One tip which I didn't see: set an alarm for going to bed, not waking up. You should be able to wake naturally, but artificial lighting changes your perception of when you should go to sleep, shifting you from a naturally 23-hour circadian rhythm to a 25-hour one.
So just set an alarm for 11pm, and when you hear it, immediately stop what you're doing, save any open documents, turn the TV or computer off. The next 30 minutes are for brushing teeth, settling into bed, and preparing for the following morning only. By then you should be settling into a good night's sleep.
A plug here for F.lux, which attempts to correct for the unnatural color balance of computer screens and seems to have more or less eliminated my insomnia problems; the only times I have trouble sleeping anymore are traceable either to caffeine after noon, or forgetting that I've disabled F.lux.
I recommend F.lux as well, but I've noticed a very unfortunate effect over the last few months... because of how soft it is on the eyes at night, I've learned that with it enabled I can continuously work 16-26 hour sessions without even realizing that I missed a sleep cycle. Obviously, this isn't a problem with F.lux itself, and I've tried very hard to tweak my settings so that this doesn't happen (it is auto-on/off, have experimented with different temp. levels too). In fact, I've gotten so used to it that when I know I need to go to bed soon I disable it entirely– once the blue light starts irritating me, I switch to a lamp and paper until I'm ready to get some shut-eye.
Notes: I don't drink coffee, green tea once in a while, and minimal late-night stimuli (lights mostly off, no music, ...).
Read it again– I'm not saying F.lux is the source of my sleep issues, just that it's made the exacerbation of said issues occur less noticeably (to me, of course).
Before I started using F.lux there was an obvious taxing period around 1-2am where my eyes might have started to get blurry or headache would set in, assuming I had woken up and started working by ~8am. From there I would either go to bed or brute force the next few hours, despite being aware of the time in general. Now, I don't get that feeling until much later– either at 22hrs when the sun has come up and F.lux begins fading out, or a little later if I'm not paying attention until after the sun has come up and the screen's been blue for a while. (At that point, I either notice the sun through the trees or get a splitting headache).
To further describe where I work: shaded area, floor to ceiling books, no clock, no phones. I do graphic work during the day and by early evening I'm in the command line until whenever. I can usually get out during the day, but sometimes I just don't. I think the proper advice here would be to stop working at home while living in the city, but that's enough OT– I was simply pointing out my experience using F.lux!
this is funny, because of how soft it is on the eyes at night...
blame it on your stamina, work being interesting or your superior motivation and lack of distracting beings around. Dont blame it on a software man.
Surely F.lux is fairly pointless unless the only source of light in your room is your computer monitor?
I would imagine that any windows or external lighting is going to have a far greater effect than F.lux. I tried F.lux a while ago when it was recommended in a previous HN post but for me the only difference it seemed to have, was to make my computer monitor more difficult to read by making it too dim.
Just tried it again. Still can't live with it at night, makes me feel like I am going blind with the shift to red. Might try it 1 more time with a gradual shift and see if that works but right now, certainly not useable for me.
I couldn't stand F.lux the first time either. What I did was set it to where I could barely tell the difference. After a week or so I would find myself thinking "too bluish" staring at my screen at night, at which point I lowered the color temperature slightly.
Within two months, I had found a setting I felt comfortable at (right now it's at 3500K).
I love f.lux, but it doesn't seem to work so well with my dual-monitor setup on xubuntu... and I'm never really sure if it's working properly. I wish it had some kind of a 'temperature indicator' or something.
thanks for the tip. redshift seems to crash immediately after I launch it... not sure what's going on. Maybe it's time to switch back from xubuntu to ubuntu or something...
That's funny, because I have the opposite anecdote; I have been regularly converting OS X user to Kubuntu Lucid/KXStudio (with backports) for the last year or so. Know all those guys that are avoiding Lion and Mountain Lion like the plague that they are? Yeah. that's my market.
Tons of people with 3yo MBP's with an install of Snow Leopard, looking longingly at how pretty and useable my little powerless Netbook with 2GB of RAM is with OpenOffice/Dolphin/Blender/Gwenview/Firefox running and 40+ tabs open. They can barely run Safari, iPhoto, Mail.app, and Skype at the same time without constant beachballing, so they sit in quiet humility while I actually get stuff done.
Once installed on their computers, an install that just works, I grab AppMenu (QML) from kde-look and replace the default one. At this point the MBP owner has a better OS experience than Snow Leopard could/does offer, and we haven't even done any tweaking yet. like f.lux or redshift (which you can grab from a ppa). I don't see the crashes you guys do on these apps, oddly enough. just works for me and my customers.
I love you Mac guys, really. You pay top-dollar for your hardware, and then Apple forgets about you in less than 4 years. I almost feel like I'm a rescue worker for abused and battered Apple customers.
> They can barely run Safari, iPhoto, Mail.app, and Skype at the same time without constant beachballing
I am skeptical of your anecdote. My 2010 MBP was perfectly happy running Xcode, IntelliJ, and pretty much any other applications I'd care to run, and that was before I put a SSD in it (which, naturally, helped a lot).
I think you're stretching the truth by a great deal.
