4 ms·

Funnily enough when I was much younger I developed amnesia. It was devastating in many levels. Lost friendships, it impacted my long term memory, my concentrati

by seviu 3y ago

Funnily enough when I was much younger I developed amnesia. It was devastating in many levels. Lost friendships, it impacted my long term memory, my concentration. I could go several nights without sleep no matter what I did. My mind would wander, I would worry about things, it was a nightmare. Eventually I had to relearn how to fall asleep. I am now much older and I won’t say my sleep is perfect, but I can easily fall asleep within minutes. I had to rewire myself to empty my mind of every external real life related thought. What works for me is to build an imaginary world and dive into it. Eventually that world disappears and I fall asleep. I know there are other techniques but this works for me.

asdfologist 3y ago
Amnesia? Or did you mean insomnia?
- rented_mule 3y ago
  I'm not who you're responding to, so I don't know what they intended. But sleep issues can certainly lead to memory issues. So, maybe both? When I was in my mid 30s, I suddenly had extreme memory issues. For example, at dinner time, I had no memory of what I ate for lunch or even if I had lunch at all. I could remember people that I knew, but I could not remember if I talked with them earlier in the day. It was all very scary. After various neurological tests showed nothing unusual, my doctor thought we should look into sleep issues. It turned out I suffer from something called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome - whereas the average person has a natural bedtime that is ~24 hours after they last went to sleep, mine was significantly longer than 24 hours. My doctor concluded that this was the source of my memory issues. That confused me a bit, as I experienced trouble sleeping my entire life prior to this diagnosis. She explained that the consequences of inadequate sleep worsen as we age. It was inconvenient for work and social things, but I was able to start living longer days (i.e., don't go to bed until I'm sleepy). Within a week, the recall issues I'd had were a memory (see what I did there?). I was also able to fall asleep much more quickly than I had before, and sleep duration didn't have the wild swings I'd experienced all my life.
- mock-possum 3y ago
  Yeah I think it’s safe to assume it’s a typo
loxias 3y ago
I would love to hear more about how you successfully releared how to fall asleep. I'm facing a similar battle right now, I've always been a "night person" and on a roughly 28h day, for the past year I've been (mostly unsuccessfully) trying to force myself into a morning person and 24h day. It's kinda worked, though I get btw 3-6h of sleep, which isn't enough.
- jmiskovic 3y ago
  My method is similar to meditation. I focus on my faint tinnitus, and expand the peripheral awareness to any other sounds. When my mind starts wandering I bring the focus back to the sense of hearing. It helps clear the mind and I'm out in minutes, pretty reliably. Only time it doesn't work is when I've had too much coffee (not that I learn from that mistake). I also tried other methods, like reading a book before sleep, the 4-7-8 breathing pattern, and the white noise generator, but to me they are just distractions.
- rainclouds 3y ago
  I struggle with this as well and decided the only thing I can control is wake up, so I stretch those into 45-90 minute periods using increasing music volume to wake up. Having a time period to wake up makes it more likely I fall asleep in a predictable time period. Going to sleep at X to wake up at Y is all fail for me.
- kornork 3y ago
  What do you mean 28h day? Are you going to bed 4 hours later every day than the day before? How can you do this and keep a job, or even schedule appointments several weeks out?
  - loxias 3y ago
    Left to my own devices, I fall into something like that, yes. My ideal world would be one in which I was allowed to stay up and keep being productive, instead of feeling like I'm hitting my stride right as the external world says it's time to go to sleep. I donno, it hasn't been a big deal. I've worked for startups and also doing consulting work the past 20 years, I always mentioned my weird schedule when interviewing, maybe it's tech, maybe just my bubble, but it's fine. During that time I didn't tend to schedule many appointments. Now I'm doing a different thing, trying to see if I can actually adapt to be on a 24h schedule and be a "morning person" and all that.
michaelbuckbee 3y ago
I have a similar strategy as I've found it's quite hard to just not think about whatever is stressing me out. So I try and plot out novels, or write songs in my head, or come up with weird architectural problems and whatever design might solve them.
dabber21 3y ago
I found just laying down relaxing your shoulders and legs and starring in the dark worked for me I also started to excercise more for over a year now, wear a sleep mask and changed my diet to focus more on the wellbeing of my gut bacteria.
ClassyJacket 3y ago
Sorry, what does amnesia have to do with sleep? Do you mean your insomnia was so bad you developed amnesia?

