Melatonin has been a complete game changer for me in this regard. I've struggled to get decent sleep since my late teens. I'm plagued by an overactive brain at night. About a year ago I started taking just 3mg of melatonin before bed and haven't looked back since. I'm sure my particular circumstances were such that it just happened to be my cureall and won't work for everyone, but if you have trouble sleeping and haven't tried it yet, definitely give it a go. It might be all you need.
Impacts of lack of sleep
11–20 of 254 posts
Re: Impacts of lack of sleep
#12The article itself points to prior discussion on HN from 2022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30184796
The article feels like it could have afforded a lot more depth. It's like it was designed as an HN prompt.
Re: Impacts of lack of sleep
#13I'd wager most people here who don't get enough sleep aren't doing so out of some sort of grindset mentality, but because they simply cannot. I find it very hard to fall asleep, nearly impossible to sleep in (a consequence of getting older?), and more interrupted sleep. I'm reticent to try drugs to enable sleep because I've heard that the sleep they provide is not true sleep.
I have this pattern of getting really tired in the early afternoon, and then by night time, I would be fully awake. I couldn’t just sleep when I was tired because then I won’t sleep at night, and it just become this terrible cycle. I can’t stay awake at night because things need to be done during the day.
It’s been better recently, but some years ago, I would come home from work just completely exhausted and pass out immediately. I would only sleep for a few hours, but then wouldn’t get tired again until 4-5am at which point I often would just power through it because I’d have to get ready and go to work in a couple hours anyway. It peaked a few years ago when I completely wrecked my sleep and didn’t sleep for a few days straight. I remember waking up, thinking about something I believe was just utter nonsense, and a second later being unable to recall what I was even thinking about. I ended up getting my sleep schedule back by cycling some light stimulants during the day and crappy sleep aids at night until I was back to a normal schedule, but that probably wasn’t very healthy itself.
Re: Impacts of lack of sleep
#14Hallucinations! Add it to the list [1].
I've experienced most if not all that was described here. And I look 10 years older. But I'm so glad I can sleep normal hours again.
[1]:https://idiallo.com/blog/stopped-sleeping-started-hallucinat...
Re: Impacts of lack of sleep
#15My partner suffers from this. She tried many solutions but to no vail. But it seems having an intentional period of wind down before bed (e.g., 1 hour on the couch, scrolling social media and listening to podcasts) helps. When she goes to bed after that, she never uses her phone and can sleep much better. I'm in the same boat except that I only go to bed when I'm absolutely completely drained and exhausted, which is…
A similar thing works for me. I don’t use my phone in the bed at night anymore and wait until I am tired before going to bed. After doing this for a few months I began to get tired around the same time every night (midnight for me). I wake up around 8:30am and I am rarely tired in the morning. One thing I would like to improve on is staying asleep throughout the night which I think would allow me to wake up earlier.…
For me a CPAP machine makes a big difference, but it's not something I would have thought I needed except for my wife telling me I had breathing problems while asleep. Worth getting tested for if you suspect it in any way.
> I have tried Benadryl which works well
There have been some studies linking anticholinergics like Benadryl to dementia when taken later in life, so that might be worth looking into, if you haven't already, and you use it regularly.
Re: Impacts of lack of sleep
#16I'd wager most people here who don't get enough sleep aren't doing so out of some sort of grindset mentality, but because they simply cannot. I find it very hard to fall asleep, nearly impossible to sleep in (a consequence of getting older?), and more interrupted sleep. I'm reticent to try drugs to enable sleep because I've heard that the sleep they provide is not true sleep.
Most of it is lack of physical activity. If you use your body enough during the day you are very unlikely to have problems sleeping at night.
Re: Impacts of lack of sleep
#17I'd wager most people here who don't get enough sleep aren't doing so out of some sort of grindset mentality, but because they simply cannot. I find it very hard to fall asleep, nearly impossible to sleep in (a consequence of getting older?), and more interrupted sleep. I'm reticent to try drugs to enable sleep because I've heard that the sleep they provide is not true sleep.
That may not necessarily be totally true, you're most likely referring to hypnotics (ambien, lunesta, etc)—which were used by doctors for patients in some circumstances but are slowly falling out of fashion for the reasons you describe.
There are older and newer classes of drugs on the market that are being used as first-line therapies which not only preserve sleep architecture but in many cases even enhance it. Trazodone (a very old SARI) for example increases the amount of slow-wave sleep in healthy individuals and amount of time spent asleep. There are many newer drugs, suvorexant, ramelteon, etc. These medications are of course not without side effects but for many patients they work very well.
I'd say if you're suffering from chronic sleep deprivation then the cost-benefit analysis strongly leans in the direction of a pharmaceutical that fixes that since sleep is second to none in improving health and wellness outcomes.
There are many insults that can cause disrupted sleep architecture like you're describing—impaired gut microbiota, stress, lack of exercise, etc—all of which may respond to their own remedies. I experimented for years and finally have wonderful sleep with desmopressin + trazodone. And I was at a place where my sleep was seemingly uncureable—waking up every hour or every few hours on most nights.
If you want great sleep, you might have to fight to find the correct path for your own situation.
Re: Impacts of lack of sleep
#18I have been missing sleep since child was born. The post is pretty accurate. I now fully understand why some people don't want to get kids.
Re: Impacts of lack of sleep
#19Melatonin has been a complete game changer for me in this regard. I've struggled to get decent sleep since my late teens. I'm plagued by an overactive brain at night. About a year ago I started taking just 3mg of melatonin before bed and haven't looked back since. I'm sure my particular circumstances were such that it just happened to be my cureall and won't work for everyone, but if you have trouble sleeping and hav…
An ounce or two of bourbon works for me. Not enough to get intoxicated but just enough to feel warm and sleepy.
Re: Impacts of lack of sleep
#20Resonates with anyone that has had children. Biggest impact for both my wife and I was overall sleep quality/quantity and sacrificing sleep for a modicum of personal time at the end of the day.