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How to rest well

psyche.co

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Re: How to rest well

#61

Post by belval »

600frogs wrote: post #30
i_love_limes wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very popular and quite detailed pop science book on sleep written by a prof of neuroscience: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep

This book actually gets quite a lot of hate on HN as parts of it have been debunked (or are at least heavily argued about): https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/

Thank you for sharing, this was an interesting read. I wonder if the rest of the book also suffers from this.

To be fair though (not that it excuses it) but pop-science/livestyle book written by academics to gain more notoriety usually suffer from this issue that a lot could be fixed by doing X. Livespan by David Sinclair also does this by basically pinning everything on aging.

It makes for a good read but I think it's best to always keep a healthy skepticism.

Re: How to rest well

#62

Post by bobthechef »

Josef Pieper[0] has written about leisure at length. What we call "rest" today is largely either idleness or recreation and something meant only to "recharge us" so that we can continue to work. But this is ass-backwards and not leisure. Leisure is what we work for and this was reflected, among other things, in the medieval culture of religious feasts. Our modern culture is a work-centric culture, but the middle ages were more of a leisure-centric culture.

To better understand what leisure is, Pieper points to the etymological roots of words like "school" (from the Greek word for "leisure") and points to the distinction between the liberal arts and the servile arts (the former are superior to the latter and what the latter exist to enable). By definition, work is for the sake of something; you don't work for work's sake. Our culture either worships work for its own sake (an absurdity and largely a neurotic distraction from our own nihilism) or it terminates with a preoccupation with consumption and indulgence of various appetites. A culture frustrated by a false materialistic/mechanistic anthropology will produce this kind of vulgar ethos.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/767958.Leisure

Re: How to rest well

#63

Post by KMag »

christophilus wrote: post #11
glogla wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedantic HN style comment: doesn't half-life of 6 hours always imply "quarter-life" of 12 hours? :) (though I wouldn't have realized that without your comment, so thanks for that)

Depends on if it’s linear or a curve, right?

A constant half-life is necessarily an exponential decrease (linear curve on a logarithmic plot). So, yes, if the half-life is 6 hours without qualification, then the quarter life will be 12 hours.

Though, in real-life you get things like enzyme saturation, depletion of chemicals consumed in the metabolism of the chemical, etc. Real world pharmacokinetics are probably not exactly constant half-lives.

For example, IIRC, the average American adult male saturates his alcohol dehydrogenase at about 3/4 shot of 80 proof liquor per hour. Below saturation, I presume ethanol has something close to a constant (and short) half-life, but that exponential decrease is only observed at alcohol concentrations where the effects of alcohol aren't very obvious. So, for most practical purposes, the biological half-life of ethanol doesn't apply and its metabolism is better approximated as a constant rate process.

Re: How to rest well

#65

Post by mrweasel »

sdevonoes wrote: post #21

> A 20-minute nap provides an energy boost comparable with a cup of strong coffee (without the later crash). This is not true for me. If I get a 20-minute nap in the middle of the day, I wake up wasted. It takes around another 20 minutes for me to get really awaken.

I have that issue, and I've tried with anything from 5 minutes to 30 minutes. Regardless of the time frame I wake up feeling confused, sleepy and my head hurts.

Re: How to rest well

#66

Post by mrweasel »

leobg wrote: post #53
helpfulmandrill wrote: post #33

So we've got to optimize rest now? I'm so tired of this world.

Haha. I said the same thing to Tim Ferriss in 2010 when he talked about “hacking” meditation. He did not take that well.

That is hilarious. Ferriss is an interesting guy, but there's something funky going on when you're trying to "hack" century old concept. It's basically Schwarzenegger telling you to sleep faster.

Re: How to rest well

#67

Post by mrweasel »

tinyhouse wrote: post #15
0x008 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just go for walks without taking my phone with me. Works alright.

Same. But my brain is consistently thinking about stuff. I wonder if it's still rest?

That's why I go for walks. I believe it frees up time for the brain to think through stuff without getting interrupted. Sure it might be a series of incohernt throughs and ideas, but that's fine, now they've been processed and the mind can relax.

Re: How to rest well

#68

Post by owenversteeg »

shmel wrote: post #26
dkeidowb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any examples of this? If its half-life is 6 hours, then after six hours half of the caffeine is still there, and we know caffeine has a half life of 6 hours. I don't know of any molecules with a non-linear half-life but I might be completely wrong

There aren't many with zero-order pharmacokinetics (linear curve decay). The only notable exception is alcohol though.

Interesting, for a second I thought that had to be wrong because I was aware of aspirin and alcohol, but apparently they are the two common ones and the vast majority are a bit more complex, which also makes sense if you think about it logically I suppose.

It looks like in addition to those, others with zero-order pharmacokinetics include salicylates (salts of salicylic acid incl. aspirin), omeprazole (for indigestion), fluoxetine (antidepressant), phenytoin (for epilepsy), methanol (a poisonous alcohol) and cisplatin (chemo medication.)

Re: How to rest well

#70

Post by gauchojs »

brendan0powers wrote: post #58
oedmarap wrote: post #9

One of the strategies that changed my sleep quality for the better is to stop taking coffee after 9 AM; after learning that caffeine has a half-life of around 6-7 hours[0], but a quarter-life of around 12 hours. If you have a cup of coffee at noon, a quarter of that caffeine can still be circulating around your brain at midnight. [0] https://youtu.be/k5BMGmf1ai0

This is one of those things you just have to try and see if it works. I've quit caffeine completely for a few weeks, and didn't notice a difference in my sleep quality.

Me too - but I stopped for 30 days and didn't cut other caffeine sources..
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