Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion • Hacker News Board

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#101

Post by dsego » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 10:39 PM UTC

Sleep seems so essential to our lives and yet we understand very little. I had two car accidents due to lack of sleep the night before. Whenever I don't get my sleep I can't focus, my recollection is poor and I have trouble doing basic stuff. You can find texts online about people literally dying from chronic insomnia. I always wonder how some people can function well with little sleep and almost everybody seems to do better than me. And I'm convinced that lack of sleep accumulates because I can sleep till noon if I have no obligations that day.

For my schizophrenic sibling one of the most troubling aspects of his condition is bad irregular sleep. Sometimes he can't sleep all night and then he sleeps the whole next day. But it's never enough sleep, nothing but constant drowsiness and lack of energy. Psychosis sure does resemble dreaming while awake, you accept weird ideas, things just happen etc, same as in a dream. And once medication kicks in, seems like slowly waking up and dream fades out.

Somehow it's all connected and whoever figures out the puzzle of sleep will make the world a much happier place.

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#102

Post by koheripbal » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

dsego wrote: post #98

koheripbal wrote: post #16

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…

When I get to sleep with sound in the background it usually gets incorporated in my dreams. Recently fell asleep while listening to a podcast about file systems and in my dreams all my family members were talking about files systems and B-trees. Didn't feel well rested in the morning. But something like white-noise or different nature sounds could be much better. There are apps that play different droning sounds like…

In my case, non-speech background sounds allow me to dream - which wakes me up because the crisis I'm currently going through changes these dreams into nightmares.

The key for me is that the background sound must contain speech. Podcasts don't work either because their is no visual component. I need to be able to imagine the visual, even if I'm not watching it. Somehow, that's important. Maybe it stimulates that part of my brain to prevent it from creating visual dreams. I suppose there's a general rule in the brain that when you're listening and watching something, that part of your brain goes into input-mode rather than compute-mode.

There are two important takeaways here.

1. I've (for myself) obviated the need for sleeping pills (the solution my colleagues have taken).

2. There are seemingly no ill effects to preventing my brain from dreaming naturally for over six months.

If you really think about that 2nd point, this means that it would be possible to create sleep specific programming. One could use it to incorporate messages to ones self.

Many in this sub-thread are thinking they can use it to learn new things - typical HN! ...but since novel content wakes your mind, I think it would be more valuable to program motivational content. Content that reinforces your core principles and might help you focus yourself in the subsequent day. It might even be possible to have a small portfolio of programming if you're expecting/planning a different type of day.

Obviously, I'm going through a temporary crisis, so I cannot pursue this, but someone should.

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#103

Post by hnick » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

hntrader wrote: post #58

Related (on how to fall asleep quickly): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16671944

Thanks for this, I learned the word Hypnagogia from the discussion. Now I know what to say without sounding as crazy when I mention seeing things to a doctor next time. For some reason it's always spiders.

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#104

Post by dsego » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 11:04 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #102

dsego wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I get to sleep with sound in the background it usually gets incorporated in my dreams. Recently fell asleep while listening to a podcast about file systems and in my dreams all my family members were talking about files systems and B-trees. Didn't feel well rested in the morning. But something like white-noise or different nature sounds could be much better. There are apps that play different droning sounds like…

In my case, non-speech background sounds allow me to dream - which wakes me up because the crisis I'm currently going through changes these dreams into nightmares. The key for me is that the background sound must contain speech. Podcasts don't work either because their is no visual component. I need to be able to imagine the visual, even if I'm not watching it. Somehow, that's important. Maybe it stimulates that part…

Interesting. On a tangent, when I was a teenager I would sometimes fall asleep on the couch with the TV on. Mostly because I don't like falling asleep in the dark, esp. when alone. I would set a timer on the TV so it doesn't run all night but inevitably the TV shutting off would wake me up. More recently I would put on a documentary on YouTube, and I would queue a few different ones so I get into deep sleep before they end, otherwise it would wake me up.

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#105

Post by vinni2 » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

banana_giraffe wrote: post #93

koheripbal wrote: post #16

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…

I've found a similar solution to my sleep problems. I used to fall asleep listening to audio books. I eventually found audio books that are barely interesting, with certain narration styles to put me to sleep faster. I now have a series of audio books, mostly gumshoe detective novels, that I use to sleep on nights when I'm dealing with stress. I set the sleep timer for 6 hours, and invariably get a good night of slee…

Can you suggest some books like that?

