Recepies For A Good Night's Sleep? 52
pavelc asks: "I was wondering recently if there are any ways to improve the efficiency of sleeping and awakening. You have all probably noticed that sometimes it is significantly easier to wake up after partying the whole night and a 3-hour-long sleep for work than it is to wake up after being in the bed for 12+ hours. It also makes a lot of difference how you wake/get up - do you use the XMMS Alarm plugin or a conventional alarm clock? What do you do after that? A long shower works for me much better than caffeine for example. Any suggestions on how to improve the quality of sleep, and just as importantly, how you start the day."
Nature Noise Generators (Score:1)
Getting out of bed (Score:1)
One weird thing I noticed with myself. Once I am already up, getting out of bed is easier the closer my mattress is to the floor. Also, sliding my feet off the bed in one move, and then attempting to sit up seems to be easier then then one motion.
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ticks = jiffies;
while (ticks == jiffies);
ticks = jiffies;
Hair of the dog (Score:2)
Temperature, stress, and misc. (Score:3)
This falls into the "duh" category. If you're overstressed, take steps to change your environment by whatever means necessary. Chronic stress will do things far worse than messing up your sleep patterns.
If I have one too many blankets, it takes me a long time to fall asleep. This is something that's difficult to notice. If you find yourself tossing and turning, chuck a blanket and see if that helps.
I have asthma. I rarely have full-blown attacks, but breathing will often become more difficult than usual. This is another thing that's difficult to notice, that will keep me tossing and turning for hours. Make sure you can breathe freely. Install air filters if you're having trouble - they'll save you a lot of grief during the day, too. If you have serious trouble breathing, fairly often, see a doctor. You may have asthma or another breathing disorder (or be allergic to a solvent in your carpet, or what-have-you).
This is another "duh" point, but if you have to go to the bathroom, you're going to be waking up every couple of hours until you drag yourself out of bed and go. That'll wreck your night's sleep pretty effectively.
YMMV.
Re:It's "recipies" (Score:1)
Natural Cycles (Score:2)
Not everyone has a natural cycle however. People who have problems sleeping might just be living in such a way that conflicts with their sleeping and waking cycle, or it might be that they are predisposed to not forming sleeping/waking cycles. Melatonin can do wonders in such a case. Melatonin is produced by your brian when its dark and destroyed when you see bright sunlight. People will really bad eye-sight sometimes don't distinguish between daylight and night with the same contrast that well-sighted people do. A little Melatonin can help out a lot in such cases.
Good Sleep (Score:3)
Light regulates sleeping and waking cycles. People who have trouble sleeping or waking up are often more strongly affected by light than others. Don't sleep in the basement. Make sure you've got a room with lots of windows, or a big window, or a window that gets sunlight as soon as the sun rises (or all three!). Go to bed when it gets dark, wake up when it gets light out.
If you have problems sleeping, you may have to abandon any hopes of sleeping less. If you don't sleep well now, and your asking to be able to fall asleep instantly and wake up refreshed, and only get 4 or 6 hours sleep, your probably won't get what you want. If you've got bad sleeping habits the best thing you can do is establish good ones.
Between the ages of 9 and 25 I had horrible sleeping habits. It really affected my life. It took me 2 hours to fall asleep every night and I woke up every 45 minutes (no it was apnia). I woke up in a very foul mood and usually stayed in bed for an hour or so before getting up. My life suffered greatly. Then moved into a place where my bedroom was facing the sunlight in the morning. WOW! Things were very different. I woke up early and felt great.
Also try Melatonin. It's a substance produced by your brain when there is no light and induces sleeping behavior. The brain destroys melatonin when you see bright sunlight. It really has a profound effect on regulating sleeping and waking cycles. I've used it on and off for years now and when my sleeping habits begin to slide it really helps to get back on track. Or when I NEED a full nights sleep without interuption it helps too.
