111–120 of 169 posts
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.
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.
Surely you mean anxiety disorders, not anxiety itself. Anxiety is a part of healthy human psyche. In that, having anxiety in response to improper schedule/environment/diet is a sign of health and changing those would be the primary way to "treat" it.
By the same token, only taking pills or going to therapy while schedule/environment/diet stay bad is not treating it, even if the symptoms could go away for a while. It is just delaying the problem for a greater future crisis. Plus no doctor/therapist worth their salt would say "let's ignore the context of your unsustainably taxing life, instead take these stop-gap solutions to make you sleep for now".
I’ve struggled with insomnia my whole adult life and I can tell you the three factors that have helped the most are, in order: - removing caffeine completely - getting enough direct sunlight (hours per day) - losing weight Everything else (melatonin, blue light, exercise, sleepy tea, other drugs, etc) never helped or made my quality of life worse.
Caffeine is too useful for me to give up entirely. I had similar success with a rule: no caffeine after 12 PM (not even caffeinated soft drinks). Caffeine has a long half-life, which is especially problematic for people who, for genetic reasons, respond more to a given amount of caffeine. What I usually do is I have 2 cups of coffee back to back before 11 A.M. I feel the benefits for most of the day. It may be tempti…
Out of curiosity, why does this apply to the afternoon coffee and not the morning coffee? Maybe finding coffee useful at all is a sign?
Ironically I'm reading this as the clock reads 5:23am and I'm just winding down for the night. Out my office window I can see the sun rising. I've broken this habit in the past. When my wife was working as a teacher and I dropped her off at work every morning, I was up and out every weekday at 7:30am, and at work by 7:50. I got a ton of stuff done in the morning because no one else started showing up until 9am at lea…
That's an interesting take. My dogs are hyper-active at night and sleepy in the day. Dogs have been with human for a longtime, so either they have the same sleep schedule or the reverse (as they should guard when the human is asleep?).
But if humans are hunters, then it might make sense that they are more active at night.
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.
> Sleep problems are largely caused by anxiety, once treated it gives way to solid sleep. Surely you mean anxiety disorders , not anxiety itself. Anxiety is a part of healthy human psyche. In that, having anxiety in response to improper schedule/environment/diet is a sign of health and changing those would be the primary way to "treat" it. By the same token, only taking pills or going to therapy while schedule/enviro…
Early this year I discovered medical marijuana. It's completely game changing. A few puffs from a vaporizer (with flower, not the terrible oil pens) and I've had some of the best sleep of my entire life. I don't remember a time when I've ever actually felt good waking up until now.
The other key (for me) was the book, "The Obstacle is the Way" by Ryan Holiday. This helped me dramatically reduce the nonsense and worries that would crowd my mind as I tried to fall asleep.
Obviously YMMV, but these two things together have helped far more and far longer (6 months now) than anything else I've ever tried.
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.
> Sleep problems are largely caused by anxiety, once treated it gives way to solid sleep. Surely you mean anxiety disorders , not anxiety itself. Anxiety is a part of healthy human psyche. In that, having anxiety in response to improper schedule/environment/diet is a sign of health and changing those would be the primary way to "treat" it. By the same token, only taking pills or going to therapy while schedule/enviro…
I've struggled with brutal insomnia (getting to sleep and staying asleep) my entire life (45 years old now). Over the years, I've gotten pretty good at forcing myself to get to work early and just made due with 4-6 hours on most nights and trying to make it up on the weekends. Early this year I discovered medical marijuana. It's completely game changing. A few puffs from a vaporizer (with flower, not the terrible oil…
Other things that help me are diet, but also very much so exercise both cardio and heavy lifting.
Another thing I occasionally do is write down my loopy thoughts in a sort of shorthand / appreciated English that isn't immediately readable by others in the house, sit with the writing for a few minutes reading it over then testing it in to small pieces and scattering the pieces in the compost where they might do some good.
Getting the looping worries out of the mind in to the physical realm where they are tangible as physical objects to be manipulated help me greatly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What in tarnation, that sounds like a product idea. Maybe that works because the vibrations draw your attention in a multi-sensory way, forcing your racing thoughts to a halt. Maybe there’s also a Pavlovian response. Vibration = sleep
You should try it and see what you think. I thought of other fancier designs like using "bass kickers" or transducers as a more permanent solution. Honestly though I'm just happy that I found something to help me sleep. If you're willing to put in the time/effort to turn it into a product go for it. The idea came to me as a coincidence. During my insomnia I came across this product [0] in a hacker news comment. I was…
Is it noisy, could it be used in an apartment with someone living on the floor below?