41–50 of 137 posts
Anyone have tips for managing sleep in the winter months? It seems like I can stay up forever (until 02-04) and don't get so tired. I need to be in bed by 23 actually.
Stress resilience is one of the most important things when it comes to knowledge work, also one of the most neglected aspect. Mindfulness, stoicism, exercise help, but nothing helps as much as a good night sleep. Also the other thing people usually fail to note is the vicious stress-sleep cycle (lack of sleep induced stress stress induced lack of sleep). It took me years to realize that so much of my problems with be…
During a very difficult time in my life recently, I found it impossible to sleep. I would have stress nightmares and even when i did fall asleep, I would soon wake myself up with specific scenarios my mind was trying to work out. I was incapacitated by this, which exacerbated my situation. I eventually noticed that I could fall asleep if I sat with my daughters while they watched TV. This evolved to me falling asleep…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
During a very difficult time in my life recently, I found it impossible to sleep. I would have stress nightmares and even when i did fall asleep, I would soon wake myself up with specific scenarios my mind was trying to work out. I was incapacitated by this, which exacerbated my situation. I eventually noticed that I could fall asleep if I sat with my daughters while they watched TV. This evolved to me falling asleep…
Putting on my armchair psychologist/anthropologist/whatever hat, I find the fact that you can sleep better with people speaking around you very interesting. I wonder if we are built to feel comfortable when we can hear people whom we trust (your background conversations in this case) speaking as we sleep? Means someone else we trust is awake and can be observant of dangers while we nod off.
Stress resilience is one of the most important things when it comes to knowledge work, also one of the most neglected aspect. Mindfulness, stoicism, exercise help, but nothing helps as much as a good night sleep. Also the other thing people usually fail to note is the vicious stress-sleep cycle (lack of sleep induced stress stress induced lack of sleep). It took me years to realize that so much of my problems with be…
I once made the mistake of absorbing lots of accountability for things under the misguided instinct of “protecting” people. My role changed quickly as a result of a crisis and the world seemed to change. The reality was that it was really a type of selfishness and pride. After a few weeks I got to a point where I thought I had a physical problem — I basically had no short term memory.
Took me a bit for my thick skull to grasp, but once it clicked it ended up being fairly easy to fix.
Stress resilience is one of the most important things when it comes to knowledge work, also one of the most neglected aspect. Mindfulness, stoicism, exercise help, but nothing helps as much as a good night sleep. Also the other thing people usually fail to note is the vicious stress-sleep cycle (lack of sleep induced stress stress induced lack of sleep). It took me years to realize that so much of my problems with be…
During a very difficult time in my life recently, I found it impossible to sleep. I would have stress nightmares and even when i did fall asleep, I would soon wake myself up with specific scenarios my mind was trying to work out. I was incapacitated by this, which exacerbated my situation. I eventually noticed that I could fall asleep if I sat with my daughters while they watched TV. This evolved to me falling asleep…
I am neither a shrink nor your shrink but I think it's probably safe to say that whatever is affecting your sleep is probably affecting other parts of your life too, and while you mentioned a very difficult time - our bodies and brains don't by default react in most helpful says (eg - keeping you up with nightmares isn't helping anything)
In my experience what helps is a real way to "look within" to understand what's really going on. Ideally, this is done with the help of a real psychiatrist - someone willing to do real deep work of therapy and analysis, not just boredly write a prescription.
The other thing is developing self insight techniques yourself. For me, a diligent yoga practice and yoga study into the meditative aspects has been immensely helpful. But even on the purely physical practice level, learning to "look within" to understand why a pose is hard or painful teaches you the same process that I am talking about.
This all may sound wishy washy but if you are a software person you can relate to this - it's often easy to fix problems once you understand them. It's impossible to fix problems until you do, at best you can manage symptoms.
Stress resilience is one of the most important things when it comes to knowledge work, also one of the most neglected aspect. Mindfulness, stoicism, exercise help, but nothing helps as much as a good night sleep. Also the other thing people usually fail to note is the vicious stress-sleep cycle (lack of sleep induced stress stress induced lack of sleep). It took me years to realize that so much of my problems with be…
The thing is, that when you have a high level of stress, you will find it hard to sleep well. "Mindfulness, stoicism, exercise help, but nothing helps as much as a good night sleep" So those are very connected. If you practice mindfulness and work out in a healthy way. And be conscious when and how you go to sleep ... things will improve.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
- Exercise, not too late in the day. - Do not eat or drink anything but water at least 3 hours before when you are going to bed. - Do not have screens in the bedroom. - No screens 1 hour before before bed. (That last one I utterly fail at, but I am mainly doing textual things not from an attention-economy leach on the screen so, and it works out. Either the other 3 is enough or that screen time is sufficiently less s…
Excercise is maybe the most important, but it's hard when it's cold outside (and gyms are shut) :) I've figured lately that working "hard" at chores at home can replace some of it, the point is to not be too lazy.
Anyone have tips for managing sleep in the winter months? It seems like I can stay up forever (until 02-04) and don't get so tired. I need to be in bed by 23 actually.
In the last couple years I’ve come to realize how idiotic that position is; just because I don’t immediately collapse from exhaustion every time I get insufficient sleep doesn’t mean that my body doesn’t need it, and that it won’t have long term effects if I push it off too much.
For the last couple years, and even more since COVID, I’ve been making a point of getting regular exercise, and trying to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night (usually 8 or 9). I feel healthier, and I do think it has helped a lot with my depression.
Many of us are wearing devices with continuous optical heart rate monitors. Heart rate variability at rest is one of the best indicators of stress and these devices are pretty good at estimating sleep duration and sleep cycles. Regulators need to recognize that continuous tracking devices are a new tool for establishing a health baseline and they should not be expected to match the performance of single-test medical…
Putting more and more of our data, especially health data, in the hands of others is the wrong direction to be moving IMO.