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Sleep habits may have long-term benefits

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Re: Sleep habits may have long-term benefits

#91

Post by fmc30 »

lm28469 wrote: post #72
smeej wrote: post #38

I really wanted there to be controllable habits listed in this article, but instead it was about sleep characteristics. Telling me that "having trouble falling asleep," or "having trouble staying asleep," or "not feeling alert upon waking" are working against me is useless to me. These aren't "habits." I'm not choosing to do them until they become routine. They just happen to me. Tell me how to FIX those things. Tell…

Drop caffeine after noon, quite alcohol/cig/weed/screens anywhere close to bed time, keep evening meals small and low in carbs/sugar to avoid an insulin spike, wait at least 3 hours before hitting bed after a meal, more is better. Go to bed at roughly the same time every day, make sure your room is as dark as can be, make sure it's not warmer than 20c, exercise so that you're physically tired at the end of the day, o…

Pretty much this. It isn't rocket science. Unfortunately, easier said than done for most people.

Re: Sleep habits may have long-term benefits

#92

Post by kevviiinn »

rco8786 wrote: post #84
tempsy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why treat “sleep apnea” and not the actual root cause? if you’re not fat and have sleep apnea, the other major cause is alcohol consumption/smoking. seems odd to treat the symptom eg sleep apnea and not try to cut out alcohol and smoking and then reevaluate.

Doctors aren’t typically incentivized to treat things with lifestyle changes. For better or worse, that’s something you need to self advocate for.

That's because nobody listens, doctors have more or less given up. People want meds, they always want a quick fix not to exercise and eat better

Re: Sleep habits may have long-term benefits

#93

Post by ciwchris »

jb1991 wrote: post #46

Any advice in overcoming insomnia? I’ve tried everything I can think of. Melatonin, various vitamin supplements, exercise, dietary changes of a wide variety, nothing seems to help. Always waking up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep.

I struggled with the same. I tried all sorts of practices, "sleep hygiene", supplements and devices. What I eventually learned is that frequently what's need is changing your relationship with sleep. I couldn't find a CBT-I[1] psychologist in my area. So I ended up taking the sleepio.com[2] coaching class as a trial candidate. It walked me through the steps of CBT-I and got my sleep back on track. The recent book Hello Sleep[3] by Dr Jade Wu also does a good job re-framing your perspective on sleep and walking your through CBT-I. You do need to commit to the CBT-I process. It could take several months to complete and one of the initial sleeps often leads to sleep deprivation, so it may feel worse before getting better. But after following the process my sleep improved dramatically. I still keep in mind what I learned when I have the occasional bad night of sleep.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy_f...

2: https://onboarding.sleepio.com/sleepio/onboarding-sleep-test...

3: https://drjadewu.com/

Re: Sleep habits may have long-term benefits

#94

Post by elric »

tempsy wrote: post #87
elric wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit rude of you to assume that I'm apparently an alcoholic or a smoker. Nice illustration of my point that public awareness on sleep apnea is lacking. Good luck figuring out the root cause of sleep apnea. Years of research hasn't turned one up. There's a wide variety of contributing factors (including weight, alcohol, asthma/COPD). But there's also plenty of fat asthmatic drunks who don't have sleep apnea. It's obvio…

Do you have trouble breathing through your nose only? Other issue is people breathe through their mouth instead of nose. Get some nose strips and tape mouth shut and train yourself to breathe through your nose.

Please stop trying to diagnose me on HN without any context or background information. It's not helpful, and it's extremely condescending.

Re: Sleep habits may have long-term benefits

#95

Post by WalterSear »

lm28469 wrote: post #72
smeej wrote: post #38

I really wanted there to be controllable habits listed in this article, but instead it was about sleep characteristics. Telling me that "having trouble falling asleep," or "having trouble staying asleep," or "not feeling alert upon waking" are working against me is useless to me. These aren't "habits." I'm not choosing to do them until they become routine. They just happen to me. Tell me how to FIX those things. Tell…

Drop caffeine after noon, quite alcohol/cig/weed/screens anywhere close to bed time, keep evening meals small and low in carbs/sugar to avoid an insulin spike, wait at least 3 hours before hitting bed after a meal, more is better. Go to bed at roughly the same time every day, make sure your room is as dark as can be, make sure it's not warmer than 20c, exercise so that you're physically tired at the end of the day, o…

Ok, then what?

Re: Sleep habits may have long-term benefits

#96

Post by bagels »

haswell wrote: post #49
smeej wrote: post #38

I really wanted there to be controllable habits listed in this article, but instead it was about sleep characteristics. Telling me that "having trouble falling asleep," or "having trouble staying asleep," or "not feeling alert upon waking" are working against me is useless to me. These aren't "habits." I'm not choosing to do them until they become routine. They just happen to me. Tell me how to FIX those things. Tell…

Convincing people that sleep is a problem worth caring about is half the battle. There are many resources available that get into the practical/tactical aspect of improving sleep. But if you don't believe sleep is a problem yet, you won't seek those out. The Huberman Lab has put out a number of good resources for this [0] including a podcast episode speaking with Matt Walker, PhD, sleep researcher and author of Why w…

What benefit do you derive from changing which hours you are awake?