Flying. (Score:2)
Actually, I've been doing a fair bit of flying from North America to Europe and back, and it's wonderful for about a week. I get to Europe at about 3pm local/9am EST, having slept a few hours on the plane, muck around for a little while, and crash about 10pm local/4pm EST. Wake up great in the morning, perfectly rested, and stay that way through the week. By the time I'm getting to sleep around midnight and getting up around 8am, it's usually time to go home. The flight home makes the day about 30 hours long, so when I get home I go to bed around 9pm local/3am not-so-local, and once again I'm fine for about a week.
My problem is that my sleep schedule isn't suited well to 24 hour days. When left to myself (vacations and such), my schedule rotates forward by about 2 hours every day. I figured out a schedule that I think would have worked well, replacing 7 24 hour days with 6 28 hour days per week. Unfortunately, my wife did not approve, and I suspect that if I had tried it out I would have gotten no sleep whatsoever. Similarly, I've figured out what I think would work well for waking me up - have one loud annoying buzzer-based alarm clock that I hit the snooze button on, one softer alarm radio that I leave on - I've found it helps a lot to give me some sense of time passing, something for my brain to lock onto to pull me into consciousness, and have my bedroom lights on a timer to brighten up the room in the morning. But, once again, the wife intervenes, and I'm left just oversleeping. If I could just get it so that she goes to work before me, all would be much better. Oh well.
A variety of thoughts... (Score:2)
- Get TiVo so you don't try to justify staying up until midnight or later just so you can see South Park or Battlebots or whatever. Now, go to bed 2 hours earlier.
- If you're the type whose brain doesn't shut down just because his body is lying in bed, get one of those nature noise generators from Sharper Image or wherever. I find that having something other than complete silence helps distract me enough to get to sleep. Total silence and I keep writing code in my head. Remember to get one with a shutoff timer so it doesn't play all night. Also, don't go leaving the tv on, it'll inevitably keep you from getting into a really deep sleep.
- When you get out of bed, if you are so inclined, turn around and make the bed. For some reason this always makes me feel more awake in the morning. It's like starting the day by actually doing something instead of shuffling into the kitchen for coffee and a newspaper. On a similar note, do the things you "have to" do first (such as shower, make lunch, make bed...) and the lounging arond stuff (reading slashdot) second.
- Pay attention to your breathing. I've found it to be really neat that as I pay attention to my breathing I can actually feel myself falling asleep. Not the actual moment of losing consciousness, of course, but definitely feeling some signs that translate into "Hey, neat, I'll be asleep in about a minute."
- DON'T STRESS. I know that almost all of my sleepless nights (and by that I mean waking up every ten minutes) are caused because of some important event the next morning. If you can get passed the stress of something like that, you'll sleep alot better.
- When it is time to get up, get out of the bed. My worst habit was always staying in bed and telling myself I'd get up in 5 minutes.
- An interesting thing I found is that late at night, with just the television for light, I will feel extremely sleepy and can't keep my eyes open. But when I turn off the tv and go into the bedroom, I'm not as sleepy. I suspect that it has something to do with the light from the tv causing my eyes to strain and thus want to be closed.
That's my list.Three things (Score:4)
I've found that one key in all of the above is consistency. Our bodies are designed to do everything in cycles. Breaking the cycle or just having erratic behavior to begin with is very hard on your body. But once you get into a regular routine of eating, exercising and sleeping, you'll be amazed at the difference in how you feel. You won't need caffeine because you'll have plenty of energy to go all day.
This is, of course, based solely on my own observations on how my body has reacted to various behavior patterns over the years. I assume it applies more or less to other people but YMMV! ;-)
Turn off the computer! (Score:1)
I take it you have a computer in your bedroom, and that it stays on overnight. Don't do that.
You'll get a much better sleep if you don't have the computer on. Sure, it acts as white noise, but it still does provide a lot of noise in an otherwise quiet room. Do yourself a favour and shut it down when you finish for the night.
If you absolutely must use XMMS Alarm or a rough equivalent, go into your BIOS and set an automatic boot-up time, perhaps 15 minutes before you normally would wake up. The noise it generates will probably start to wake you up, and your alarm program will surely do the rest.
