Posted by bilsbie 11 hours ago
He said that as long as people are mostly regular in their sleep hours, the actual timings don't matter much. However, extended periods of irregular sleep schedules are actually (his words) "classified as a type of carcinogen."
I briefly looked into the evidence at the time but did not find it very concerning. TFA does make a more compelling case by linking it to all-cause mortality.
[1] I believe it was The Sleep Solution by M. Chris Winter, though I may be wrong. I can only remember it had a blue cover, but turns out pretty much ALL books about sleep have a blue cover. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I get the study design is not causal and all, but this R^2 looks very underfit for a study that claims a stronger predictor?
Last year I did an experiment of sorts while unemployed for a time and found that if I just slept and woke when tired that my sleep time would naturally recess and eventually "flip" after about a month.
My entire life I've wondered why I feel incredibly tired and found waking up so difficult. Turns out that if you follow your bodies dominant sleep cycle it's a synch to wake up. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with modern life very well.
I discovered that it helps when I actually put in effort to fix my sleep schedule. Like getting off screen 1 hour before I sleep. Boxing bedtime to 23:00-08:00. And similar things.
It is just really difficult to fix for me but it doesn't feel impossible. I have made progress in last 6 months but trying different methods and only some portion of that progress stays permanent.
Also have the same experience fighting depression-like symptoms and anxiety. It just takes a lot of time and is difficult. Some people just don't have these problems and I do but this doesn't mean I am genetically attuned to be like this and I can't do anything. It is just difficult.
What finally worked for me were red light glasses. I wear the True Dark Twilights Classics (though I’m sure there are other brands on the market) for 2-3 hours before bed time and I’m actually sleepy. Way more effective than taking melatonin tablets ever was in my experience. And I haven’t even had to substantially change my screen usage either (though the glasses do make everything come out monochrome, which makes it difficult to use anything that’s not in color blind mode).
Might have to try that myself. Do you still use your phone/tablet/etc or does it also encourage you to use them less?
I do still use my phone, and more importantly for me my computer, basically right up until bedtime. I have probably decreased my usage some but it’s not a huge factor.
> Also have the same experience fighting depression-like symptoms and anxiety. It just takes a lot of time and is difficult. Some people just don't have these problems and I do but this doesn't mean I am genetically attuned to be like this and I can't do anything. It is just difficult.
Should I mention that "neurodivergence" and different sleep pattern genes have a large co-morbidity? E.g. many people with anxiety / ADHD / dyslexia / depression / etc have a very high likelihood of having delayed sleep or other genes.
Disclaimer: I made the app.
It sounds unbelievable but you’d have to experience it to understand. But the end result is it “fixed” the delayed sleep issue.
I’d give just about anything to be able to just sleep and keep sleeping, but on the up side now I’m an early bird with extreme regularity and quite like it.
It's it really? What if you go to bed at 6am? Will you really still wake up 30 mins later?
The first couple days or week will feel pretty bad, but if you give yourself enough time then you'll shift your sleep schedule around. Now I get tired at 8:30pm and fall asleep at 9ish like clockwork. grad school me would have considered that insane considering I'm doing less work on average during the day. My day is just shifted now so that I do more stuff in the mornings and really relax in the afternoons, which is the opposite of before.
A key is actually giving yourself enough time to fall asleep. Most people think they can hop into bed and just get 8hrs, when you actually need to hop into bed around 30mins beforehand and really relax with a book or something.
I also think it's important to not stress about sleep a lot. Unless you're literally feeling miserable or have apnea, I think it's better to just let yourself relax if you wake up in the middle of the night. Sometimes I'll snap awake at 2am and just read for 2hrs, then get 2 more hours of sleep and generally feel fine.
I will note that if you feel absolutely terrible on 8-9 hours of sleep, you should check with a doctor about it. I have hypothyroidism and was on too low a dose of medication, and felt so tired after work that I almost drove on the wrong side of the road. I'd thought this was simply from moving my sleep schedule and getting less sleep after starting a new job, but I got a blood test for unrelated reasons and found I was hypothyroid. A couple weeks after starting the new dose of medication and I feel like a new person.
Recalling from college neuroscience classes and subsequent reading of research, the studies show the ordinary human sleep cycle when unrestrained adds about a half hour per day, so 24.5 hours is 'natural'. Long-term studies with all time cues carefully removed ended up with subjects on a ~50 hour sleep schedule, as in awake 36-38 hours and sleeping 12-14hrs.
This is also why it is easier to travel across time zones to the west than to the east.
[0] https://howandwhys.com/michel-siffre-time-experiment-body-sl...
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339110740_Living_Wi...
The cortisol spikes are what get me. I can drink or not drink, exercise or not exercise, take magnesium or not take magnesium. The brain wants to tell me at 630 or 7 all the things that can go wrong or todos, instead of letting me sleep til 8. Sometimes it's much earlier than that.
I also wake up at the slightest sound or movement. It's been like this since I was a child. I'm defective, and all the bro science Youtube videos with top 10 science -based 'hacks' don't solve the problem. Know what does? Anti anxiety medication, but doctors don't prescribe benzos anymore.
Some more discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42022151
like "garbage collection"