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One thing that stuck with me from the book Stroke of Insight (memoir of brain scientist who has and recovers from stroke) was how intently she prioritized sleep
by pglevy 2y ago
One thing that stuck with me from the book Stroke of Insight (memoir of brain scientist who has and recovers from stroke) was how intently she prioritized sleep when everyone else kept trying to drag her out of bed.
In a more mundane context, I've been fortunate to organize my schedule such that I don't use an alarm to get up in the morning. So I can let my body figure out how much sleep I need.
- burningChrome 2y ago>> So I can let my body figure out how much sleep I need. This is why my doctor advised (during a bout of insomnia a few years ago) not to use those "blackout" shades. They completely confuse your brain. My doctor said to sleep with the blinds open so your body can naturally reset its clock with the sunrise and sunset. Thankfully, this was in the Summer in a midwestern state, so I got back on track, but I still had to make some adjustments when daylight savings and Winter started. Your strategy was the other recommendation my doctor said to use. Anything that allows your body to naturally find its biorhythm is the best.
- aliasxneo 2y agoWhat happens when the sun sets at 18:00 in the winter? I like the idea, but I feel like most people won't go to bed that early, and use artificial lights to go about their evening, thus negating a lot of the effort. Or am I misunderstanding? Context: I struggle with insomnia and use blackout shades.
- qazxcvbnmlp 2y agoArtificial lights also interfere with sleep. If you’ve ever been 100% off grid, or even a place where you have minimal phone usage and little artificial light you will feel sleepy more correlated with when the sun sets, even if it’s at 1800. I’ve found blackout shades useful for when I’m not sleeping a schedule correlated with the sun (eg work at 4 am) or external artificial light (streetlamps).
- burningChrome 2y agoDuring the Winter, I tend to stay more active. I play several sports, do weight training and do indoor rock climbing to sort of wear myself out. So in Winter, I adaptively change the signals my body is using that tells it when its time to go to sleep. My diet also changes in the Winter. I cut off caffeine at noon and restrict phone and screen time in favor of physical activities in the later afternoon. It takes about two weeks for my body to adjust fully to the changes, but then its fine throughout Winter. Even when I'm getting less sunlight because the sun is going down sooner. I never knew how much your diet will affect your sleep and biorhythms until I started making changes. Even small changes can have big effects on your sleep cycles. Hope that helps.
- nakedneuron 2y agoCan you elaborate a little about your diet adaption in terms of food classes (carbohydrates, fat, proteins, ...) if it isn't only the coffeine intake you modify? Thanks!
- burningChrome 2y agoIt's probably a lot more simple than what you're expecting. In Summer I tend to have more carbs and proteins, along with bigger meals for both lunch and dinner since I tend to exercise later outside then during Winter. The extra amounts in both for energy allow me to be active longer before the sun goes down. In the Winter, I tend to reduce carbs and front load my day with them, so that in effect, by the time the sun goes down, my body is running down on their energy stores for the day. I also tend to reduce proteins and only increase them if I have a heavy day for example if I have both weight training and some higher impact cardio like hockey or indoor rock climbing or snowboarding. In Winter I tend to have a bigger lunch and smaller dinner which helps to focus in the reduction in energy. Generally by the time 7 or 8pm rolls around, I can feel my body starting to tune down for the day and signals my body is getting ready for sleep. A hot shower usually puts me over the edge. I can get into bed and I'm out cold in a few minutes. Hope this helps.
- nakedneuron 2y ago
- StanislavPetrov 2y agoHere in New York it's half way through November and sunset is ~16:40 today.
- hombre_fatal 2y agoMost people are trying to get more sleep and stay asleep past early morning / ambient light. "Dang, my alarm woke me up at 8:30am while I was sleeping like a baby because of my blackout shades" doesn't sound like a problem anyone is having.
