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I think a lot of it has to do with mental status, which can be concluded with one sentence -- "Are you happy with your life, and if not do you have a clear path to reach that?".

People who say no probably has a lot of trouble to get fit, get enough sleep -- sometimes NOT because they do not have the resources, but because they are not happy. They hate life, so why makes it better? I have observed this in myself so I wonder whether it is universally true.

I have observed that whenever I have a clear target in my life (e.g. I need to pursue this girl I like, or, I need to figure out Linux 1.0 VFS and I have a clear path before me), I immediately take care to do exercises, eat more healthy food, and try to get good sleep -- but if I cannot find an objective, or I have lost interests and are in the middle of finding a new one, I find myself a lot more obnoxious, and sometimes I "proactively" destroy my health because I don't care about it. Unfortunately I rarely find a clear path before me so the later status is more or less permanent while the former one is rare, maybe once per year -- but when I reach the first status it usually grabbed me for 2-3 months.

Mental stability is probably one of the reasons different people have vastly different productivity or achievements. It is mental stability that brings focus, not the other way around.

How can I explain to my 6 months old girl that we all need to sleep :D

This is a bug in the universe! We need to sleep so that the levels of dopamine, and hormones of hunger and not hunger are at good levels, so that we can be healthy and strong, so that the immune system is stable and strong... And we need to get good sleep so that we can protect our children and be sane....

BUT the nature decided that the kids will wake up 3-4 times per night, and you need to wake up and take care of them.

You sleep in best case, on pauses, not more than 4-6 hours, you feel miserable, and at the same time you are THE HAPPIEST PERSON IN THIS WORLD! :)

The most important thing about sleep I learned is to fall asleep at the same moment of every day. Make it 22:00 or 23:00 or 00:00. Whatever is comfortable for you. But you have to stick to the chosen hour as hard as you can. Every day from now on it has to be that hour. After you get used to that you will notice a much better effect of the sleep.

I am recently diagnosed with Type II Diabetes.

The classic symptoms were unknown to me until this point when I researched them.

I had previously blamed psych medications for the symptoms, and while they may have exacerbated them, I guess diabetes was the real root cause.

One of the symptoms is frequent urination. And so, every night I wake up every 2 hours or so and crawl into the bathroom. It’s legitimately a huge curse.

I don’t get enough deep R.E.M. and I remain exhausted just from the physical effort of get-up-and-go.

It’s very frustrating and sad to think that even after I’ve got my blood glucose under control, I still have these lingering symptoms that impact my QoL.

Eat right, kids; eat well or be cursed for life!

The older I get the more sensitive to a single poor night's sleep I become.

The most frustrating effect is that even a few drinks in the evening (maybe over 2-3 units). Unsettles my sleep that if I'm in the process of learning something feels like it sets me back several days.

That's not even counting the slowed processing I feel, and lower productivity the next day.

I genuinely have to revisit old information.

A genuine hangover from a heavy night can put me out of action for half a week!

When I was younger I'm not sure I had many good nights sleep let alone noticed a bad one!

I've heard that small amounts of alcohol can actually improve learning interestingly by preventing interference from events later in the day.

> There is only one formula for healthy and refreshing sleep: Go to sleep only when you are very tired. Not earlier. Not later. Wake up naturally without an alarm clock.

This is very easy to say when you're not suffering from insomnia and other sleep disorders.

I have a somewhat rarely diagnosed circadian rhythm disorder called delayed sleep phase disorder. It is difficult to get diagnosed, especially as sleep clinics have been targets of private equity firms which convert them to CPAP shops which only diagnose sleep apnea and whose patients never interact with an MD. However it is likely to be underdiagnosed given the stigma around sleep challenges, at least in the sense that if you make any effort to get enough sleep with such a sleep disorder, you tend to be pegged as lazy, irresponsible, unreliable, etc

In any event, I agree with something implicit in the article, namely that most people have a degree of this, but the severity is variable. Mine has been fairly extreme, and while diagnosis enables disability accommodations, it is very fraught navigating most workplaces with this particular disability and you are essentially forced to choose between having any kind of upward mobility and getting enough sleep at night.

Thankfully the past two years or so I've been getting much more sleep since optimizing more for that. But anyway, if you are navigating sleep challenges you should get a sleep study, sure, but also be aware that your local sleep clinic is in all likelihood only nominally a sleep clinic. That is, it does not know how to diagnose and treat more complex sleep issues and probably doesn't want to.

If only I knew how to have full non-interrupted restorative sleep. It seems that my body started losing that skill about 20 years ago, and lost it altogether about 6 years ago. The falling asleep time is a lottery and I'm always waking up after the first stage, often a few more times after that.

