The best nootropic is getting a good nights sleep.
It takes effort! Preparing for bed early and disciplining yourself to put the light out is not easy. Not nearly as easy as popping a pill. But it's so much more effective than any drug listed here.
And for a safe and provable quick cognitive boost, take some caffeine, preferable green tea with theanine.
It's hard for me to fall asleep. I haven't cracked it yet how to do it perfectly. What helps: view the problem as improving your likelihood to sleep. Before I viewed the problem as falling asleep 100% of the time, which is a really defeating view to have when I can't fall asleep.
Sleep tips that help me:
1. meditation: still experimenting with body-scan vs. breath meditation, they both help but have different effects.
2. magnesium: makes my body more relaxed.
3. sleeping less if needed: improves likelihood of falling asleep the next day, it's a tricky thing to do but applied sparingly and timed right it works really well. When I do this I prefer to sleep the 6 to 7 hour range.
4. reduce stress: sometimes hard to do but pretty essential for me.
5. flux.
6. opening your window for sunlight during the day: get vitamin D first thing in the morning.
7. buy quality decaffeinated tea: some green tea manufacturers say it's decaffeinated but it's not really. Or maybe it is but it still keeps me energized and awake.
8. no caffeine after 2: preferably not after 12, preferably not at all, use meditation and power naps as a first line of defence, only add caffeine when those 2 aren't enough. Preferably do the power nap + caffeine wombo combo (takes 20 min. for caffeine to reach your brain which is also the ideal power nap time).
I'm curious about other sleep tips that you guys have. I really want to improve this as much as possible.
Running works wonders for me: helps mood, sleep and energy right away.
I run 3-5 miles almost every day and the following morning I wake up refreshed and in a good mood. The effect wears out after a day or two so you have to do it often.
Distance is not that important - what matters is time and intensity: run at least 20m with 10 of them near your upper limit. Make sure you pick a sustainable pace that makes it hard but not impossible to breath.
Don't compare to others - your body needs to be challenged relative to itself. Run comfortably for 10 minutes then a little more than slightly uncomfortably for another 10.
You will feel better as soon as you stop. You will feel calmer, focused, confident and strong for hours after. You will feel better next day. When I had a bad funk it helped me get out of it.
I tried a lot of other forms of exercise from weights and swimming and HIIT and martial arts and yoga. They all help (in other ways) but not as well as running. If you can, complement it with weights 1-2 a week, and yoga 1-2 times as well.
^ this. Absolutely don't disagree with any of it. Big runner here.
I'll just add that many people are mentally exhausted, and frustrated they cannot sleep. But I bet they are not physically exhausted. HIIT, distance running, whatever works, etc. are all great ways to tire out your body.
Yes, cardio and anaerobic (weight lifting, etc) works wonders... but don't do it at the end of the day (10PM or even later) because you'll also have problems sleeping. Post-work out insomnia is a very common problem.
(IMO the best time for exercising is during the morning and afternoon)
"It's hard for me to fall asleep. I haven't cracked it yet how to do it perfectly. What helps: view the problem as improving your likelihood to sleep. Before I viewed the problem as falling asleep 100% of the time, which is a really defeating view to have when I can't fall asleep."
I did not respond to your sibling comment who speaks of anxiety. It sounds like a real pathology and something I have no business generalizing about.
You, however, mention no such thing so I am emboldened to encourage you to exercise - something not mentioned in your list.
I would experiment with both walking for 2-3 hours (on a day off, presumably) and also a 1.5 to 2 hour intense weightlifting workout (primarily focused on your thighs/legs[1][2], since they are the biggest muscles.
I'm not saying to do these things on the same day, just that they are both good candidates for an exercise activity which could influence your ability to go to sleep.
I like your list - especially getting out in the sun early and setting your circadian rhythms, but your list strikes me as it would somebody putting special air filters in their car when they've never taken it in for an oil change. Only reach for the specialized optimizations when you've exhausted the major factors.
[1] which implies squats and deadlifts, although a real leg press (the kind you load with plates, not select weight from the stack) would also do the trick.
> and also a 1.5 to 2 hour intense weightlifting workout (primarily focused on your thighs/legs[1][2], since they are the biggest muscles.
being nitpicky here but we shouldn't be promoting "time in the gym" as a measurement of a workout's success. frankly, if you're doing an "intense" workout for "2 hours" something's wrong.
"being nitpicky here but we shouldn't be promoting "time in the gym" as a measurement of a workout's success. frankly, if you're doing an "intense" workout for "2 hours" something's wrong."
Some background, and you can adjust to fit your personal situation ...