- QuantumGood 2y agoOr use a 35,000 Lumen corn light (one I use https://a.co/d/idyzuiW https://a.co/d/idyzuiW ). Stopped a family from falling into depression regularly throughout the year. They are fanatical about getting the light because they don't want to go back.
- pazimzadeh 2y agoI don't understand what's the benefit of the light (vs a regular light)? do you have it synchronized with the sun with no way to turn it off?
- dvdkon 2y agoThe benefit of such a powerful lightsource is that you can get roughly the same amount of light you'd get from a summer sun. That seems to be what you need to stave off seasonal affective disorder. For waking up you'd need some kind of timed control, either old-school mechanical or maybe a smart relay. I've found that a single well-placed smart bulb programmed to ramp up over the course of 15 minutes works well to wake me up, but I'm pretty sensitive to light during sleep.
- cameronh90 2y agoAs bright as those lights are, they're still no comparison to the summer sun really. I went into a rabbit hole a while back of investigating whether it would be possible to light a room in my house equivalent to the summer sun, so I could avoid SAD during the long nights of the British winter. Taking that 35,000 lumen light above, even assuming it's lumen rating is accurate, in a 3 by 3 metre room, that's less than 4,000 lux, and that's if it was entirely focused on the floor area. Direct sunlight is 32,000 to 100,0000 lux. The sun is just really bright. Normal indoor home lighting is about 100 lux. The most efficient LEDs on the market are 200 lm/watt, so a reasonable lower bound for the amount of lighting you'd need for a 3x3 room is 1440 watts to get to the minimum 32k lux, but you'd have to factor in electrical inefficiencies and the directionality too. All that being said, those corn cob bulbs are fantastic and do make you feel a lot better. Just not quite the same as relaxing on a hammock in the garden, sadly.
- hinkley 2y agoI dress it up in other terms but this is ultimately my primary complaint about Scrum. It uses peer pressure to moralize about acceptable sleep patterns.
- jjulius 2y agoI'm completely ignorant here, but my understanding is that Scrum is (perhaps at a high, reductive level) a software workflow/collaboration tool. Genuinely curious how that ends up being used to moralize about acceptable sleep patterns.
- MortyWaves 2y agoStandups?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- CleanRoomClub 2y agoWhat about standups? Are you implying that having to be somewhere at a certain time in the morning impedes your ability to go to sleep at a reasonable time so you can get a healthy amount of sleep?
- YokoZar 2y agoYes. Isn't that obvious? Everyone has different natural sleep patterns, some have later cronotypes. Meetings set too early in the day for your body's preferred time to be asleep will result in having to wake up with an alarm to attend them. My team moved our daily standup later in the day to accommodate my delayed sleep phase and it's been extremely helpful to getting a full night's uninterrupted sleep.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jvanderbot 2y agoWhen my wife had our children, she (and I) were handed them, stuck in a room, then distrurbed for tests and briefings every 90 minutes for 3 days. How anyone can recover from something as savage as childbirth is beyond me. It is no small miracle that she was able to walk, let alone care for two new babies and herself (with my help, but there's only so much I can do to assist with breastfeeding or healing of major trauma). At one point I asked all the nurses to leave and not come back for 6 hours in very angry tones.
- NetOpWibby 2y agoThis mirrors my experience as well. It's so weird. Give us a break!!
- swayvil 2y agoThis is standard hospital. Rest is the healer but they will not let you rest. Tests and loud noises, endlessly. It is quite insane.
- astrange 2y agoFor new mothers, they want to check that they're still alive and haven't started silently bleeding out, in which case they soon won't be alive.
- adamredwoods 2y agoDepends on the illness and recovery needed, I would think.
- interludead 2y agoYour experience of organizing your schedule to avoid alarms is a great example of how to align with your body’s natural rhythms. It’s rare to get the luxury of waking up without an alarm these days
- isoprophlex 2y agoI love them all dearly but this is the one thing about having kids that I just can't get used to. No control over your own sleep. It really sucks not being able to control when and how you wake up.