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Sleep: Everything You Need to Know

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Re: Sleep: Everything You Need to Know

#131
As an audiologist, I would not recommend wearing earbuds all night. Ventilation is important for your ears.

Also, your ears are very adaptable: plugging your ears with earbuds will decrease the sound pressure by about 10 dB, which isn't really all that much. As a hearing loss, it would not require treatment. Your ears will adapt and you will still hear most startling sounds. In fact, your ears will have to "concentrate" more, which is known to lead to fatigue.

Re: Sleep: Everything You Need to Know

#132
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 It's called sleep envy and, some nights when I can hear my wife drift off in minutes and I'm not even close to it, it throws me into that mental tailspin that goes through multiple stages like the whiny "why-me", plain anger, frustration and more. The only result, of course, is an even more delayed start of sleep phase.

I count numbers from 1 to X, where X is the number I get to before I fall asleep. I concentrate on the numbers and nothing else. Eventually I get to X and I fall asleep. The speed of counting should fast enough I am not bored, but not so fast that I have to spend effort. The speed varies depending on how close I'm to sleep. The closer I am to sleep the slower I count.

I do the same but I also visualize each number differently; different shapes, textures, sizes. That seems to help engage the monkey chatter and the wacky visualizing takes me closer to dreamland.

Plus one for F.lux, I have it on everything I use but recently I updated my phone to the standard IOS thinking it wouldn't be missed since it was the only Jailbreak tweak on my phone, but now I'm missing it so hard I'm seriously considering an Android and its equivalent app. With F.lux on my phone my light sensitivity was better in the day and sleep was better at night.

Re: Sleep: Everything You Need to Know

#133
post #69

no no no, i don't even need to read any of that. 6 hours sleep. perfect for me. not tired, almost always in a good mood. very simple and effective. i don't need no recipes, to know about deep sleep and all that. you should not forget that people are very different. so don't try to impose all these rules on everyone just because it works for you.

Thanks for your comment! At the end of the day you have to find what works best for you. For some (lucky) people they can kick ass on just 6 hours of sleep. For others, they need to be consistent and sleep for 7-8hrs. I didn't mean to impose anything on anyone, just trying to share some of the things I've learnt :).

ok, but your shouldn't make it look like rocket science. it's pretty simple for me and maybe I'm lucky, but I guess the most important thing is to tell people to experiment with their sleep. i would say most of these sleep issues have a rather simple cure and you don't need sleep apps, wrist devices, zeos etc.

Re: Sleep: Everything You Need to Know

#134
I think drinking cold water before bed is not as good as you make it to be.

Cold water is like shock to your system. It wakes your body up.

Your body needs to work on warming the water first.

Although water itself should be good, warm/hand temperature water should be best.

Re: Sleep: Everything You Need to Know

#135
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love f.lux, but it doesn't seem to work so well with my dual-monitor setup on xubuntu... and I'm never really sure if it's working properly. I wish it had some kind of a 'temperature indicator' or something.

If f.lux doesn't work properly, give redshift a try. Does the exact same thing and works perfectly for me.

thanks for the tip. redshift seems to crash immediately after I launch it... not sure what's going on. Maybe it's time to switch back from xubuntu to ubuntu or something...

Re: Sleep: Everything You Need to Know

#136
post #54

Does the headband really work? Detecting "brainwaves" and eye movements sounds fairly dubious to me. Does it cover your eyes?

It is a bluetooth EEG headband. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_consumer_brain–co...

... waiting for research of the influense of bluetooth on sleep, especially when in close proximity to a brain :]

Re: Sleep: Everything You Need to Know

#137
post #130
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read it again– I'm not saying F.lux is the source of my sleep issues, just that it's made the exacerbation of said issues occur less noticeably (to me, of course). Before I started using F.lux there was an obvious taxing period around 1-2am where my eyes might have started to get blurry or headache would set in, assuming I had woken up and started working by ~8am. From there I would either go to bed or brute force th…

Go to bed!

By far the fastest way to make myself fall asleep is to enumerate all possible excuses for not going to sleep yet. Either way I "win"...

Re: Sleep: Everything You Need to Know

#138
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 It's called sleep envy and, some nights when I can hear my wife drift off in minutes and I'm not even close to it, it throws me into that mental tailspin that goes through multiple stages like the whiny "why-me", plain anger, frustration and more. The only result, of course, is an even more delayed start of sleep phase.

I count numbers from 1 to X, where X is the number I get to before I fall asleep. I concentrate on the numbers and nothing else. Eventually I get to X and I fall asleep. The speed of counting should fast enough I am not bored, but not so fast that I have to spend effort. The speed varies depending on how close I'm to sleep. The closer I am to sleep the slower I count.

Could you please elaborate on your method? Do you decide before hand what X will be? If not, it looks a lot like counting sheep.

Re: Sleep: Everything You Need to Know

#139
post #46

Really interesting read... but out of curiosity, how does exercise play into the sleep schedule? In order to maintain a good sleep rhythm, when is latest one should exercise? Also I'd like to know where you get your supposedly free stopwatches.

Physical activity that makes you feel tired and/or relaxes your mind is very good before going to bed as your thoughts will not wander and you will doze off within minutes. I used to have this problem of going to sleep after switching off lights and going to bed. I started doing simple exercises like cleaning/arranging my room or relaxation yoga which would take my mind off thinking a lot before falling asleep. Also I started reading books (not e-books, which make you insomniac) for 15-20 minutes everyday before going to sleep. You can exercise just before going to bed. For a free stopwatch you can use your smartphone or alarm clock.

Re: Sleep: Everything You Need to Know

#140
I agree with short naps concept but i think rather than following "the earlier in the day, the better", another concept of mid-day napping can be followed. You just need to take a short nap of 30 minutes ,15-20 minutes post-lunch. That is the time we can easily fall asleep, also you feel very refreshed and productive once you wake up!
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