful in reducing canker sores over a long period of time. Cutting my incidences from 1 a month to 1 every 2-4 months. It also seems to effect how quickly it heals.
stephenitis 3y ago
Is there a citation or source on REM deprivation causing neurons to die? Like how long? How did they test this?
- lloeki 3y ago
  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation#Lasting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation#Lasting, which has a bunch and is a nice overview. Obviously underresearched for humans due to ethical concerns.

drones 3y ago

I have not slept well since I was 12 years old. I fear I have permanently damaged my cognitive abilities because of this.

throwaway5959 3y ago

I delay sleep because there are a couple of coworkers that are impossible, and the more I delay sleep, the later I will have to deal with them.

P_I_Staker 3y ago
Weirdly, I have this terrible habit of avoiding activities that cause the fast passage of time. If I play video games for 2hrs I will teleport to getting back to work sooner.

c7DJTLrn 3y ago

Reading this after staying awake all night. I wish I had control over my sleep like others seem to. It would be awesome if I could pass out at 10pm and wake up 8am. That kind of schedule is just impossible for me though. Night time is when my brain kicks into gear and then when I finally do sleep, I find it extremely difficult to wake up. These days I'm sleeping between roughly 7am to 4pm. Recently I slept 18 hours. If I could fix it somehow I would. It's completely out of my control.

l5870uoo9y 3y ago
I find difficulty sleeping also depends on what I read before going to sleep. If I read books I sleep much easier and deeper than if I browse Reddit. I think the alarmism, sensationalism, and aggression triggers the nervous system and fills the mind with worthless thoughts which in turn prevents the falling a sleep.
jesterson 3y ago
> It's completely out of my control. It is not. I have been in your shoes not once and lots of recommended things failed, some have not. This will require deep dive into reasons and mitigations, but I suggest you to proactively explore it and hopefully - fix.
iagooar 3y ago
Maybe a good start could be not giving your brain what it wants, when it starts getting that active. Just let yourself become bored. And if possible, get outside, walk, run, hike, enjoy nature, build something with your hands, get TIRED. Reduce blue light and if possible remove any screens past 7-8pm (books, podcasts and audiobooks help a lot here!). In the morning, get as much sunlight as possible. Do not stress over your current schedule too much. Try to wake up early in the morning for a few consecutive days, even if you do not go to bed early enough. After some time, your body might adjust again to a normal rhythm. Good luck

iagooar 3y ago

If I could go back 10 years and talk to myself from the past, I would definitely tell myself: get away from that screen from time to time, especially on weekends. Buy a cheap 4x4 and GET OUT THERE. Get exercise, get fresh air, get to see the world through your own eyes instead of through a 2D screen, get physically tired, AVOID if possible any alcohol intake (this is a whole different topic, but alcohol might destroy your sleep, even if you only drink occasionally). I wish I had done it 10 years ago, when my sleep quality and quantity were just depressingly low. These days even with small children I have better quality of sleep than I used to have back then when I would spend hours and hours in front of a computer screen (at work and after work as a hobby).

WXLCKNO 3y ago
How old are you?
- iagooar 3y ago
  Almost in my 40s

l5870uoo9y 3y ago

> More substance abuse/addiction (alcohol and caffiene, specifically) [ironically both depressants and stimulents] Is caffeine really a depressant? I have great joy in consuming caffeine either from Japanese Sencha tea, Matcha, or occasionally a non-watery Americano.

loa_in_ 3y ago
It's not, it's neither IIRC.

