Sleep

It's funny everytime I think of Nysuatro I think a guy strolling around the office with his bare hands instead of his feet and doing push-ups while working at his desk shouting "Aint nobody got time to sit still!!!"

Quote from [HP]

It's funny everytime I think of Nysuatro I think a guy strolling around the office with his bare hands instead of his feet and doing push-ups while working at his desk shouting "Aint nobody got time to sit still!!!"

And while commiting assets, breakdancing on his desk

See what I mean?

Quote from [HP]

See what I mean?

wow. you called it

My sleep pattern has been god awful since I got a computer and since then it has been a downward spiral into sporadic sleeping patterns. I can relate to steppens point about crazy sleeping and waking times of 11am and 6pm, been there done that many times. Sometimes when it gets a bit silly I force myself to reset my clock and just stay awake all day and go to sleep early, I'd usually last until late afternoon and just give up and go to bed as I would feel so sick and out of it but if I managed to last until the night (i.e 9 or 10) I'd get a second wind and feel awake again. I'm not as bad as I used to be nowdays but I still can't claim to a normal sleep pattern either.

Somehow my sleeping has completely stabilised itself as I've gotten into my mid-20s. As a teenager and for a while afterwards it was truly awful, I'd often go for 30+ hours and then crash into an epic sleep. So many personal projects to work on, so many online games to play. I didn't enjoy the sleep cycle aspect of it though, I don't like getting up in the middle of the day and I don't like not being able to sleep when I want to.

I don't know why I'm totally fine now. I reliably fall asleep at 11–1am and get up at 7–9am. The only things I can really think of:

• I don't drink caffeine (That includes Coke!) for a couple of hours before bed
• I tell myself that I must have seven hours of sleep at least, so if I've got to be up at 8am I'll make sure I go to bed no later than 12am so I've got an hour to fall asleep
• I give myself an hour to fall asleep so I can spend time winding my overly active mind down and dealing with any shit I still want to think about
• If something is owning my mind (this goes for any time of day actually) I write a note in my iPhone to think about it properly later so I can move on, or write my thoughts/solution to a work problem/whatever down in full so I feel like I've done all I can

Quote from Thrik

I don't drink caffeine (That includes Coke!) for a couple of hours before bed

I don't drink caffeine at all, except the pot of tea I have in the morning/afternoon break... but that's not every single day. Soft-drinks have been sorta banned from our family too. I sometimes get a coke when I'm out for a pizza, otherwise it's pretty rare.

Any kind of sugar-y food is bad in the evening, I mean sometimes (especially when it's hot like in summer) I indulge on an ice cream while watching a movie (this last month I went particularly crazy on that)... and if that's at 23-0, then you get going for a while.

Btw we should just quit the computer at a certain time, sometime i can feel sleepy, get to the computer and i'm back in the land of the living.

Quote from blackdog

Btw we should just quit the computer at a certain time, sometime i can feel sleepy, get to the computer and i'm back in the land of the living.

This is so true. Computer keeps my brain awake. When I try to go to bed 2 hours early, I end up doing shit on my smartphone... I need to get rid of my phone like I did get rid of my bedroom television. Ahh! Technology

Interesting topic. When I read what HP said and if I compare his situation with mine, I've the same comportment and problem.The problem is that I've also the impression to loose my time when I sleep but in another way, if I don't have my sleeping hours I wake up tired and I make nothing good during a part of the day, it's only during the end of the day that I also feel a boost of energy and do some work / learning. But now with a daughter, I've a "morning clock" and I can't stay in my bed and let my wife doing all we need to do with a child...so yep, currently I often sleep during 5/6 hours by night and I know it's not enough...I'm trying to change this habit but it's not easy, not easy at all.

Same situation, I'm not so much a night owl as my son seems to be, it's hard to put him to bed early, and I wake up every day quite early to get to work, so my nights are short. The little bugger goes on sleeping till noon and doing his 12hrs nights while I'll be happy if I sleep more than 7hrs.

Worst part is, even on weekends, because of the habit of rising early to get to work, I'm also up on my own at 7-8am.

I'm also subject to some stress which doesn't help me sleep in in the mornings, and like some of you guys already mentioned, I'm always feeling like I've got very little free time nowadays so sleeping gets in the way of my personal growth and of being a creative person (because work doesn't let me be that often) so I'm tempted to postpone sleep as much as I can.

All in all, I'm accumulating fatigue these days, and never did quite get some proper rest since my son was born (although nowadays it's not really because of him anymore, he doesn't wake up at night at all), and a single bad night (party in the neighbourood, super hot weather, etc.) can mean I feel like shit for a few days, rubbing my eyes all the time and being irritable etc.

Not very happy about that, but not very happy about doing nothing but taking care of my son/wife/home either, so I'm trying to spin all those plates at once, and surviving with 6-7h sleep/night.

Now that we're going to work on Sundays to finish our game, I realize how much I gained from the 2-days break of weekends. I find that since I started doing that, I'm even more tired and not ever really rested and due to that I get easily interrupted at work, start day-dreaming on the job, etc. which makes me question the actual benefits of doing so, if I'm then wasting half of my afternoon not managing to focus or creating errors in my scripts etc.

It's a really good point that using some kind of interactive device keeps me awake pretty much until I force myself to go to bed. Whether it's a games console, computer, or even just a phone I get into that cycle we must all be familiar with of 'quickly doing one more thing'. And then another hour or two passes.

