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

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

#341

Post by astrange »

xp84 wrote: post #205
corysama wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very important paragraph from quern's article > There are few to no side-effects to melatonin use in adults (there is uncertainty about the risks & benefits in children & adolescents28), and it is not addictive or habit-forming like caffeine is. The usual dose for a night is 0.5-3 mg and I take 1.5mg [29]; my dose is highly likely to be too high. High doses may well be responsible for why some people try me…

Natrol makes a 1mg gummy and Vitafusion has a peach flavored 1.5mg gummy (sold as “3mg” but the dose is “two gummies.” My kids use these. I get them on Amazon.

Bulletproof has 0.3mg capsules, but it's a pricier brand. On the other hand, I'm not sure which other brands actually have the dose they say they do.

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

#342

Post by astrange »

lII1lIlI11ll wrote: post #328
Aurornis wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment above just said “sleeping pills” which is ambiguous. Melatonin is an OTC supplement. True “sleeping pills” are usually controlled substances and few doctors would prescribe them as first-line options for a patient who shows up with first time complaints of sleep problems. They won’t be prescribed long-term either. The part of the post that says doctors (plural) tried to prescribe the pills makes me think…

> True “sleeping pills” are usually controlled substances and few doctors would prescribe them as first-line options for a patient who shows up with first time complaints of sleep problems. They won’t be prescribed long-term either. Modern orexin antagonist sleep medications are not addictive and can be taken long-term.

Trazodone is also not addictive and doesn't have bad side effects afaik.

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

#343

Post by tsoukase »

hart_russell wrote: post #336
tsoukase wrote: post #312

Studies that reach HN and other pop places usually have a lot in common: they link a widespread, modifiable and 'catchy' factor (like sleep, sugar/meat etc consumption, human relations) with a single sensational end point (death), and involve 5/6-figures number of participants. Another common one is a huge confounding spill that makes them useless for practical decisions but valuable for further, more rigorous resear…

I think in this instance, it wouldn’t be shocking that irregular sleep would increase all cause mortality.

Another common property of such studies is that their result is mildly surprising. Not much so that it will be scrutinised and questioned and not indifferent because no one will care about them. So, you receive your expectation.

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

#344

Post by echoangle »

VagabundoP wrote: post #332
echoangle wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t jinx it

placebo works whether you believe or not and even if you know. They are very powerful.

It’s less than if you don’t know though, right?

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

#345

Post by eichin »

NichoPaolucci wrote: post #182
dalben wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could pick a company car in my previous company (it's a tax thing). We could pick any color, apart from red, because the insurance forbade it - red cars get into more accidents. Somehow that must have made it all the way to the policy without someone asking "is it the red car or the kind of person that picks a red car that causes more accidents?"

I drive a "Victory Red" 2005 Chevy Silverado. I always thought it was a "safer" color for a vehicle. I have always assumed that, being in a larger vehicle that is bright red, people would be more likely to spot the vehicle from further away, notice it out of the corner of their eye, or that I would generally be MORE visible to other drivers. I'm sure the correlation insurance companies are looking at is that the driv…

The anecdotes I picked up in my early driving days suggested that red being more visible also meant it was more visible to traffic cops and get more attention - and thus more speeding tickets even for relatively small violations. (No idea if this was supported by insurance data - in the most solid of the anecdotes, the driver in question had just traded in a bright red porsche for something comparably fast but "not red" and didn't have followup numbers yet :-)

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

#346

Post by sigmoid10 »

el1s7 wrote: post #310
sigmoid10 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Research papers are written to be read by other researchers, not laypeople. If you have no scientific background and want to read up on a topic that you are not familiar with, you'll have to find other sources of information.

Sure, by "other researchers" you mean other people who learned jargon terminology. And why would someone need to have a scientific background to read about sleep regularity and how it affects mortality?

Would you expect to be able to read a string theory research paper too just because the topic sounds interesting to you? And to be clear: You don't need a scientific background to read about sleep regularity and how it affects mortality. I'm sure there are more than enough popsci articles that will pick this up. You only need it if you want to understand the original research papers. Because unlike popular science magazines (which have journalists writing for laypeople), research papers are written by scientists for other scientists.

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

#348

Post by dharmatech »

Aurornis wrote: post #153
dharmatech wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, magnesium has helped. For me, avoiding high histamine foods as well as histamine liberators had helped tremendously. The theory: Anti-histamines like Benadryl make you sleepy by blocking histamine. Well, instead of blocking the histamine, get rid of it in the first place by avoiding histamine foods (for example aged or preserved meats).

Histamine has different pools, functions, and receptors in the body. You’re reducing it all to one single level that goes up or down with diet but that’s not how it works. The brain histamine in your neurons is primarily synthesized from an amino acid. The histamine levels in neurons are different than the levels in mast cells. There are a lot of degrees of hand waving in your theory that don’t work.

Hey Aurornis,

I definitely haven't looked into the underlying models of histamine to see how things work.

My observation is that, when I avoid histamine related foods, I sleep longer and fall asleep faster. The naive model is what led me to try that. But I totally acknowledge that there's likely way more at play under the hood. And I would like to know more about why this works! Or, at least why it works for me.

Thank you for pointing out the complexity of the underlying mechanism.

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

#349

Post by erikerikson »

kulahan wrote: post #307
nialv7 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you did read the paper, you'd have noticed that people who slept more regularly in this research were also wealthier, and more physically active. They did say they adjusted for these variables, but who knows. Maybe they didn't adjust them enough, maybe there are more covariates they didn't consider.

I guess it just seems extremely obvious to me that people who live a predictable-enough life to sleep and wake at the same time every day are less likely to face mortality than people with schedules so chaotic they sleep at different times regularly. It’s still good science to do, but without a solid cause or two, I don’t think anything helpful is actually being revealed by this study, at least from a layman’s perspe…

Are you assuming that everyone prefers sleep regularity such that access is the only predictor?

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

#350

Post by QuercusMax »

stronglikedan wrote: post #180
small_model wrote: post #152

I do bi/tri phase sleep, 6 hours at night, and 1-2 naps a day (I work remotely so allows me to nap when I want) This is the best, sleep when you need to you body knows best. Do you think our ancestors slept exactly 8 hours a night from 10pm to 6am? No they slept when they wanted.

I've tried this but naps make me groggy for the rest of the day, or sometimes I get confused thinking it's the next day. What's your secret to waking up refreshed from a nap?

Your naps are too long. Think of it as a reboot, not a full power-down cycle.

I set a 25 minute timer and usually wake up a few minutes before it goes off. You don't want to go all the way into deep sleep which really requires 2-3 hours to properly do a REM cycle, and if you wake up in the middle you'll be super groggy.

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