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I tried to hack my insomnia

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Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#51

Post by Angostura »

ollysb wrote: post #16
koheripbal wrote: post #6

During a stressful part of my life recently I struggled with getting to sleep. I just couldn't stop thinking about shit that was going on. until one night I fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV, and it occurred to me that I could just modify this behaviour to bed. So I put a handful of old Star Trek episodes on my phone. Each night I put me earphones on (so as not to disturb my wife), turn on an episode of Sta…

lol, I'm using Star Trek Enterprise for exactly the same thing at the moment. According to my Oura ring my sleep latency (as they call it - time to fall asleep) is about 5-10mins. I just put an earbud in one ear and sleep on the other side.

I listen Bizzleberry stream League of Legends games

https://www.twitch.tv/bizzleberry

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#52

Post by anonuser123456 »

klyrs wrote: post #31
forgotmypw wrote: post #28

Insomnia is a fake idea invented to promote the industrial work cycle. If you go to sleep when you're so tired, as opposed to when the societal clock says you should, you won't have any trouble sleeping.

> If you go to sleep when you're so tired, as opposed to when the societal clock says you should, you won't have any trouble sleeping. Great PMA, but you're absolutely wrong. I did that last night, got tired and went to bed around 10pm. And then I woke up at 1am. Now that it's approaching 6, I'm getting tired. But this happens to me occasionally and I know from past experience that my two options are: 1) Go back to b…

This happens to me. It's a nasty feedback loop where lack of sleep makes me hyper and too alert to sleep. I suspect the cause is high cortisol levels.

Remeron/mirtazapine works really well for me as a reset to baseline. Talk to your Physician about it.

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#53

Post by arandr0x »

taneq wrote: post #7
mapcars wrote: post #5

Life is not a computer you can hack. I bet we barely understand 1% of how our system works and trying to hack it means one is not even aware of their ignorance.

We have all sorts of hacks. You just need to be careful and may get unintended side effects. (Steroid creams to fix skin conditions, caffeine for energy, alcohol for relaxation and fun, anti-inflammatories, antihistamines, the list goes on.)

All of those also screw up your sleep something fierce, and so (general you) end up piling hacks on top of hacks to make something kinda sorta work that you understand less than you did the original system.

(Although, PSA, I do understand that the vast majority of people whose sleep is ruined by alcohol or caffeine or both are also too addicted to quit, and this isn't at this point a conscious attempt at "hacking" anything.)

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#54

Post by jcpsimmons »

Chazprime wrote: post #36

My insomnia is a little different than the author's; I fall asleep easily but wake up three or four hours later. And when I'm up, I'm wide awake. I tried just about everything discussed here....meditation, podcasts, watching television, reading before bed but nothing really helped me consistently. I even bought a treadmill and started running every day which does help, but the thing that actually did the trick best w…

I deal with this occasionally (seems to crop up for me every couple of years depending on life circumstances). Look into sleep restriction therapy. It's been the "silver bullet" for me. You essentially limit yourself to a 5 hour sleep window every night. Once you can sleep 5 sound hours for a week you're allowed to add 30 minutes and repeat the cycle. It sucks for the first few days, but the exhaustion will eventually win out.

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#56

Post by nestorherre »

Chazprime wrote: post #36

My insomnia is a little different than the author's; I fall asleep easily but wake up three or four hours later. And when I'm up, I'm wide awake. I tried just about everything discussed here....meditation, podcasts, watching television, reading before bed but nothing really helped me consistently. I even bought a treadmill and started running every day which does help, but the thing that actually did the trick best w…

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia, or CBT-I. Check it out I'm sure it will help you.

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#58

Post by humble_engineer »

Man I just realized that the "Read the whole story" button can save so much bandwidth. Imagine how many people click on your site but don't actually read the article or potentially click any ads, they just scan for 2-3 seconds and hit the back button. If you only show 5% of the content, you only send so much bandwidth. If you ask them to read more, because they have confirmed they are interested, and then yous end the rest of the 95% content, you can save so much bandwidth bills.

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#59

Post by Eric_WVGG »

I picked up very serious sleep problems (and seemingly permanent bags under my eyes) right around puberty and lived with it for about twenty years. Tried most of the "hacks" on this page (yes, including exercise) to no avail.

It all unexpectedly went away when I moved into my current apartment. I have huge, unblocked, east-facing windows, and every morning I’m bathed in sunlight. No more sleeping in; I’m wide awake, no arguments. Consequently, by midnight I am dead to the world.

All of this makes me a bit worried for the future, as "big unblocked east window in the bedroom" seems like a big ask for a rental. But yeah, it worked, my sleep is solved for the time being. Except for chunks of February.

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#60

Post by aug_aug »

aivosha wrote: post #57

vitamin D deficiency. https://youtu.be/74F22bjBmqE

also magnesium supplements - I had some nervous system/restless leg issues and finally diagnosed as deficient in it, cured insomnia that was ongoing for months - just wanted to throw this out there
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