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Good sleep, good learning, good life

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Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#81

Post by huggah »

gmurphy wrote: post #12

I've struggled with sleep issues since I was a small child; even after doing all the reasonable exercise/caffeine/no-bright-lights things people recommended, my brain sometimes just wouldn't shut down. After some introspection, I came to realize that my body seemed be on a 25 hour day, and it just wanted to stay awake an hour later each time. Then I read gwern's article on melatonin[1], and it changed everything. I d…

I'm frustrated at how frequently gwern is assumed to be male. If you aren't sure of someone's gender, please use gender-neutral pronouns. So many of her articles have been posted to HN lately, yet I've only seen masculine pronouns used to refer to her.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#82

Post by secabeen »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #68
antirez wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the study you cite: "Much of the elevated risk appeared to be attributable to drug and alcohol use among the parents". There are parents that co-sleep because they are disorganized, drunk, and so forth, not even able to put the children in their bed. That's the reason why probably there is no causality.

Wait, so a large portion of the risk comes from drugs and alcohol, therefore you are going to ignore whatever risks come directly from co-sleeping? Am I misunderstanding your argument?

I think what he's saying is that co-sleeping provides benefits to his family. While there are risks, it's difficult to discern what the increased risk is in the absence of drugs and alcohol. He feels that there may not be a causal link between SIDS and co-sleeping for families who take co-sleeping seriously and take steps to minimize the known factors in SIDS.

It's not a great argument necessarily, but people accept additional risk of injury to their kids all the time if the benefits outweigh the risks.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#83

Post by andyakb »

ahoyhere wrote: post #73

This article looks like a really amazing resource. I haven't read it all but did a little Cmd+Fing to see if it broached the following topic, and it didn't, so I thought I'd chime in in case somebody else was where I was with these particular sleep issues: I used to have no problems sleeping at all, falling asleep whenever I wanted to, staying asleep all night, sleeping through noises… until I had mono for the second…

would you mind saying what the herbal supplement was that you ended up using? my girlfriend has a lot of these issues as well and I would like to mention it to her so she could discuss it with her doctor the next time she sees him. thanks!

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#84

Post by secabeen »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #67
ambler0 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't think you're reading the parent's post very charitably. They aren't saying, "things used to be a certain way, therefore it's OK." The way I read it, they're suggesting that, if the behavior really killed that many infants, it would be weeded out by the biocultural evolutionary process. If you actually look into the research instead of offloading your opinions to the experts, yo…

> if the behavior really killed that many infants, it would be weeded out by the biocultural evolutionary process. That would also be a terrible argument. To name just one example, shaken baby syndrome still exists. > If you actually look into the research instead of offloading your opinions to the experts I've briefly looked into the research, and it seems to mesh pretty well with what the experts are saying. Now yo…

Here's the details from the previously mentioned study on co-sleeping that shows it can be safe or safer than non-co-sleeping: "The proportion of SIDS infants found cosleeping in a bed with parents who had drunk two units or less of alcohol and taken no drugs was no different from that of the random control infants (18% v 16%). If parents who regularly smoked were further excluded, then five of the SIDS infants (6%) were found in this less risky cosleeping environment compared with nine of the random control infants (10%)."

http://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b3666

TLDR: In this study, SIDS was more likely if the co-sleeper had ingested drugs/alcohol, if the sleeping occurred on a couch, or both. Sober co-sleeping on a bed was as safe or safer than not co-sleeping.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#85

Post by robryan »

naner wrote: post #17
Swizec wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You ingest caffeine only in the morning. But that makes no sense. Caffeine binds to adenosine receptors, which have to do with how sleepy you are. But they aren't doing anything in the morning as you've just woken up (think of them as a counter of how long you've been awake). Any coffee before lunch is just a placebo really. From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine > Caffeine's principal mode of actio…

Any coffee before lunch is just a placebo really. I find this hard to believe. And it would be pretty easy to test using decaf coffee in a double-blind trial.

You would need people that have been caffeine free for a long time as to not have withdrawals effect the results. I would assume there would be a lot of variables in people caffeine responses which would be hard to control.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#86

Post by jbp »

antirez wrote: post #75
wmboy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors are usually learned people who have a lot of helpful (and often lifesaving) advice. But the fact is, being a doctor doesn't make you an expert in nutrition or diet, and it certainly doesn't make you an expert in things like co-sleeping. I'm pretty sure the only deaths you'll have these days as a result of co-sleeping is when one of the parents smoked, took drugs or was obese (and usually a combination).

I agree with what you say, but in my experience here in Sicily, I'm sure there is also a good percentage of bad faith . In the hospital where Greta (my daughter) was born, and later in doctors waiting rooms, I saw a lot of mothers actively discouraged to breastfeed their children in a way or the other. Because co-sleeping is a very important factor in the success rate of breastfeeding I wonder if there is also some c…

Thats surprising, here in US, atleast at Kaiser hopital highly recommend breast feeding, and they offer lots of free support/classes. And surprisingly they don't recommend cosleeping.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#87

Post by wmboy »

antirez wrote: post #75
wmboy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors are usually learned people who have a lot of helpful (and often lifesaving) advice. But the fact is, being a doctor doesn't make you an expert in nutrition or diet, and it certainly doesn't make you an expert in things like co-sleeping. I'm pretty sure the only deaths you'll have these days as a result of co-sleeping is when one of the parents smoked, took drugs or was obese (and usually a combination).

I agree with what you say, but in my experience here in Sicily, I'm sure there is also a good percentage of bad faith . In the hospital where Greta (my daughter) was born, and later in doctors waiting rooms, I saw a lot of mothers actively discouraged to breastfeed their children in a way or the other. Because co-sleeping is a very important factor in the success rate of breastfeeding I wonder if there is also some c…

Hmm perhaps I'm just a cynic, but if health care providers are coming out with such garbage as discouraging breast feeding, it's got to make you wonder whether they want people to be sicker!

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#88

Post by marekmroz »

conroe64 wrote: post #70
tadfisher wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there should be an easy and failsafe technical solution to this.

Negative reinforcement through shock therapy is both easy and failsafe (it will not physically harm the child).

I don't know much about babies, but the way you phrased it made sound like "Beatings will continue until morale improves" approach.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#89

Post by ScottBurson »

ahoyhere wrote: post #73

This article looks like a really amazing resource. I haven't read it all but did a little Cmd+Fing to see if it broached the following topic, and it didn't, so I thought I'd chime in in case somebody else was where I was with these particular sleep issues: I used to have no problems sleeping at all, falling asleep whenever I wanted to, staying asleep all night, sleeping through noises… until I had mono for the second…

What happens to you after you exercise? Do you get headaches?

I also have CFS, and one of the most useful treatments I've found is to take 200mg naproxen at bedtime, four nights a week. (Taking it every night would risk causing serious stomach and/or kidney problems.) This has improved the quality of my sleep considerably. I haven't experienced insomnia from the CFS, though.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#90

Post by mattgreenrocks »

ahoyhere wrote: post #73

This article looks like a really amazing resource. I haven't read it all but did a little Cmd+Fing to see if it broached the following topic, and it didn't, so I thought I'd chime in in case somebody else was where I was with these particular sleep issues: I used to have no problems sleeping at all, falling asleep whenever I wanted to, staying asleep all night, sleeping through noises… until I had mono for the second…

Thanks for this write up! More things to think about.
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