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Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

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Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#151

Post by p1mrx »

Puer wrote: post #30
jgh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried thc? My wife has sleeping problems and thc really helps her a lot.

No, I've never really used any recreational drug, including alcohol. I don't mean to sound judgmental, but for me personally the long-term effects of THC aren't understood well enough for me to try it yet. If you don't mind me asking, does your wife have to take it on a consistent (ie nightly) basis to sleep well? Maybe when I'm older with less to lose I'll experiment more and see if things like that work.

I'd suggest a tiny pinch (The immediate effect is quite interesting: routine tasks become less-accessible while imagination becomes more-accessible, so you think more about what you're doing, which often spawns new ideas (e.g. the desire to exercise or play an instrument, understanding both as a cyclical muscle control problem.) Afterward, the transition to sleep feels trivial.

Large doses are generally not beneficial.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#152

Post by shados »

andor wrote: post #23

Apart from quantity, quality of sleep is also important. I just realized how much a little light can disturb sleep. My blinds are opaque but hung 1-2 cm from the window frame, letting in just a few unwanted photons. I temporarily taped the blinds to the frame, leaving the room in almost complete darkness. I haven't felt this rested in years. Do try this at home!

Quality of sleep is critical. It also gets an amazing lack of...shall I say "respect".

Most people have neighbors. Houses are often built poorly insulated. City regulations often have a very tight window of "quiet" hours (eg: 11pm to 7pm), that are only barely enforced, if at all. Stuff like you mentioned, lights and such, don't help. So you have a ton of undersleeping people, which is likely to affect society as a whole quite drastically.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#153

Post by nxc18 »

coldtea wrote: post #3

> Sleep is not like the bank, so you can't accumulate a debt and then try and pay it off at a later point in time. And the reason is this: We know that if I were to deprive you of sleep for an entire night — take away eight hours — and then in the subsequent night I give you all of the sleep that you want, however much you wish to consume, you never get back all that you lost. You will sleep longer, but you will neve…

Clearly it's exaggerated bullshit.

People put themselves through hell all the time; I'd be dead if you could 'never repay the sleep debt'.

They should focus on how miserable sleep deprived people become - that's a real, un-repayable cost.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#154

Post by Gatsky »

jmartrican wrote: post #29

I'm no expert but I thought that the whole 8 hour a night thing was not true, at least not for everyone. If I force myself to get 8 hours of sleep, by forcing myself to stay in bed after I wake up, I get a headache. If I let myself wake up on its own without an alarm, it averages around 6.5 hours. If I get below that, then at some point I will sleep more than the 6.5 hours, and maybe even 8 hours. So from personal ex…

Do you drink coffee?

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#155

Post by aeriklawson »

ta1234567890 wrote: post #113

For a few years I was sleeping about 4 hours a day on weekdays. I thought I was fine until I started sleeping 8 hours a day and realized I had been almost in a permanent bad mood for years due to bad sleep. My life completely changed. Now even though I can still get through the exceptional sleepless night/day, the difference is so evident that my daily life is planned/scheduled to make sure I get plenty of sleep. Lif…

Absolutely. I get irritated, anxious, and easily-stressed when I'm sleep deprived - a full night's sleep makes me feel so much better.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#156

Post by aeriklawson »

I've been amazed by how much sunlight affected my sleep quality - a year or two ago I purchased a curtain rod and a pair of black-out curtains to put in front of my bedroom window.

I can't emphasize how much better I sleep with it. When I forget to close them some nights, the next day I feel significantly less rested and my sleep quality after sunrise is a lot worse (I often wake up several times as well).

Check it out especially if your room gets lots of sunlight in the morning.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#158

Post by bertr4nd »

joveian wrote: post #93
darkerside wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What recommendations did the doctor have for next steps?

The doctor will almost certainly have recommended "sleep hygiene" (including things like a dark and quiet room at night, not staying in bed when your mind is racing, don't use your bed for non-sleeping activities, try to wake up at the same time every day), light therapy, and melatonin. That helps some pople, but many (maybe most) people it doesn't help and in that case you are considered untreatable. The vast majori…

CBT for insomnia helped me quite a lot, but it took months to get off a waiting list and in to a class. Mine was (I think, in retrospect) heavily linked to some specific work stresses, though, rather than a generalized life condition.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#159

Post by klipt »

Tharkun wrote: post #86

You can be in an "underslept state" even if you get 8 hrs a night. I usually am. I snore. Most of the time and very loudly. So do maybe a billion other people. It negatively impacts the quality and quantity of your sleep (and that of the people around you). It can greatly increase the risk of a whole slew of nasty diseases. And yet there is no cure and no effective treatment. As near as I can tell, no one is working…

Would earplugs improve your sleep then? Might be easier to block your ears than fix the snoring.

Re: Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In an Underslept State'

#160

Post by carapace »

jcims wrote: post #39
newacct500 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood how this could be the case, evolutionarily speaking. Even in the absence of electrical light, there is rarely complete darkness. Did our remote ancestors just sleep extremely poorly whenever there was a lot of moonlight?

Sleeping in cover, if just a rock outcropping or under some brush, is much safer than sleeping out in the open. Maybe that’s what happens, your mind maintains extra readiness at some cost.

Bingo. If there's light predators can see you. If it's pitch black you're in a cave or burrow.
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