I am 39 years old and in order to do (relatively) heavy squats and deadlifts I require about 45 minutes of prehab, stretching, warmups and accessory exercises.
I also have 3 kids so I can't do two weight workouts per week.
Therefore, I "lift weights" for two hours each week, the first 45 minutes of which is a fairly intense and comprehensive lead-up to two (yes, just two) sets of squats, followed by the rest of my leg/back exercises, then 15 minutes of upper body prehab/stretching/warmup and 30 mins of actual lifting.
So yeah - 25 and no kids ? By all means, enjoy your hour long workout :)
"Intense" here means lifting weights close to the maximum you can lift for certain number of repetitions. This kind of workout can easily take 1.5 to 2 hours, and IMHO qualifies as intense.
If you are actually following set, repetition and rest period guidelines it should probably take quite a bit less, depending on how many exercises you can fit in. Since I never seem to be able to hit the 30 second rest period between sets, and I can't always get to the machine I want immediately after my last exercise because it's in use, I always seemed to average 10-15 minutes an exercise. I haven't been to the gym in months though. :/
3-5 minute rest periods are not unusual at heavy weights, although I personally try to keep it to two minutes to save time. With warm-up sets and some waiting for equipment I often find myself spending 1.5 hours at the gym. Super setting would help a lot but it's impractical at most gyms :(
That's great advice, but it's a pretty big task for someone who might not get a lot of exercise to do 2 hours of intense weightlifting. I lift regularly, and my gym sessions only take an hour.
The good news is that if you are sedentary, older, or sedentary and older, even a little bit of exercise will be extremely effective. Go for that long walk, or maybe a shorter jog, and do some pushups and un-weighted squats. You'll be exhausted, and you'll be less likely to injure yourself. :)
30 minutes? How come? You take a at least 1.5 minute break between every set. So for 5 sets of first exercise that's 7.5 minutes assuming you don't take longer breaks and that you didn't do any warmup and just went straight for proper weights. Now add exercise itself and it's easily 9 minutes. Times three (again, assuming you don't take longer breaks which is really hard to do when you start hitting heavier weights) and it's 27 minutes. Add warmup and stretching and it's easily around 40 minutes. I think my fastest stronglift session was around 50-60 minutes. The longest was easily over 2 hours. When I started hitting squats with weights around 1.4 my body mass just warmups and proper sets were 50 minutes in itself. That was about 11 sets of squats with some breaks being 3-5 minutes ones.
I think six sets of warmup (for your 11 sets) are a bit too many. Three should be enough, and you don't need a real break between warmup sets. That should help cut down. Mehdi even recommends skipping breaks when switching exercises. Indeed, with 1.4 BW it will be tough. But that's what deweighs are for, and at that level, you'll be going into 3x5 soon.
Stronglifts is amazingly high impact for the time it takes.
If you didn't take a look at stronglifts, you should give a try.
Actually, it's only one of a few beginner strength training (most focused to powerlifting, but you can mix with BB if you want to) available out there. I started lifting with stronglifts, today I do greyskull LP.
Also on the weight lifting / sleep connection, in 4 hr Body, Time Ferris states:
TAX THE NERVOUS SYSTEM WITH ISO-LATERAL MOVEMENTS. Exercise is commonly recommended to improve sleep. The problem for me was that results were unpredictable. I might exercise for 20 minutes and fall asleep in 10 minutes, or I might exercise for two hours and fall asleep in two hours. There was no repeatable cause and effect. It seemed like a coin toss. This changed when I began to incorporate iso-lateral (one-arm or one-leg) resistance training. I logged faster to-sleep times after 8 out of 10 training sessions. The more complex the stabilization required, the shorter the to-sleep time.
This is really interesting, I have hard time dealing with sleep since moving abroad, break-up, far from family, isolated small city. Before I could bet with someone that I can fall asleep in less that 5 minutes.
Now, I've done it all and nothing seem to help:
- tried medicine(benzodiazepam family, ugly stuff, addictive, stopped after just 1 week, fuck the doctor that prescribed this)
- tried removing everything with a lot of caffeine, everything in the vegetable world has it, impossible to eliminate, but no more: coffee, tea, sugary drinks
- adapter water drinking to maximum needed
- running 15 minutes HIIT style(4 minutes at 12.5 km/h, 1 minute 16 km/h, repeat)
- weightlifting for the rest 45 minutes - every day session
- meditation (stoping the mind, have a single thought, mandalas, matras, yantras ...)