Tried all kinds of sleep medication, but by now I've forgotten what it's like to not be half-asleep and unable to concentrate throughout the day (with loud tinnitus and a soupy feel in the brain to boot). Really sucks out any and all enjoyment from life, I can't even find the energy to watch TV shows anymore, let alone read books. I haven't learned anything fundamentally new at work for years too (inertia helps with daily routine).

I think nearly everyone should be screened for sleep apnea. The at-home test you wear on your finger is so cheap - it doesn't make sense not to do it for anyone who has any issues with sleep or tiredness in the day.

I always thought that due to being female and a healthy weight, it wasn't something I needed to think about. I also didn't think I snored more than anyone else, so it took me years of poor sleep before a Doctor finally recommended I get tested.

Turns out OSA also can be caused or aggravated by: the size and shape of your mouth, the position you sleep in (I have twice as many events on my back vs side), and whether you tuck your chin in near your test (soft cervical collar helped for that). There are devices that alter how your mouth rests when sleeping (easier to breathe if your front teeth are forward) but they're possibly not good for your bite. CPAP/APAP is still the gold standard for a reason.

The coolest thing about CPAP though, is a lot of them have amazing metrics recorded if you pop in an SD card. And there's a big community built around open source software to analyze those metrics and tune the settings to minimize apnea events overnight.

Also, a cpap with a humidifier is amazing if you're prone to nose pain / nose bleeds due to dry air.

I got 4h of sleep last night which is about my normal average at this time of the year, and I have 0 regrets about it. I also don't sleep at a regular time every day. If I have no other obligations, I naturally let it shift forward (what the article calls "delayed sleep phase"). I am most unhappy when I HAVE TO use an alarm clock and break my own patterns. Last night, I naturally went to sleep right before sunrise and I woke up 4 hours later.

To pre-empt a few objections: I did not need an alarm clock to wake up. I am not taking heavy stimulants other than caffeine at this time. I am not stressed. I am not unhappy. I don't have memory issues (in fact, I am cursed with a very good memory and it is usually harder for me to forget than to remember). I can score above the Mensa bar on an IQ test. I can take an interview. I can give a demo. I can run 10km. I do not have "bipolar disorder" or any such nonsense. I don't need medication. I don't need therapy. I don't need a better mattress. I'm not already in a mental asylum. I'm married with kids, I work a high-paying job, I give to charity and I pay my taxes. In fact, today is tax day, I should probably take care of that instead of getting upset at hacker news comments.

How are we meant to read and discuss this page? It's huge!

It seems like we're all just looking at the title and talking about our sleep habits.

As a Spaniard I am trying to honor my ancestors and nap when I can, but man, it feels almost impossible most of the days. It could be that I am having too much anxiety/stress, too much coffee in the mornings, lack of practice, or maybe all of them. Any experiences related to learning to nap or what worked for you over here?

I'm extremely sensitive to poor sleep. I also have nothing in my schedule that really prevents me from going to sleep early and sleeping late most of the time, and generally I at least achieve the former. The problem is that I have unbearable horrible nightmares every time I sleep. To the point where going to sleep is akin to going to hell itself, and I generally choose to forcibly wake myself up around like 6 a.m. just to get away from it all. I haven't really figured out a way around this.

Is the author suggesting people to have to live with going through a phase of being nocturnal? In the free running algorithm, we're supposed to sleep 15 minutes later each day until we're falling asleep at like 9AM?

That's just incompatible with modern life right?

Putting my laptop to sleep unfortunately didn't increase its memory

I stopped drinking caffeine and sudenly I remember everything

No wonder I sleep a lot but still wake up feeling tired and constantly sleepy. Maybe following proper REM sleep cycles could help solve this. I’ll give it a try.

Has someone found that they have better alcohol "recovery" if they are pursuing intense or at least regular(at least 3x a week) stamina building exercise like running/swimming?

Biphasic/polyphasic sleeper here (not by choice). Makes the work week a lot trickier. I will be reading through this article for insight on how to get the most out of my situation.

I really liked the idea of "Free running sleep". Not sure how feasable would be to make it part of my routine TBH. I need to adhere to external schedules (job, family). Maybe someday I'll give it a honest try!

The explanation of the memory consolidation process during sleep was surprising and made me rethink my habit of using alarms and cutting back on sleep for overtime work.

justgetflux.com

Helped me start going to bed at 10pm

Best bullshit and industry cutting phrase for better sleep: Follow the sun. Follow the sun for a fixed reference point for when to wake up, and for when to sleep, and guard yourself from artificial lights like it's your professional job. Bryan Johnson says to treat sleep like a professional job, and I take it further: break the standard industrial-factory based paradigm around sleep, work and life and say no to the clock based wellbeing-adversarial system.

edit: hours and minutes cannot replace our natural light-based circadian rhythm that evolved for millions of years entraining our hormones and energy cycles around the sun's light.

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is this jesus of sleep