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Dealing with Insomnia

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#2
I'm on the same schedule you were (working till sunrize), but I dont have a family or other obligations yet. If you were in my position do you still think its worth it to try and change to a more regular cycle? I really enjoy my nights.

On the topic of noise, there is one thing I wish could be more recognized as a nuisance, and that is the damn leaf blowers. Especially now that everyone is forced to work from home, every day around here for a couple of hours you are subjected to that.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#5
post #3

This is not insomnia, but delayed sleep phase, and it's usually treated with light boxes or melatonin.

Having trouble to fall asleep and sleeplessness is typically called insomnia, that it is paired with delayed sleep phase is an unfortunate side-effect for those days that I did get (some) sleep, and from my preference for working when it is quiet (ie: nights).

The one feeds into the other which eventually results in missing lots and lots of sleep. I was under the - mistaken - impression that you can get by on 4 hours of sleep or less but this is really not the case so if you suffer from this in some for or other then better take it serious.

Sticking to a routine, avoiding stressful subjects just before sleep, relaxing activities (music, reading) before trying to fall asleep all helped in making it easier to fall asleep. Staying asleep is another matter, and addressing the noise that reaches my bedroom is one more thing I plan on tackling to avoid frequently waking up during the night.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#6
post #2

I'm on the same schedule you were (working till sunrize), but I dont have a family or other obligations yet. If you were in my position do you still think its worth it to try and change to a more regular cycle? I really enjoy my nights. On the topic of noise, there is one thing I wish could be more recognized as a nuisance, and that is the damn leaf blowers. Especially now that everyone is forced to work from home, e…

Not a sleep expert by any means. I think it all depends on the quality of sleep you get. I don't see a problem with that as long as you get the sleep you need and feel rested during your day.

I used to be a night owl too. But with kids and everything things changed over the years. These days it's hard for me to stay awake past 11pm. I also wake up early around 6am, which in the past was unheard-of for me. I actually enjoy my early mornings alone for the same reasons mentioned in the post about the quiet at night.

One thing I find important is not falling asleep before my usual bed time. It usually happens when I watch a movie or something. After I wake up, unless I'm dead tired, it can take me much longer to fall asleep when I actually go to bed.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#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 least.

But now, during quarantine, we set no alarms. No one in the family has to be anywhere at any particular time. And so we've all shifted, even the kids. All of wake around noon, and the kids go down around 2am (and the adults between 4am and 6am).

Late nights just seem to be our natural schedule, but all it takes is an alarm and an early morning responsibility to shift the family schedule.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#8
> After reading many reviews I kept on coming back to the same brand which I had sworn to never buy another item of due to their disrespect of users’ systems integrity, aka the ‘rootkit debacle’

Does Sony really have the best noise cancelling headphones? What brands/models have worked for people here? I've continuously struggled with distracting noises through my education.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#9
I am dealing with sleep issues right now. My 2 game changing habits are:

- melatonin

- doing my best to wake up at 06:00.

In reality, I wake up at 07:00 or even 09:00 but it is guaranteed to save me a few hours of sleep deprivation. In general with these 2 “tricks” I have 2 hours less sleep deprivation than normal. They also have a lot of synergies.

One other thing I am now thinking about is to have a color coded night light with red (you have to sleep), orange (you can wake up if you’re wide awake and truly can’t sleep) and green (you’re in the wake up zone) as color codes. By doing this, I wouldn’t feel the need to check my time at night. Or maybe I should program an app that has some Siri integration (if that’s possible, probably isn’t). By having this, I wouldn’t feel inclined to check the time.

Oh, and this would be alongside an alarm.

Re: Dealing with Insomnia

#10
post #2

I'm on the same schedule you were (working till sunrize), but I dont have a family or other obligations yet. If you were in my position do you still think its worth it to try and change to a more regular cycle? I really enjoy my nights. On the topic of noise, there is one thing I wish could be more recognized as a nuisance, and that is the damn leaf blowers. Especially now that everyone is forced to work from home, e…

> I really enjoy my nights.

Yes, it's very seductive. Until I had a family I didn't see anything wrong with it, that was just an out-of-phase life but it worked well enough for me. Having kids and a business makes it a lot harder to live like that, and working until you drop is an easy way to mask the fact that I had serious problems falling asleep, either at a normal time or even at all. Working until exhaustion seemed like a pretty efficient fix, I'd get a lot done and eventually did get my sleep though not nearly enough of it.

The damage is cumulative as far as I understand it now and even though it gave me an edge for a while I wonder if the price was worth it. Maybe get that book from the library and read up on it (and some critiques of the book as well, it's not all equally solid), then make up your mind as to what is the best approach for your?

> the damn leaf blowers

They're a complete nuisance and utterly ineffective as well. Also, everybody has their own schedule for running them. Fortunately here they are not too popular but the few that are there really get me worked up.

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