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The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

zarar.dev

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Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#4
I heard a sleep expert say that during the night your logic and reasoning abilities are greatly reduced. I think it was in relation to dreaming, you don't want to apply much logic to that stuff.

That's why trying to solve problems in the middle of the night just ends up in stress.

Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#6
Ha, that was a stressful yet funny read. The self flagellation bit hits too close to home though. I run a somewhat successful iOS/MacOS app and pushed a release that completely broke about 350k+ installations. Not entirely my fault but doesn't matter as it's my product.

The cold sweats and shame I felt, man... Plus it's on the App Store so there's the review process to deal with which extends the timeline for a fix. Thankfully, they picked it up for review 30 minutes after submission and approved it in a few minutes.

Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#7
post #4

I heard a sleep expert say that during the night your logic and reasoning abilities are greatly reduced. I think it was in relation to dreaming, you don't want to apply much logic to that stuff. That's why trying to solve problems in the middle of the night just ends up in stress.

It also makes sense why I'll wake up in the middle of the night terrified of things that don't bother me during the day. My fears all are much more immediate in the witching hour, and I can't talk them away.

Re: The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

#10
post #4

I heard a sleep expert say that during the night your logic and reasoning abilities are greatly reduced. I think it was in relation to dreaming, you don't want to apply much logic to that stuff. That's why trying to solve problems in the middle of the night just ends up in stress.

Funny enough, I almost exclusively do my best problem solving at night. I'll wake up with solutions, or I'll stay awake and get things done. I'd say 90% of my Master's work was done between midnight and 3am.

But indeed, regardless of time of day, if I just wake up, or am woken up, I'm basically a big, dangerous toddler when it comes to problem solving.

Context and nuance is important, of course. We're all so different.

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