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Impacts of lack of sleep

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Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#181

Post by fennecfoxy »

000ooo000 wrote: post #5

For me, I find my sleep suffers because of what some describe as "revenge bedtime procrastination". When my job is shit (i.e. now), I'm more inclined to stay on the PC later doing things that bring me some level of joy, or play games to escape the mind spinning its wheels. I seem to more easily recognise that my job is unfulfilling because I'm staying up later or I'm dreading going to bed. Going to bed early for a go…

Improving my sleep has beens something I've been meaning to do for a long time and I've heard of that Japanese idea in the past, but haven't entirely gelled with it. I think it's a bit of that and a bit of...something else that makes me stay up way longer than I should do.

To be perfectly honest, usually I'm staying up because of "the hormny" or because I've found something technical/geeky to immerse myself in. But I think the core thing is not "losing track" of time, but for some reason I see the time and just feel apathy like, it doesn't matter that it's 2,3 am or whatever.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#182

Post by agos »

specialist wrote: post #144

Agree with all. TIL: One way I know I'm behind on my sleep is I can't stop eating (noshing). My insomnia journey... I had turrible insomnia for decades, worse over time. I tried All The Things, multiple times. Which everyone should try, if only to learn more about oneself. But if you try All The Things and still suffer, do not give up. Keep looking, keep asking. Turns out my root cause was bone spurs on my spine. Tin…

I love comments like yours. Modern medicine is amazing but still full of uncharted areas and hard to diagnose stuff, especially when it's not immediately life threatening. It's ultimately up to us to insist, to say "no, this is not right, I'm not functioning correctly" and to find what's going on. But it's a long, difficult path and it requires insane amounts of grit to go through it, though the rejection and the indifference and the dead ends. So it makes me super happy when someone is actually able to find out what was going on and - cherry on top! - fix it

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#183

Post by wing-_-nuts »

Barrin92 wrote: post #121
randomcarbloke wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for sure, I set the Set Daily Puzzle world record during a time of my life when I had been subsisting on an average of 1-2 hours sleep a night, if that. It's also the fluffiest thing I've seen on HN in a while.

it reminds me of Why We Sleep which turned out to be completely full of scientific errors ( https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/ ) Obviously that book sold like hot cakes. When it comes to sleep and diet people will repeat anything as long as it sounds intuitive.

Lol, this is a bunch of hot takes from some random dude with a BA in math. You'll forgive me if I'm just as skeptical of him as I am of Walker.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#184

Post by wing-_-nuts »

000ooo000 wrote: post #5

For me, I find my sleep suffers because of what some describe as "revenge bedtime procrastination". When my job is shit (i.e. now), I'm more inclined to stay on the PC later doing things that bring me some level of joy, or play games to escape the mind spinning its wheels. I seem to more easily recognise that my job is unfulfilling because I'm staying up later or I'm dreading going to bed. Going to bed early for a go…

For me, it's usually my adhd brain dredging up bad memories. I'm ashamed to admit my go to 'treatment' used to be taking a couple shots of whiskey before bed. That (I think?) caused vivid nightmares which made me avoid going to sleep even more.

Eventually, I realized this wasn't healthy and I switched to doing strenuous exercise. Hard to be wound up when you're exhausted! It's not a cure all. Sometimes I wind up doing so many sets of pushups a night that I feel it the next day, but it's definitely better than nothing.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#185

Post by wing-_-nuts »

otikik wrote: post #124
m463 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I created a bedtime nag program and it really helped, especially with hard deadlines like driving someone in the morning. 2 hours to bedtime, 1 hour to bedtime, 30 minutes, etc....

Can you expand on that? Is that just a bunch of alarms in your mobile phone, or something more ellaborate?

I used to have a chron job that forcibly updated and shutdown my pc when it was time for bed. It really helped me stop diving into midnight rabbit holes.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#186

Post by xyzelement »

taneq wrote: post #171
xyzelement wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find your comment unhelpful. We have no indication that the person being responded to has a hard limitation vs suboptimal habits. Not giving him advice because it might not help someone is the worst because it guarantees that it will not help him.

I find your comment unhelpful. Which is okay, you know, not every comment is gonna work for every person. Have you tried mindfulness? /s

We are all completely empowered to accept or reject all advice.

Separately from that, there's a question of "which strategy is most likely to yield a good outcome." EG - you are welcome to get 100% of your calories from junk food, which is separate from our ability to discuss that you'll probably have a better life doing something different.

On this sleep thing - one can do whatever the hell they want, and of course they may have limits in place that are unique to them. Which doesn't preclude us talking about what would be best and then whether we want to and can get there.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#187

Post by mnw21cam »

jks wrote: post #55
voidhorse wrote: post #11

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 hav…

That dose may be ten times too high: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th... I was prescribed melatonin by a doctor, and the dose went up little by little from 3mg to 10mg before we decided it didn't work for me. Sure it helped me fall asleep, but then I woke up a few hours later and couldn't sleep again. Years later I have started taking 0.5mg (1mg is the smallest pill I could find, and I spl…

Would definitely concur, and add that it's frustratingly hard to find small pills of melatonin.

I remember going to a presentation where the presenter was describing a clinical trial they were performing where they gave melatonin to some people for some reason I can't remember. But when they mentioned that they were giving 20mg each night the presenter noticed the look of absolute horror on my face. I almost asked them whether they wanted the participants to wake up again the next day.

I used to take half a milligram nightly, and did for about ten years. Recently I have been so exhausted all the time that I no longer have any trouble getting to sleep. Also, I think my body clock has changed now that I'm ten years older, because it does. I slept better when I stopped taking it, even though I definitely found it useful for a long time.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#188

Post by skeeter2020 »

Not saying most or all of these are not true, but this list liberally mixes causation and correlation, without any sort of reference to the controlling for second and third-order effects. So if you stay up late AND eat shitty food AND don't exercise, yep you'll be at risk of weight gain, diabetes and a shorter lifespan, and maybe lack of sleep plays a role but you can't say it's the root cause.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#189

Post by euph0ria »

specialist wrote: post #144

Agree with all. TIL: One way I know I'm behind on my sleep is I can't stop eating (noshing). My insomnia journey... I had turrible insomnia for decades, worse over time. I tried All The Things, multiple times. Which everyone should try, if only to learn more about oneself. But if you try All The Things and still suffer, do not give up. Keep looking, keep asking. Turns out my root cause was bone spurs on my spine. Tin…

How did they determine this and what is the fix?

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#190

Post by lloeki »

stephenitis wrote: post #175
lloeki wrote: post #96

The post is mostly covering "mind" and "metabolic" things, but the effect extends to "body" things: - more likely to avoid hurtful situations (lower attention, zone out events, micro sleep events, reflexes diminished). - more likely to hurt yourself when such accidents occur - once hurt, physical recovery is severely hampered Car accidents are the obvious ones here but it extends to simple things like accidental cuts…

Is there a citation or source on REM deprivation causing neurons to die? Like how long? How did they test this?

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation#Lasting, which has a bunch and is a nice overview. Obviously underresearched for humans due to ethical concerns.
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