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Impacts of lack of sleep

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Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#41

Post by justinator »

hannofcart wrote: post #32

A key thing to note is that if you have sleep apnea, even if you think you're getting 7-8 hrs of sleep, you likely aren't. If you (or likely your partner) suspects you have apnea, talk to your doctor. Doing a sleep study/test and getting treatment for apnea will likely transform your life for the better.

Relieving my sleep apnea has been - by far - the biggest impact to my health and well-being. It's like a new lease on life. Just took a $60 retainer from Walgreens (this won't work for everyone). Memory, word recall, mood, energy - you name it: just much better than before. It was a slow process to get below what I would call normal (to say nothing of, "optimal"). It snuck up on me and I just never understood how terrible I was while just trying to live "normally.

I would compare it to having a fairly robust drinking problem, and then finally getting sober.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#42

Post by mitko »

As someone who currently runs on decreased sleep, I can relate to a bunch of these.

But in my case, the root cause seems to be stress from increased load, and the higher cortisol levels it creates

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#44

Post by hnthrowaway0315 »

xyzelement wrote: post #35
markus_zhang wrote: post #18

I have been missing sleep since child was born. The post is pretty accurate. I now fully understand why some people don't want to get kids.

Any parent will tell you that having kids is not going to help your sleep, but most parents find sacrifice unequivocally worth it on the net. Not sure if this is truly what you meant but I would find it highly abnormal that a child does not bring your sufficient joy and meaning that would offset sleep loss.

I have a few bullet points about this:

1. Most people would never say bad things about parenting because it makes them look like demons. I basically tell my friends and colleagues that it is OK and I'm still not sure whether it worths it or not. That's as far honest as I'm willing, although it is pretty close to truth nowadays. I was a lot more snarky a year ago.

2. Humans are very good at adapting. If you told me 3 years ago that I have to go through all these, I'd never think about getting a kid. But somehow it actually feels OK now. And that's what I tell other people.

3. Having kids basically means having a completely different life style for me. I can see why some people actually feel so excited about it because their life style actually fit. It's about trading one life style to another, and this is something we rarely told others, who nevertheless never bother to ask anyway, because they don't know what to ask. Nowadays, I'd tell any young people to get their dreams done before getting a kid, unless they really really want it. You want to go travel the world? Do it before getting a kid. You want to teach yourself a long chain of Mathematics/Physics topics? Do it before getting a kid. I'm not saying you can't do them after having kids, but it's a LOT safer to do them before.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#45

Post by yahmez »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #21
MarkusQ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physical labor. Or exercise. If you push yourself to the point where you're physically tired, you'll sleep like a rock. If it doesn't, you're either not pushing hard enough or you ought to see a doctor.

Heavy exercise, like lifting weights after work(5PM), makes me fall asleep eve harder. I can still feel the adrenaline and elevated heart rate and body temperature that just makes it even more difficult to fall asleep so I have no idea how people who go to the gym at 9PM manage to fall asleep. I wish I knew their secret or had their genetics. Lighter exercises that don't stress the body, like long walks and yoga are…

Have you experimented with sleeping while fasted at all? I have heard a few people say they get their best sleep when sleeping on an empty stomach.

I also find white noise and a sleep mask have helped a fair bit. I’m a very light sleeper so little background noises wake me easily, so having white noise on helps there. And wearing a sleep mask notably improved my sleep as our bedroom can get quite bright (even with blackout curtains).

Anecdotally though, the most important factors for me are sun exposure (particularly morning and evening), weight lifting (or exercise in general), and cutting out caffeine.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#46

Post by p-e-w »

I'm highly skeptical concerning the claimed 'effects' of lack of sleep. I don't doubt those are correlated with lack of sleep, but for many of them, obvious confounding factors exist.

As a trivial example, overworked people typically get less sleep than average folks. And excessive work is also correlated with several of the 'effects' from the list, such as "fatigued and demotivated" and "lower libido". This means that even though lack of sleep is (indirectly) linked to those problems, getting more sleep won't necessarily fix them, because the real cause is something else.

I find it strange that a post explicitly addressed to HN readers fails to even mention this extremely obvious issue.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#47

Post by dalyons »

MarkusQ wrote: post #7
mmanfrin wrote: post #3

I'd wager most people here who don't get enough sleep aren't doing so out of some sort of grindset mentality, but because they simply cannot. I find it very hard to fall asleep, nearly impossible to sleep in (a consequence of getting older?), and more interrupted sleep. I'm reticent to try drugs to enable sleep because I've heard that the sleep they provide is not true sleep.

Physical labor. Or exercise. If you push yourself to the point where you're physically tired, you'll sleep like a rock. If it doesn't, you're either not pushing hard enough or you ought to see a doctor.

Love me an over simplified solution for a very complex problem.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#48

Post by gavinhoward »

Thank you to the author for this.

I struggle to have the discipline to get enough sleep. I'm going to bookmark this, pin it in a tab, and use it to remind myself that the consequences of my stupidity are greater than what I would accomplish by staying awak.

Re: Impacts of lack of sleep

#50

Post by oulu2006 »

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…

This^, I'm very much the same.

Going to sleep feels like it brings the next day, and if you aren't looking forward to what you have to do the next day....you put it off for as long as possible.

I feel you.

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