Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Good sleep, good learning, good life

supermemo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 127 posts

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#101

Post by [deleted] »

huggah wrote: post #81
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.

[deleted]

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#102

Post by logn »

purephase wrote: post #38
antirez wrote: post #37

I and my wife co-sleep with my daughter that is now almost 4 months old, this worked very well for us, basically she sleeps the whole night, interrupting us just when she needs some milk. However because she is breastfed it is pretty natural because of co-sleeping so my wife just let she start getting the milk and fall asleep again after a few second. Surely it does not work for everybody but when it works it means t…

We tried this (our daughter is almost 6 months old) but every bloody doctor, nurse, family member etc. that we discussed this with put the every living terror in us about accidentally killing her. The baby slept well, we did not.

I know a pediatrician who advises patients' parents the same thing: co-sleeping is dangerous. This doctor admitted to me that they co-sleep sometimes though.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#103

Post by logn »

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…

I take trazadone too. It's a life saver. I only take it occasionally. It seems to correct my sleep schedule for at least several weeks after taking it for a few nights.

Also, it's an extremely cheap medication. My doc told me that so few doctors prescribe it because of that. The drug reps push the newer meds to make more money. And the drug companies fund studies showing side effects of trazadone. It's a shame because he said he notices a lot more hangover and mental degradation in people on ambien and the like.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#104

Post by DanBC »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #63
Domenic_S wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scientifically-minded person realizes that doctors people too, with their own biases, agendas, and misinformation. A scientifically-minded person would seek out research to determine the best course of action.

Of course, I would never deny that people should do their own research. Based on my googling, they would probably find that there's a lot of research to back up the doctors' advice, and plenty of anecdotes to back up co-sleeping advocates. Certainly the default position should be that medical professionals know what they are talking about for folks who are not inclined to do the actual research.

> Certainly the default position should be that medical professionals know what they are talking about

In general I agree with you. When you're faced with a large amount of literature from many doctors and specialists in the field you should be able to assume that someone has done the research, and that most of the medical profession agree.

It'd be great if more people could read and understand research. But we're stuck with sub-optimal reporting, and people struggling to understand what is really meant by "50% reduction in risk" or "20 times less likely to die".

Having said all that: Here's an off topic rant.

There are very many examples of doctors not using scientific method but relying on their "expertise".[1]

This has caused significant harm to many people.

Doctors tend not to talk about stuff that is obvious nonsense, and a lot of their interventions sound plausible. But that's the sneaky danger! We know woo is woo, and if people want to fund research into it good luck to them. But for things that sound plausible? That's exactly when we need good research, because common sense and expertise is fallible.

This isn't from doctors trying to deceive people. It's from good clinicians who are not aware of their limits.

[1] A great example is "Arthroscopic Knee Surgery No Better Than Placebo Surgery", from about 2000.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#105

Post by Gustomaximus »

purephase wrote: post #38
antirez wrote: post #37

I and my wife co-sleep with my daughter that is now almost 4 months old, this worked very well for us, basically she sleeps the whole night, interrupting us just when she needs some milk. However because she is breastfed it is pretty natural because of co-sleeping so my wife just let she start getting the milk and fall asleep again after a few second. Surely it does not work for everybody but when it works it means t…

We tried this (our daughter is almost 6 months old) but every bloody doctor, nurse, family member etc. that we discussed this with put the every living terror in us about accidentally killing her. The baby slept well, we did not.

We were worried about this with our first. So we placed her in a low/soft walled inner cot box between us in bed. It gave a boundary you could easily feel when sleeping and seemed to give the best of both worlds.

The other strict rule we had was if someone had a few drinks, the baby slept in the cot or you slept on the couch. A nurse told us that largely these smothering baby tragedies occur when someone has had a few drinks.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#106

Post by Volpe »

readme wrote: post #93
Domenic_S wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scientifically-minded person realizes that doctors people too, with their own biases, agendas, and misinformation. A scientifically-minded person would seek out research to determine the best course of action.

A person with common sense would look at the mass of a baby, and the mass of an adult human. They'd consider their tendencies to sleep heavily, and perhaps conclude that the adult could easily roll over on the baby, and kill it. Or knock it off the edge of the bed, and kill it. Hell, if you do the research there are plenty instances of people punching their sleeping partner in the face during sleep, because they were…

> A person with common sense would look at the mass of a baby, and the mass of an adult human.

Weight/mass has very little to do with it. The baby is never 'crushed' it is 'smothered'.

Also when you smother a baby (accidentally or intentional) it squirms. So common sense would indicate the key factor is how heavily you sleep, and how easily could you role onto the baby.

If the babies head is the same level as your head, the chances of rolling on top, would require some pretty intense dreaming.

Knocking a baby off the bed is very unlikely to kill a baby (they are in a relaxed state, and have flexible bone structure/skull).

Research indicates co-sleeping is dangerous when the adult has consumed alcohol or drugs (i.e is sleeping very heavily).

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#107

Post by gmurphy »

huggah wrote: post #81
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.

Gwern is male; not only is Gwern a boy's name, making it a reasonable assumption, but he publicly declares himself as male.

For example:

https://plus.google.com/103530621949492999968/about

http://www.last.fm/user/gwern

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#108

Post by ScottBurson »

ahoyhere wrote: post #96
ScottBurson wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not headaches, but I would start to feel faint/dizzy during (causes a drop in blood pressure) and a day or two later, intense pain in any of the muscles I worked, and I would feel like I got hit by a truck. Like my limbs weighed a thousand pounds and I couldn't lift them. Even something as simple as tearing a piece of paper would feel like an immense effort. Early on, when I first got CFS, it was so bad there were se…

Huh. I guess it just manifests differently in different people. I've never had any muscle pain from it -- just headache, sometimes severe. But it reliably shows up 8 to 48 hours after exercise.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#109

Post by r00fus »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #105
purephase wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We tried this (our daughter is almost 6 months old) but every bloody doctor, nurse, family member etc. that we discussed this with put the every living terror in us about accidentally killing her. The baby slept well, we did not.

We were worried about this with our first. So we placed her in a low/soft walled inner cot box between us in bed. It gave a boundary you could easily feel when sleeping and seemed to give the best of both worlds. The other strict rule we had was if someone had a few drinks, the baby slept in the cot or you slept on the couch. A nurse told us that largely these smothering baby tragedies occur when someone has had a fe…

...Or sleep pills (ie, ambien,etc).

When we coslept with our first kid, I almost rolled over onto my daughter once - she squaked in a way that I would never be able to ignore - unless I had been medicated.

Re: Good sleep, good learning, good life

#110

Post by Tichy »

purephase wrote: post #38
antirez wrote: post #37

I and my wife co-sleep with my daughter that is now almost 4 months old, this worked very well for us, basically she sleeps the whole night, interrupting us just when she needs some milk. However because she is breastfed it is pretty natural because of co-sleeping so my wife just let she start getting the milk and fall asleep again after a few second. Surely it does not work for everybody but when it works it means t…

We tried this (our daughter is almost 6 months old) but every bloody doctor, nurse, family member etc. that we discussed this with put the every living terror in us about accidentally killing her. The baby slept well, we did not.

Our doctors told us that mothers don't kill their babies while they sleep, due to some instinct. Fathers might, but apparently mostly if they are drunk (so we've been told).

What we had and loved is a "baby bay" - basically a half open crib that docks onto the bed (on mommy's side obviously). That way the child has instant access to mommy, but you can't accidentally roll into the crib and smother her because the crib is too small for mommy.

Post reply on HN