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Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

nytimes.com

41–50 of 163 posts

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#41
post #25

I'm the only person I've encountered that naturally runs on a 25 hour clock. I get the same amount of sleep per day (~8 hours) but I follow it with 17 hours of wakefulness so my clock moves forward by an hour every day. To my knowledge there are no adverse health effects, but it's certainly out of the ordinary. I often wonder if more people are like me since sleep problems are so common, but they cannot follow their…

Funny, I thought living with a 25 hour day was a nearly universal desire for people under 40. Certainly most of my close friends in my teens and 20s would regularly discuss that this would make our lives better.

Once I experienced the pain of needing to wake up for a small child, I was forced out of my historical sleep pattern. Fortunately I, like my parents, need less and less sleep as I get older, so 24 hours with an early rising child is more tolerable now than when I initially experienced it.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#42
post #26

>According to Dr. Walker, about 40 percent of the population are morning people, 30 percent are evening people, and the remainder land somewhere in between. I'm not a sleep expert or a neuroscientist, but I take issue with being branded into a sleep-band that is "hard-written" into my DNA. I perform at my worst when I wake at times other than my current habit allows for - whether that is early or late. I don't believ…

It's not some random commenter that assumed the cronotype though, it's scientists.

So, you can take it with them.

Or you could an outlier, but it's not like this flexibility you mention is statistically true for most people. What has been studied is statistically true.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#43
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matthew Walker's excerpt on biphasic sleep: https://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=3524 TL;DR: There's evidence of cultures untouched by electricity sleeping 7 hours at night with a 30-60min afternoon nap, which he calls biphasic sleep, with some tribes switching to monophasic in cooler months. All humans have a hardwired dip in midafternoon alertness.

> All humans have a hardwired dip in midafternoon alertness. In my personal experience, if you don't have a post-lunch carbs crash and you do have air conditioning, the dip doesn't exist. He doesn't really seem to back up the existence of a biological dip at all that is innate to human rhythms.

Isn't he claiming the opposite? (But I don't have the book to dig into the sources):

This brief descent from high-degree wakefulness to low-level alert­ness reflects an innate drive to be asleep and napping in the afternoon, and not working. It appears to be a normal part of the daily rhythm of life.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#44
post #25

I'm the only person I've encountered that naturally runs on a 25 hour clock. I get the same amount of sleep per day (~8 hours) but I follow it with 17 hours of wakefulness so my clock moves forward by an hour every day. To my knowledge there are no adverse health effects, but it's certainly out of the ordinary. I often wonder if more people are like me since sleep problems are so common, but they cannot follow their…

So you then have periods where you sleep during the day? Work for yourself or have a very flexible employer?

Yes, I sleep during the day quite often. I currently work for myself, it's never been an issue for other people I've worked for.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#45
post #25

I'm the only person I've encountered that naturally runs on a 25 hour clock. I get the same amount of sleep per day (~8 hours) but I follow it with 17 hours of wakefulness so my clock moves forward by an hour every day. To my knowledge there are no adverse health effects, but it's certainly out of the ordinary. I often wonder if more people are like me since sleep problems are so common, but they cannot follow their…

I have a coworker like that. We have flexible hours, so it's not too bad for him, though we do have core hours where we expect people to be available for meetings, etc. Luckily for him, his boss is pretty laid back about such things, and we can also often video conference in from home. So worst-case he gets up for a meeting, calls in, then goes back to sleep. But others like you definitely exist!

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#46
post #6

This feels like this article was written in response to this article from Slate Star Codex since this also mentions DSPS: http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-tha... > I have it fairly bad. My body naturally wants to go to bed around 2 a.m. and rise around 10 a.m. That was my cycle as well and I wouldn't describe it as "fairly bad" it's definitely later but not egregious. The SSC article recommend…

[deleted]

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#47
post #34
post #15

The author's experience is very similar to my own–my parents called me 'the sleepless wonder' when I was a kid, and by high school getting out of bed for morning classes was excruciating. In college I mostly chose classes that started later in the day and wound up doing much better academically. Since college I've made a point of taking jobs that offer flexible hours, which thankfully seems to be increasingly common.…

1) I was much like you. My performance in college suffered as I couldn't rouse in the morning. I recently discovered I actually did have a medical problem affecting sleep quality (partially obstructed airway from childhood injury). Can't help but wonder how things would be different if I'd figured it out sooner. 2) Had a kid, and sleeping in late is simply no longer an option. Which makes me think that despite how I…

My problem was two fold:

* My eyesight was a bit poor, got glasses for the first time * Snored a lot, got a mouth guard as a sleeping aide

On top of that going through a period with vitamine suppliment really boosted me. My take from is if you don't wake up when the sunrise (if you went to bed in ok fashion) and feel somewhat rested, start to look at your sleeping behaviour/daily stress.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#48
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matthew Walker's excerpt on biphasic sleep: https://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=3524 TL;DR: There's evidence of cultures untouched by electricity sleeping 7 hours at night with a 30-60min afternoon nap, which he calls biphasic sleep, with some tribes switching to monophasic in cooler months. All humans have a hardwired dip in midafternoon alertness.

I believe the original parent is refering to the idea that people naturally wake up and do stuff in the middle of the night.

Yes, but I couldn't find where Matthew Walker says that.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#49
post #7

Based on the title, I was hoping it was about something else, something I talk about frequently with people who think they have sleep problems: human sleep is naturally biphasic. I know a lot of people who think waking up in the middle of the night means they have a disease, insomnia. When the truth is that before electric light, normal sleep was going to bed when it got dark, being awake for a while in the middle of…

What causes the deep relief of having made a full uninterrupted 7-9h sleep ?

I don't mind split nights but I'm still into the usual belief.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#50
>When night owls are forced to rise early, their prefrontal cortex, which controls sophisticated thought processes and logical reasoning, “remains in a disabled, or ‘offline,’ state,” Dr. Walker writes. “Like a cold engine in an early-morning start, it takes a long time before it warms up to operating temperature.”

My friends and I call this "poo brain." We all had the same rhythm back in highschool which did not give with the 7:15am first bell. By about 2pm we'd be zombies, capable of no kind of creative thought.

To this day if we're visiting each other and suffering jet lag, inevitable accusations of poo brain get thrown around. It feels like every part of the brain works except the part that thinks - that's a swamp.

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