Dealing with Insomnia • Hacker News Board

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#161

Post by orthecreedence » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

wuwuno wrote: post #139

lbayes wrote: post #117

I've struggled with brutal insomnia (getting to sleep and staying asleep) my entire life (45 years old now). Over the years, I've gotten pretty good at forcing myself to get to work early and just made due with 4-6 hours on most nights and trying to make it up on the weekends. Early this year I discovered medical marijuana. It's completely game changing. A few puffs from a vaporizer (with flower, not the terrible oil…

I was born not to sleep. Newborns typically sleep 22-23 hours a day. I was sleeping for 1-2 hours. I almost destroyed my family. If you have children imagine your child only sleeping 1-2 hours day. From birth until I was about 12 I lived on 1-3 hours sleep a day, but I slept every day. When I hit puberty I started having days and days of no sleep, my record is 11 days without sleeping I was 15. From 14 until my mid 5…

What settings do you use for binaural beats? I have trouble sleeping sometimes and have tried binaural beats but they are maybe 20% effective. Seems to have worked a lot better for you, and I wonder if it's a frequency thing.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#162

Post by orthecreedence » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 10:29 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #7

Ironically I'm reading this as the clock reads 5:23am and I'm just winding down for the night. Out my office window I can see the sun rising. I've broken this habit in the past. When my wife was working as a teacher and I dropped her off at work every morning, I was up and out every weekday at 7:30am, and at work by 7:50. I got a ton of stuff done in the morning because no one else started showing up until 9am at lea…

When I was a teenager, during the summers (no school) I would generally go to sleep at 4am or 5am and wake up around 1-2pm.

I found that time of night (12am - 4am) really conducive to creativity. If I could go back to that schedule, I would. I don't like waking up any time before 9, and neither does my body.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#163

Post by pedalpete » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #137

pedalpete wrote: post #129

I've been an insomniac my entire life (46 years) and in December started working on a wearable monitor my brain-waves and interact with them using sound in order to induce sleep and optimize sleep states. There are two similar products on the market already (Dreem and SmartSleep) but I have a different approach. I'd be keen to hear who in this community may be interested (I'll be posting our webpage with more info so…

I don't have direct experience with products in this space but I've done extensive contract work for companies in the sleep apnea wearable space, so here are some insights: i) Strategy wise, for a small startup, it is always better to place yourself in the 'wellness' product space. For a startup business selling directly to costumers it is _always_ better to frame your product as wellness/lifestyle or 'life-improveme…

I completely agree with most of your comments. We're not a medical device, and we are developing some patent-able parts of the tech. As far as the "wearable part", in some ways, there is just no getting around an EEG that is worn, at the moment anyway. However, this is one of the challenges, how do you get something that a user wears, that is comfortable, effective, etc, etc.

We're trying to find insight into how Oura has done this. I know my ring does absolutely nothing for me, aside from telling me that I didn't sleep enough. Yet, I still wear it to bed, as do other people I know who have had a similar experience. There is a way to build and market the device so it becomes a desirable product, not something that you have to wear, and that is our target.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#164

Post by pedalpete » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 1:12 AM UTC

dnissley wrote: post #136

pedalpete wrote: post #129

I've been an insomniac my entire life (46 years) and in December started working on a wearable monitor my brain-waves and interact with them using sound in order to induce sleep and optimize sleep states. There are two similar products on the market already (Dreem and SmartSleep) but I have a different approach. I'd be keen to hear who in this community may be interested (I'll be posting our webpage with more info so…

I wrote up my experience with dreem here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23432243

Thanks for linking to that. Sorry to hear you're going through the CBT-I thing. I can't tell you how disappointed I am that this is the current state of sleep therapy.

I hope it works for you, if not, we've got something on the way :)

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#165

Post by ThisMark » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 4:01 AM UTC

662587649495439 wrote: post #67

latchkey wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if the alarm is in the headphones. Years ago, I started sleeping with earplugs. I can't sleep without them now. I get the best and deepest sleep this way. I feel like it turns off my subconscious, because my brain is no longer processing external input.

Could you share some information about the earplug type/brand that works for you? I am looking for a decent sleeping earplug or earbud as I have recently moved to a noisier place. I’ve tried sleeping in noise-cancelling over ears and AirPods with white noise but neither worked for me, they were far too uncomfortable. I am also concerned that an industrial ear protector would prevent me from hearing alarms or emergenc…

Not parent, but I've tried a few different earplugs for sleeping, and settled on Hearos Ultimate Softness Series [1]. I buy them in a box of 100, which lasts for ages (I generally get 3 days out of a pair).

Other ones I tried tended to cause pain after a day or two. It did take a couple of days to get used to having them in, but now I really miss them if I don't have any with me.

Regarding alarms/emergencies, I always wake up to my phone alarm, and I find that I'm generally able to hear 'past' them for things I'd usually be on the alert for.

[1] https://hearos.com/collections/sleep-1/products/ultimate-sof...

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#166

Post by latchkey » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 7:10 AM UTC

662587649495439 wrote: post #67

latchkey wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if the alarm is in the headphones. Years ago, I started sleeping with earplugs. I can't sleep without them now. I get the best and deepest sleep this way. I feel like it turns off my subconscious, because my brain is no longer processing external input.

