Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion • Hacker News Board

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#131

Post by mcdickenson » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

ivansavz wrote: post #121

koheripbal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During a very difficult time in my life recently, I found it impossible to sleep. I would have stress nightmares and even when i did fall asleep, I would soon wake myself up with specific scenarios my mind was trying to work out. I was incapacitated by this, which exacerbated my situation. I eventually noticed that I could fall asleep if I sat with my daughters while they watched TV. This evolved to me falling asleep…

I use a similar approach, but instead of TV, I use the build-in text to speech tool of Mac OS X (you can set up a keyboard shortcut[1] and then select any text and computer will read to you). I choose usually a longish-article, or sometimes a HN comments thread, and then a few minutes in I've dozed off. It's a little tricky to choose the right length (i.e. not being awake enough to notice when it ends, but also not t…

Thanks for sharing your approach. You might also be interested in Herald, which does a similar thing using Amazon Polly: https://www.heraldpod.com

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#132

Post by gkop » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 9:01 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #130

gkop wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weed is a fairly heavy-handed solution IMO. It’s likely to help with insomnia, but also to have significant side effects. Many people enjoy some of the side effects, which is great. But many do not, which makes it hard to recommend generally for insomnia.

I usually just smoke one puff and it doesn’t have strong effects. I’m sure this would be more effective in general compared to pills, so I don’t agree that we should dismiss this advice based on “oh it’s drugs”.

Oh for sure, compared to pills (even OTC stuff with significant hangover effects like Benadryl or Nyquil), it absolutely deserves serious consideration. I would recommend trying melatonin, chamomile tea, and simple mental exercises (eg. counting from 1 to infinity) first though.

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#133

Post by hertzrat » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 1:06 AM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #16

raghuveerdotnet wrote: post #3

Stress resilience is one of the most important things when it comes to knowledge work, also one of the most neglected aspect. Mindfulness, stoicism, exercise help, but nothing helps as much as a good night sleep. Also the other thing people usually fail to note is the vicious stress-sleep cycle (lack of sleep induced stress stress induced lack of sleep). It took me years to realize that so much of my problems with be…

During a very difficult time in my life recently, I found it impossible to sleep. I would have stress nightmares and even when i did fall asleep, I would soon wake myself up with specific scenarios my mind was trying to work out. I was incapacitated by this, which exacerbated my situation. I eventually noticed that I could fall asleep if I sat with my daughters while they watched TV. This evolved to me falling asleep…

I know several people who can’t sleep well without a tv playing, usually a playlist of old movies they have seen 10 times. It works for them. I’m up to 430am every night since about 8 months ago and it makes me wonder if I should try it.

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#134

Post by hertzrat » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 1:08 AM UTC

drewg123 wrote: post #56

koheripbal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During a very difficult time in my life recently, I found it impossible to sleep. I would have stress nightmares and even when i did fall asleep, I would soon wake myself up with specific scenarios my mind was trying to work out. I was incapacitated by this, which exacerbated my situation. I eventually noticed that I could fall asleep if I sat with my daughters while they watched TV. This evolved to me falling asleep…

I had similar issues, and tried to solve them with a similar method. I fell asleep to an audiobook about the roman empire many nights. I finally realized that the reason I was having trouble falling to sleep, and trouble getting back to sleep after a noise, etc. I turns out that the only time when I was not doing something that occupied my mind was when I was trying to sleep. Eg, I'm either working, consuming media s…

To be clear, you found your insomnia disappeared after having more no-input time?

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#135

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

dsego wrote: post #101

Sleep seems so essential to our lives and yet we understand very little. I had two car accidents due to lack of sleep the night before. Whenever I don't get my sleep I can't focus, my recollection is poor and I have trouble doing basic stuff. You can find texts online about people literally dying from chronic insomnia. I always wonder how some people can function well with little sleep and almost everybody seems to d…

[deleted]

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#136

Post by loceng » Wed, Jan 27, 2021, 1:59 AM UTC

sandstrom wrote: post #79

loceng wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're overweight at all, even by a little, losing that weight that greatly impact your sleep and health overall. Also if you eat any inflammatory foods - sugar, carbohydrates, dairy, etc - then that inflammation can cause issues with sleep, especially for brain related inflammation, sleep time when brain channels are meant to open up to clear waste; inflammation is linked to Alzheimer's now because of this proces…

The science behind "inflammatory foods" is pretty shaky: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-messy-facts-a... https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/05/05/closer-look-anti-inflam...

Most food research science done to date is pretty shaky - I base it based on info shared by specific professionals, my own anecdotal experience, as well as others'.

Re: Lack of sleep, stress can lead to symptoms resembling concussion

#137

Post by QuantumGood » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 1:35 AM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #16

raghuveerdotnet wrote: post #3

Stress resilience is one of the most important things when it comes to knowledge work, also one of the most neglected aspect. Mindfulness, stoicism, exercise help, but nothing helps as much as a good night sleep. Also the other thing people usually fail to note is the vicious stress-sleep cycle (lack of sleep induced stress stress induced lack of sleep). It took me years to realize that so much of my problems with be…

During a very difficult time in my life recently, I found it impossible to sleep. I would have stress nightmares and even when i did fall asleep, I would soon wake myself up with specific scenarios my mind was trying to work out. I was incapacitated by this, which exacerbated my situation. I eventually noticed that I could fall asleep if I sat with my daughters while they watched TV. This evolved to me falling asleep…

Listening to the right human speech creates an INCREDIBLE relaxation response for me. I have never felt so deeply relaxed as when listening to the right speech.

I have tried several sleep aids in heavy dosages, meditation, breathing exercises, visualization/journey exercises and pre-recorded journeys ... but none create such a powerful relaxation response.

Weird, I know! It took me a while to notice how deep and regular my breathing was without effort, and how a deep calm always settled over me when I fell asleep listening to audio such as from The West Wing. Eventually I bought a sleep mask with built-in wireless earbuds, and began experimenting with different kinds of human speech as background for sleep.

Just as @koheripbal discovered, I found the selection of just the right audio is important.