Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem • Hacker News Board

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#111

Post by InclinedPlane » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

sebringj wrote: post #31

I've noticed if you are passionate about something, you don't track time, you don't care about your surroundings and lose yourself in what you are doing. That's when productivity happens and it doesn't respect sunlight always. However, it is easier on most human beings to have a circadian rhythm aligned with sunlight and workout first thing in the morning to jump start the day. It is more sustainable in the long run…

Or... this could be ADHD hyperfocus or bipolar II hypomania. Not everyone is the same, and not everyone experiences periods of just losing themselves in their work completely without any knowledge of time passing.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#112

Post by logfromblammo » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 9:58 PM UTC

krapsna wrote: post #30

dtien wrote: post #2

As someone who also has atypical sleep patterns ( late sleeper, early riser ), there were some interesting points in here. I know there's been research done as well on the number of hours of sleep required rather than 'when' it occurs, but those haven't seem to have reached a consensus yet. I will say some of these articles sometimes read satirically. Notably, they have a diagnosis for people who can't sleep at 'norm…

Note: I pounded this out pretty quickly and don't have time to proofread. Sorry for any grammatical errors. I will say some of these articles sometimes read satirically. Notably, they have a diagnosis for people who can't sleep at 'normal' hours: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. I have been struggling with being unable to sleep during normal hours my entire life. My parents would yank the covers off of me in the morning…

If there is anything I have learned from being an owl, it's that larks are self-righteous jerks.

The reality is that the first person to wake up sets the schedule, because they can prematurely awaken anyone that is still sleeping. If you go around clattering around in the kitchen making coffee and bacon smells at 6 am, you can wake me up and I have no recourse. If I wake a lark up at 2 am, before going to bed myself, they can take revenge by staying awake and preventing me from sleeping at all. They have us by the clocks, and they know it.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#113

Post by InclinedPlane » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 10:01 PM UTC

I've had DSPS for my entire adult life and it has been incredibly difficult to manage. For me the biggest improvements have come with maintaining extremely strict sleep hygiene: F.lux or the equivalent on all my devices, setting a "start getting ready to go to bed" alarm on my smartwatch, generally avoiding caffeine and alcohol entirely, wearing blue blocking glasses when I'm going to bed, and maintaining the same bed time and wake up times even during the weekend. As well as using a light based alarm clock as my primary alarm. It can still be a challenge to be well rested but I do a vastly better job of it than I had previously. I don't always make it to work at the time I want but compared to the "bad old days" where I might come to work on only 3-4 hours of sleep one day and I might roll in at 1pm, 2pm, even 3pm some days it's like a quantum leap improvement.

The other major factor is getting regular exercise.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#114

Post by njarboe » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 10:02 PM UTC

krapsna wrote: post #30

dtien wrote: post #2

As someone who also has atypical sleep patterns ( late sleeper, early riser ), there were some interesting points in here. I know there's been research done as well on the number of hours of sleep required rather than 'when' it occurs, but those haven't seem to have reached a consensus yet. I will say some of these articles sometimes read satirically. Notably, they have a diagnosis for people who can't sleep at 'norm…

Note: I pounded this out pretty quickly and don't have time to proofread. Sorry for any grammatical errors. I will say some of these articles sometimes read satirically. Notably, they have a diagnosis for people who can't sleep at 'normal' hours: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. I have been struggling with being unable to sleep during normal hours my entire life. My parents would yank the covers off of me in the morning…

My more charitable reading of dtien's comment was that instead of society understanding that different people have different preferred behaviors and that some of those preferences are going to have a genetic reason for them, we end up creating pathologies for normal behavior with names like "Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome". This name does sounds like it would come from a satirist, not the medical establishment.

The quotes around the word normal to me is the clearest indicator of dtien sympathetic view toward people with 'DSPS'. In a better world, people with late night preferences are just people, not labeled people with DSPS.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#115

Post by sguav » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 10:04 PM UTC

funny how I am reading this while trying to instill in my infant daughter the "conventional time" habit...

I am really left with doubts on whether it's better to support a baby's time schedule or to "force" the standard's.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#116

Post by trts » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 10:22 PM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #91

macNchz wrote: 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.…

> 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. I spent high school thinking I was exceptionally prone to getting songs stuck in my head. It turns out that I just get them stuck in my head when I'm extremely tired, and that state was so continuous that I never noticed there were times…

Interesting that you wrote this. I find the more sleep deprived I become, the more intense are my earwigs (and also, the worse they become in terms of what I'd rather not hear).

I also am stuck with keeping an 8a to 6p schedule in a city with bad traffic. Because of the detriment to my motor functions, I sold my motorcycle as it didn't felt safe to ride anymore.

No matter how little sleep I've had, by five or six in the evening, I usually feel fine, and full of energy and things I'd like to do, read, think about.

I once read that DSPS only affects 1-2% of the population, which makes me discouraged that it will ever be something that people recognize as a reality for some. Everyone seems to get too little sleep, so it's not really a point of sympathy that I don't either. Doesn't matter than <4 hours is a lot different than <7

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#117

Post by Kenji » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 10:53 PM UTC

pg_bot wrote: 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 exactly this.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#118

Post by jm__87 » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 11:05 PM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #22

What really bugs me is the self-righteousness of the early riser. There's definitely some kind of power dynamic going on. Perhaps the joke should be: How do you know if someone gets up at 5am? Because they tell you.

My natural wake time is 5:30 - 6:30 am and I am definitely a morning person. I can assure you that my being a morning person has more to do with me being too tired to stay awake beyond 10:30 pm than anything else.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#119

Post by xvector » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 11:07 PM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #33

kingbirdy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I find that trying to work at 3am is a bad idea. The backlighting (no matter how much blue-light filtering you have) will wake you up, and even if you solve the problems that are keeping you awake now, you're almost guaranteed to get back in bed with new ones to be thinking about.

Fwiw, I put my screen in darkroom mode and use nothing red bulbs in my evening lights. It's very easy to avoid bluelight while you work. However, as you mention, that's only half the battle.

My issue with this is that warm light encourages melatonin production so I end up dozing whenever I have red light or f.lux/Night Shift/etc on.

Re: Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn’t a Problem

#120

Post by cimmanom » Mon, Aug 27, 2018, 11:07 PM UTC

person_of_color wrote: post #107

I'm currently having an issue where I get to sleep on time but keep waking up 1-2 sleep cycles too early. Any ideas why? Help.

I’ve been having this problem too. It’s the worst. Going to bed at 10 and waking up at 3 when your alarm is set for 6; exhausted but weirdly alert too. Then feeling like a zombie all day, collapsing into bed, and doing it all over again.