Depends on what you're doing. It helps noticeably if you're swapping, which I can see an "underspecced" older MBP doing. For me, however, it was disk indexing, Maven being able to quickly read in jars when I hit the go-button, etc.
Top dollar for hardware that lasts 36 months (the length of applecare) means $100/month. For people who "get stuff done" this is nothing. I literally spend more on bottled water than I do my top-dollar computers.
Snarky as this is, I'm sorry to say that it's probably correct. I've never had to have any configuration or other problems with f.lux on OSX, it just works there. On Ubuntu, it just doesn't work. :)
(Ubuntu user since 2004, OSX since about last year)
Its defaults, at least on windows, are quite striking. You ought to be able to see your screen's colour balance change in the space of a few seconds when it reaches the relevant time of day.
If you sleep set hours, you’ll sometimes go to bed
when you aren’t sleepy enough. If it’s taking you
more than five minutes to fall asleep each night,
you aren’t sleepy enough. You’re wasting time lying
in bed awake and not being asleep. Another problem
is that you’re assuming you need the same number of
hours of sleep every night, which is a false
assumption. Your sleep needs vary from day to day.
...
The solution was to go to bed when I’m sleepy
(and only when I’m sleepy) and get up with
an alarm clock at a fixed time (7 days per week).
I've done this tips and have good sleep each night (and also become an early riser as side effect).
The only time I fall asleep in less than 5 minutes is if I am completely exhausted. I have to go through a mental winding down period while I lay in bed. Usually through reading or just closing my eyes and thinking about something pleasant. This usually takes me about a half-hour on average. Anyway, from my point of view, I never understand how someone can just lay down and be asleep in a few minutes.
It's called sleep envy and, some nights when I can hear my wife drift off in minutes and I'm not even close to it, it throws me into that mental tailspin that goes through multiple stages like the whiny "why-me", plain anger, frustration and more. The only result, of course, is an even more delayed start of sleep phase.
I count numbers from 1 to X, where X is the number I get to before I fall asleep. I concentrate on the numbers and nothing else. Eventually I get to X and I fall asleep. The speed of counting should fast enough I am not bored, but not so fast that I have to spend effort. The speed varies depending on how close I'm to sleep. The closer I am to sleep the slower I count.
I do the same but I also visualize each number differently; different shapes, textures, sizes. That seems to help engage the monkey chatter and the wacky visualizing takes me closer to dreamland.
Plus one for F.lux, I have it on everything I use but recently I updated my phone to the standard IOS thinking it wouldn't be missed since it was the only Jailbreak tweak on my phone, but now I'm missing it so hard I'm seriously considering an Android and its equivalent app. With F.lux on my phone my light sensitivity was better in the day and sleep was better at night.
It's exactly like counting sheep, except counting sheep doesn't work for me. Either every sheep is the same, I get bored and revert to background chatter, or every unique sheep takes too much effort to imagine, I revert to background chatter.
Perhaps they read in bed, or otherwise have a calming period (yoga, meditation, etc), before they consider themselves as lying down to sleep. e.g., they lie down in bed, read for $(time), and then put the book away, turn out the lights, and lie down and fall asleep.
I had to opportunity to work one time where the time I came in didn't really matter. I decided to sleep when I was tired and wake when I was refreshed. Over the next few months I started to slowly cycle around the clock as my sleep time shifted about a half hour to an hour later each day and thus did my wake up time. It was a bit strange, but once I got into the rhythm of it...I've never been as productive in my entire career.
I agree with this. I have a wake up alarm, but I'm usually awake before it goes off.
I've also never been a morning person, but when I keep to a strict go-to-bed time, I feel refreshed and awake in the morning even if its early. I guess part of this is that when I'm careful when I go to bed, I also time that I 1) get a plenty of sleep and 2) get up on a 90-minute boundary.
Unfortunately I have a habit of ignoring my go-to-bed alarm :-(
I thought I could wake up before my alarm went off too, but after a little retrospection I considered that perhaps I "trained" myself to get up at the time. That is, I used to use the alarm, then stopped using it, but continued to get up at the same time.
You're clearly not a student :). I'd love to choose when to go to bed, but that's not really compatible with a workload challenging enough to appease admissions counselors.
If you think life's going to become any more considerate of your sleep requirements, think again.
Use time-boxing as a scheduling mechanism. If you find you have more work to do than time to do it, start lopping off items from your to-do list, and/or identifying how you can accomplish a sufficient effort in the time available.
That is likely to be a far more useful life lesson than whatever subject it is you're studying at the moment.
You also have to learn how to schedule downtime. People cannot run 100% 24/7/365, and attempting to do this is at best very painful, and at worst, literally, suicidal.
You can get all of your work done before a certain time. It just involves more rigorous organization. It is never good to put anything at a higher priority than your health.
Just to respond a little, I actually just finished with my Master's in applied physics, so yeah, it can work with an academic life. ^_^ Actually it can even be beneficial, much like turning off the Internet -- where yes, you lose access to help docs, but you also lose access to distractions.
