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Less Coffee, Better Sleep

marginalia.nu

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Re: Less Coffee, Better Sleep

#21

Post by maccard »

I’ve always struggled with sleep. A few things that helped me (in order of importance)

- go to bed and get up at the same time every day. Getting up is more important than going to bed.

- no phone in bed, and limit stimulating activities (intense video games, programming, planning the vacation etc) to 90 minutes before bed. I read during that time but TV, cleaning, music, whatever works.

- a bad nights sleep will happen, often a few nights in a row. Be ok with that (easier said than done, I did CBT for this). Instead of lying in bed restless get up and watch TV, or read.

- leave the house for 30 minutes every day.

- journal as often as possible. Ideally daily, but a few times a eeek. Don’t ever read it back but just write down your feelings and the things on your mind. Do good and bad.

- exercise every other day.

- no coffee after lunch, and never more than 3 in a morning.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint and overall I have way less bad nights than I did before, and I don’t beat myself up as much for the bad nights.

Re: Less Coffee, Better Sleep

#22

Post by gentooflux »

foft wrote: post #11

Cutting coffee to just the morning definitely helped me. My problem now is that if I think of anything vaguely interesting in the evening then my brain refuses to stop thinking about it. That and restless legs. Evening if my main time for hobby projects so having them lead to disrupted sleep is really annoying. Any tips?

Magnesium, L-Theanine, and vitamin d. Make a regular bed time for yourself, and stop looking at screens 30 minutes before that time. Regular is more importantly than early, I.e. 11:30 is passable but only if it's always 11:30.

Re: Less Coffee, Better Sleep

#23

Post by speedgoose »

pilooch wrote: post #17
foft wrote: post #11

Cutting coffee to just the morning definitely helped me. My problem now is that if I think of anything vaguely interesting in the evening then my brain refuses to stop thinking about it. That and restless legs. Evening if my main time for hobby projects so having them lead to disrupted sleep is really annoying. Any tips?

Daily sports is the way, purges the body, rests the mind.

But not too late, otherwise you don’t sleep well.

Re: Less Coffee, Better Sleep

#24

Post by maccard »

shoobiedoo wrote: post #20
mattrighetti wrote: post #5

Interesting coincidence - I’ve been drinking only one cup of coffee in the morning for the past month or so. Used to drink one in the morning and one immediately after lunch. Couldn’t really tell the difference in sleep quality and to be fair I’m waking up more frequently in the past 2 weeks, but I guess that has to do more with heat than anything else. Listened to many podcasts trying to learn more about this and th…

Well I think the key point is that caffeine has a half life of 6 or 7 hours in adults. So 4 coffees before 10am is worse than one coffee at 2pm. That's how I look at it anyway. Regardless, I limit myself to 2 cups before 8am. Now I notice even a late afternoon green tea wrecking my sleep. Can't believe I spent all those years drinking 5 cups well into the afternoon...

> I spent all those years

Sleep changes as we age, so it’s possible that you were “fine” before.

Re: Less Coffee, Better Sleep

#28

Post by CapsAdmin »

Whenever I stop drinking coffee for a few days or even months, I find that it becomes harder to wake up. I seem to sleep a lot heavier, but in the morning it's difficult to open my eyes as they feel heavy.

It doesn't matter if I have 1 cup in the morning or drink coffee all day. As long as I have it in my system from the previous day, it's very easy to wake up the next day.

Re: Less Coffee, Better Sleep

#29

Post by nomorewords »

mittermayr wrote: post #13
ShinyLeftPad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sleeping with AC all night has its own issues. What are the issues sleeping with AC all night?

Dried up air (I love A/C regardless).

Does it dry up that much? I have an ikea smart thermometer that's in the flow of the AC and I haven't seen humidity drop below 40% even in summer

Re: Less Coffee, Better Sleep

#30

Post by tigerlily »

maccard wrote: post #21

I’ve always struggled with sleep. A few things that helped me (in order of importance) - go to bed and get up at the same time every day. Getting up is more important than going to bed. - no phone in bed, and limit stimulating activities (intense video games, programming, planning the vacation etc) to 90 minutes before bed. I read during that time but TV, cleaning, music, whatever works. - a bad nights sleep will hap…

Huh, this'll probably do more than just improve sleep.
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