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Impacts of lack of sleep

belkarx.github.io

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Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#191

Post by WXLCKNO »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #184
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 doin…

I thought this was my ADHD, turned out to be anxiety, once I got that treated things were much better.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#192

Post by WXLCKNO »

iagooar wrote: post #117

If I could go back 10 years and talk to myself from the past, I would definitely tell myself: get away from that screen from time to time, especially on weekends. Buy a cheap 4x4 and GET OUT THERE. Get exercise, get fresh air, get to see the world through your own eyes instead of through a 2D screen, get physically tired, AVOID if possible any alcohol intake (this is a whole different topic, but alcohol might destroy…

How old are you?

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#193

Post by thebigspacefuck »

josiahpeters wrote: post #172
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an attention disorder? I know from some people they experience caffeine differently. Although the mechanisms are beyond me.

Diagnosed ADHD person here. Among my acquaintances I’m known as a person who will accept coffee any time off day when I come visit. I don’t that because I really enjoy the flavor off coffee and it doesn’t seem to affect my sleep. Anecdotally, I’ve had conversations with more than 50 people who say caffeine does not affect them who likely have ADHD or some kind of attention disorder. For example, I was at a gas statio…

Do you mean it doesn’t affect their sleep? I remember the first time I tried coffee and the effect was profound, like my brain wasn’t working properly before that moment. I have also been diagnosed with ADHD, but I am affected by caffeine so maybe that’s a misdiagnosis. I also have huge variation over my life where I can sometimes handle 6+ cups without issue and other times half of a Diet Coke will send me spiraling into anxiety. It seems like it has to do with my stomach or baseline levels of anxiety, definitely worse after some sort of trauma. Maybe just a comorbidity that complicates things

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#194

Post by dahart »

jmkd wrote: post #112
xyzelement wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick advice - see if you can shift that to getting up earlier. You will probably spend the couple of hours in the morning in a way that sets you up for a better day vs staying up late sets you up for a bad tomorrow. I say this as an always "late" person who now tries to get up at 5 to work out and reflect, it's been very helpful.

I wish people would understand that "just get up early" simply does not and cannot work for a significant portion of the population (20-50% depending on which study you choose). Therefore it is aggravating advice to constantly receive, from those for whom it worked, to those for whom it won't.

Yeah suggestions about what to do, sans anything helpful about how to do it, are just annoying, especially when the thing is hard to do.

That said, there’s a very big difference between doesn’t work and can’t work. Humans are pretty adaptable given the right circumstances, so I’d wager we’re talking mostly about the doesn’t category. Your comment totally reminds me of many conversations I’ve heard and read about weight loss where someone says “just consume fewer calories”, as if it’s somehow simple. Other person, annoyed, says “I’ve tried that, it doesn’t work for me” or “studies have shown that doesn’t work for most people”. It’s true that it generally doesn’t work for most people, I believe the failure rates are even higher than 50%, and yet it’s guaranteed that it can work, it’s physics. It’s not because people actually eat fewer calories and it fails, it’s because people generally aren’t able to reduce their calorie intake permanently, they revert. And trying to will yourself to overcome hunger tends to backfire, just like trying to will yourself to ‘just get up early’ tends to backfire. It doesn’t work because they don’t really know how to change their habits; habits are really hard to break, behavior is really hard to change. A lot of people fail to appreciate how hard it is, especially when some people do seem to be able to do it.

I’ve gone through long periods where I was unable to be a morning person and, maybe like you, I could have bopped someone lightly on the nose for saying to me ‘just get up early’. But changes in my life have made it easier; my job changed, my kids turned into teenagers, my exercise changed, my outlook on life has change, my evening activities have changed. I also have a better idea of how to wake up early, and it doesn’t need to involve setting alarms and trying to force myself, it’s much more about how to spend the time, much more about what I want to get done, and much less about when.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#195

Post by P_I_Staker »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #109

I delay sleep because there are a couple of coworkers that are impossible, and the more I delay sleep, the later I will have to deal with them.

Weirdly, I have this terrible habit of avoiding activities that cause the fast passage of time. If I play video games for 2hrs I will teleport to getting back to work sooner.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#196

Post by jandrewrogers »

jmkd wrote: post #112
xyzelement wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick advice - see if you can shift that to getting up earlier. You will probably spend the couple of hours in the morning in a way that sets you up for a better day vs staying up late sets you up for a bad tomorrow. I say this as an always "late" person who now tries to get up at 5 to work out and reflect, it's been very helpful.