If you want a little more unorthodox advice I'd offer, "don't buy the textbook unless either (a) it is a workbook which must be submitted for the grade or (b) you were really so powerfully impressed that you want this book as a lifelong reference." Ask the professor to ask the library to put the textbook on reserve in the library -- so that nobody in the course can take it out, but rather you share it at the library. If this leaves you muttering about Kant's categorical imperative, remember that if someone else is using it, you can form an impromptu study group and make a new friend. :D. For that matter, student societies should have copies of the texts, and a study lounge at the department might also have them. If nothing else works, copy homework problems from a friend taking the same course and look up the same material in alternative texts in the library (or on the Internet) -- but that's almost never necessary.
My impression from reading his/her comment was that he/she is a high school senior, in which case what he says would make sense. 35 hours a week in classes, plus the activity and homework load he would need to make UChicago, plus meals and transport, add up to at least 14 hours on weekdays, without making allowance for inefficiency, laziness, akrasia, etc or leisure.
Just curious: Do you think your workload will decrease in the future, or that the workloads of the highly paid professionals here are less than what's required from you in school?
Don't expect life to get easier. More rewarding, IMO, but not easier.
I would assume that a highly paid professional spends a much greater percentage of his or her day engaged in actual work, is more efficient than I am, and is required to produce a higher quality output than I am. I'm sure it's cognitively harder, but I doubt it's anywhere near the number of hours.
My dad is an accountant. He gets to work at 7:30am and gets home at 4:30pm. He spends about as many hours at work as I do at school, but when he logs off for the day, he's done. I can't remember the last time I actually completed my obligations for the day. If you do manage to do a good job on all the problem sets and readings before losing consciousness, there's always a test to be studying for or a paper to be revising. I procrastinate because there is literally no such thing as "after homework is done."
I don't mean to complain - I gave myself this courseload and I've done well enough with it that I'll be going to my dream school next year (UChicago - yes, I know, the workload will increase exponentially). Sleep deprivation is a price I chose to pay. But I do think that most professionals have a day which ends - usually before 7pm, but at some point it ends - and several hours to commit to a social life, family, side projects, pleasure reading etc. as they please. Obviously not in 80hr/week fields like law and not in startups about to ship, but on balance. Is this not accurate?
Yes and no. First though, congrats on Chicago. It's a great school and a great place to live. A long history of great work there.
There are a lot of great, lucrative careers that give you a clear boundary between work and home. Some of these are that way by nature, but really all can be. There are niches even in law and medicine, that provide for a if not 40 hour work week, something close to that. These often will be the jobs that pay the below-median salary in that field.
But anything that resembles entrepreneurship is going to feel a lot more like what you are doing now than what you see in your dads career. (Also worth noting on the subject of your dad that you presumably didn't see him when he was starting his career.) Sure, what I said in the previous graf applies to entrepreneurship as well, but... the disposition that drives a strong work/life balance seems often orthogonal to the ambition that leads you to working for yourself to begin with.
So if that life interests you -- if building and growing something is your destiny -- then my POV here is to know that everything you wrote about your current life, the "last time I completed", the "always a next thing to do", the "no such thing as done", all of that applies wholly to entrepreneurship.
Of course, like I mentioned a couple days ago, it can be tremendously rewarding.
I'm only 30, I have a lot to figure out still, so take all that with more than a grain of salt.
In general, most humans run 'late' on a 24.5-25.5 hour cycle with lack of any light - it's natural lighting that tends us towards 24 again. So it's true that artificial lighting messes with it, but not in that we were pre-disposed to sleeping earlier every day without it.
That looks cool, but it's solving a different problem.
The app I linked to is basically a clock that shows you your local solar times (day, night, golden hours, and twilight) at a glance, and can set alarms by them. If you want to wake at civil dawn, or at sunrise, for example, it'll do that.
This post seems like one big, long unsubstantiated bunch of app spam for "zeo". I don't think scientists understand the "fact retention" mechanism as well as OP claims, for instance. It's fairly clear that sleep is important, but there's a lot of unsourced information here that's presented as fact.
Thanks for your feedback! I worked for Zeo a year ago, however they've since shut down so I have no affiliation to them. I'll be sure to go in add the relevant sources.
Sure thing. I don't mean to imply that you are intentionally misguiding. Your general advice (i.e. sleep enough and do it consistently) is good and the post was fairly well-written. Cheers, good sir.
I'm not picking on you specifically, but I think this is an example of a very common problem on HN. Someone posts a very harshly-worded negative comment. Then the OP responds to it, and the commenter walks back their comment and praises the post.
It seems like once people realize they're communicating with other real-life human beings, they are much more civil. Couldn't we try to consider that ahead of time, and avoid the off-handed negativity in the first place? It would make HN (and nonverbal communication in general) much more productive and enjoyable.
If the two comments combined fully capture your viewpoint, why not say something along the lines of, "Your advice is good and the post is fairly well-written, but it sort of comes off as a product advertisement. You cite scientific evidence, but you don't provide any sources, which makes it seem unsubstantiated."
> I'm not picking on you specifically, but I think this is an example of a very common problem on HN. Someone posts a very harshly-worded negative comment. Then the OP responds to it, and the commenter walks back their comment and praises the post.
Or they're being honest the entire time, and simply posted about the negative part, because who wants to be that chucklehead going '+1' or 'Good post' ("that's what voting is for, dummy!")? Unfortunately, this then leads to comment sections coming off as negative and essentially being a bugtracker for a submission.