- no lcd, led light before 23:00, no more tv before bed
- went back to the doctor, best clinic for this in Europe... got prescribed mirtazapine, anti-depresant, helps but the side effects are weired and dehumanizing(taking 1/4 of 30 mg pill, far below the reference amount that they say it has any effect)
- sleep settled to 5 h / d, not bad, but not perfect
- mirtazapine gave me a very long face in the morning, looking destroyed, feeling rested and calm, but face dropped, looking like droopy dog
- went back to doctor, started CBT, bought books on CBT, personal opinion: pile of crap(and I was very opened to them)
- f**k the doctor again(I trust doctors, not this one), he asked me money and go to have treatment at home, told me I am normal, not like the people in the waiting room
- tried melantonin, calming teas, etc etc, bullshit, money wates
- made a girlfriend, sex helps, but when you have it until 03:00 AM due to "crazy" girlfriend, prefer the pills
- broke up, back to 5 h sleep
- back to doctor
- recommended me THC, a liquid version, helped a bit but too expensive
- started smoking weed, cheaper, fuck lungs, need to sleep
- helped a lot for the first months until I became addicted without noticing(addiction is not easy to describe, that is why everybody seems to share a different opinion, bullshit, you become addicted of smoking to be normal, not for the high)
- had to unlearn the weed, waves of heat and cold and sleepless nights followed, catastrophic, need my freedom back, even with 4-5 h of sleep, don't want to depend on anything foreign of my body
- went back home, slept like a rock for the first days, next days awful, unstoppable mind
- back to computer programming until I get tired
- back to reading books until I collapse into sleep
- I collapse but then I wake up at 03:00 am if I start sleeping at 01:00
- change bed place/orientation(mythology of European people), helped a bit, but don't know if it is real or wishful thinking
Effects(personal) of lack of sleep over cognition:
- my mind still solves complex problems(I am a programmer), but the speed lacks to be desired
- entering the zone is almost impossible
- my hands feel like they have 3 tons when I lift them from desk
- I still love what I am doing
- If I find a challenge that is impossible to solve in one day work I get a bad mood
- bad mood gets solved upon second day
Even with all these, I still love life at maximum, would want to achieve and do more, but not whatever the costs, not becoming addicted of foreign stuff!
Guys, be grateful for your lives and go out and speak with people, one day this magic substance might be found, but I am more convinced that it will come from machine/human merger that from substances. Good or bad, that is the most likely future.
Melatonin, while not effective for everyone, should not be grouped together with "bullshit money wastes" in my opinion.
> Guys, be grateful for your lives and go out and speak with people, one day this magic substance might be found, but I am more convinced that it will come from machine/human merger that from substances. Good or bad, that is the most likely future.
This is a very positive outlook, but bear in mind how reality changes for people who are deprived of sleep. As I'm sure you know it becomes a state of desperation. So while you may not want foreign stuff / substances in your body, others are definitely willing to make the sacrifice, even if that doesn't mean good sleep indefinitely. Other people may be willing to be dependent on substances in order to feel rested, for example. Myself included.
> I am more convinced that it will come from machine/human merger that from substances. Good or bad, that is the most likely future.
Curious, what kind of machine/human concept are you thinking of?
You have 3.5-5 hours a day to work out? I want your job. Also, as a former competitive weightlifter, if you are lifting intense for 1.5-2 hours, you are doing it wrong.
You missed part of the post - I wasn't suggesting doing both in a day, I was suggesting that each of them was a good candidate to try in a day.
Also, see my follow-up comment about lifting for 2 hours. tl;dr is that I'm 39 and it takes 45 mins just to prehab/stretch/warmup for heavy squats. YMMV.
Hmm... exercise does indeed reduce the chance. I exercise a little bit. Unfortunately, I can't notice how it is affecting my sleep, but it probably is affecting my sleep. So it should be on the list.
Thing that probably helped me and my wife to improve our sleep routine the best, is switching to ambient lights ~1 hour before sleep.
Because the sun sets usually some time between 17 00 and 21 00 depending on the season, and we usually go to sleep between 22 00 and 24 00, we usually switch of the main lamps around 21 00 and maybe even switch from ambient lamps to candles later on.
My wife introduced this because it should help with natural melatonin release and strengthen the circadian rhythm, and based on my anecdotal experience, it does help.
This became even more important once our baby-girl has been born, because the difference with trying to put her to bed when the lights have been dim for an hour vs. when we just switched of the main lamp is really noticable :-)
Interesting! I thought about having better light control, now I really think it's a good thing to do. I'll Google ambient lights and see what they are and what it means.
I like to read my Kindle for a while after going to bed, just using the backlight only - I find this is sufficiently dark to trigger my sleep reflex, and it feels much more efficient to spend 20 minutes or so reading rather than lying in bed waiting for sleep.
