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Improving sleep

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Re: Improving sleep

#41

Post by sebra »

My tactic for falling asleep just about anywhere is over-ear headphones (QC35) and a sleeping mask.

Sleeping slightly on your side is no problem with QC35 and if the noise around you is low enough you don't even need white noise. The battery lasts a couple of nights too (esp with no white noise on).

I've tried doing the same with Sonys over-ear but they make a loud noise when I move my head so they don't work for me at all. AirPods Pro work in a pinch but the battery runs out and my ears start hurting.

Another thing which I find mildy helpful which wasn't mentioned here is Valerian. If my lack of sleep is stress-related Valerian works sometimes for calming. If my lack of sleep is due to bad routine / off schedule Melatonin works very well but if I'm stressed it does not work at all and leaves me groggy in the morning.

Re: Improving sleep

#42

Post by andyborst »

ndbe wrote: post #33

Weightlifting and better nutrition really improved my sleep. I almost hibernate every night now, it's like a miracle.

Running and a food diary. I found I was waking at night because of histamine intolerance. The food you eat has a huge effect on your circadian rhythms and it could last for days after eating a specific food. For me, it was fermented foods. The last four weeks, my moving average on sleep has been the best this year.

Re: Improving sleep

#43

Post by gls2ro »

I also have a light sleep. In my case, light sleep means that I wake up very easily to almost any sound or movement. I most of the time fall asleep very quickly but sometimes not.

I tried most of the things shared in the article, and indeed, for most of them, it is hard to say if they improved or not over the long run.

Here is one thing that worked for me:

1. I am doing 20 to 30 minutes of what I call light sports every day.

2. I take magnesium l-theonate and apigenin 1-2 hours before sleep.

3. I lost about 10kg, from 100kg to about 90kg.

4. I eat something light around 6 PM.

What do I mean by light sport? For me it measn zone 2 running or I adapted some HIIT training to tone down a bit the intensity or walking a lot (when I am in vacation).

Why 20 minutes to 30 minutes? I only have time for that. It may be better to do more, but that is the amount that I am sure I can commit every day.

Why every day? For me, the effects of this started to kick in after 1 week or more. The first week of doing sport every day I slept well, but I also felt tired the next day. But after 1-2 weeks, I noticed that the tiredness during the day started to disappear.

This is not a scientific study, so I am unsure if magnesium and apigenin have any effect or if it is just a placebo. I plan in the next period to not use them at all for 2-3 weeks and see the effects.

I noticed that if I do this every day, my average sleep gets very good: I wake up less times during the night, the sleep is deeper. I fall asleep around 09:00 PM and wake up at 05:00 AM, fully energized.

Re: Improving sleep

#44

Post by cryptobruh »

Galicarnax wrote: post #31

For about a year already, I use ASMR audio/visuals when I go to bed (strange, not even mentioned in the referenced post). I found they help me falling asleep (though, probably, not staying asleep). Also, not just any ASMR stuff does the job, there is a lot of ASMR junk out there. Plus, ASMR triggers differ in efficiency from one person to another, so I preliminarily assess if a particular recording might be good for…

Never got audio working in the bedroom.

Either the headphones are not comfortable or my wife gets annoyed.

And it has to be something which I don't need to 'get rid of' after falling asleep like headphones or so.

Re: Improving sleep

#45

Post by ansc »

currymj wrote: post #16

there is interesting historical research, which pops up from time to time, showing that people in many cultures before the advent of electric lighting commonly slept in two phases -- about 4 hours, a couple hours awake, and about 4 hours. i think it gets too strong when people claim that this is "natural" or "better" or something. but the historical evidence suggests it's at least "okay", and if you sometimes wake up…

Do you have a source? It sounds interesting and I always want this to be true, but with the natural circadian rhythm slightly longer than 24h and just the fact that most cultures adopt mono/biphasic (”siesta based”) sleep it seems surprising.

Re: Improving sleep

#46

Post by quickthrower2 »

amelius wrote: post #12
Tenoke wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The everpresent bad advice to get 8-9 or more hours of sleep definitely ruined my sleep experience for years when I'd keep trying and fail to do so.

Just change that advice into: spend 8-9 hours in bed.

Input driven goals/habits are definitely better to stick to than result oriented ones.

Re: Improving sleep

#47

Post by marginalia_nu »

Something I've started doing that's had a very marked impact on my sleep is going for a walk each morning. I've always been very active at night (with terrible trouble falling asleep), and always been a zombie in the morning; but this seems to have shifted my wake cycle in such a way that I'm alert and productive during the day and tired at night instead. Hell of a thing.

Re: Improving sleep

#48

Post by masklinn »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #4

Biggest improvement to sleep quality I had was giving up caffeine, which isn't mentioned in this article. I'm inclined to bet, most people in the west who self report suffering form poor sleep, can narrow it down to caffeine over-consumption, since it leads you slowly to this march of death burning the candle at both ends where you drink coffee to compensate for poor sleep and you sleep poorly because of too much caf…

> Biggest improvement to sleep quality I had was giving up caffeine, which isn't mentioned in this article.

Probably because it’s the first thing which comes up when people complain about poor sleep.

Caffeine consumption is certainly the first thing every doc I’ve seen asked about.

Re: Improving sleep

#49

Post by manmal »

Nasal strips are worth a shot too, if nasal airflow is a problem (eg nasal valve collapse or deviated septum).

For sleep apnea, I think there was a post on HN recently that recommended trying a mandibular advancement device before trying sleep masks.

Re: Improving sleep

#50

Post by mberning »

They mention getting tested for sleep apnea and the difficulty of doing the study. It need not be difficult. I did an at home sleep study and got my results in a few days. It was easy and made a huge improvement on my sleep. Instead of getting up multiple times a night to pee, eat, or whatever, I generally stay asleep the whole time.

On a side note, you can kind of do your own sleep study with a wellue/viatom o2 ring or checkme o2 max. It will give you a good idea of whether you should go down the sleep study path.

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