I view comments as a form of feedback. As such, they go both ways. As a contributor, I would want to see sincere examples of both positive and negative feedback. We don't only learn from mistakes, after all. Upvotes are nice, but comments are generally considered to be more meaningful.
HN tends to err on the side of critical feedback, which is a reflection, in part, of the evidence-driven ethos that permeates hacker culture. This is generally a trait I hold in high regard, and take the downside as par for the course. However, I agree with the parent in that having some empathy for those we critique would improve the general tone of discussion here.
Seconded. I see this (and am guilty myself) often even in workplace emails, etc. where people are supposed to be respectful. It's not so much that you can't put someone on blast, but whether you can live with knowing you just called another thinking human being a scumbag/asshole/dumbass/whatever.
This kind of thing is generally true in a whole lot of areas. I notice with our customer support for example, if an initial email will be loaded with vitriol and hate. If something is sent to a customer that looks anything like a "form" response in reply it will do nothing to calm them down.
If the same content is rephrased in a "custom" way, chargebacks get cancelled, and you will start to get praise for having amazing customer support even if the resolution is the same and even if the final decision isn't what the customer actually wanted in the first place!
Sometimes the truth should take priority over positive/negative dimension.
Health advice on internet should be scrutinized for the benefit of the readers (the "negative" comment, facts domain).
Content and its author are separate therefore the effort that was put into the post may be commented on separately for the benefit of the author (the "walking back" comment, social domain).
Though it is always great if a comment could be both honest and nice.
Being sincerely complimentary... or at least addressing points you might want to bring up in a delicate manner... requires a shift in the way people relate to others. It seems to me that taking a handful of generic compliments and sprinkling them among your real message will start to induce people to skim read it as a high noise to signal ratio.
I never suggested that someone should misrepresent or soften their position to avoid making someone feel bad. If you hate an article, I want to know that you hate it, and why. I'm only asking that everyone remember that they're speaking with other human beings.
Maybe a reasonable litmus test for the HN crowd is: if the article was instead a speech at a conference, would you go up to the speaker afterwards (or during Q&A) and say what you're going to say? If not, why?
I agree -- I expected this to be somewhat of a product pitch, and to some extent it was. However, as Treeface says, the post was well written and informative. I liked your charts of sleep, and the clear basic explanations of why each part is important.
I don't really think wakemate ever had any actual business.
They had an overhyped alpha phase that never really got to a beta. Then they sold that alpha and everything, from the almost laughable unit itself to the broken website interface to the constantly failing android app, was desperately undertested and destined to fail.
Sorry about the rant. Still kinda bummed out over the $70 bucks I lost on this.
Actually, I'd love to read those sources, since - I have to admit - I read it the same way. At first it felt like total pseudo-science, and then I saw the app and "realized" that this has to be app-spam. So please, if you have actual scientific sources (mostly for the distinct functions of different phases of sleep), do share.
I really wonder how much sleep people lose worrying about their sleep habits.
Trying to micromanage everything from your sleep schedule to your work schedule to your calorie intake to your fat intake to your social media intake to your exposure to cell phone radiation results in being even more stressed out than you would be if you weren't attempting to keep track of eighty different pseudoscientific lifestyle prescriptions.
Go to sleep. Wake up. Eat food. Do those things, and try to enjoy life while you have it... burning it trying to "optimize" everything is a painful waste of time.
> I really wonder how much sleep people lose worrying about their sleep habits.
I've been having an increasing issue with sleep (not being able to fall asleep, then waking up early and not being able to fall back asleep). I've tried to combat it by being more aware of my habits and patterns, but that's resulting in sleep anxiety. Compounded with the effects of sleep deprivation and I'm easily losing sleep worrying about my sleep habits.
AFAIK, worry is the main reason for poor sleep. And encountering posts like this at HN and in newspapers all the time may add to the problem.
For example, I had almost gotten back my sleep a couple of months back. And then, every newspaper (and HN) was full of this new research saying that lack of sleep alters genes. I didn't even have to read the articles, the headlines were enough: "Too little sleep is bad for you, it alters genes! My, oh my!". Thanks! Welcome back, sleep problems.
But on what grounds can they conclude that altered genes is bad for your health? The research sure says that things is happening in your body, and that some processes related to e.g. the immune system has been altered. But how bad is it really? Will you die earlier?
There are many things altering your genes. If I look at a picture of a cute kitten, I am pretty sure you can see that in my genes. Also, meditation dramatically alters you genes. (There are stories about monks who hardly need to sleep at all, because they get the rest they need through meditation.)
So, are there big problems with sleeping too little, are there really reasons to worry? I don't know. But like in in many other fields (e.g. nutrition), results of early studies have been stated as "facts", while later studies show that things are a bit more complicated. Antioxidants comes to mind.
There are research suggesting that too little sleep causes heart disease. (Note the word "suggests".) But, if there is a link, is the reason lack of sleep? Or does other factors add to it or cause it, e.g. eating more junk food, that you get more easily annoyed (increasing blood pressure), etc.?
I am not suggesting that you should sleep less, and I believe sleep is important. But I am unsure about how much you should worry if you sleep poorly.