Try listening to podcasts. It completely cured my inability to get to sleep. In fact, there are podcasts aimed directly at people like you (and me): http://www.sleepwithmepodcast.com/
Some other 'sleep favourites' of mine would be Skeptoid, Lore, Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, 99% invisible. Give it a try. I use the Stitcher app and set the timer to turn off streaming at the end of an episode. I'm usually asleep within 10-15 minutes or listening.
Edit: Also try f.lux on your computer and Twilight on your phone. They work for me, but I'm more than willing to accept that the effects my be purely placebo.
I tried a few episodes of sleep with me, and it creeped me right the hell out. It was some guy talking in a pouty, condescending baby-voice about some nonsense or other. His voice especially threw me off.
Dan Carlin is great, but way too intense and interesting for me to sleep to. I pay attention to the podcast and want to hear "just another 20 minutes" instead. 99% invisible is perfect in this regard. Roman has a great voice, good editing and nice, mellow music in his production. I listen to it a lot.
I also like to listen to The Moth, Hello Internet, Radiolab and Benjamin Walker's theory of everything when I go to sleep.
I've struggled with falling asleep over the years. At first I couldn't cope with it at all and was mortified before bedtime each night. But nowadays sleep comes easily. I've noticed that:
- Whenever I'm in a relationship and sleep together with someone I have no sleeping issues at all.
- Having the pill Stilnoct prescribed helps immensely. I don't take them often. But just being aware that I have them reduces the stress around falling asleep.
- If I feel that it's one of those nights when I can't fall asleep I just treat it as any other sickness. I email my colleagues telling them that I'm working from home the next day and turn off my morning alarm.
- Journaling. Write down everything that has happened to you during the day before you go to bed. A lot of timea I can't fall asleep because my mind is obsessing/processing recent events. Spend 10 minutes to write them down. It's like running a database drop script.
- Get a spike mat. It'll be uncomfortable in the beginning but you'll slowly get used to lying on it. This has worked wonders for my friend and I was thinking of getting one, but that was before my sleep problems just disappeared.
* Melatonin -- get the low dose chewable kind from Trader Joes and take 30 minutes before you go to bed
* Keep the bedroom cool and completely dark -- there is research the connects insomnia with warm body temperatures in some people (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18603220)
You have to be careful with Melatonin, your body will produce less of it's own if you keep topping yourself up, which means diminished returns with continued use.
A study assessing 6 months (n=112) and 12 months (n=96) of melatonin treatment of 2mg in a controlled release capsule, taken 1-2 hours prior to sleep, people aged 20-80 with primary insomnia failed to show any tolerance to the treatment. The authors noted a slight sensitization to the effects of melatonin at the 3-4 month period, which was attributed to better entrainment of the circadian rhythm. These results have been replicated in another study, lasting 6 months, with a sample of 791 people. No melatonin tolerance due to usage was observed. Another study, lasting 6 months with a sample size of 421 people also replicated these results.
Thanks for linking that. I researched melatonin previously and found these same studies.
It appears that there's not much of a tolerance effect when taking melatonin. This is unusual, our experience tells us that most drugs have a tolerance effect. Extended use of caffeine causes the body to make more adenosine receptors, meaning that it takes a higher dose to have the same effect.
This does not appear to happen with melatonin. Less science and more anecdote from a lot of users: melatonin also has an amount where it is less effective. You'll find several reports of people that see no effect at the higher doses (10mg), yet a lower dose (3mg) has a good effect.
This is all moot if you're in the UK or Australia, since melatonin is a prescription drug.
It's fascinating how, in the US, Melatonin is sold in stores like a vitamin, whereas in Germany, they look at you strange if you ask for it in a pharmacy.
And autism is treated with nootropics in the Ukraine, but no the u.s. And phenibut is in Russian first aid kits and there's no codeine in American OTC painkillers. And magic mushrooms were only recently banned in Japan. And cannabis is legal in North Korea.
It won't work for everyone, but I had trouble getting to sleep quickly, figured out why, and "fixed" it.
My problem was thinking/working while trying to sleep, too much internal monologue. I also realized I am unable to have an internal monologue/actively "think" while listening to other people speaking (I'm a verbal thinker). So I started listening to audiobooks while trying to fall asleep. Now I'm off in about 5-10 minutes every night and take a couple of months to make it through a book.
The only sleep tip that's ever worked for me: don't go to bed before you're tired.
That means both physically and mentally. It's crazy how much even 1 hour of intense workout per day helps you sleep. And challenging your mind enough to actually run out of steam by the end of the day helps a lot too.
The implied trick is to arrange your life so it supports your natural rhythm. For me that means being at office no earlier than 10am and living so close that I can roll out of bed as late as 9:30am if needed.
