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The mention of deep sleep being necessary to memory formation is especially interesting to me. I went 5-8 years or so with poor quality sleep. While it is diff

The mention of deep sleep being necessary to memory formation is especially interesting to me. I went 5-8 years or so with poor quality sleep. While it is difficult to estimate correctly at home, my Zeo was regularly giving me 15-20m of deep sleep a night and I had a very hard time fixing it. While I performed fine at work, I had a hard time recovering from any sort of physical symptoms (such as tension) and building muscle memory. I certainly felt pretty bad, and it was like things didn't 'stick'. Nowadays I get 40m on average. Still not great but getting better.

thesuavefactor 2y ago
May I ask what you did to improve your deep sleep?
- mattgreenrocks 2y ago
  Hard to pin it on any one thing unfortunately. I notice it goes up when I’m doing as much as I can of the following: get 20-30m sunlight, talk with friends in person, avoid alcohol, work out, and be more active in building my life (vs having it built for me). Also, doing necessary emotional work with a counselor. All of those IME reduce my low grade anxiety. It’s basically all eating your vegetables stuff. Way more impactful than any supplement or protocol. N=1 and all that. HTH
- justsomehnguy 2y ago
  Not the OP, but first of all you need enough time. If you constantly have only 5-6 hours of sleep per day then there is nothing what would help. But if you have enough time than you need to try everything, beginning with air quality, noise and light reduction, bedding quality.
- chasebank 2y ago
  One of the first episodes in the huberman podcast, he references a study where insomnia was cured in 100% of study participants by taking them camping for a week. I think sleeping is like weight loss, it's really simple but people don't want to do what's necessary. Non-sedentary lifestyle, eat right, wake up and go to sleep with sun, don't use electronics, etc.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Only candles after dark (I could read comfortably by two beeswax candles, very dim light compared even to most night lights) and no electronics entirely cured my “insomnia” of decades within a couple days. Go figure, hundreds or thousands of candle-power lighting up whole rooms, and entertainment more compelling than a Roman emperor could command on tap, is extremely bad for sleep. What a surprise. It’s goddamn hard to keep up, though.
    - moffkalast 2y ago
      Pro tip: use RGB light strips for room lighting and set them to pure red an hour or two before sleep. I don't have any trouble sleeping, but that's what I do when someone requires me to suddenly disrupt my sleeping schedule so I can get up at some ungodly early hour and it's the only way I can go to sleep sooner than usual and actually fall asleep. If you really wanted to do it every day it would make far more sense to automate it and make it gradual to simulate a sunset though.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - tomcam 2y ago
      I am not saying this as veiled criticism. I am asking this so I can understand what you said better because my sleep is terrible. When you say no electronics entirely, do you mean after dusk or something? Because obviously you wrote this post.
      - m_fayer 2y ago
        My solution was similar but less extreme: candles or warm low output LEDs that are not ceiling-mounted. Electronics are allowed until the last hour before bed, but after 7pm or so only with a blue light filter and minimum brightness, and only with text content, no video or gaming. The second I break these rules I immediately have trouble falling asleep, like clockwork. Which of course I periodically do for a media or video game dive, then I either accept the crappy sleep or I take a pill.
- tivert 2y ago
  > May I ask what you did to improve your deep sleep? I think Steve Gibson (of the Security Now podcast, and absolutely not a doctor), had a "healthy sleep formula" of taking a time release melatonin and a time-release niacinamide supplement, and he claimed his Zeo would register more deep when he took it. I got the impression he thought his own sleep was poor and was trying to fix it, and just talked about his personal project on his podcast. I tried it, and anecdotally I did feel like I slept deeper.
  - astrange 2y ago
    My experience with taking things before bed has been negative because you have to take them with liquids, or else they're one of those combo supplements with a bunch of metabolites left over, and either way you end up waking early because you have to pee now.
- radicalbyte 2y ago
  In my case - I've had sleep problems for a decade - it started to improve once my kids stopped waking me up 3-4 times a night. It's still not as good as it was before as I've not been able to get sporting properly and, well, they kids do wake us just not every night anymore.
alexpotato 2y ago
There was a post here on Hacker News many years ago about a software developer who became a bicycle messenger. One point from that post related to this discussion: "Once I became a bike messenger, I slept like a log for 8 hours every night." In my own life, having worked both manual, physical labor and been a tech worker, I noticed the following: - When I worked construction, my body would be exhausted but my mind would be very active when I tried to go to sleep. - In tech work, it's my mind that is exhausted but my body still has energy - I've also worked jobs that required a high amount of both physical and mental focus and that's when I usually sleep the deepest.
- jajko 2y ago
  Good old saying - if you work hard manually, rest by doing something mentally challenging, and vice versa. For most of us vice versa applies hard. I do something every day or evening, even if its just 1.5-2h evening walks. Days I don't do anything are definitely harder to fall asleep, to say the least, and some small achievement is missing.
- sureglymop 2y ago
  I take a stimulant for my adhd. If i didn't have physical exhaustion (usually a 10km 2h walk before sleep) I don't think I could sleep at all. It still affects the quality of sleep (not much deep sleep) though. Now, sleep quality really affects everything. I think in general, mental health/sanity is hardly taken seriously in the tech industry. If I had employees I'd rather they had enough physical activity and sleep over a long and sustainable period than them sleeping under their desk hacking through the night.
ein0p 2y ago
I’m the same way when it comes to motor skills. I play electric guitar, and it’s pointless to practice technique if I did not sleep enough the night before - nothing will stick anyway.