In general, I believe more and more in eating balanced, exercising moderately (walking is good!), and most importantly, taking a break when my body tells me it's time to rest (listening to your body is underrated, and we learn from early childhood to suppress what it tells us). And, very important, stop reading health news. Because adding to almost any problem, is how media (and others) report findings to sell more of their products. They skew reality, and you probably end up worrying more than you should.
Maybe you do not feel sleepy at the right times? Do you ever feel sleepy during the day? If this is so and the rest of your life permits, you should just let yourself drift into sleep.
I always feel sleepy between 2:30 and 3:00pm each day. Unfortunately my job (and my coworker's desire to flood my calendar) don't allow for midday naps.
You're looking at this completely wrong. It's more about changing your habits than constantly thinking about what you're doing. If as a result you eat better food, the time you're awake is of better quality, and you eat better, do you really think its not worth the slightest bit of effort?
I really wonder how much sleep people lose worrying about their sleep habits.
If you are actually worrying about it, that is bad. If you are thinking about it a little here and there, and trying to improve what you are doing, that is good. It's all about the balance, which is sort of your point too.
If you have trouble falling asleep all the time, it is a problem that must be solved. The "go to sleep" step simply doesn't work for me much of the time. If I did nothing at all to try to sleep, I would stay awake for days, then sleep out of exhaustion (which has happened in the past).
I reject the idea that optimization leads to burnout. If you're consciously thinking about ALL of those variables at once, yes, you will achieve burnout.
But the entire point of life optimization isn't to sit around thinking about all of this, it's to build healthy habits that allow our "autopilot" to pilot us down previously consciously decided paths.
You should be unconsciously a better person after reinforcing new healthy habits, quite identical to your final phrase of "wake up, eat," etc.
If you're burning out with optimization, you are literally doing it wrong.
I've done this myself to a point, but the point I'm making is that there's so much of this flying around and so much debate about so many often-unsubstantiated 'optimizations' that there's often not any real reason to believe they are optimizations.
And if they're not, people are going to waste a lot of time trying to learn new habits, then find out that they are no better off or perhaps worse, except now they're stuck with new, bad habits to unlearn.
My argument is less with optimization than with spending too much time and effort attempting it without actually gaining anything, or having a reasonable expectation of the same.
I think the point of this is not to optimize for the sake of optimization but to solve a problem. People have problems and they look for solutions. They try anything that can help once all else fails.
I absolutely agree. At the end of the day what matters the most is whether you can do something consistently. That's what produces results and leads to change.
The more you have to "work" to lead a healthy life the less likely it is that you'll stay consistent. Find what works for you and incorporate it into your routine.
As an audiologist, I would not recommend wearing earbuds all night. Ventilation is important for your ears.
Also, your ears are very adaptable: plugging your ears with earbuds will decrease the sound pressure by about 10 dB, which isn't really all that much. As a hearing loss, it would not require treatment. Your ears will adapt and you will still hear most startling sounds. In fact, your ears will have to "concentrate" more, which is known to lead to fatigue.
I thought it was a good article, but a lot of it seemed like opinion stated as fact.
I wear ear plugs at night, but no mask. I suffer from "night terrors" however, and when they strike I am very disoriented. The earplugs make that worse, and I imagine a mask would be a bad idea too.
Totally anecdotal, but I suffer from occasional night terrors too, and have found that an eye mask actually helps quite a bit. Something about the consistent deeper darkness seems to stop me from 'waking up' and having a spell. Mine were also much worse when I slept in new places, and having the eye mask seems to eliminate that distinction as far as my body is concerned.
Between the eye mask, limiting eating large meals later at night, and cutting back on caffeine, I've reduced my night terrors by about 90% in the past 2 years. YMMV.
Your experience is just one data point (it seems that the prevalence among adults is <1%) so if the advice seems like it doesn't work for you, perhaps consider that you may be an outlier. Your experience is important but it doesn't invalidate the advice in the article.
Great article! I changed my sleep habits about a couple of years ago, almost given up coffee, eat healthy and exercise regularly. I rarely ever feel grumpy or tired in the morning and a lot of that is attributed to 7+ hrs of peaceful sleep. You don't necessarily need an app for this, you just need a lot of will power.
Interesting post, but I'm not sure if some of this advice can work for me. I've tried earplugs, but to be honest, it makes me paranoid that I won't hear the fire alarm or burglar coming in, which makes me much less relaxed. This isolated feeling is also weird for me. Covering my eyes just feels uncomfortable and also isolating. It's probably just me.
Also, I'm not entirely sure where I heard/read it, but I thought it's actually good to wake up with (natural) light, which brings you into a more natural cycle or something. I think I also heard it could help with jet lag, releasing melatonin or something of that sort.
When you first see sunlight in the mornings it helps regulate your circadian rhythm and it tells your body "The sun is out this is when I should wake up". Which is why if you're traveling you want to make sure you wake up at the right time locally and open the windows right away, it'll help reduce the # of days in which you're jetlagged.
However if you're sleeping at home you want your body to sleep for as long as it needs to, uninterrupted. That means no sunlight, no noise and no alarms. If you get into a consistent schedule you're body will wake up at around the same time everyday. However if you have sleep debt that you need to make up, you also want to give your body the chance to sleep a little extra.
