Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I tried to hack my insomnia

technologyreview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 120 posts

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#41

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

Chazprime wrote: post #36

My insomnia is a little different than the author's; I fall asleep easily but wake up three or four hours later. And when I'm up, I'm wide awake. I tried just about everything discussed here....meditation, podcasts, watching television, reading before bed but nothing really helped me consistently. I even bought a treadmill and started running every day which does help, but the thing that actually did the trick best w…

One of the problems with insomnia as a construct is that it lumps a bunch of problems together that probably don't have the same mechanisms. The vast majority of insomnia treatment and advice is focused on "initial insomnia", i.e. inability to fall asleep when you first go to bed.

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#42

Post by ryanmercer »

koheripbal wrote: post #6

During a stressful part of my life recently I struggled with getting to sleep. I just couldn't stop thinking about shit that was going on. until one night I fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV, and it occurred to me that I could just modify this behaviour to bed. So I put a handful of old Star Trek episodes on my phone. Each night I put me earphones on (so as not to disturb my wife), turn on an episode of Sta…

For 2 years I went to sleep with Brewster's Millions (1985 not 1945) playing just loud enough I could hear the words from my desk speakers, would never take more than 10 minutes to be out cold.

Now I've just trained myself to go to sleep. I put my ear plugs in, tell Google to turn the speakers (so my phone charging doesn't make random noise through them) and my salt lamp off and I'm out within a minute or two.

> I just couldn't stop thinking about shit that was going on.

This was the issue. I had to learn how to just shut thoughts off. Not think of nothing, just not think. Watching a television show for an hour before bed (with the monitor color adjusted, whatever Chrome OS calls their version of f.lux) let's me get my mind off of whatever and then I'm in bed within a 5 minute window Sundays-Thursdays.

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#43

Post by not_a_moth »

things that definitely made a difference for me:

a) only dim lights after sunset (reflect for a moment on how unnatural it is, after million or years of modern human evolution, that we all of a sudden have light after sundown. (especially blue light screens, seriously, use apps) ; this disrupts your circadian rhythms and melatonin cycles, so it's a big deal.

b) black out shades. don't underestimate - I've monitored my sleep +2 years with multiple fitness trackers, and noticed a clear positive difference in restlessness levels. it also cured my problem of waking up in the middle of the night to pee believe it or not.

c) air tight wax ear plugs ; sounds will wake you up and you often won't know why. a motorcycle, someone closes a door etc.

d) chilly room. I find ~70F is great. again going back to evo history, it's always been chillier at night.

e) habit x 10. go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time. be unplugged for at least an hour before sleep and relax for a bit when you wake up. follow point a) after sundown. your sleep drive will take over. this might take months to get there, especially if you're a high cortisol individual, but biology will take over if you let it.

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#44

Post by sharadov »

om3n wrote: post #21

I'm in a particularly stressful time in my life (just moved, intense new job) where I've been struggling to sleep. There will be some nights where I simply don't sleep at all; just lay awake in bed all night. Of course I'm aware of all the health/safety/productivity issues associated with no sleep, and the anxiety of not sleeping just furthers my inability to fall asleep. This is what I've been attempting to do to he…

I am not sure where you live and if you are open to trying it, but weed helps ( specifically an indica heavy blend).

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#45

Post by iikoolpp »

klyrs wrote: post #31
forgotmypw wrote: post #28

Insomnia is a fake idea invented to promote the industrial work cycle. If you go to sleep when you're so tired, as opposed to when the societal clock says you should, you won't have any trouble sleeping.

> If you go to sleep when you're so tired, as opposed to when the societal clock says you should, you won't have any trouble sleeping. Great PMA, but you're absolutely wrong. I did that last night, got tired and went to bed around 10pm. And then I woke up at 1am. Now that it's approaching 6, I'm getting tired. But this happens to me occasionally and I know from past experience that my two options are: 1) Go back to b…

> I did that last night, got tired and went to bed around 10pm. And then I woke up at 1am. Now that it's approaching 6, I'm getting tired. But this happens to me occasionally and I know from past experience that my two options are:

This is how your sleep schedule is naturally designed to work. Sleep for a bit, wake up, sleep again.

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#48

Post by ryanmercer »

arbitel wrote: post #19

Or you know, you could go to the gym and start exercising? Try to stay awake after a heavy day of lifting.

Strength athlete here, I train in the evenings and my quality of sleep is always garbage when I'm peaking from all of the stress on my CNS. The end of cycles are hands down my worst sleep weeks, I'll be dog ass tired and have trouble staying asleep.

For one person a heavy day might be a few sets of deadlifts at 80-90% 1rm, for some of us that might mean 2-2.5 hours of training where are warm up alone moves considerably more mass than your entire training and then we also tack on multiple accessory movements and conditioning and if you aren't doing that in the morning it's almost certainly going to mess with your sleep quality that night.

I have a training-induced insomnia blog post that is years old and gets hits every single day without fail. It's probably 1/4 of the total traffic on my personal blog and probably more like 60-65% of Google-referred traffic despite the fact I have 18 years of blog posts.

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#49

Post by hiccuphippo »

I've heard a couple of times of this technique by the US Army in which you relax your body starting by the face, then arms, torso, legs. Finally you picture yourself in a canoe in the middle of a lake or something similar to avoid thinking of anything. Anyone knows how effective is this?

https://medium.com/s/story/combat-tested-training-unwind-and...

Re: I tried to hack my insomnia

#50

Post by kleborp »

koheripbal wrote: post #6

During a stressful part of my life recently I struggled with getting to sleep. I just couldn't stop thinking about shit that was going on. until one night I fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV, and it occurred to me that I could just modify this behaviour to bed. So I put a handful of old Star Trek episodes on my phone. Each night I put me earphones on (so as not to disturb my wife), turn on an episode of Sta…

I cannot fall asleep unless I have Zero Punctuation playing in the background. On Youtube they have started uploading hours-long compilation videos of his, and there are quite a few comments from other people saying it helps them sleep as well. A strange phenomenon.
Post reply on HN