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Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

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Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#211

Post by karmonhardan »

seer wrote: post #183
lazyasciiart wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did that for years with jobs that required it and didn’t find that worked for me.

I think I effectively switched from a night owl to an early bird by having something I _really_ wanted to do in the morning that was actually physical (martial arts classes). I remember the exact day my body switched - I was going in the early morning and my body was not approving of my initiative. Every morning was hell - but then one morning early spring we had a training outside - sunrise, early leaves on the tree…

Older people tend to get up earlier. There is a special place in hell for the Baby Boomers who insisted on a 7:30 start time for our office (though, of course, as the guy who opened every morning, I had to be there earlier). The anxiety that I developed went away when I left and could get up when I wanted to. There are many, many monrings where I lie in bed at 7:30 and think, "I would have had to be a Bukowski quote by now."

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#212

Post by Starlevel004 »

xeromal wrote: post #175
thimabi wrote: post #87

I found the best way to ensure sleep regularity is by having a fixed wake-up time. If you don’t have one and you begin to set your alarm clock to early hours, the first weeks doing so will feel like hell. But eventually all will be worth it. The sleepiness during the day will disappear and, at night, your body will naturally want to get some rest early. Another strategy is to fill your day with deep work and exercise…

I think you have a key component in good sleep but there are 2 more imo. The first is that phones and light break our natural sleepiness triggers and the second is that we don't exercise our bodies enough because of our sedentary lifetstyle. I used to struggle with terrible insomnia and I still get bouts of it time to time but I've also found it's related to my laxing my 3 rules. If I have a good workout about 5x a w…

I do none of those things and have great sleep.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#213

Post by bjornsing »

bloqs wrote: post #200
bjornsing wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another hypothesis that seems plausible to me is that what we’re really measuring when looking at sleep is mental health, and mental health is a strong predictor of mortality 10-15 years into the future.

You are already correct, but the actual factor here is trait Neuroticism (negative emotion personality dimension), which is very roughly speaking a combination of genetic factors and your ACE score. ACE score is shockingly good at predicting mortality, having one over 6 makes people die on average 20 years earlier.

Yeah that’s kind of what I’m after: ACEs mess up people’s sleep and cause early deaths. That makes sleep patters a strong predictor for all cause mortality, but the causal relationship is really ”ACEs cause both poor sleep and early death”.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#214

Post by simmerup »

iamacyborg wrote: post #201
benrapscallion wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because this is in UK Biobank, a cohort of >500K Brits and collecting actually in such a large cohort is a miracle, let alone for multiple days. All thanks to the people who volunteered into the study. Would it be nice to have even more? Sure. But at that scale, patterns start to emerge.

There’s a health research programme currently underway in the UK that’s looking to recruit up to 5 million people. I believe they’re currently at around the 1 million mark. https://ourfuturehealth.org.uk/

I almost volunteered for this but was concerned that they were liberally using the NHS branding to disguise that they’re private

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#218

Post by thimabi »

m463 wrote: post #120
thimabi wrote: post #87

I found the best way to ensure sleep regularity is by having a fixed wake-up time. If you don’t have one and you begin to set your alarm clock to early hours, the first weeks doing so will feel like hell. But eventually all will be worth it. The sleepiness during the day will disappear and, at night, your body will naturally want to get some rest early. Another strategy is to fill your day with deep work and exercise…

what helped me was to use an alarm clock. but to go to sleep!

In my case, having a bedtime alarm would only leave me anxious and frustrated if I went to bed and failed to sleep at that time.

But I have tried something similar: setting an alarm to decompress before sleeping. No phone, no TV — just some quiet music playing or some books to read.

I still set this night alarm, but it is much easier to ignore it than to ignore my body’s natural tendency to lose steam after waking up early and having done so much during the day.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#219

Post by thimabi »

t-3 wrote: post #134
thimabi wrote: post #87

I found the best way to ensure sleep regularity is by having a fixed wake-up time. If you don’t have one and you begin to set your alarm clock to early hours, the first weeks doing so will feel like hell. But eventually all will be worth it. The sleepiness during the day will disappear and, at night, your body will naturally want to get some rest early. Another strategy is to fill your day with deep work and exercise…

Alarms aren't foolproof though. I often shut them off in my sleep or sleep through them, so I have to keep the phone on the other side of the room AND change the alarm every week or two to prevent adaptation, and that still doesn't help if I can't fall asleep for whatever reason and end up sleeping through due to sheer exhaustion. What I've found that actually works well is alcohol; if I'm not tired at sleep-time, ta…

> What I've found that actually works well is alcohol; if I'm not tired at sleep-time, take a swig of 130 proof absinthe and I'll be asleep before long.

I’d be wary of relying on alcohol to sleep, because the relaxation that it offers is somewhat distinct from a good night’s sleep.

Alcohol has been known to disrupt “REM sleep”, thus making your sleep phases inconsistent. In the long run, it might leave you with even poorer sleep quality.

Re: Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)

#220

Post by thimabi »

clvx wrote: post #137
thimabi wrote: post #87

I found the best way to ensure sleep regularity is by having a fixed wake-up time. If you don’t have one and you begin to set your alarm clock to early hours, the first weeks doing so will feel like hell. But eventually all will be worth it. The sleepiness during the day will disappear and, at night, your body will naturally want to get some rest early. Another strategy is to fill your day with deep work and exercise…

Get a german shepherd dog. They will wake you up at the same time everyday whether you like it or not.

I don’t know about a German shepherd dog specifically. But my experience with dogs is that they will wake me up whether I like it or not… whenever they feel like it, even in the middle of the night. That can be severely disrupting.
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