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#106

Post by tobmlt » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 11:25 PM UTC

In the last two years I had my first child, finished a PhD, moved across the country away from all family, Moved again and changed jobs to a much more stressful, demanding, and higher paying job during the pandemic, bought a house in a high income area, lost two grandmothers, and had a second child. In approximately that order. The amount of insomnia I’ve been battling from all this has made it rather disconcerting to read about all the damage it does.

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#107

Post by pdx6 » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 11:51 PM UTC

markc wrote: post #70

I wake up after about 4.5 hours of sleep "no matter what". Bedtime of 10pm or 2am, exercise or no, light exposure or no, late eating or no - always the same result. Then I'm awake for a few hours, then get my "second sleep" of 1 to 2 hours. I've been going like this for a decade without daytime sleepiness (a few oz of coffee and I'm charged up for the day), but these kinds of articles really worry me. I have light sl…

A sleep doctor can recommend a sleep hygiene work book that helps. Everything in it is obvious, but it helps to have a guide to outline things.

I’ve struggled for years, and I still do with waking up like you do. Some nights are perfect though. What has helped the most is:

- Sleep study. Awful but it landed a CPAP. Also awful but it works now that I’m used to it.

- Quality bedding

- No pets and no computers in the bedroom. Everything is off

- exercise. Until exhaustion if possible

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#108

Post by passivate » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 12:06 AM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #16

raghuveerdotnet wrote: post #3

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…

That's interesting, I do 4-7-8 box breathing when I can't sleep due to anxiety. And its pretty much impossible for me to fall asleep when there is any kind of audio/visual stimulus in my environment. I need darkness and silence. Heck I can't even fall asleep if my S.O. or even my pet is touching me.

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#109

Post by yowlingcat » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 12:11 AM UTC

mcbuilder wrote: post #55

closeparen wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get a lot more done as a knowledge worker than I ever did in college, because in the real world nobody cares if something is a day or three later than the nominal deadline, and “this turned out to be harder than I anticipated” is a legitimate excuse. Consequently I never start the cycle of staying up to meet a deadline and then blowing the next deadline because I was trying to work on it sleep deprived. This is eas…

In the real world, 2 or 3 days doesn't mean a failing grade most of the time. However, when you start to get 2 to 3 weeks behind the deadline in the real world there is no escape hatch. Worst case in college, you submit the later assignment, settle for a D, and vow to study hard for the final. In the real world, you manager calls you to his office, asks you why you're weeks behind, it's going down now in your evaluat…

> In the real world

Do we just live in the different real worlds? Because in my real world, deadlines are almost always arbitrary and fungible so long as the right kind of communication is made -- the only times I've seen that not be the case for me/folks in my network is 1) when they're working on something that's actually time critical (rare but does happen) and 2) when they're working in a dysfunctional, top-down environment (far more common).

I can't help but raise an eyebrow at the idea that you might lose a client by missing a deadline by 2-3 weeks (rather than not selling them well enough). Is this a hypothetical situation you're talking about? Sometimes, 2-3 weeks is as fast as they'll get back to you with a single hop of communication. The other example of engineers get down-evaluated for ending up jumping on the grenade of a task that gets significantly longer (sometimes by months) -- I do see that happen from time to time but whether the manager down-evaluates is often inversely correlated with that manager/management chain's capability. The good managers understand that scope creep and an unforeseen gotchas happen; they don't want to take those instances as failures but rather .

> When I made the final push for my PhD thesis corrections, I stayed up 4 days straight right before the deadline dotting my 'i's and crossing my 't's. 6 years into the "real world", I often look back on that time as the good ole days.

Why? That sounds like unproductive, unhealthy self-martyrship. It's the complete opposite of how a competent professional works through things. Do you simply like to suffer? There's a reason people don't work like that in the "real world" and it's because there are actual real dollars on the line and competent organizations understand that such behavior purely results in expensive unforced errors.

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#110

Post by yowlingcat » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 12:13 AM UTC

waihtis wrote: post #10

I had great success picking up a consistent meditation habit with the greasing the groove-approach[1].. in essence, every time I would feel a bit foggy in the head, I would take a 3-15 minute meditation session. It usually results to 3-5 sessions per day. It's such a great mental reset, and I haven't since experienced the kind of complete depletion that you get from pushing yourself hard through the day. I bet some Z…

> [1] refers to the method of increasing your pull-up capability by installing a pull-up bar in your office / bedroom doorway and doing a set every time you pass through the doorway

Happy to see this concept references here!! I've started thinking about a lot more things in my life in terms of greasing the groove, IE: how can I make the healthy things convenient and the unhealthy things inconvenient? I want to be lazy with my willpower when I can.