Have a baby. Your sleeping less is my average night's sleep, split into two or three chunks. Amazing how easy it is to get to sleep when you've spent the last two and a half years in a low level state of exhaustion ;)
There's not much choice so you just don't sleep. Takes a bit of getting used to. After a while you jump into bed at 10pm when before you had children you'd go to sleep at 2am and become a 'normal person', sort of.
Split the night with the other parent (if not a single parent). Gets you ~5-6hrs/night even during the worst of it.
Trade sleep-in days on the weekend.
A combination of luck (definitely) and technique (maybe) can have 'em sleeping through the night in 2-3 months, so it's not necessarily a long-term problem.
I'll second baq here - I used to be someone who went to bed sometime between midnight and 1am, then rolled out of bed about 9am, and started work about 10. Now if I feel really daring I might go to bed at 11, knowing at the very latest I'll be getting up at 7am, more typically I'm in bed shortly after 10.
I've had sleep problems for years. Few simple things that usually helped me:
1) a glass of whisky.
2) sex.
3) relaxing, silent background music (Dead Can Dance is wonderful, but I guess it's a matter of taste).
Whiskey yes, but listening to Saltarello would have me floundering all over the place. I think a samadhi (isolation) tank would be nifty, but one might wake a bit pruned.
I've tried lots of different things and the most effective has been forcing myself to get up early (~6am for me). It was really difficult when I first started, but then I got into a routine. It's the only thing that consistently causes me to be feel tired earlier at night and be able to fall asleep more easily. I also combine that with reading in bed (with a orange filtered light bulb) until I nod off (~20 minutes).
Sometimes getting up so early makes me tired during the day (I'm not a natural morning person) so I'll take micro naps to mitigate.
And getting an early start to my day is fantastic. I can run, read, meditate, etc before I start my work day.
I'm a tradesman, at my work we always start at 7am for an 8hr day. If we're busy and doing overtime we start at 6am for a 10hr day. Im at a computer for a third to a half of my day, otherwise I'm walking and packing and on a forklift.
I'm at the gym by 5am for an hour or so for weights abd running.
There are no cool white fluoros or CFLs in my house, nor outside.
I find this regime thoroughly exhausts me physically and mentally, and I have no trouble falling asleep and staying alseep unless I get cold.
I'm of the opinion that stuff like f.lux and Apple's Night Shift are both products that exploit pseudoscience to take advantage of the placebo effect. They're a "gluten free" feature for contemporary software — for those suspicious of childhood vaccinations.
Macworld wrote a decent breakdown of the Night Shift quackery when it was introduced:
Who cares whether it is quackery or not: these tools have a self-evidently useful purpose which is to manage the white balance of a display as the ambient light shifts between daylight and artificial light. Whether it has any effect on sleep hygiene is entirely orthogonal.
A better analogy would be artisanal water: the touted benefits of their particular magical bottle of H₂0 may be quackery, but the benefits of hydration are irrefutable.
Purported sleep benefits aside, the reduced eye strain from warmer colors is invaluable to me. Sometimes I'm working on a ship's bridge where it's dark or under low reddish light. Turning on a bright, blue laptop screen is brutal. At home it's much more pleasant to look at than the colder daylight colors.
I don't know whether or not it helps me fall asleep, but I've been using f.lux or redshift for years now and it completely stopped my headaches from looking at the monitor at night.
All I know is turning the brightness control on my iPad all the way down to far left with lights out and in bed then just browsing boring stuff like news, Car and Driver, etc and it works like a sleeping pill for me. In about 15-20m of this and I can barely keep my eyes open.
Might be this minimized blue light effect as they suggest, or could just be a sort of recognized pattern/habit my brain now associates with bed. I don't know why, but it works for me. I'm getting sleepy now just thinking of it..
Wow, I can't believe someone else independently came up with this. I too try to come up with a complex storyline, my brain just says, "nope, that's enough" and falls asleep.
I just stopped drinking coffee. The first 2 weeks were awful. I was tired all the time and sleeping over 10 hours every night. After that I returned to my usual 7 hour sleep but I had no more issues getting to sleep. My performance is the same as it was when drinking coffee, I sleep well, and if I ever need a boost, a single ristretto will give me lots of energy! :D
Keeping a daily journal isn't for everyone - although I do recommend it - but I have found that by recording my day's thoughts it gets them out of my head, and by writing down my next day's planned tasks ahead of time, I am more likely to get a good nights sleep, wake up at the right time, and get to work on those tasks.
