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How to rest well

psyche.co

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Re: How to rest well

#101

Post by el_benhameen »

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’m curious how folks here manage a midday nap. I usually fall asleep quite well at night, but unless I’m unusually exhausted (stayed up too late, one of the kids was up during the night), I can’t calm my mind enough to actually sleep during the day. Even if I can manage to do it, it takes a long time, so a 20-minute nap really takes an hour+ given the wind-down time.

Re: How to rest well

#102

Post by neltnerb »

thejackgoode wrote: post #2

I've been doing "shallow rest" (think your typical mindless binge on anything) for whole my life and it has been difficult to convince myself or even find resources to become involved in resting, making it "deep rest" as mentioned in the article. Anyone has a good personal perspective on how to learn to do it?

I think it's the same as trying to form any other habit intentionally.

Have a bed that you sleep in.

Don't do anything in that bed other than sleep. If you are laying trying to sleep and find you cannot, get out of that bed and go elsewhere.

This trains you to associate that bed with sleep and nothing else. It makes it so that when you go there in the future you have an ingrained habit that tells you it is time to sleep. Even reading in bed screwed it up for me.

I think basically the same approach fits any other activity. If you want to get deeply in the flow for learning karate you have a dojo that you associate with it. You get way less distracted because you only do one thing there.

I think sleep or laying still and meditating is about the most useful kind of rest for me, so I originally mostly talked about sleep. I think that the ability to get deeply into a task is generally strongly associated with environmental cues. Bowing before you start karate practice is a formal way to move into deep practice, even if you're practicing on your own.

Re: How to rest well

#103

Post by mattgreenrocks »

bobthechef wrote: post #62

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…

This is one of the few books I re-read on a yearly basis. It is convicting.

Re: How to rest well

#104

Post by mlac »

jasfi wrote: post #14
thejackgoode wrote: post #2

I've been doing "shallow rest" (think your typical mindless binge on anything) for whole my life and it has been difficult to convince myself or even find resources to become involved in resting, making it "deep rest" as mentioned in the article. Anyone has a good personal perspective on how to learn to do it?

Make it a goal for a specific day. Turn off all your devices, except for your phone (if you really have to be contactable or check something).

I’m taking this to the extreme and purchasing a bluetooth home phone, so I can leave my phone in a room with the base station, and still pick up if someone calls / texts throughout the day. But no apps or anything. Gives me a way to get out of connection anxiety.

Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086PYS5VG?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&ref_...

Re: How to rest well

#105

Post by jimpix45 »

mrweasel wrote: post #67
tinyhouse wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I also like doing this and I'll try to focus on what I'm seeing during my walk which helps my brain not to wander worrying about work or other stressors but it allows me to be in the moment.

Re: How to rest well

#106

Post by jimpix45 »

drclau wrote: post #83
pps wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not books, but I recommend Huberman Lab podcast on YT (at least two episodes on sleep) and https://themattwalkerpodcast.buzzsprout.com/

I second Huberman Lab podcast. He has now a monthly newsletter too, and September’s was about sleep. You can read it here: https://hubermanlab.com/toolkit-for-sleep/ Thanks for the second suggestion, I’ll have a look.

I third Huberman Lab podcast - he has a lot of great content. His recent one about ADHD was really interesting!

Re: How to rest well

#108

Post by BizarroLand »

Terry_Roll wrote: post #72
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 link unfortunately doesnt really address the chemical imbalances which are normalised throughout society as stress and aging. If you consider yourself to be just a complex chemical reaction with a consciousness as the end result of the complex chemical reactions which have evolved over thousands of years, then I'd simply be looking at chemical solutions for good rest. Its not strictly true that caffeine has a ha…

What 5-alpha reductase would you suggest for someone wanting to test this out?

Re: How to rest well

#109

Post by Terry_Roll »

BizarroLand wrote: post #108
Terry_Roll wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This link unfortunately doesnt really address the chemical imbalances which are normalised throughout society as stress and aging. If you consider yourself to be just a complex chemical reaction with a consciousness as the end result of the complex chemical reactions which have evolved over thousands of years, then I'd simply be looking at chemical solutions for good rest. Its not strictly true that caffeine has a ha…

What 5-alpha reductase would you suggest for someone wanting to test this out?

I'd suggest Glycine but if you are not allowed sugar for medical reasons, consult a doctor first. Glycine like many chemicals play many parts in the body and combine with other chemicals, like other amino acids. Its one of the ingredients of creatine, now creatine gets broken down into creatinine which is a gram positive and gram negative anti bacterial, and bacteria in the brain & body can also affect personality so there may be other factors at play contributing to your mood. If you want to study this, then you should know the answer to your question!

Re: How to rest well

#110

Post by jholman »

doitLP wrote: post #57
600frogs wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Slightly off topic but I always understood these types of books (scientific, biographical, medical) go through extensive fact checking before legit publishers will publish them. Is that not the case? Or did the author just serve as his own fact checker for that book?

I would be very curious to hear of cases where any fact checking at all was done by legit publishers.

Everything I've ever heard about the publishing industry contradicts what you have supposed. But I don't have any real evidence!

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