I think you vastly overestimate the effectiveness of earplugs. You might not hear a cat's scampering on the floor, but you are not going to miss anything like someone speaking at a normal volume in the room, much less a fire alarm. As one data point, I have never missed my smartphone alarm clock in five years of sleeping with earplugs.
Consistency is key, I've heard time and again and my own experience seems to support (FWIW).
However, perfect consistency is hard to maintain. Even if one avoids the late parties and whatnot, eventually emergencies get in the way or illness comes along and increases the amount of sleep required.
My question is, when consistency must falter, what piece is most important? Going to bed at the same time, getting up at the same time, getting the same amount of sleep, or getting at least some particular amount of sleep? The article here claims it is not the last.
This is the part I wish he hadn't glossed over, especially since at least a small handful of studies suggest that we naturally adopt > 24h cycles when left away from light cues and set time responsibilities.
If you want to use a screen at night and you don't want to mess with your sleep cycle, make sure you have a device with an AMOLED screen that has the ability to run a profile that uses red pixels only.
Samsung Android devices like the Note and the Galaxy S3 have AMOLED. On the Play Store, there is a free app called Galactic Night that will let you run the device in red only. Add on another free app called Screen Filter, and suddenly you have a device with perfect lighting that allows you to keep your night vision and let your eyes rest while you drift off to sleep. CyanogenMod used to have this feature; not sure if it still does.
Backlit LCD screens (even ones that use Flux or Red profiles) won't work because even the black pixels are backlit. I've tried using a jailbroken iPad with Color Profiles and it's just not the same.
Finally, you can use an e-reader but I recommend a light source you can add a red gel to. This will have the same effect.
Source: I've been reading on a screen before bed since the days of the Palm III. Also, I used to develop film in a real darkroom.
OP mentions that earbuds (plugs) are one of the best things he's done to improve sleep. Has anyone out there reviewed a few different brands of earplugs? I've used Hearos Ultimate Softness but I'm reading that there are better plugs out there. It looks like the best consumer grade plugs have a NRR of 33. Anyone have suggestions or insight into this?
Completely anecdotal, but when we had our child I did night shifts, and wife decided to use plugs to make sure she'd get enough sleep to be ready to go for the morning.
She settled in on the soft silicone variety, like these http://www.amazon.com/Macks-Pillow-Silicone-Earplugs-Value/d... but she gets the pharmacy or grocery store brand. They let in enough noise that you're not completely isolated, but dampen enough that you're able to sleep through usual noise like spouse snoring, dogs waking up to stretch/scratch/re-position, baby gurgling over the monitor, etc.
Edit: And they're much much more comfortable than the foam varieties tried.
I've tried (generic) wax and foam earplugs, and have settled on cheap foam ones. They don't cost more than about $2 for a whole load of them (6 pairs or something like that), and are both reusable and washable.
From what I understand being drunk when going to sleep relaxes the muscles around your throat increasing your chance of apnea. The relaxed muscles around the throat means that the airway closes yielding a similar effect to choking (which is essentially what apnea is). The end result is that you choke periodically throughout the night meaning that the quality of your sleep is much inferior to what it could be; this is probably a large contributing factor to hangovers.
Edit: My source is a knowledgeable person on the subject, feel free to contradict or doubt the truthfulness of the answer - makes sense to me at least.
Ruins your restful sleep because your body does this thing where it tries to overcompensate for the depressing effect of the alcohol by overstimulating things. You may fall asleep more easily, but then your actual sleep will suck, compared to a non-alcoholic induced sleep.
I was shocked by this omission too, just for the shear fact it's a depressant that's usually taken in high doses right before the sleep cycle. I'd be willing to bet, especially in college Alcohol has more effect than caffeine on you sleep schedule.
Really interesting read... but out of curiosity, how does exercise play into the sleep schedule? In order to maintain a good sleep rhythm, when is latest one should exercise? Also I'd like to know where you get your supposedly free stopwatches.
Physical activity that makes you feel tired and/or relaxes your mind is very good before going to bed as your thoughts will not wander and you will doze off within minutes. I used to have this problem of going to sleep after switching off lights and going to bed. I started doing simple exercises like cleaning/arranging my room or relaxation yoga which would take my mind off thinking a lot before falling asleep. Also I started reading books (not e-books, which make you insomniac) for 15-20 minutes everyday before going to sleep. You can exercise just before going to bed. For a free stopwatch you can use your smartphone or alarm clock.
5-6 days a week should be fine with the right kind of "split". But indeed at least one full rest day a week is going to do more good than harm. And indeed just lifting 3-4 days per week is certainly fully sufficient for most-any kind of lifting goal..
I lift 5 times a week, with another day of cardio and I'm in my mid 30's. My life is pretty good.
> Don't do that, bud.
Based on what information? Many popular lifting schedules call for 5 days on and 2 off per week. I think your projecting your own personal experiences here.
I was initially thinking about responding to antidaily (huh...didn't realize how relevant that username was until just now) in the same way, but I couldn't decide whether he was against lifting on successive days or against lifting 7-a-week. I disagreed on the former, but agreed on the latter, so I let it lie.
The basic outline is that it's 5 exercises, three times a week, with three exercises per day - you alternate some of them. It should take about an hour including warm ups.
