Sleep

    Quote from Thrik

    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.

    It might not have anything to do with interactivity or "active brain use" but just cos it's emitting light. Exposure to light spikes your serotonin levels while reducing melatonin. I forgot a lot about it though so might wanna google that Either way, it's good to reduce your monitor's brightness.


    Edit: Furyo beat me to it.

    Since cutting out 95% of processed sugar in my diet, my energy level during the day is much more constant and I don't rely on caffeine. And while I don't get more sleep (due to kids) the quality of my sleep feels so much better.

    The older you get, the less sugar you should eat.

    Side topic: it's not the fat...it's the sugar.

    Quote from Corwin

    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.


    You know, I was thinking about this yesterday... As we grow older, we become more and more busy, It's hard to find time to take a shit without looking at the clock or thinking what do we have to finish today, or do next. And when you DO manage to find time to rest from all the commotion, you typically schedule it to do something with the wife / family / friends, because free time is so scarce you wanna do something fun with it, right? We cap every single possible hole in our time with something.


    What happened to free time? Time to literally just chill and exhale... Time to just sit down and figure out on the spot what leisure activity you're gonna be doing, because you feel like doing different stuff in different days. Those free days when you ask yourself: "ok... wtf am I gonna do today, maybe I'm just gonna go down to the beach and stare at the waves while scratching my balls", or "Ah... fuck it, I'm gonna stay here and boot up this game or movie"


    It was in a day like that that I figured what my passions in life are. It was in a "boring" day like that I found what kind of music I love. It was in a boring day I discovered modding, it was in a boring day I decided to give texturing a go, it was in a boring day I decided to boot up a music making app and have a blast with it. Because without boring days, you will never take the time to discover new stuff, or just do some soul searching if you will.


    That's also one of next goals in life, drift out of the main path more often. Otherwise, it will be the blink of an eye that you'll realize that you're 60 and old and wtf did you do with your life. And I also firmly believe that's the solution for stress, and quite likely the only one.

    interseting


    Your Ancestors Didn't Sleep Like You


    Quote

    We didn’t always sleep in one eight hour chunk. We used to sleep in two shorter periods, over a longer range of night. This range was about 12 hours long, and began with a sleep of three to four hours, wakefulness of two to three hours, then sleep again until morning.


    But just what did people do with these extra twilight hours? Pretty much what you might expect.

    Most stayed in their beds and bedrooms, sometimes reading, and often they would use the time to pray. Religious manuals included special prayers to be said in the mid-sleep hours.

    Others might smoke, talk with co-sleepers, or have sex. Some were more active and would leave to visit with neighbours.

    I'm now going to school fulltime, working parttime and trying to get a small business going. It got to the point where there werent enough hours in the day and I was so low on energy halfway through the day I might as well not be working.


    In the last month I've been waking up at 4:45am every day, have had vastly improved brain function and am rarely tired. I've actually sometimes so focused I feel like I'm on amphetamines or something. I've also lost about 5lb a week (when I came back from Japan I had gained about 30lb) for the last few weeks.


    Anyways these are the changes I made to my lifestyle


    • No soda or juice, usually just filtered water
    • One coffee a day at 5am that is blended with coconut oil
    • Breakfast consists of almonds and some protein around 8am when I arrive at school as well as around 6000 IU of Vitamin d3
    • throughout the day I have water and almonds
    • lunch consists of complex carbs and protein. Something like a really dark rye with salami or tuna
    • 20 mins cardio a day at least
    • 7 min workout about once every other day http://www.7-min.com/
    • Dinners consist of protein and fiber but few carbs (say wild salmon, broccoli and spinach)
    • Magnesium supplement at night
    • I switched from using regular butter and mayo to grassfed butter (nutritionally completely different from regular butter)

    Like I said one of the best benefits is that throughout the day my mind feels focused and I can work fairly steadily. The reduction in shitty carbs and increase in good fat consumption (coconut oil, salmon) really makes a huge difference. Good fats seem to make all the difference.