I wish people would understand that "just get up early" simply does not and cannot work for a significant portion of the population (20-50% depending on which study you choose). Therefore it is aggravating advice to constantly receive, from those for whom it worked, to those for whom it won't.

In the US military, new recruits are put on a very early schedule (think: 5:00am wakeup) and an appropriately early bedtime. Within a matter of weeks, they become habituated to it such that everyone's body automatically starts operating on that schedule, even if no one wakes them up in the morning. I am skeptical that there is a biological reason 20-50% of the population can't get up early because it doesn't seem to be an issue in the myriad environments where waking up early is a general requirement. These environments aren't selecting for people that can get up early, they habituate people into getting up early. It clearly is possible most of the time.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#197

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

dahart wrote: post #194
jmkd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish people would understand that "just get up early" simply does not and cannot work for a significant portion of the population (20-50% depending on which study you choose). Therefore it is aggravating advice to constantly receive, from those for whom it worked, to those for whom it won't.

Yeah suggestions about what to do, sans anything helpful about how to do it, are just annoying, especially when the thing is hard to do. That said, there’s a very big difference between doesn’t work and can’t work. Humans are pretty adaptable given the right circumstances, so I’d wager we’re talking mostly about the doesn’t category. Your comment totally reminds me of many conversations I’ve heard and read about weig…

I think the point may have been more that many people have chronotypes [1] that negate the benefits of changing a sleep schedule to something that fits your waking schedule. Doing this may allow for better time allocations, but comes at the cost of the effectiveness of your forced circadian rhythm.

[1] https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/chronotypes

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#198

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #193
josiahpeters wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diagnosed ADHD person here. Among my acquaintances I’m known as a person who will accept coffee any time off day when I come visit. I don’t that because I really enjoy the flavor off coffee and it doesn’t seem to affect my sleep. Anecdotally, I’ve had conversations with more than 50 people who say caffeine does not affect them who likely have ADHD or some kind of attention disorder. For example, I was at a gas statio…

Do you mean it doesn’t affect their sleep? I remember the first time I tried coffee and the effect was profound, like my brain wasn’t working properly before that moment. I have also been diagnosed with ADHD, but I am affected by caffeine so maybe that’s a misdiagnosis. I also have huge variation over my life where I can sometimes handle 6+ cups without issue and other times half of a Diet Coke will send me spiraling…

I also have ADHD (though the lesser inattentive variety) and caffeine affects me. There are dozens of us!

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#199

Post by slothtrop »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #104
plorkyeran wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A life changing thing for me was specifically scheduling time to do fun things in the morning before doing the things I have to do. If I wake up at six, I still don’t start my day until eight, and instead spend those two hours on things I otherwise would have done the night before. This broke the feeling of dreading mornings that lead to a negative spiral. Even if I know most of the day will be awful, if I can look f…

Wish this worked for me, but my brain straight up ignores[0] any kind of alarm clocks, music, light, etc. until it's something like 10:00 in the morning, or until a person wakes me up (and checks 5-10 minutes later if I'm actually up)[1]. So, shifting time to morning turned out to be impossible to maintain when I was living alone - I could hold such schedule for maybe a week at most, gradually oversleeping more and m…

Some people have more difficulty shifting, but that aside, some factors that feed into chronotype can be more impactful than others. If you moved to the other side of the world, you would surely shift your circadian rhythm and fall back to the habit of getting up at 10am or later, eventually (faster than you think). Sunlight is a powerful factor, but there is also timing of work, social cues, food, and preference. All of that informs tendency towards morning-ness or evening-ness.

The reason this is important is you can manipulate those factors to shift, the same way traveling several time zones away would automatically make you shift.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#200

Post by eska »

xyzelement wrote: post #160
jmkd wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point, but I find the kind of advice given goes beyond being unhelpful into being actually damaging. It's exasperating at best and makes the 'patient' feel as if no one understands them, or worse that the world is against them. On balance I weigh the damage of that as more negative than the absence of advice that might help.

This is where you and I disagree. I find that a chance at tangible improvement is worth having to deal with the risk it cannot be accomplished.

I used to be depressed and constantly received the same bullshit advice which led me to believe nobody understands me and that I’m incurable and I was about to give up. Please don’t be a cliche programmer and speak on matters outside of your expertise as if you know what you’re talking about, this is dangerous territory.
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