InSteady 3y ago

The caffeine trap can be particularly insidious, especially for those of us who metabolize it slower. Its half-life can range from as low as 1.5 hours all the way up to 9.5 hours. So on the high end of that scale, if you drink 3 cups of coffee, containing say 300mg of caffeine, between 7 and 10 AM then you still have around 100mg of caffeine kicking around in your system when 11pm rolls around, clogging up your adenosine receptors and disrupting your body's ability to signal to itself (and you) that it wants and is ready for rest. [And if you don't follow any sleep hygiene practices, you are also probably depriving the body of its primary mechanism for initiating the sleep processes. You can take supplemented melatonin but it is usually only effective for short or medium-term use, and in my personal experience is way less effective than the home-grown good stuff produced in the pineal gland] So you lose 30 minutes here, and hour there of sleep. Not necessarily every night, but on a weekly basis you find yourself worn out, mentally ready to rest and recharge, but there is a disconnect in your brain and body that doesn't allow a smooth wake-sleep transition. The longer this trend occurs, the more sleep debt you find yourself in, the more you tend to throw in another half-cup around noon from time to time just to make sure you can keep going. Worst of all is when you hit on the realization that alcohol or some other drug can help to knock you out when you're still too wired to sleep even though you really want or need it.. unfortunately (with the possible exception of a few herbs) basically every medication or drug that puts you to sleep also negatively impacts the quality of that sleep. Which in the above scenario is going to spell out more caffeine in the routine, sooner or later, to compensate further. Do be aware that this doesn't necessarily have to be conscious realization, it is an extremely easy and I assume common habit to fall into. If you happen to process caffeine at a 1.5 hour half life, and can conk out like a light under most circumstances, I am truly jealous. Enjoy your God-given gifts ya lucky bastard!

quectophoton 3y ago
I'm probably your complete opposite on this lol. I don't know how tolerance plays into this, but I drink like 1L or more of coffee a day, and have done so for more than a decade, and I have never felt any difficulty falling asleep. Well, besides some reluctance during weekdays because I just don't want the next day to arrive, because of work, so I sometimes just go to sleep later and suffer the consequences for the next following days; but during long vacations (1-2 consecutive weeks long) it's all good, even with little to no variation on how much coffee I drink or the times I wake up and go to bed compared to outside vacation, so I think the problems are not related to coffee (at least not too much). I don't even feel "awoken" when I drink coffee, and it's always weird when I read people saying they drink coffee to feel more awake. Or to get more energy, or something. So I don't think I've ever drank it for any reason other than the taste. Caffeinated or decaffeinated; a 325ml mug full of undiluted?[1][2] espresso, vs milk coffee; literally no (perceivable) difference to me other than taste. If anything, when I want to "stay awake", I try to drink something very sweet. It doesn't "wake me up" like I hear people say with coffee, but it very slowly takes away just a little bit of sleepyness. [1]: Probably the wrong term. But I mean, taking a coffee "capsule", serve with the recommended "size" (which is very small), and repeat with more "capsules" until the mug is full. I don't do this very often though. [2]: And yes, I want to learn how to make myself a coffee that tastes almost as good, so that I can stop polluting with these disposable capsules.

morjom 3y ago

As a narcoleptic these always remind me that I'm kind of screwed on many fronts. I still try to do the good things (been going for morning walks, slowly getting to the point I don't have my phone with me in bed, drinking lots of water). Sorry kind of a rant.

hotpotamus 3y ago
Yeah, it's like when they talk about all the negative effects of anxiety - what is that supposed to do to an anxious person?

iilfat 3y ago

<< No one likes talking to you or being around you in general because you become asshole-ish and/or a loner Like this one :) It definitely happens all the time

drakonka 3y ago

Below have been my strategies to improve my sleep over the years: * No coffee after 12.00 - No black tea after this time on most days either * Peppermint tea a few hours before bed * Magnesium before bed * No alarm (I naturally wake up between 7 and 8am, though sometimes stay in bed for longer) * Ereader in bed - reading helps put me to sleep * Blackout curtains (a must in Swedish summer) * Sometimes, visualizing scenes from whatever story I'm writing as I fall asleep. This can both help me get ideas for the story and help me fall asleep. I am very bad with controlling screen time before bed and have pretty much given up on doing that at this point... For now. I still find myself waking up at 4am sometimes and then going back to sleep. It doesn't take long to get back, but it takes a lot of effort not to grab my phone and start scrolling in these times. If I must put my eyes on _something_, I try to make it my Kobo reader.