Can you explain your problem in more detail? Do you fall asleep late in the night and then feel tired all day, and then it repeats over several days? If you miss a whole night's sleep, surely the next evening you're so exhausted you fall asleep easily?
I have found that I sleep much much better with a total absence of noise and light, so I now use ear plugs and an eye mask. This has improved the quality of my sleep a lot.
Also, we all have a cycle that lasts approx. 90 minutes; you will fall asleep more easily at the end of that cycle; the time window is around 10 minutes. You need to be prepared to go to bed when that window starts; if you start preparing to go to bed when you feel sleepy, by the time you're in bed the moment's passed and you need to wait another 90 minutes.
If you rely on windows to get vitamin D I have bad news for you. Glass filters out most of UV spectrum of sunlight. It is really hard if not impossible to get a tan behind glass.
Physical exercises and outdoor activities are very helpful with sleep and overall well being.
The trick to sleeping is simple: make sure you are mentally and physically tired, and switch off your computer and dim the lights one hour before you want to sleep.
Many have suggested some form of physical exercise. My suggestion is swimming: it's usually relatively cheap, doesn't matter much if you're overweight, and physically very exhausting.
Also, you might consider getting some real data on your sleep and try to correlate that with your daily activities. I've used the Ōura ring for that to discover what helps me sleep better.
I was certain that I was living with a hard depression... until I read somewhere that lactose intolerance can lead to magnesium deficiency.
I started taking Magnesium and felt the effect immediately. All of my body is physically relaxed. I struggled with muscle cramps and spasms, they are gone thanks to increasing my magnesium intake.
I started listening to some history podcasts in bed with my eyes closed. The podcast app I use (podcast addict) has a timer feature so I set it to 15 or 20 minutes and by the time the podcast stops I'm ready to sleep. I also know a lot more history than I used to :)
I used to have problems falling asleep, but after I got on a strength training program known to be effective [1], the problem mostly went away. I turn off the lights, do some reading in bed (with flux on), and just drift off into sleep.
Sleep hygiene did it for me. If I'm not sleeping or fucking, I get out of bed. Also no f.lux on the computer and Night Shift on my iPhone in the evening does wonders.
It took a few months to train my body and mind, but now I fall asleep in under 5 minutes after I go to bed.
Both of these sound very effective. May I also recommend using earplugs? There are many varieties available and they're inexpensive. I used to do the covering ears thing but it's not super comfortable.
don't think anyone mentioned ice baths yet, but that seems to come highly recommended from people like Tim Ferris and Kevin Rose. Think TF writes it up in 4hr body. Also Rhonda Patrick is a proponent of it and you can see her thoughts on https://www.foundmyfitness.com/ (videos and podcast).
Apparently it can be quite calming.
Another thing I have not see you mention is diet. Lots of factors there. All anecdotal but i've tried raw paleo diet in the past and eating raw meat has usually given me a happy buzz during sleep while eating fruits in the evening has usually caused me issues. Everyone is different so I can't say what will work for you but it should be something you experiment with a lot.
try running. Helps dissolve stress or whatever stuff that accumulated during the day - while it doesn't make problems disappear of course, it helps change your view on them a bit. Just did 3 miles and once i get to bed i'll be like dead.
Completely agree. I prefer to run at night, because running before work means I have some kind of timeline that has to occasionally be accounted for, like another thread running.
So after work is done, I love going on some kind of cardio adventure for 30-60 minutes. Running is my favorite but biking also works.
When I get home, all steam is blown off, and I manage to fall asleep in most cases.
Naturally, I am not really a great sleeper. Cardio helps a lot.
Since you're already taking magnesium, try getting magnesium glycinate. It has 6 times as much glycine as magnesium by weight and is readily available. Glycine may help you sleep.
Look up Delayed sleep phase disorder. It's basically night owl syndrome. The two things that have some evidence for their usage are melatonin and SAD lights.
I agree, but it's very difficult for me to fall asleep naturally. I have tried all the well-known advice and even tried long workouts late in the day so that it would help me to get tired and fall asleep. The only thing that works for me is melatonin and making sure I am away from all kinds of blue lights 2-3 hours before bed. I have been sleeping great for the last 6 months or so. I have tried to get off of melatonin pills, I would sleep normally for a couple of days then I would have trouble falling sleep again. To the best of my knowledge, I haven't seen any side effect from melatonin.
I also have random sudden panic attacks. I stopped drinking coffee (which helped a lot) and I would only drink 1 cup of green tea once a day in the morning. Instead, I take modafinil during the day to try to stay awake. The daytime tiredness has nothing to do with sleep or my food intake (I have done extensive research on nutrition), I am fairly physically active, currently training for my first 10k. If I drink coffee I will be fine in terms of alertness but it will make my anxiety crazy (not always but a lot more than not drinking any coffee). So I started taking modafinil which works great without making my anxiety/panic attack any worse.
