A couple of times a week, I wake up at 3 or 4a & can't go back to sleep for a couple of hours.
Does anyone else run into this? What approaches did you take to counteract?
You don’t have to feel guilty for oversleeping
31–40 of 111 posts
Re: You don’t have to feel guilty for oversleeping
#32"Be the first to share this on Hacker News" I'm not sure how this is news worthy- I guess some people feel every entry in their diary of personal accomplishments must grace the pages of Hacker News. I'm glad the author overcame his disorder, but asking people to post it to HN... I also imagine this will be a great way for a lot more people than the 0.15 to 0.17% of the population that actually has Delayed Sleep Phase…
Whether he misdiagnosed himself is kind of irrelevant. The case is:
- He's had a chronic problem with sleep. - He was able to overcome his problem with sleep by realizing it was not so much a personal or moral fault, but a problem that was being approached the wrong way. - He related the story to a friend who felt that her inability to sleep was a character weakness, and upon realizing that maybe it was just that she had a difference and needed to approach that problem differently was a comfort to her. - He thought maybe that sharing the story with others would help them recognize that maybe their sleep problems weren't a bad character trait like laziness, but instead just an unsolved problem on how to properly let themselves fall asleep.
I disagree with some of his diagnoses, and even question whether the processes he was using actually helped in the way he thought they did. However, I appreciate the premise that "laziness" is not the cause of oversleeping, and approaching it as a solvable problem rather than trying to bruteforce your way to wakefulness and feeling like a failure when it doesn't work is a better solution.
What exactly is "willpower" and why would a lack of it need to be rationalized? "Morning people" don't need to exert a lot of mental effort to be wakeful in the morning. To insinuate that someone needs to "rationalize a lack of willpower" implies that willpower is some sort of moral resource that morally superior people have a higher quantity of. But all that's in there is hormones and neurons and flesh and blood. If they're not interacting properly, and you can organize yourself so they interact better, then it would be foolish not to.
Re: You don’t have to feel guilty for oversleeping
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds like 2-phase sleep caused by sleeping too early.
Not sure I'd call it "too early" when it was the norm for most of human existence. Sleep at sunset, wake at dawn, enjoy some nocturnal activity mid night. Artificial lighting hasn't been around all that long, yet we have forgotten what natural lighting means for sleep cycles.
In Seattle, the amount of time the sun is in the sky varies from 8.5 hours to 16 hours across the year. Do you believe we really need 15 hours of sleep in the winter, but can get by on barely 8 in the summer? I don't think our sleep schedules need to vary THAT much for seasonal disaffectance.
Re: You don’t have to feel guilty for oversleeping
#34A couple of times a week, I wake up at 3 or 4a & can't go back to sleep for a couple of hours. Does anyone else run into this? What approaches did you take to counteract?
Happens to me from time to time. Usually I get up and do stuff. One of two things happens: I find I don't get tired and so I just get a really early start to my day, or else I get really sleepy again an hour or so later and just go back to bed.
Re: You don’t have to feel guilty for oversleeping
#35People's sleep cycles are just different, even if it's not fashionable to acknowledge that. They differ with the person and they differ with the personal situation at the time. This notion that there is The One True Sleep Pattern and that everybody should adhere to it is not tenable in my opinion. It's a strategy that sells books on how to become "normal", nothing else. I'm a night person, I viscerally hate mornings,…
I'm deaf, and I can't wake up to the traditional beepy noises that alarm clocks have, so I have this really awesome vibrating alarm clock that clips on to my pillow. I used to have such difficulty waking up, but this vibrating alarm clock annoyed me so much, I'd actually end up waking 5mins before to turn it off before it could vibrate... I did that all through high-school, and now I've gone from a night-owl to a mor…
[deleted]
Re: You don’t have to feel guilty for oversleeping
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not newsworthy it's just the latest piece of random bla bla written for HN to advertise a startup completely unrelated to the subject matter. AKA growth hacking.
Yea -- this is advertising for the 42floors brand. What they're saying doesn't have to have anything to do with their product or brand, merely seeing that they're saying stuff puts their brand back in front of our eyeballs.
It looks like people don't like this being pointed out. My comment went from +5 to -2...
Re: You don’t have to feel guilty for oversleeping
#37You don't have to feel guilty, but you still might get fired. Jason Freedman answers only to shareholders, not a boss, which is why he can decide whether he feels guilty or not.
Not sure where you work, but I negotiate my hours just the same as the rest of my compensation package.
8-9am start time? That'll be an extra $10K-20K/year. Same for dress code, etc.
Re: You don’t have to feel guilty for oversleeping
#38I started working at a small startup in January. With the team as small as it is, the working hours are very flexible -- if I make it into the office at 10:00, I'm usually the first one there. Since I had the luxury, I did something that I want to wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who can: I stopped using an alarm clock. I'm a "night owl". I tend to have trouble sleeping before midnight, and often stay up later than…
Seconded. I have experienced huge benefits from not using an alarm clock. My sleep schedule is now very erratic (I'll wake up anywhere from 7-10), but I'm almost always refreshed during the day, and have a much easier time focusing and getting work/fun done.
Re: You don’t have to feel guilty for oversleeping
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure I'd call it "too early" when it was the norm for most of human existence. Sleep at sunset, wake at dawn, enjoy some nocturnal activity mid night. Artificial lighting hasn't been around all that long, yet we have forgotten what natural lighting means for sleep cycles.
In Seattle, the amount of time the sun is in the sky varies from 8.5 hours to 16 hours across the year. Do you believe we really need 15 hours of sleep in the winter, but can get by on barely 8 in the summer? I don't think our sleep schedules need to vary THAT much for seasonal disaffectance.
Are you familiar with the extreme effect to which sunlight affects human (and other mammals) systems biology?
Re: You don’t have to feel guilty for oversleeping
#40You don't have to feel guilty, but you still might get fired. Jason Freedman answers only to shareholders, not a boss, which is why he can decide whether he feels guilty or not.
Not sure where you work, but I negotiate my hours just the same as the rest of my compensation package. 8-9am start time? That'll be an extra $10K-20K/year. Same for dress code, etc.
If you will wake up 2 hours earlier and wreck your long term performance for $40-$80/day...