There's a wiki, but buy the book. For equipment, you'll need weights, a barbell, squat rack, and bench. It's all stuff a gym should have, or is relatively easy to find on craigslist for cheap.
I see alot of comments for starting strength. It's popular if you go to reddit/r/fitness. I don't really happen to like it that much if your starting out on your own. If you have a partner I think its a great work out.
In my opinion, if you're working out at home I'd just buy 2 kettlebells and work out with those instead.
As for my work out it's always anchored by one of the big 3 lifts( squat, deadlift, and bench, though I never do barbell bench anymore I use dumbells).
I then follow up with one of planks, dips and pull ups, followed by 20 minutes of streching and cardio.
cdjk is right: start with starting strength (or something similar like stronglifts) before moving to a different program. 3 times a week, takes about 45 mins. you start with an almost empty bar (to practice proper form), increase weight every single workout and do this until you can bench 1xbw, squat 1.5xbw and deadlift 2xbw (this is achievable after only 3-5 months). after reaching that goal you'll already be astoundingly fit and strong compared to most people you know. for me it worked a lot better than a halfhearted 5x a week split.
here's the basic workout, among other beginner programs:
one of the best thing about powerlifting is that it helps correcting some typical programmer ailments like an hollow back or forward slumping shoulders (both are unhealthy and, honestly, just plain unsexy).
you can do SS at home or in a gym; doing it at home requires space and upfront investments for the barbell, bench and squat rack.
gyms differ in quality. most chains don't want their customers to do real training. read this: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/everything-you-know-abou... - tl;dr: lift free weights and don't unquestioningly trust the gym (-trainers) - their primary interest is money, not your progress. the gym i went to had just one squat rack, so i often had to wait (can take 20mins). also, gyms, of course, add commute time.
the good thing about gyms is that you can ask others to form-check you, but you have to be able to identify the competent athletes. imo at the cheaper gyms most people know even less about proper workout than i do; they focus on upper body and biceps. i've heard this is called "prison style" workout, but i'm pretty sure most convicts know more about proper form than your average gym-goer :)
if money isn't a problem, you could also try crossfit. it's fun and very effective, but usually not cheap. crossfit venues usually have competent trainers.
alternatively, see if there's an olympic lifting club near you. membership is usually even cheaper than a gym subscription (mine is just 25 euros a year), people are competent, they have enough barbells for everyone and workout is basically the same (full body strength, but more focus on legs, hips and back).
I understand. I thought that too until I just got of my butt and did it.
The statement that resonated most ith me is "everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. Everyone makes sacrifices to do the things they want, even of they don't realize it."
I've got two kids so I never workout until 8 pm at night. Cardio is running to work. I work at a fund so I can't leave my desk from 9:30 through 4.
There are some proponets of squatting daily or almost daily to somewhat submaximal effort, notably John Broz from Average Bros Gymnasium. I have done it myself with success over a two month period. Training the same muscles every day is a lot about how much stress you have in the rest of your life and how good your recovery habits are.
I'm also a big fan of flux which lowers the amount of blue light emitted by your monitor: http://stereopsis.com/flux/
Its one page from my first django project which has been abandoned for a while. Its basically a curated affiliate link site (similar to what refer.ly has become)
I don't trust advice from anyone who uses apostrophes with plurals. If you can't figure out basic English, why should I be convinced you've figured out things more complicated?
That's like dismissing Einstein's work because he pleasantly married his cousin. Some people place less importance or stress on certain things than other people do. Get over it, this article is truly helpful.
Loved my Wakemate, but have since moved to all-Android.
Are there any decent equivalents to the Zeo/Wakemate that work with Android phones and are still in business?
There's a difference between not dreaming and not remembering your dreams. Everybody dream every night.
This is just speculation, but perhaps you sleep better on your side, so that you don't remember your dreams as easily? E.g. if you wake up several times a night, you will remember more dreams than if you don't wake up during the night.
One of things that helps me is a sleeping cap. Mine is just a thin lightweight hat. I surmise this helps in the same way the article suggests to wear socks to keep your extremities warm. The only thing is, I hate wearing socks to bed, instead I wear the cap! :)
I also like to think the act of putting on my sleeping cap is also a nice subconscious cue that it's sleep time.
According to an article I saw on HN a week ago, apparently, evidence shows we evolved to naturally wake up once each night about half way through, for around an hour. Of course, we went to sleep when it became dark and woke with the sun. Something that isn't conducive with todays lifestyle.
I've seen the "first sleep" references too. That's not what I'm talking about. Waking up naturally for a half hour in a pleasant relaxed state is one thing. Having the dog bark "let me out or I'm peeing on the carpet" and having to run downstairs, having the other dog jump on me at random intervals, having two kids separately get me up for a half hour each fussing about whatever, and having m'lady decide she must check her email at oh-dark-thirty, well, that's quite something else.
I can't go without 10-15 minute power naps in the afternoon or evening. Whether it's physically effective or just placebo, it feels essential. That being said I drink coffee before the gym at around 7-8pm, which probably isn't the optimal time (though I have no problem falling asleep at 12:30-1:30am which is when I want to go to sleep).
