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Ask HN: Most accurate scientific book on human sleep?

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Re: Ask HN: Most accurate scientific book on human sleep?

#41

Post by pedalpete »

sva_ wrote: post #8
pedalpete wrote: post #6

Why We Sleep has some issues, but for a primer, it's a good intro. I read that before I got into working in the neurotech/sleeptech space. The Cambridge textbook The Neuroscience of Sleep and Dreams[1] I found surprisingly approachable. I've long had an interest in neuroscience, so it wasn't a completely new subject to me, but it wasn't a bad read. I'm a life-long insomniac, you didn't go into the details of your sle…

Have you looked into how the light you get affects your sleep cycle? It's not a cure-all but definitely has a very strong effect on circadian rythm.

Yes, I put this in the bucket with sleep hygiene.

Re: Ask HN: Most accurate scientific book on human sleep?

#42

Post by pedalpete »

vjulian wrote: post #7
pedalpete wrote: post #6

Why We Sleep has some issues, but for a primer, it's a good intro. I read that before I got into working in the neurotech/sleeptech space. The Cambridge textbook The Neuroscience of Sleep and Dreams[1] I found surprisingly approachable. I've long had an interest in neuroscience, so it wasn't a completely new subject to me, but it wasn't a bad read. I'm a life-long insomniac, you didn't go into the details of your sle…

My understanding is that scientific understanding of sleep is relatively limited and tenuous at that, compared to other medical topics. A professor at a sleep lab once joked to me that in fifty (or whenever) years, knowledgeable people will find today’s sleep science wrong. As such, I never seriously consider applying recommendations from “sleep science” to my personal life. (Though, to be fair, I’ve no problems slee…

This is what I say all the time. Our understanding of sleep is at the same point our understanding of fitness and diet was in the 70s. I lived through that age, we understood it was important, but didn't know how it works, and are still discovering.

We've been building a consumer level sleep eeg headband, and are looking forward to learning more about brain function with huge volumes of sleep eeg data. Just looking at sleep stages isn't enough.

Of course, our goal isn't to get people to sleep with an eeg device, but we can't stimulate deep sleep without directly monitoring brain activity. We're https://affectablesleep.com

Re: Ask HN: Most accurate scientific book on human sleep?

#43

Post by al_borland »

cassianoleal wrote: post #39
al_borland wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the math might be a little off, telling people not to run to the OBGYN after not getting pregnant after one or two attempts isn't bad advice.

Legit question, I've always wondered... Why do people in the USA spell and pronounce that word as if it were an initialism? I mean OBGYN or OB-GYN as I've seen spelled elsewhere as well. As far as I can tell, it's not 5 words but rather 2: Obstetrician and Gynecologist.

We generally spell out titles for doctors or others in the medical field. PHD, MD, DDS, DO, OBGYN, etc.

It could also be, in part, because if it was lowercase people would try to say it instead of spelling out the letters.

People will often say “gyno” instead of gynecologist, if just talking about that.

Re: Ask HN: Most accurate scientific book on human sleep?

#44

Post by darby_nine »

haswell wrote: post #36
darby_nine wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The curse of liberal society is that we will always struggle with defining who exactly is allowed to gatekeep knowledge. The liberal version of collective censorship comes from widespread consensus among publishers and distributers (and even that is rarely absolute, and I believe only a minority truly think this is possible). For all we lament cancel culture and divisive discourse, our bookstore would look a lot wors…

> I believe it's your patriotic duty to mock and decry people whom you perceive as harmful to society I do think it’s our duty to engage in dialogue about the things that we feel are harmful to society. Dialogue is all we have to address issues peacefully, and how we use it is critical. I disagree that mocking and decrying people is the answer. This may feel good for the person or group doing it, but does little to a…

> This may feel good for the person or group doing it, but does little to actually move the needle in terms of actual change

I disagree completely. I find it's the idea of persuasion that has proved itself to be largely useless when people largely act irrationally and ground their worldviews in incoherent values and aesthetics. Meanwhile mocking people is an extremely effective form of communication.

Re: Ask HN: Most accurate scientific book on human sleep?

#45

Post by cassianoleal »

al_borland wrote: post #43
cassianoleal wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legit question, I've always wondered... Why do people in the USA spell and pronounce that word as if it were an initialism? I mean OBGYN or OB-GYN as I've seen spelled elsewhere as well. As far as I can tell, it's not 5 words but rather 2: Obstetrician and Gynecologist.

We generally spell out titles for doctors or others in the medical field. PHD, MD, DDS, DO, OBGYN, etc. It could also be, in part, because if it was lowercase people would try to say it instead of spelling out the letters. People will often say “gyno” instead of gynecologist, if just talking about that.

> PHD, MD, DDS, DO, OBGYN

PhD is an "almost initialism" :P and would be very hard to read without spelling out the letters.

MD, DDS and DO are initialisms and there's no other way to read it.

ObGyn is more of an acronym and it would make sense to read it as a word.

Re: Ask HN: Most accurate scientific book on human sleep?

#46

Post by kva »

A somewhat niche but good book on sleep-disordered breathing is "Life Saving Sleep" by Barry Krakow [1].

If you have a ton of sleep problems, you should probably catalog them, and try seeing a somnologist or getting an in-lab sleep study.

[1](https://www.amazon.com/Life-Saving-Sleep-Horizons-Treatment/...)

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