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Impacts of lack of sleep

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Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#151

Post by aspyct »

f1refly wrote: post #150
toast0 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to actively try to breathe through my nose, it's often congested (having a pet despite allergies doesn't help), and it's just simpler to breathe through my mouth, cause that just works. Medical interventions are possible, but I'm not thrilled with the side effects of the medicines I've tried, and surgery has some really awful tail risks, so there's that. I was recently recomended to try B1 (thiamine) supplimen…

Why would you get a pet when you're allergic?

Gain > Loss, I suppose

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#152

Post by mweibel »

I never really had issues with lack of sleep until I became father 1.5 years ago. Child has issues with sleep since the start and while it recently got a bit better, in those 1.5 years I can count the number of times I got 8 hours uninterrupted sleep on one, maybe two hands.

On the worst days I could eat double my normal food intake and was still hungry. Working and concentration is quite hard, more coffee intake is the case. Complex thoughts are increasingly difficult (e.g. improving software architecture takes much more time than I was used to).

I do wonder what happens when sleep is back to normal. Are some effects staying or will eventually everything go back to how it used to be before?

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#153

Post by bubblecheck »

bubblecheck wrote: post #142

This is my sixth night being 100% homeless (on the streets with no vehicle, no private place to go). Sleep for the past five nights has ranged from non-existent to a few nodding hours in long sleeves laying down in various public places. Compared to a week ago, I finally started to notice cognitive decline today. My words don't come out as smoothly, and I have gaps in thoughts. Frankly, it's nothing like it was seven…

Also, just wanted to add a point. I find human culture to be garbage, and have found it to be garbage ever since experiencing an ongoing pattern of abuse as a child.

I experienced bullying and abuse as an adult as well: at work, hell, even on hn in past accounts.

Whether there are good people is irrelevant. There are shitty people everywhere. One can try to ignore them, but they are still part of this species. Primitive, babbling apes.

Again, death cannot come soon enough. I pray to God to please kill me in my sleep tonight. A prayer that has yet to be answered.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#154

Post by tzekid »

Most of the bad side effects don't show up ( for me at least ) in the first day of no, or next to no sleep.

Against the long-term effects ( and brain / nervous system in general ) I do a 1-month therapy every year of cerebrolysin ( peptide that helps neuro-regeneration ).

I've found that if I can function pretty well if I do a 8 - 9h of sleep every other day, too. It's especially great, because I've got me-time for a whole night, while everybody's asleep. Anybody else tried the "sleep well every other day" thing?

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#155

Post by ALittleLight »

mweibel wrote: post #152

I never really had issues with lack of sleep until I became father 1.5 years ago. Child has issues with sleep since the start and while it recently got a bit better, in those 1.5 years I can count the number of times I got 8 hours uninterrupted sleep on one, maybe two hands. On the worst days I could eat double my normal food intake and was still hungry. Working and concentration is quite hard, more coffee intake is…

One major change I experienced on becoming a father is instantly respecting every parent MUCH more than I previously had.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#156

Post by nefitty »

f1refly wrote: post #150
toast0 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to actively try to breathe through my nose, it's often congested (having a pet despite allergies doesn't help), and it's just simpler to breathe through my mouth, cause that just works. Medical interventions are possible, but I'm not thrilled with the side effects of the medicines I've tried, and surgery has some really awful tail risks, so there's that. I was recently recomended to try B1 (thiamine) supplimen…

Why would you get a pet when you're allergic?

My baby poodle is on the couch with me, fast asleep. Her little legs twitch. Sometimes she does little yips in her sleep. I wonder what she dreams about. I hope she feels love for me, close to what I feel for her.