Could you share some information about the earplug type/brand that works for you? I am looking for a decent sleeping earplug or earbud as I have recently moved to a noisier place. I’ve tried sleeping in noise-cancelling over ears and AirPods with white noise but neither worked for me, they were far too uncomfortable. I am also concerned that an industrial ear protector would prevent me from hearing alarms or emergenc…

I personally like this model [1]. Cheap. Sometimes they can get uncomfortable or even fall out in the middle of the night, but usually if I reseat them, they are fine.

The trick to getting them in easily is to squish and lick them. Totally gross, but you get used to it and it really works well. I wash mine every morning with water and just keep reusing them for a while.

Agreed with the other, you rarely sleep through stuff you really need to wake up for like a phone alarm next to you.

[1] https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/b683124e-a538-4bec-9dfa-5bd...

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#167

Post by DoreenMichele » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #29

I think my biggest problem is that I don't exhaust myself physically. Humans are built for constant labor. We're the endurance-running champions of the animal kingdom. As recently as last century, almost all jobs were physically exhausting. Mind work is exhausting as well, but in a different way. At the end of a strenuous day of coding, and endless meetings, I'm drained. Completely wiped out. I feel physically exhaus…

I'm not looking for advice.

This is not advice, just an observation from years of dealing with health issues that had my sleep extremely deranged for years:

The lymphatic system is run by muscle action. This is how it works:

Lymph is blood, minus certain blood products, like red blood cells. It leaves the blood and seeps into the tissues, where it gets labeled by humans as interstitial fluid. Then it somehow has to make its way back to the blood system.

The problem is that the blood system is run by the action of the heart. How do you pump fluid once it is beyond the reach of the heart to make it flow back into the circulatory system? The answer is: The rest of the muscles.

When you are physically active, lymph flows back into the blood system at multiple times the rate at which it normally seeps slowly back into the blood system. One source I saw suggested it flows back at 6 to 8 times its normal speed when you are active.

Lymph is how the body takes out the trash. It's how your body cleans up garbage in the system.

Walking regularly has proven to be critical to my ability to manage my genetic disorder. My genetic disorder boils down to being a bottleneck in the system and taking out the garbage regularly in a sustainable fashion that doesn't overwhelm my frail system has proven critical to my health and has helped me reverse a lot of issues that the world tells me cannot be reversed.

The brain has a separate lymphatic system with a separate name. I think they call it the glymphatic system.

The brain only takes out the trash when you are a sleep. Flushing fluid from the brain is a primary reason we sleep.

In my experience -- my long healing journey -- naps follow physical activity because taking out the trash in the rest of the body triggers improved capacity to take out the trash from the brain.

Brain/nerve tissues are the slowest to heal of the entire body. Cartilage gets no direct blood supply. It gets all nutrients and all garbage removal via osmosis. All surrounding tissues have to be cleaned up and improved in status before cartilage starts to heal.

Brain tissue is also "last served" and seems to follow a similar model that all other tissue has to be improved before the brain gets served. The fact that the brain's lymphatic system is a separate system and there is a blood-brain barrier regulating the flow of various things into and out of the brain are likely factors in why exercise promotes sleep.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#168

Post by keenmaster » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:16 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #153

acituan wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you feel the need for more coffee in the afternoon, that’s a sign that your work habits and distractions need to change, not your physical energy level. Out of curiosity, why does this apply to the afternoon coffee and not the morning coffee? Maybe finding coffee useful at all is a sign?

Because cafeine breaks down over time so your evening/afternoon coffee has a much bigger effect on your later sleeping attempts than morning coffee. I don't drink coffee at all so that does not apply to me but I can see the confusion in the GP and your response to it.

Correct, that's what I was referring to with the long half-life. The later you consume caffeine, the more likely it is to disrupt your sleep. A logical extension of that is the following: if you know that caffeine has a worse reward-to-harm ratio in the afternoon, and you consume it even though it might disrupt your sleep (assuming it does), you might be grasping for productivity straws. Alternatively, caffeine pretty much only has upside when it is consumed in the morning. It increases wakefulness and several academic studies found that coffee specifically improves your health (not sure how much of that is due to the plant material vs. the caffeine).

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#169

Post by saos » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

latchkey wrote: post #166

662587649495439 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you share some information about the earplug type/brand that works for you? I am looking for a decent sleeping earplug or earbud as I have recently moved to a noisier place. I’ve tried sleeping in noise-cancelling over ears and AirPods with white noise but neither worked for me, they were far too uncomfortable. I am also concerned that an industrial ear protector would prevent me from hearing alarms or emergenc…

I personally like this model [1]. Cheap. Sometimes they can get uncomfortable or even fall out in the middle of the night, but usually if I reseat them, they are fine. The trick to getting them in easily is to squish and lick them. Totally gross, but you get used to it and it really works well. I wash mine every morning with water and just keep reusing them for a while. Agreed with the other, you rarely sleep through…

I've tried similar ones this week... I've never slept so well!