by belkarx on 10/9/23, 1:20 AM with 243 comments
by 000ooo000 on 10/9/23, 3:21 AM
by lloeki on 10/9/23, 7:37 AM
- more likely to avoid hurtful situations (lower attention, zone out events, micro sleep events, reflexes diminished).
- more likely to hurt yourself when such accidents occur
- once hurt, physical recovery is severely hampered
Car accidents are the obvious ones here but it extends to simple things like accidental cuts with knives, slipping in the tub, or sprained ankles or knees just walking down stairs or curbs.
And some other "mind" and "metabolic" things:
- immune system effectiveness plummets, so more chances to get sick
- REM deprivation causes neuronal death
- long term, leads to anxiety, false memories, paranoia, hallucinations, and psychosis (been there, done that; not a good place to be)
We all know that water is essential to not dying, but sleep appears to be on equal footing (3 days without either and you're in catastrophic states), maybe even more important (the - sad - record of a human surviving without water is 18 days, for sleep it's 10)
by kungfufrog on 10/9/23, 3:44 AM
by InSteady on 10/9/23, 10:16 AM
So on the high end of that scale, if you drink 3 cups of coffee, containing say 300mg of caffeine, between 7 and 10 AM then you still have around 100mg of caffeine kicking around in your system when 11pm rolls around, clogging up your adenosine receptors and disrupting your body's ability to signal to itself (and you) that it wants and is ready for rest.
[And if you don't follow any sleep hygiene practices, you are also probably depriving the body of its primary mechanism for initiating the sleep processes. You can take supplemented melatonin but it is usually only effective for short or medium-term use, and in my personal experience is way less effective than the home-grown good stuff produced in the pineal gland]
So you lose 30 minutes here, and hour there of sleep. Not necessarily every night, but on a weekly basis you find yourself worn out, mentally ready to rest and recharge, but there is a disconnect in your brain and body that doesn't allow a smooth wake-sleep transition. The longer this trend occurs, the more sleep debt you find yourself in, the more you tend to throw in another half-cup around noon from time to time just to make sure you can keep going.
Worst of all is when you hit on the realization that alcohol or some other drug can help to knock you out when you're still too wired to sleep even though you really want or need it.. unfortunately (with the possible exception of a few herbs) basically every medication or drug that puts you to sleep also negatively impacts the quality of that sleep. Which in the above scenario is going to spell out more caffeine in the routine, sooner or later, to compensate further. Do be aware that this doesn't necessarily have to be conscious realization, it is an extremely easy and I assume common habit to fall into.
If you happen to process caffeine at a 1.5 hour half life, and can conk out like a light under most circumstances, I am truly jealous. Enjoy your God-given gifts ya lucky bastard!
by iagooar on 10/9/23, 9:46 AM
I wish I had done it 10 years ago, when my sleep quality and quantity were just depressingly low. These days even with small children I have better quality of sleep than I used to have back then when I would spend hours and hours in front of a computer screen (at work and after work as a hobby).
by p-e-w on 10/9/23, 4:35 AM
As a trivial example, overworked people typically get less sleep than average folks. And excessive work is also correlated with several of the 'effects' from the list, such as "fatigued and demotivated" and "lower libido". This means that even though lack of sleep is (indirectly) linked to those problems, getting more sleep won't necessarily fix them, because the real cause is something else.
I find it strange that a post explicitly addressed to HN readers fails to even mention this extremely obvious issue.
by drakonka on 10/9/23, 10:38 AM
* No coffee after 12.00 - No black tea after this time on most days either
* Peppermint tea a few hours before bed
* Magnesium before bed
* No alarm (I naturally wake up between 7 and 8am, though sometimes stay in bed for longer)
* Ereader in bed - reading helps put me to sleep
* Blackout curtains (a must in Swedish summer)
* Sometimes, visualizing scenes from whatever story I'm writing as I fall asleep. This can both help me get ideas for the story and help me fall asleep.
I am very bad with controlling screen time before bed and have pretty much given up on doing that at this point... For now. I still find myself waking up at 4am sometimes and then going back to sleep. It doesn't take long to get back, but it takes a lot of effort not to grab my phone and start scrolling in these times. If I must put my eyes on _something_, I try to make it my Kobo reader.
by mmanfrin on 10/9/23, 3:20 AM
by charles_f on 10/9/23, 6:54 AM
I'm now at a point where I manage to take a step back when I feel generally down, and just look into whether I had enough sleep, or if the weather is crap. These are the two most important predictors for whether I'll find my job to be terminally depressing, or my situation to be doomed ; and I try to convince myself to take my distress with a fistful of salt then, and wait to be less tired or the weather to get better, before I overanalyze my situation.
