Dealing with Insomnia • Hacker News Board

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#101

Post by caymanjim » Sun, Jul 12, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

youareostriches wrote: post #68

caymanjim wrote: post #29

I think my biggest problem is that I don't exhaust myself physically. Humans are built for constant labor. We're the endurance-running champions of the animal kingdom. As recently as last century, almost all jobs were physically exhausting. Mind work is exhausting as well, but in a different way. At the end of a strenuous day of coding, and endless meetings, I'm drained. Completely wiped out. I feel physically exhaus…

>...home remodeling, yard work, or canoeing... Are you sure it's actually the physical exhaustion and not the hours of exposure to direct sunlight which calibrates your circadian rhythm?

I'm fairly convinced that my body wants a 27-hour day, when external forces are removed. Being in the sun all day is certainly more tiring than indoor activity. The physical exertion seems to work well enough without the sun. I used to live in Cayman and got tons of sun daily, and still slept better after exertion.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#102

Post by caymanjim » Sun, Jul 12, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #82

caymanjim wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apes spend over 50% of their day chewing food, and most of the rest sitting around digesting. Their diets are low-energy and they really can't do much else. We require over 25% more calories (adjusted for total body mass). There are some large physiological differences. This is what they're doing while socializing. We really are turbocharged engines by comparison. Our bodies are still adjusting, poorly, to the shift…

Have there been any studies on the differences in behavior of apes fed high-calorie diets? (Presumably non-interventionist studies, of e.g. apes that scavenge from urban areas encroaching into their habitats.) For that matter, how about the "city" monkeys of Lopburi, who eat human food (either from human offerings, or by stealing it)? Anyone looked into their sleep cycles?

I'm approaching the limit of my simian expertise. Those are interesting questions. I know captive apes outside laboratory conditions (zoo animals, pets, entertainment) are prone to diabetes, heart disease, and other modern human medical plagues, but I don't know their sleep habits.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#103

Post by nippoo » Sun, Jul 12, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

The effect of noise on focus and productivity is super-interesting and one that I've only accidentally come to realise recently myself. I live in an averagely noisy part of the city and built myself a room-within-a-room sound-isolated studio as a fair chunk of my work is audio-related. I was quite surprised by how much my focus has increased since starting to work in the studio (even on completely unrelated work). Since then I've noticed how easily my focus switches at even the slightest noise (the fridge compressor kicking in, a car driving past etc)

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#104

Post by DenisM » Sun, Jul 12, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

Sleep problems are largely caused by anxiety, once treated it gives way to solid sleep.

Tweaking the schedule/environment/diet/etc to improve sleep is like using AC to overpower a thermostat-controlled furnace.

Most people who are told they have anxiety will fight tooth and nail against the notion.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#105

Post by baby » Sun, Jul 12, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

Have you tried weed? If I really can’t get to sleep I smoke one puff and it always works.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#106

Post by baby » Sun, Jul 12, 2020, 10:13 PM UTC

34679 wrote: post #21

After decades of trouble falling asleep, I've found a simple technique that works for me. The goal of this technique is to replace words/monologue with images in your stream of consciousness. I do this by picturing three shapes, each engulfing the previous one. Start with a sphere. Just imagine a sphere and nothing else. Then picture a 5 sided pyramid that perfectly engulfs the sphere so that the sides are tangential…

I have a similar technique that I really need to document I think about random ideas in succession very quickly. For example:

if I hammer an icecube I’ll get to the meeting on monday. But then that’s apple day. Better running away. There are dogs falling from the sky so I’ll take my fork. Etc.

It works every single time. Takes around 10-15min of doing this

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#107

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Jul 12, 2020, 10:19 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #105

Have you tried weed? If I really can’t get to sleep I smoke one puff and it always works.

I hate all drugs and the industry they bring with them, if that's what it would take I'd rather be awake. Rhyme entirely unintended must find another way to mend it.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#108

Post by ephl » Sun, Jul 12, 2020, 10:22 PM UTC

verylittlemeat wrote: post #59

I'm 30 and just went through the most serious bout of insomnia in my life. It was nothing like the insomnia I read about or saw in media. The crux of my insomnia was anxiety. I was dead tired and sleep deprived but as soon as I laid down my mind and heart would race. I couldn't convince myself to relax with any of the mind tricks in this thread. I would get so mad and frustrated that I would try to will myself to sle…

Can you expand on this? Which massager? how is it attached? seems like noise could be an issue depending on how it's attached?

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#109

Post by joveian » Sun, Jul 12, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

saos wrote: post #23

I'm sure noise cancelling headphones would prevent me from hearing my alarm!

You might be surprised how well the brain can filter things while asleep, at least for some people (and will change over time). I have a light alarm clock that also has bird sounds and one place I lived there were birds just outside my window with the same song as the alarm and they would start a bit earlier than I woke up (hopefully I wasn't disrupting them too much :/). I would sleep through the birds that were at least as loud as the alarm but still wake up to the alarm. I suspect the light part of the alarm helped in that case, but I've had other cases with just very quiet audio alarms that also woke me up, in some cases a radio set to an empty channel at a barely audible level. The light alone does not wake me up most of the time.

Relatedly, a friend once told me about a method of just telling yourself when you need to wake up right before you go to bed. I've tried that quite a few times and always wake up within about 15 minutes of the intended time.

For me, waking up is the easy part, but I really don't function well at all with little sleep and actually getting out of bed can be almost impossible if I've had little sleep. I can't relate to how anyone can work on very little sleep over a long period of time, although lately I have been doing a bit better on little sleep when not using alarms at all (and predictibly returning to an irregular Non-24 schedule).

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#110

Post by cmoxfox » Sun, Jul 12, 2020, 10:41 PM UTC

Ironically, the book he cites "Why We Sleep" gave me insomnia.

I had never had any issues sleeping before reading it, but then I read it and thought "wow sleeping is soooo critical, I need to do better." I started getting stressed about getting enough sleep. Before long, I would feel anxious the minute I laid in bed.

But the fact that I wasn't sleeping made me even more stressed about sleeping! It was a reinforcing loop.

What helped me get back to sleeping well was to just stop caring about it.