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Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

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Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#121
post #105
post #85

Sleep is fun, people who regularly lack it will tell you they're "just fine" but they've been lacking sleep for so long that the baseline they're comparing themselves to is already skewed. Take two weeks off, avoid alcohol and other stimulant, avoid artificial light after 8 and wake up without an alarm. You'll see how you feel after that regimen. Your body knows exactly how much sleep it needs. But that's not compati…

I dunno, maybe I’m weird, but without an alarm I can sleep 12 hours. And when I do, I feel like total shit: very tired, groggy, and a little depressed. If I sleep 5-7 hours on the otherhand, I feel much better.

I'm convinced that it's just your body trying to catch up all the sleep it didn't get.

Of course, lying down for a long time will have side effect on your muscles (headaches, groggyness) but I'm sure your body would return to normal sleep patterns after some time.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#124
post #8

I can’t speak for scientific analysis, but I can say that if I have had a disrupted week of sleep, a weekend catch up ‘resets’ me and serves its intended purpose (for me)

Yes. I need 7.5 hours/night to have sufficient energy to be productive, but usually get 6.5-7. I sleep extra hours over the weekend and this resets me back to where I need to be feeling. Sundays are amazing.

It's true that what I feel doesn't count towards proving a scientific fact for other people, but I don't see why it can't prove it for myself. After all, people's bodies occupy a broad continuum when it comes to how they operate, and scientific studies generally stipulate that their conclusions aren't true for everyone.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#125
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, maybe I’m weird, but without an alarm I can sleep 12 hours. And when I do, I feel like total shit: very tired, groggy, and a little depressed. If I sleep 5-7 hours on the otherhand, I feel much better.

Has anyone managed to break out of this? I've tried increasing exercise, waking up with sunlight; nothing works

I used to have trouble waking up too. What worked for me was having a strict morning routine that I followed the moment I woke up. I found that sleeping 10 or 12 hours wasn't uninterrupted; I'd often wake up briefly in the morning, realize I was very tired, and quickly fall back asleep. Once I had a morning routine, it became my first priority when I woke up to fulfill that routine and would allow me to pull myself out of bed earlier. Typically my routine is to get ready for work Monday through Friday, but this habit of waking up when I've finished sleeping without an alarm also persists through the weekend.

If I stay up later than usual then I'll often wake up at the usual time and just sleep a little less, but sometimes I'll sleep a bit longer. Either way I still feel very tired breaking out of my schedule. I'm also lucky enough to have an employer allows a relatively flexible schedule so I could experiment with this for a while.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#126
post #105
post #85

Sleep is fun, people who regularly lack it will tell you they're "just fine" but they've been lacking sleep for so long that the baseline they're comparing themselves to is already skewed. Take two weeks off, avoid alcohol and other stimulant, avoid artificial light after 8 and wake up without an alarm. You'll see how you feel after that regimen. Your body knows exactly how much sleep it needs. But that's not compati…

I dunno, maybe I’m weird, but without an alarm I can sleep 12 hours. And when I do, I feel like total shit: very tired, groggy, and a little depressed. If I sleep 5-7 hours on the otherhand, I feel much better.

If you eat more than 6 hours before sleep you wouldn't sleep 12. Hunger would be happy to wake you up. Learned this and even lost weight. Last meal at 5PM. Waking up constantly at 8AM without alarm (going to bed at 12)

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#127
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academia has had their chance. No one believes "studies" about personal life choices any more if the results conflict with each other every 5 years. It's just publication pressure (or worse, as other commenters have hinted at).

> Academia has had their chance Oh, so what should we go to now in order to try to expand our knowledge about this? What are you suggesting?

This is always the implicit question, and I'm guessing the answer is scientism -- material that has the form of academic product, but isn't academic. Like Jordon Peterson videos or a lot of the scientific racism stuff on Youtube.

It's draped in the language of knowing, but it's purely emotional material; stuff that makes you feel good, and makes you feel smart for feeling right.

(I also think the desire to drape our tribal impulses in scientific form comes from society prizing smarts for so very, very long, but that's another story.)

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone managed to break out of this? I've tried increasing exercise, waking up with sunlight; nothing works

A hard cut of caffeine after 10:30 AM, cutting blue light (and screens if possible) after sunset, and if nothing else having a kid can do it. Or, try camping for a few days. Try not to look at your phone after sunset.

Camping is like an immediate fix for me. You just naturally wake up with the first rays of sunlight.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#129
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please support your argument with numbers. 36 participants can be plenty or can be absolutely insignificant. My partner is just in the process of getting subjects for an experiment and she's trying to estimate the required number of participants. In their case 30 participants would make the experiment useless, 40-42 would make it very powerful (significant). You can't judge the weakness of an experiment just based on…

Academia has had their chance. No one believes "studies" about personal life choices any more if the results conflict with each other every 5 years. It's just publication pressure (or worse, as other commenters have hinted at).

You're placing the blame in the wrong places, lumping in the above-board journals for the actions of those who aren't. If you want to blame someone, blame the trashier elements of our media, who jump all over the constant back and forth "studies" published in pay-to-play junk journals as if they're handed down from a great deity on stone tablets.

Re: Weekend ‘catch-up sleep’ is a lie

#130

When I first had a kid, it was living hell. I mean, it was wonderful, and joyful (really, I'm not kidding) but waking up 5 times a night with a screaming 2 month old was effing brutal. I wore a 50 yard stare all the time, my colleagues tell me. Now, though, with an 18 month old I do a lot better - maybe even better than before having her. She still wakes up early (6:30 AM or so) BUT now that I know I absolutely, posi…

It's really hard to explain to people just how effing brutal it can be for the first several years. Sleep is so random and uneven, it can really break a parent. I have a theory that people have evolved to forget just how bad the first years are, and that's the only reason people have more than one kid, because if we did really remember it all, we'd have all have serious Post Baby Trauma Disorder and no one would ever have more than one kid. You're right, it's just effing brutal.
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