by seviu 3y ago

asdfologist 3y ago

Amnesia? Or did you mean insomnia?

rented_mule 3y ago
I'm not who you're responding to, so I don't know what they intended. But sleep issues can certainly lead to memory issues. So, maybe both? When I was in my mid 30s, I suddenly had extreme memory issues. For example, at dinner time, I had no memory of what I ate for lunch or even if I had lunch at all. I could remember people that I knew, but I could not remember if I talked with them earlier in the day. It was all very scary. After various neurological tests showed nothing unusual, my doctor thought we should look into sleep issues. It turned out I suffer from something called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome - whereas the average person has a natural bedtime that is ~24 hours after they last went to sleep, mine was significantly longer than 24 hours. My doctor concluded that this was the source of my memory issues. That confused me a bit, as I experienced trouble sleeping my entire life prior to this diagnosis. She explained that the consequences of inadequate sleep worsen as we age. It was inconvenient for work and social things, but I was able to start living longer days (i.e., don't go to bed until I'm sleepy). Within a week, the recall issues I'd had were a memory (see what I did there?). I was also able to fall asleep much more quickly than I had before, and sleep duration didn't have the wild swings I'd experienced all my life.
mock-possum 3y ago
Yeah I think it’s safe to assume it’s a typo

loxias 3y ago

I would love to hear more about how you successfully releared how to fall asleep. I'm facing a similar battle right now, I've always been a "night person" and on a roughly 28h day, for the past year I've been (mostly unsuccessfully) trying to force myself into a morning person and 24h day. It's kinda worked, though I get btw 3-6h of sleep, which isn't enough.

jmiskovic 3y ago
My method is similar to meditation. I focus on my faint tinnitus, and expand the peripheral awareness to any other sounds. When my mind starts wandering I bring the focus back to the sense of hearing. It helps clear the mind and I'm out in minutes, pretty reliably. Only time it doesn't work is when I've had too much coffee (not that I learn from that mistake). I also tried other methods, like reading a book before sleep, the 4-7-8 breathing pattern, and the white noise generator, but to me they are just distractions.
rainclouds 3y ago
I struggle with this as well and decided the only thing I can control is wake up, so I stretch those into 45-90 minute periods using increasing music volume to wake up. Having a time period to wake up makes it more likely I fall asleep in a predictable time period. Going to sleep at X to wake up at Y is all fail for me.
kornork 3y ago
What do you mean 28h day? Are you going to bed 4 hours later every day than the day before? How can you do this and keep a job, or even schedule appointments several weeks out?
- loxias 3y ago
  Left to my own devices, I fall into something like that, yes. My ideal world would be one in which I was allowed to stay up and keep being productive, instead of feeling like I'm hitting my stride right as the external world says it's time to go to sleep. I donno, it hasn't been a big deal. I've worked for startups and also doing consulting work the past 20 years, I always mentioned my weird schedule when interviewing, maybe it's tech, maybe just my bubble, but it's fine. During that time I didn't tend to schedule many appointments. Now I'm doing a different thing, trying to see if I can actually adapt to be on a 24h schedule and be a "morning person" and all that.

michaelbuckbee 3y ago

I have a similar strategy as I've found it's quite hard to just not think about whatever is stressing me out. So I try and plot out novels, or write songs in my head, or come up with weird architectural problems and whatever design might solve them.

dabber21 3y ago

I found just laying down relaxing your shoulders and legs and starring in the dark worked for me I also started to excercise more for over a year now, wear a sleep mask and changed my diet to focus more on the wellbeing of my gut bacteria.

ClassyJacket 3y ago

Sorry, what does amnesia have to do with sleep? Do you mean your insomnia was so bad you developed amnesia?