    During the times where I worked on contracts from home I would do a form of polyphasic sleeping where I would sleep at night for about 4 hours then take 2 1 hour naps during the day. Once you get into the cycle it really helps get you into the good sleep quickly. My programming output goes up like 200-300% and the code quality is way higher. The downside is I will pretty much get knocked out when it's time to sleep so it kills my social life.

    Well I can relate to a lot of the people in this thread, I've always had trouble getting to sleep. Nice to see I'm not alone! Hopefully some of the advice in this thread will help.

    I was always a night owl myself. I would literally spend hours upon hours at my desk building maps, watching series/movies or browsing mapcore But if I stayed up intil 3am, I would usually sleep until 12-2pm. Often missing school because there was no way in hell I'd wake up at 8am. After graduating college (no idea how I managed to do that), and started at my first job, I started noticing that everyone else got up at 6-8am fine, while also having done stuff at home after 10pm. After a few months of having to go to bed at 7-8pm in order to get up at 8am, I started wanting to do more shit in the after noons. Like working on Pirates of New Horizons with warby. But then I overslept at work, because sitting up until midnight fucked me hard the next day.


    So, I felt so bad about how much I slept I ended up going to the doctor. My symptoms at the time were;

    I slept way too much.

    Always tired (but I thought it was just how life was).

    Snored loudly.


    The first thing my doctor told me to do was to pen down the hours I slept. If you are having trouble sleeping, in any way or form, this should be your first step towards fixing that problem. Because without knowing exactly how little/much you sleep and at what times, you can't really figure out what to do about it.


    On an average day I was sleeping about 12 hours. Now Furyo probably already know whats wrong
    The doctor scheduled me for a sleeping analysis. I went to bed with something looking like an oxygen mask as well as numerous sensors attached to various places on my chest and arms. The results were conclusive, I was not breathing properly during the night, and as such I was never reaching REM sleep (deep sleep). This is called Sleep Apnea. Research I've read indicate that as many as >10% suffers from it. My mother always told me I have a "tungt sovehjerte" (heavy sleeping heart). Which means that I just sleep really well or like to sleep really weel. Neither was the actual case, its just so normal that people dont think that theres actually something wrong.


    Because what happens is that my muscles relax so much that they close the airways. Then my brain stops receiving oxygen so it panics, "wakes me up" without me noticing it, so that the muscles in my throat opens up the airways again. Then this happens like every other minute. And as you might know, reaching REM sleep usually takes 30 minutes or so.


    So I was referred to surgery. They took out my toncils, which hurt like a mother fucker for 2-4 weeks, but all of a sudden I could sleep 6-8 hours and feel fucking fantastic!

    tl;dr if you sleep too much, get checked for sleep apnea.

    Another way of correcting sleep rhythms is to wake up at the same time every day. If you do it for a few days your body will automatically accustom itself to it.

    Hey, as horrible as it might be, it seems that 7 hours of sleep max per night is causing heart trouble and reduces drastically health expectancy!

    Thankfully, studies have shown that a part of the population is born with an issue when producing the hormone created during sleep, this is why some doctors can prescribe these hormones for those who need it. I'm one of them and it does wonders! Hope it could help someone here as well, it's called melatonin, and I heard it is becoming renowned

    I don't really have problems sleeping, I'm just an idiot and keep going to bed late because I'm working on something. Almost every damn night I see it get to about 11pm and thnk better 'better wrap up and go to bed in a moment'. Then it's suddenly 2am and FFS.

    Interestingly, being single seems to have made it a lot easier to fall into stupid sleeping patterns because who cares if I'm up until late making funny sounds with a synth. I wonder what the statistics would be if single/partnered peoples' sleeping habits were confirmed.

    Quote from laminutederire

    Hey, as horrible as it might be, it seems that 7 hours of sleep max per night is causing heart trouble and reduces drastically health expectancy!

    Thankfully, studies have shown that a part of the population is born with an issue when producing the hormone created during sleep, this is why some doctors can prescribe these hormones for those who need it. I'm one of them and it does wonders! Hope it could help someone here as well, it's called melatonin, and I heard it is becoming renowned


    Don't say that ! I have 6-8 hours per night during the week can increase to 9-12 during week end.

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