GinsengJar 3y ago
>Sometimes, visualizing scenes from whatever story I'm writing as I fall asleep. This can both help me get ideas for the story and help me fall asleep. This is how I would fall asleep as a kid (when I had a flip phone). My mind was so active yet I fell into some amazing sleep.
- drakonka 3y ago
  Same here! Remembering that I used to fall asleep like this as a kid is what inspired me try it again.

specialist 3y ago

Agree with all. TIL: One way I know I'm behind on my sleep is I can't stop eating (noshing). My insomnia journey... I had turrible insomnia for decades, worse over time. I tried All The Things, multiple times. Which everyone should try, if only to learn more about oneself. But if you try All The Things and still suffer, do not give up. Keep looking, keep asking. Turns out my root cause was bone spurs on my spine. Tiny little pinches of my nerves, which prevented my mind and my body from ever relaxing. It took years to get a proper diagnosis, separate from the insomnia concern, and then even more time to get an effective treatment. Happily, "fixing" those bone spurs resolved most of my anxiousness and insomnia. Now I sleep like a corpse. It's glorious. This is my personal example of an apparent phantom chronic illness. Where care providers offer what they know and then basically give up. Which makes sense, for them, because healthcare is basically triage. A care provider does their best in moment given the knowledge and resources they have. Then they do the same for another dozen patients, every single day. But you shouldn't give up. If you're suffering, there's a cause. Keep asking. Keep searching. Someone out there has the answers you need.

agos 3y ago
I love comments like yours. Modern medicine is amazing but still full of uncharted areas and hard to diagnose stuff, especially when it's not immediately life threatening. It's ultimately up to us to insist, to say "no, this is not right, I'm not functioning correctly" and to find what's going on. But it's a long, difficult path and it requires insane amounts of grit to go through it, though the rejection and the indifference and the dead ends. So it makes me super happy when someone is actually able to find out what was going on and - cherry on top! - fix it
euph0ria 3y ago
How did they determine this and what is the fix?
- specialist 3y ago
  I had weird muscle issues. Fasciculations. Something usually dismissed out of hand. But with the severity and some other stuff, I presented a bit like MS, ALS, restless leg syndrome, and some other stuff I now forget. Did tests, drugs, therapies -- nothing conclusive, nothing helped. Eventually, finally, got some MRIs done. Was immediately obvious my nerves were impinged. Which led to surgeries. Happily, surgery resolved most of my anxiety symptoms (which had also been treatment resistant). Of which my care providers are very skeptical. Specifically, that my physical sensation of anxiety, like clinching, induced my emotional state. Maybe not. But lacking a better theory, I'm preceding with the info that I have.

thejackgoode 3y ago

For anyone interested, there's an interesting fact that adenosine build-up due to sleep deprivation improves depression briefly, in many cases [1]. It's not a treatment, obviously, personally I have used it as an immediate relief technique. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3566717/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3566717/

skeeter2020 3y ago

Not saying most or all of these are not true, but this list liberally mixes causation and correlation, without any sort of reference to the controlling for second and third-order effects. So if you stay up late AND eat shitty food AND don't exercise, yep you'll be at risk of weight gain, diabetes and a shorter lifespan, and maybe lack of sleep plays a role but you can't say it's the root cause.

swah 3y ago

I can sleep 6~7 hours most nights and never wake up rested and energized. Usually I attribute this to getting older, but then once every couple months I wake up feeling like a young guy, full of energy... and can't really trace that back to diet or caffeine intake easily. Next thing I plan to try is some kind of optimism... I'm naturally a melancholic, a pessimist, like always thinking about the worst case kind of person and wonder how much all that worry (health, kids, savings, job...) affects the sleep.