Oh, allergies. Yeah they suck. Dogs are nice though.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#157

Post by raducu »

mikenew wrote: post #94
mettamage wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of things worked on there for me as well, but the biggest one for me personally is 0.3mg of melatonin I started with 3mg, way too much, went to 1.5mg, still too much. Then did 0.7mg, that was fine but still some small side effects. Then 0.4mg that was fine. Then 0.2mg, that didn't work. Then I did 0.3mg and it seemed to be the sweet spot. I can just barely perceive it working and it is just enough to make me…

My understanding is that melatonin is a threshold kind of thing, so it makes sense to dial in a specific dose. For me I found that 1mg gave me as much "get to sleep" effect as 10mg, so I would just use 1. I wasn't able to find dosages less than 1mg so I never experimented further. For me, I took melatonin before bed for a month or two and then stopped, and when I stopped I didn't notice my time-until-sleep being any…

> I wasn't able to find dosages less than 1mg so I never experimented further.

I was like you, but I just roughly broke the pills in half or 1/3 and it worked even better.

Now I have this melatonin syrup drops, 150mcg per drop so it's easy, 2 drops for me.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#158

Post by raducu »

xattt wrote: post #116
mettamage wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of things worked on there for me as well, but the biggest one for me personally is 0.3mg of melatonin I started with 3mg, way too much, went to 1.5mg, still too much. Then did 0.7mg, that was fine but still some small side effects. Then 0.4mg that was fine. Then 0.2mg, that didn't work. Then I did 0.3mg and it seemed to be the sweet spot. I can just barely perceive it working and it is just enough to make me…

Most melatonin tablets are available in 3 mg formulation. What sort of microtome are you using for dosing?

Just get melatonin drops. They say 1.5mg on the label, but that's for 10 drops or 150mcg per drop, so you can take 2 drops for 300mcg or 3 drops for 450mcg.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#159

Post by nefitty »

sofixa wrote: post #121
mikenew wrote: post #15

I've struggled with sleep for as long as I can remember. I have improved it considerably in the past year (still not perfect). Out of the dozens upon dozens of things I've tried, here's what I think made the most difference, in order of importance. 1. Very consistent bedtime and wake up time. +/- 30 minutes, but ideally less. Obviously if you struggle with sleep you can't count on falling asleep at the same time, but…

> Breathe through your nose. It can be hard at first but it gets easier over time I'm stumped here. Isn't that the normal way to breathe? Why would it be hard, unless you have some medical condition like sleep apnea, which requires treatment in itself?

Neck muscle problems sometimes show up as sinus issues. All the muscles of the head are tightly linked in crazy feedback loops. For example, there's a muscle at the base of the back of your neck called the suboccipital that is linked to your eyeballs. You can feel it flex and move when you move your eyes around! That's totally unintuitive to me from a basis of minimal human biology knowledge.

Anyways, this is very relevant to knowledge workers many of us eventually succumb to forward head posture, which is like slamming on the brakes of a car doing 100mph. Except we do it every day for hours at a time. Eventually stuff gives out.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#160

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

munificent wrote: post #47
mikenew wrote: post #15

I've struggled with sleep for as long as I can remember. I have improved it considerably in the past year (still not perfect). Out of the dozens upon dozens of things I've tried, here's what I think made the most difference, in order of importance. 1. Very consistent bedtime and wake up time. +/- 30 minutes, but ideally less. Obviously if you struggle with sleep you can't count on falling asleep at the same time, but…

I really like your list, but I also want to point out that humans have way more variability than we realize. A sure fire solution for some will do nothing for others. It doesn't mean it's bad advice, just that context is everything when it comes to health, diet, and fitness for people. A few other things I would suggest that might help some. 8. Cut down on caffeine. The whole point is that it's a stimulant. I have ha…

Anecdotal, but cutting caffeine completely for at least a month is something that I think anyone with sleep issues should try.

I drank at least five cups of coffee every day for the last couple of decades. While I have tried to keep away from it for a week now and then, I have never managed to eliminate caffeine entirely, and still ingested some from other sources like tea and soda.

Until last year, when I started taking some medication that interacts with caffeine, forcing me to drop it could turkey. Aside from the splitting headache and flu-like symptoms that persisted for three days straight during withdrawal, my sleep almost instantly improved. For most of my adult life I have been a very light sleeper, waking up easily and having a hard time falling asleep. While I still have some nights where I can't fall asleep, the number of those have reduced significantly. Finally, I can actually remember my dreams again, and they are often quite vivid.

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