Even with no coffee and good nights of sleep and being fairly physically active, and trying out all the self-help methods I could get my hands on in the last couple of years, I still couldn't fix my anxiety/panic attack issues. The only thing that works is benzo (clonazepam 0.5mg once a day). It works amazing - not only I am happiest when I am on it I am also the most productive (because of less anxiety and panic attack). I have been taking it for the last 3 months regularly (prescribed) and I am already addicted to it. If I try not to take a benzo for one day my anxiety is off the roof - the feeling is horrible and I can't get anything done the whole day.
At the moment I am trying to find the best way I can get off my dependencies on benzo but still keep my sanity.
The point of my post is that sometimes life is not as simple as "getting a good night's sleep" because even something as simple as "getting a good nights sleep" can be quite a bit struggle for some of us.
I admit I haven't done any therapy by any therapist. I have read some CBT book and tried to do it myself without any progress. Its also one of those things I probably should look in to (along with sleep apnea suggested by someone else). I just wish benzos didn't have so many issues with it, or it would be the perfect drug. I take such a low dose and I know people who are taking 2-5mg and they are happily chugging alone. I fear for them, if they ever needs to get off of benzos.
My dad has sleep apnea.
I don't think I have sleep apnea, because I don't have most of the symptoms/pre-requisite of sleep apnea. But this is self diagnosis, I reckon I probably should get a proper test done.
Assuming sleep works for everyone the same way is not very scientific. And such drugs help transition between an unhealthy lifestyle and a healthy one without having to give up productivity, focus and whatnot.
Try getting the Uvex S1933X glasses. They work for everything in your view (obviously) without messing around with software, and probably works better too.
I have them, and they're amazing. I have pretty cool LED lighting in my apartment and can make my whole living room any color I want at night. If I set in to pure blue and put on the glasses, it's like being in pitch blackness (except a couple of items glow brightly).
It's not like looking at things with an orange tint at all, even though the glasses are obviously orange.
That being said - the benefits I get by using them is amazing. It's weird how much of a difference it can make, I get tired quickly after putting them on in the evening. If I forget to put them on I usually end up staying up too late, getting too little sleep and often ruining the next day. Personally I find it way more effective than flux.
By the way - blue light isn't just a negative thing, but also a huge positive. In the morning I use a Philips goLITE BLU HF3332, and it really improves both my energy and mood quickly after just a few minutes of usage.
Those two simple items, a blue light and a pair of blue-blocking glasses, have improved my life significantly. Try it out (especially the glasses, it's just $9).
I just tried "meditation" last night. Not being ready to sleep, wishing to "read more on the web" ... 10 min of trying not to think and I was a lot more ready to sleep on schedule.
30 minute brisk walk morning and evening has helped me far more than any nootropics I tried.
I still try various 'stacks' that people suggest (often Tim Ferriss), and am currently on Ubiquinol, Creatine and Policosanol before bed.
If I don't perceive any benefit after a month or two though, I tend to move on, as there's a huge commercial market wrapped around all of this, so evidence is required for me to keep spending.
One thing to help with sleep that is https://freedom.to/, which you can use to make a list of websites to hard-block and then schedule them to be blocked either
I have a problem with all these website-blocking tools that I want them to behave differently than they do, perhaps you can suggest something?
The issue is that I want to block only the main, 'browsing' pages while allowing deep links to that same site. For example, I want to block reddit, when googling some question turns out an answer that's on a niche subreddit I've never seen, I need to be able to read it. However, the site blockers I've tried require me to unblock the whole site or turn them off, and thus become pointless.
If you have the patience to manually blacklist URLs, you can do this pretty easily with a regex-based site blocker. (My favorite for Chrome is Simple Blocker, which doesn't document that it uses regexes but in fact does: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simple-blocker/akf...). For example, the following blacklist regex patterns block the Reddit front page and the main page of any subreddits and multireddits, but still let you navigate to individual threads:
I don't think that proof-of-work is needed - these are different models of operation; reading an article (which is ok) vs browsing for more articles (which is not).
I want to blacklist only the main site - Stayfocusd was a particular example, I got some google results on subreddits that I never knew existed and couldn't have been in a whitelist.
I'm rather going for the reading vs scanning distinction - even there I would want the particular subreddit main page to remain blocked to prevent the procrastinating pattern of checking an interesting place to see if there's something new interesting. Similarly, the main news.ycombinator.com should be blocked but visiting particular pages from e.g. a weekly digest email would be useful.