thesuavefactor 2y ago

May I ask what you did to improve your deep sleep?

mattgreenrocks 2y ago
Hard to pin it on any one thing unfortunately. I notice it goes up when I’m doing as much as I can of the following: get 20-30m sunlight, talk with friends in person, avoid alcohol, work out, and be more active in building my life (vs having it built for me). Also, doing necessary emotional work with a counselor. All of those IME reduce my low grade anxiety. It’s basically all eating your vegetables stuff. Way more impactful than any supplement or protocol. N=1 and all that. HTH
justsomehnguy 2y ago
Not the OP, but first of all you need enough time. If you constantly have only 5-6 hours of sleep per day then there is nothing what would help. But if you have enough time than you need to try everything, beginning with air quality, noise and light reduction, bedding quality.
chasebank 2y ago
One of the first episodes in the huberman podcast, he references a study where insomnia was cured in 100% of study participants by taking them camping for a week. I think sleeping is like weight loss, it's really simple but people don't want to do what's necessary. Non-sedentary lifestyle, eat right, wake up and go to sleep with sun, don't use electronics, etc.
- vundercind 2y ago
  Only candles after dark (I could read comfortably by two beeswax candles, very dim light compared even to most night lights) and no electronics entirely cured my “insomnia” of decades within a couple days. Go figure, hundreds or thousands of candle-power lighting up whole rooms, and entertainment more compelling than a Roman emperor could command on tap, is extremely bad for sleep. What a surprise. It’s goddamn hard to keep up, though.
  - moffkalast 2y ago
    Pro tip: use RGB light strips for room lighting and set them to pure red an hour or two before sleep. I don't have any trouble sleeping, but that's what I do when someone requires me to suddenly disrupt my sleeping schedule so I can get up at some ungodly early hour and it's the only way I can go to sleep sooner than usual and actually fall asleep. If you really wanted to do it every day it would make far more sense to automate it and make it gradual to simulate a sunset though.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - tomcam 2y ago
    I am not saying this as veiled criticism. I am asking this so I can understand what you said better because my sleep is terrible. When you say no electronics entirely, do you mean after dusk or something? Because obviously you wrote this post.
    - m_fayer 2y ago
      My solution was similar but less extreme: candles or warm low output LEDs that are not ceiling-mounted. Electronics are allowed until the last hour before bed, but after 7pm or so only with a blue light filter and minimum brightness, and only with text content, no video or gaming. The second I break these rules I immediately have trouble falling asleep, like clockwork. Which of course I periodically do for a media or video game dive, then I either accept the crappy sleep or I take a pill.
tivert 2y ago
> May I ask what you did to improve your deep sleep? I think Steve Gibson (of the Security Now podcast, and absolutely not a doctor), had a "healthy sleep formula" of taking a time release melatonin and a time-release niacinamide supplement, and he claimed his Zeo would register more deep when he took it. I got the impression he thought his own sleep was poor and was trying to fix it, and just talked about his personal project on his podcast. I tried it, and anecdotally I did feel like I slept deeper.
- astrange 2y ago
  My experience with taking things before bed has been negative because you have to take them with liquids, or else they're one of those combo supplements with a bunch of metabolites left over, and either way you end up waking early because you have to pee now.
radicalbyte 2y ago
In my case - I've had sleep problems for a decade - it started to improve once my kids stopped waking me up 3-4 times a night. It's still not as good as it was before as I've not been able to get sporting properly and, well, they kids do wake us just not every night anymore.

alexpotato 2y ago

There was a post here on Hacker News many years ago about a software developer who became a bicycle messenger. One point from that post related to this discussion: "Once I became a bike messenger, I slept like a log for 8 hours every night." In my own life, having worked both manual, physical labor and been a tech worker, I noticed the following: - When I worked construction, my body would be exhausted but my mind would be very active when I tried to go to sleep. - In tech work, it's my mind that is exhausted but my body still has energy - I've also worked jobs that required a high amount of both physical and mental focus and that's when I usually sleep the deepest.

jajko 2y ago
Good old saying - if you work hard manually, rest by doing something mentally challenging, and vice versa. For most of us vice versa applies hard. I do something every day or evening, even if its just 1.5-2h evening walks. Days I don't do anything are definitely harder to fall asleep, to say the least, and some small achievement is missing.
sureglymop 2y ago
I take a stimulant for my adhd. If i didn't have physical exhaustion (usually a 10km 2h walk before sleep) I don't think I could sleep at all. It still affects the quality of sleep (not much deep sleep) though. Now, sleep quality really affects everything. I think in general, mental health/sanity is hardly taken seriously in the tech industry. If I had employees I'd rather they had enough physical activity and sleep over a long and sustainable period than them sleeping under their desk hacking through the night.

ein0p 2y ago

I’m the same way when it comes to motor skills. I play electric guitar, and it’s pointless to practice technique if I did not sleep enough the night before - nothing will stick anyway.