Power naps can be very effective when used right (i.e if you're consistent with them). In the last month of my semesters I switch my sleep over to Polyphastic sleep schedule. 6 Hours of sleep at night and one 20minute nap in the afternoon. It gives me more time to study for finals/finish up class projects.
I agree with short naps concept but i think rather than following "the earlier in the day, the better", another concept of mid-day napping can be followed. You just need to take a short nap of 30 minutes ,15-20 minutes post-lunch. That is the time we can easily fall asleep, also you feel very refreshed and productive once you wake up!
If someone see my comment, there are many information here:
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm
It is really big so the best solution is to see it fast and read the summary. And it's worth it.
Earplugs don't actually block out a whole lot of noise.
For example, if I wear my earplugs in the library, it'll completely muffle the sound of people whispering around me, but I'll still be able to hear the oblivious jock talking at full volume to his buddy at the table across from me.
no no no, i don't even need to read any of that. 6 hours sleep. perfect for me. not tired, almost always in a good mood. very simple and effective. i don't need no recipes, to know about deep sleep and all that.
you should not forget that people are very different. so don't try to impose all these rules on everyone just because it works for you.
Thanks for your comment! At the end of the day you have to find what works best for you. For some (lucky) people they can kick ass on just 6 hours of sleep. For others, they need to be consistent and sleep for 7-8hrs.
I didn't mean to impose anything on anyone, just trying to share some of the things I've learnt :).
ok, but your shouldn't make it look like rocket science. it's pretty simple for me and maybe I'm lucky, but I guess the most important thing is to tell people to experiment with their sleep. i would say most of these sleep issues have a rather simple cure and you don't need sleep apps, wrist devices, zeos etc.
You never want to wake up in the middle of a Deep Sleep or REM sleep cycle. The best time to wake up is when you're in between cycles. Which is what the "Smart Alarms" are supposed to do, they wait until you come out of a sleep cycle to wake you up.
The Zeo is the most accurate (since it picks up brainwaves), however it's also slightly uncomfortable and buggy. I personally use the Jawbone UP which works good enough. All of the apps that say they do that aren't the most accurate since they rely on the movement of your mattress. However I know some people who swear by them.
You don't need to time sleep and you don't need to weigh calories. You just need to make sure nothing is fucking up your true sleepiness and that nothing is messing up your appetite.
You have sophisticated systems in you to govern consumption of sleep and food. Just don't screw things up with drugs, digital stimulation, social isolation, or junk food. It's all the same issue.
"Turbo shots" or "red eyes" in your coffee are a placebo btw. Espresso has a lower concentration of caffeine than standard drip. So by putting a "turbo shot" in your cup, you're actually lowering the caffeine concentration.
Wants to be hyper-rational and metric-aware about his sleep but didn't know anything about caffeine?
I don't think that's true.
A 16 oz Starbucks coffee has 330mg, while a 2oz Starbucks espresso has 150mg. So the espresso has 4x as much caffeine per ounce.
The brewed coffee thus has between 11.9 mg and 25 mg of caffeine per oz.
If you added a shot of espresso (let's assume the weakest one at 40 mg of caffeine) to an 8 oz of very strong coffee (at 200 mg of caffeine), you'd still be increasing the concentration to ~26.7 mg/oz.
And that's stretching the limits of these calculations; a 200 mg 8 oz coffee is crazy strong, amounting to two and a half cans of Red Bull.
Espresso has a higher concentration of caffeine. Most espresso drinks are mixed with a ton of milk, so lattes, etc. do end up being less concentrated than drip. But dropping a shot of espresso in your coffee will up the caffeine concentration slightly.
I hear a lot about cutting caffeine after 3pm to have it not affect your sleep, but I generally assume people are talking about coffee when they mention this time. I care more about when I should stop drinking tea, which apparently contains less caffeine.
Can I just halve the time required if tea has half the caffeine (let's say)?
There are some pretty good decaf black teas (not herbal) which are reasonably satisfying if you want to have a cuppa later in the day.
If you're in the US, the Stash decaf range is IMO the best of the common supermarket brands (the normal American teas like Lipton and Tetley are pretty terrible in their decaf versions). If there's a gourmet store around, they may have the English brands such as Typhoo or PG Tips in decaf, which are pretty great. If you're in the UK then any advice on tea from the likes of me should just be ignored out of hand... :)
I'm not a coffee/tea drinker and I don't drink soft drinks (caffeine or otherwise) apart from when its mixed with alcohol. I personally find it takes me a lot longer to get to sleep after having consumed pre-mixed alcohol involving things like cola. Beer, on the other hand, does not seem to have the same effect even when consumed at the same time of day.
Last year I made the decision to switch to drinking only decaf tea after 3pm, and since then I've found that I have much less trouble getting to sleep. Purely anecdotal of course, but I highly recommend it.
Initially I was worried about the taste, but there's honestly not a huge difference.
I think you're thinking of the difference between robusta and arabica beans. Arabica has less caffeine than robusta, and -- at least in America -- more espresso roasts are arabica.
So just set an alarm for 11pm, and when you hear it, immediately stop what you're doing, save any open documents, turn the TV or computer off. The next 30 minutes are for brushing teeth, settling into bed, and preparing for the following morning only. By then you should be settling into a good night's sleep.