It does not always work, but sometimes it helps a little with rationalizing
by voidhorse on 10/9/23, 3:32 AM
by hannofcart on 10/9/23, 4:06 AM
If you (or likely your partner) suspects you have apnea, talk to your doctor.
Doing a sleep study/test and getting treatment for apnea will likely transform your life for the better.
by behnamoh on 10/9/23, 1:31 AM
I'm in the same boat except that I only go to bed when I'm absolutely completely drained and exhausted, which is probably not good...
by specialist on 10/9/23, 11:27 AM
My insomnia journey...
I had turrible insomnia for decades, worse over time. I tried All The Things, multiple times. Which everyone should try, if only to learn more about oneself.
But if you try All The Things and still suffer, do not give up. Keep looking, keep asking.
Turns out my root cause was bone spurs on my spine. Tiny little pinches of my nerves, which prevented my mind and my body from ever relaxing.
It took years to get a proper diagnosis, separate from the insomnia concern, and then even more time to get an effective treatment.
Happily, "fixing" those bone spurs resolved most of my anxiousness and insomnia. Now I sleep like a corpse. It's glorious.
This is my personal example of an apparent phantom chronic illness. Where care providers offer what they know and then basically give up.
Which makes sense, for them, because healthcare is basically triage. A care provider does their best in moment given the knowledge and resources they have. Then they do the same for another dozen patients, every single day.
But you shouldn't give up.
If you're suffering, there's a cause. Keep asking. Keep searching. Someone out there has the answers you need.
by markus_zhang on 10/9/23, 3:43 AM
by tomxor on 10/9/23, 7:13 AM
* Sleep deprivation reduces immune system function.
I was surprised when none of the gov advice during covid included "improve your sleep", because that's one of the best ways to strengthen your immune system, reduce your chances of contracting illnesses, and improve your chances of a fast and complication free recovery.
by foxfired on 10/9/23, 3:35 AM
I've experienced most if not all that was described here. And I look 10 years older. But I'm so glad I can sleep normal hours again.
[1]:https://idiallo.com/blog/stopped-sleeping-started-hallucinat...
by c7DJTLrn on 10/9/23, 9:37 AM
I wish I had control over my sleep like others seem to. It would be awesome if I could pass out at 10pm and wake up 8am. That kind of schedule is just impossible for me though. Night time is when my brain kicks into gear and then when I finally do sleep, I find it extremely difficult to wake up.
These days I'm sleeping between roughly 7am to 4pm. Recently I slept 18 hours. If I could fix it somehow I would. It's completely out of my control.
by skeeter2020 on 10/9/23, 3:04 PM
by thejackgoode on 10/9/23, 12:09 PM
by Patternnoticer on 10/9/23, 4:31 AM
by morjom on 10/9/23, 10:25 AM
Sorry kind of a rant.
by swah on 10/9/23, 11:20 PM
by starbugs on 10/9/23, 8:30 AM
This obviously is not a cure-all against sleep deprivation, but it's easy to try out and, at least for me, it made falling asleep so much easier.
by foundart on 10/9/23, 3:21 AM
by throwaway5959 on 10/9/23, 8:35 AM
by drones on 10/9/23, 8:11 AM
by l5870uoo9y on 10/9/23, 9:54 AM
Is caffeine really a depressant? I have great joy in consuming caffeine either from Japanese Sencha tea, Matcha, or occasionally a non-watery Americano.
by losvedir on 10/9/23, 6:57 AM
I've been very interested in getting more data about just how much and what kind of sleep I'm getting. I know smart watches these days claim to provide that. Anyone know how accurate it is, and which watches are best for it?
by gavinhoward on 10/9/23, 4:38 AM
I struggle to have the discipline to get enough sleep. I'm going to bookmark this, pin it in a tab, and use it to remind myself that the consequences of my stupidity are greater than what I would accomplish by staying awak.
by totetsu on 10/9/23, 5:09 AM
by mitko on 10/9/23, 4:27 AM
But in my case, the root cause seems to be stress from increased load, and the higher cortisol levels it creates
by iilfat on 10/9/23, 10:35 AM
Like this one :) It definitely happens all the time
by bman_kg on 10/9/23, 5:35 AM
by swayvil on 10/9/23, 3:31 AM
Slower healing.
by 2devnull on 10/9/23, 6:11 AM