I hadn't realised, but another thing I've been doing during the past year or so is turning my interactive devices off an hour or so before the time I wish to go to bed and instead doing passive things like watching TV, reading a book, or even just drawing. When it's a one-way thing I don't seem to have a problem, in fact it helps me to wind my brain down.

This might be even more important than all the other stuff, because I have noticed that since getting into certain time sink games (*cough* Skyrim) I've occasionally had nights like my teenage years of gaming until like 3am, lol. Fortunately I can't get away with it when my girlfriend's round so it only happens once or twice a week.

So that's another thing those struggling to go to sleep should try, especially those who do it because they're working on personal stuff: turn the computer off 30–60 minutes before the time you believe you should go to bed and see if it helps. I know it's hard, but I personally find that with a better sleep cycle I can feel motivated and energised to work on personal stuff at any time of day rather than just the evening.

I too share a lot of the same issues you guys have been discussing, or rather I used to. My going to the gym before work in the morning helped me getting a LOT more tired much earlier at night, and with the combined help of a airplane sleep mask that helps me keep my deep sleep pattern when the sun goes up, I am now sleeping better than ever. Actually I only get pissy and tired when I DON'T go to the gym.

A couple things you guys can consider:

- Give yourself a cool down period between your last screen activity (PC, tv) and your going to bed time. Otherwise your brain will be in hyper activity from both what you were doing and the bright screen keepng your eyes up and alert way past their bedtime.

- Have a doctor test you for sleep apnea. It's a far more common problem than you might think, and really destroys the quality of your sleep as well as your healh. Sleep apnea is breathing difficulties during your sleep, which while not waking you up most times, will create a lack of oxygen to your brain while you sleep. Worst cases of sleep apnea last over 30 seconds, multiple times per hour, all night long. Those most prone to having it would generally feel continuously tired even when sleeping 8+ hours. There is no cure for it, but you can get a machine by your night rest that will force oxygen down your lungs while you sleep to force your air ways and lungs fully functioning at night. Works wonders.

Great thread.

I can recall many moments when I had a test on the following day and did a life hack to "solidify" what I had studied. It always worked: when I was lying on the bed with my eyes closed, I thought about the test's topic and tried to summarize everything on my mind. I noticed that on the next morning I could remember most of that

Ah, magically coming up with design/ programming solutions after a good night of sleep is awesome indeed.

In my case, I prefer to work on my personal projects during the night because my performance improves significantly. There's simply too many distractions during the day. When I work on my projects at between 11pm- 6am~, there isn't any phone ringing, people calling you to talk nonsense, no sound of TV, no deliveries to be received etc. I can focus a lot more that way.

anyone with a fulltime job considered working 4 days instead of 5? I can't right right now (just got 10 nightshifts done ) but as soon as I have the financial freedom to do so: fuck the 5 day work per week schedule man, live life!

I wish I could afford to, lol. I am allowed to work from home two/three times a week though, which combined with flexitime makes things feel more like my work life can fit around what I want to do. It's a great approach I wish more companies would take as everyone always feels so happy and motivated.

I just come out of a night of 6 hours sleep, subdivided by a couple of "shifts"... I need to get up about every 3 hours because our poor old dog needs to go outside. This has been going on for months now.

And this is already the 4th night out of five since my parents got back from holidays -_-

Quote from Thrik

So that's another thing those struggling to go to sleep should try [...] turn the computer off 30–60 minutes before the time

I thought you were going to write to find a girlfriend

Quote from Furyo

- Give yourself a cool down period between your last screen activity (PC, tv) and your going to bed time. Otherwise your brain will be in hyper activity from both what you were doing and the bright screen keepng your eyes up and alert way past their bedtime.

I definitely must try, because my habit is just to stay at the computer until i collapse. I must return to the very old habit of reading when in bed... that would just be a good thing on its own, i've piled up so many gifted books in the last years.

Quote from killertomato

anyone with a fulltime job considered working 4 days instead of 5? I can't right right now (just got 10 nightshifts done ) but as soon as I have the financial freedom to do so: fuck the 5 day work per week schedule man, live life!

Seen any Jason Fried talks uh? I didn't want to say anything about this stuff because i'm currently unemployed and haven't work in the gaming industry, but Corwin's post talking about crunching really tempted me to.

Quote from [HP]

It's funny everytime I think of Nysuatro I think a guy strolling around the office with his bare hands instead of his feet and doing push-ups while working at his desk shouting "Aint nobody got time to sit still!!!"

That's actually what working with him is like. Add to that spinning on his head whilst simultaneous solving usability issues and you've got Robb.

I'm a complete night owl too, if I had the choice that's how I'd rather live. I just enjoy night time more, there's less cars on the road, it's quieter, shops are always empty and it's generally more relaxing.

I used to game with an all-American clan during college and Uni and would stay up till 7 or 8 in the morning, sleep through the day and then wake up around 4pm and start gaming again. I was essentially living in their time zone and I think this is where a lot of my night owl habits come from.

Having to work during the day is what keeps me being 'normal' though I usually get around 7-8 hours of sleep a night if I drive to work and with flexi-time i tend to get to work around half 9. If I have to get the train I'll wake up at around 7 with usually less than 6 hours sleep and feel absolutely knackered for most of the day.

I used to drink a lot of caffeine drinks, energy drinks mostly and this kept me going but I quit that a fw months ago and I feel a lot better for it. Water is generally a lot better.

Quote from Jord

That's actually what working with him is like. Add to that spinning on his head whilst simultaneous solving usability issues and you've got Robb.

This.

He's a crazy son of a bitch xD