Re: Sleep habits may have long-term benefits

#97

Post by gumby »

clsec wrote: post #58
elric wrote: post #26

I'll keep saying it: sleep apnea is vastly underdiagnosed and undertreated. I had so many weird symptoms for so long, which all gradually started to disappear as I started to get my sleep apnea treated. Unless you're fat, doctors will rarely even consider the possibility. And once you do get a polysomnogram, the usualy course of action is to throw a CPAP machine at you and send you on your way, without much followup.…

I'm not so sure, my experience tells me differently.. I am a thin guy with very low body fat. As soon as I told my doctor that I had woken up 2-3 times with my soft pallet dry & semi-collapsed, also that I would wake up regularly with a dry mouth, he immediately sent me for a sleep test. I went and did the test and the results were that I had mild sleep apnea. The sleep doctor told me that they were ordering a CPAP m…

> The other thing I learned is that Big Pharma/FDA does a horrible job of listing medication side effects. I say that because "causes sleep apnea" was not on the list of side effects for carbamazeine

Having designed and run clinical trials, I think your assertion based on a single experience is unreasonable.

Companies are very interested in unexpected events, particularly bad ones (called “adverse events” in the jargon). Viagra was “discovered” because of an unanticipated side effect of a drug being tested for a heart disorder.

That long list of side effect warnings? The companies love that list because it reduces legal risk (and marketing risk: doctors will tell patients what to look for and/or will avoid giving it to patients at risk of effect X).

While it seems plausible to me that sleep apnea could be a side effect of a drug like carbamazepine (though it’s not a benzo) it was not reported to any statistically significant extent.

since you have to report all AEs, the FDA will, in some cases, zero in on one that was reported at a minor level for additional study, because someone in the review panel thought worthy of investigation due to some scientific issue in their specialty. Drug companies hate that of course, but that’s one reason why there’s a review panel rather than a single reviewer.

Re: Sleep habits may have long-term benefits

#98

Post by antisthenes »

tempsy wrote: post #87
elric wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit rude of you to assume that I'm apparently an alcoholic or a smoker. Nice illustration of my point that public awareness on sleep apnea is lacking. Good luck figuring out the root cause of sleep apnea. Years of research hasn't turned one up. There's a wide variety of contributing factors (including weight, alcohol, asthma/COPD). But there's also plenty of fat asthmatic drunks who don't have sleep apnea. It's obvio…

Do you have trouble breathing through your nose only? Other issue is people breathe through their mouth instead of nose. Get some nose strips and tape mouth shut and train yourself to breathe through your nose.

Did it ever occur to you that sometimes the structure of people's face makes it harder or easier to breathe through the nose exclusively?

Unless you're a doctor, you should probably stop giving unsolicited medical advice on the internet.

Re: Sleep habits may have long-term benefits

#99

Post by artemavv »

lm28469 wrote: post #72
smeej wrote: post #38

I really wanted there to be controllable habits listed in this article, but instead it was about sleep characteristics. Telling me that "having trouble falling asleep," or "having trouble staying asleep," or "not feeling alert upon waking" are working against me is useless to me. These aren't "habits." I'm not choosing to do them until they become routine. They just happen to me. Tell me how to FIX those things. Tell…

Drop caffeine after noon, quite alcohol/cig/weed/screens anywhere close to bed time, keep evening meals small and low in carbs/sugar to avoid an insulin spike, wait at least 3 hours before hitting bed after a meal, more is better. Go to bed at roughly the same time every day, make sure your room is as dark as can be, make sure it's not warmer than 20c, exercise so that you're physically tired at the end of the day, o…

Yes, I've been following similar recipes and my sleep improved noticeably (after initial ~2 weeks or misery, when my body was getting accustomed to the new sleep schedule)

Re: Sleep habits may have long-term benefits

#100

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

theshrike79 wrote: post #79
CalRobert wrote: post #7

I've wondered if my kids will literally kill me through sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation prevents memories from forming, that's my theory on why people have more than one kid. They actually don't form memories for most of the first year or so. The only memories they have are the pictures they took of the happy moments. Nobody takes a video of their kid screaming their lungs out at 3am with snot running from every orifice because their favourite toy fell off the bed or the pillow is the…

I only have one kid. Having to wake up and calm her down (or, "fuck it, no sense falling asleep since she's gonna wake me up AGAIN in 30 minutes") is probably the one thing I remember very distinctly in the last three years. COVID-19 kinda smooshed everything else together and made it bleak. My sleep deprivation stands out.

I want to forget, but can't.

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