This is one of the side effects of ptsd that can make a big difference, since sleep really is so important. Mine is more of a hypervigilance (I can almost be asleep and then hear a sound and all senses are in overdrive, so usually I just get up and patrol the perimeter of the house and check locks/doors/camera systems), but many of my buddies drank themselves to sleep every night. Most of them have switched to MJ and swear it's the best thing ever for them vs alcohol.
As a side note, I also think MJ counts as a nootropic when used properly, and I often think about Carl Sagans Mr. X article about it in this light, in the sense that a different perspective can help you solve issues or think about issues in a different way than you might have otherwise. This is why I highly suggest that people trying MJ try to be productive while on it instead of just (read: only) vegging.
White noise? I find I fall asleep faster due to air conditioner and forced air furnace and occasional rain storms.
When I was a kid I could just barely hear my parents decompressing by watching Barney Miller and All in the Family (yes I am older) and that helped me sleep.
I find that white noise helps as long as I'm not in hyper-vigilance mode, because if I am, the white noise is something thats keeping me from hearing an enemy, which drives me insane (like when someone is snoring too loud, or the AC is squeaky )... so it works great lots of the time. (Classical music, newagey music, movie soundtracks, ancient music (greek/roman) and thunderstorms and a little bit of delta wave stuff are my go-tos.)
Exactly. The listed stimulants will solve a short-term need. But people here are looking for a long-term permanent solution that can be used every day.
Sleep isn't a nootropic. This happens quite a lot with noobs. They conflate nootropics with sleep/food/water/exercise. It wouldn't be that bad, but it derails the actual subject: I.e. nootropics.
Here's a concise definition[0]:
"(of a drug) used to enhance memory or other cognitive functions"
There are other definitions. All the ones I've seen have exogenous substances as a common denominator, however.
>Sleep isn't a nootropic. This happens quite a lot with noobs.
It's a figurative usage. The OP is not suggesting sleep is literally a nootropic, but that it is something that performs the same function. Like "the best defence is a good offence".
And I don't think it's derailing the topic to talk about relevant alternatives.
> The best nootropic is getting a good nights sleep.
The above is a direct quote from OP. Where's the metaphor? You're grossly mistaken!
> but that it is something that performs the same function
Can sleep gives one supranormal cognition? No.
Does sleep perform the same function as modafinil (a drug which gives you more time to work since you need less sleep)? They're nearly opposites.
Does sleep perform the same function as melatonin? A hormone that allows greater sleep "efficiency" than normal sleep. No.
You're grossly incorrect again.
> And I don't think it's derailing the topic to talk about relevant alternatives.
It's a category error.
The sleep conversation is above everything else. It takes focus from the subject at hand.
It happens a lot with noobs. They don't know anything about noots, but know something about sleep/exercise/whatever and decide that's a good topic to talk about.
It's like a conversation about Tesla, and then someone talking about walking—because it's an alternative. OK, the subject may be interesting per se, but it is of little relevance.
We've banned this account for repeatedly posting personal attacks after we've asked you to stop. We're happy to unban accounts if you email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you'll comment only civilly and substantively in the future.
> Does sleep perform the same function as melatonin? A hormone that allows greater sleep "efficiency" than normal sleep.
Melatonin is the hormone that regulates sleep normally. You're taking additional sleep hormone by taking it orally. So sleep is melatonin.
It's the hormone that is theorized to be involved in the "blue light" sleep effect. When the high-wavelength cones are stimulated, melatonin release is reduced, according to current theory. [0]
"You're taking additional sleep hormone by taking it orally. So sleep is melatonin."
Sleep, and sleep with additional sleep hormone aren't the same thing by definition.
> So sleep is melatonin.
By taking melatonin orally you can get levels which aren't possible endogenously. So melatonin supplements != "vanilla" sleep.
Melatonin is also a mitochondrial anti-oxidant, so may benefit people with "brain fog". Such people may well have to take a supplement to get the maximum benefit. A benefit which can't be reached with natural (what is natural?) sleep.
In older individuals, the endogenous production of melatonin is reduced (happens when people get older). They may also benefit for supplementation. A benefit they couldn't get without it! No matter if they wear blue light blocking glasses, or have f.lux on all their machines.
Sometimes people have to do things at night. Where there's light. It's modern life. They can't go back in time and not be exposed to that light. They may also benefit from supplementation.
It takes effort! Preparing for bed early and disciplining yourself to put the light out is not easy. Not nearly as easy as popping a pill. But it's so much more effective than any drug listed here.
And for a safe and provable quick cognitive boost, take some caffeine, preferable green tea with theanine.