This isn't to say that there aren't other things to do to get a good night's rest. I've seen some excellent comments posted in this thread, so I won't rehash them.
Valerian Root (Score:2)
can't take it if you have any alcohol in you, though..
find out what works for you... (Score:1)
I recall my 5th grade teacher was going to law school at night and was fine with 3-4 hours of sleep. In college I was fine with 5-6 hours, but I usually also took a 20 minute nap during the lunch hour which helped keep me from dropping off in the afternoon.
I never have trouble getting to sleep now, but I'll echo other's posters comments: sex works if you need help falling asleep.
Dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE) also works for me. I need less sleep when I'm taking it, and I tend to be much more alert when I wake up.
For me I have to make sure I wake up only once. If I wake up at 6 am but try to snooze for just a few more minutes, it's going to be 7am before I wake up again.
More thoughts on melatonin (Score:1)
I take 1mg sublingual melatonin each night. It's not to help me get to sleep (never had a problem there) but it's *critical* for me to get up. When I don't take the melatonin, I have a terribly difficult time getting up, waking up, and generally starting the day. Melatonin helps me maintain that internal alarm clock and wake up (on my own!) at the same time every day.
If you choose to try melatonin, I suggest:
1. Sublingual! I've had poor results with the other kind.
2. Start out at 500 micrograms (.5 mg) if possible, and push the dosage up if you need to.
Staggered naps (Score:2)
Unfortunately, you get tired pretty quickly if you miss your scheduled naps, and its hard to have much a social life when you sleep in the early evening. Maybe if your lifestyle allows this kind of flexibility, you might want to try it out.
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What works for me (Score:1)
2) Getting on a regular sleep pattern. This has taken me years, but I'm getting there.
3) Cutting down on caffeine, especially after 6:00 in the evening.
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"natural" white noise helps immensely. (Score:2)
the waves are really the best thing, since research has shown that it sounds much like everything sounded when we were inside the womb....
the river sounds have a similar effect, and are a nice change after listening to the waves for a couple of months.
when we lived in oregon for a year, we actually had a tin roof, and of course it rained all the time, so we didn't need the extra sounds.... but now, we're back to the mp3s again.
we have an x10 remotemouse that we use to launch the thing, so that when we are laying in bed watching TV and decide it's time to drift off, we can just hit a button on the remote and it launches the playlist.
For going to sleep. (Score:1)
Re:Three things (Score:1)
Also, I find that I wake up earlier if I drink milk or eat dairy products before going to bed. I try and stay away from them at night, and this helps me sleep later.
Thats Easy... (Score:1)
Water (Score:2)
Re:sleep campaign (Score:1)
gotta love the big-pupil look.
for a good night's sleep (Score:1)
As for waking up... well, certain options always seem to ahem... present themselves.
Re:Flying. (Score:1)
There have been times when my cycle got later and later until the easiest way to get back to "normal" was to pull an all nighter. I'm not talking about college craming or work pressures. I had no external reasons for these all nighters.
Discovering melatonin stopped this for me. I don't use it regularly though, just when I start to drift.
Re:More Sleep tips (Score:2)
indeed, in the UK, melatonin is covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act. It's a Class C controlled substance (the same class as benzodiazepines and whatever). Illegal enough to lose you plenty of sleep, anyhow.
TomV
Vasodilation-- keep your hands and feet warm (Score:1)
Re:Melatonin (Score:2)
The same thing applies to over-the-counter sleeping tablets, which usually use dipenhydramine. If you can't fall asleep any other way, dipenhydramine works wonders (I occasionally use it myself). But you want to be real careful when doing this, because despite the claims on most boxes that "these are not habit-forming," it is relatively easy to fsck up your sleeping cycle. Neurochemistry is a sensitive thing, and the less you mess with it without a doctor's supervision, the better.
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Am I the only Slashdotter who is sick and tired of losing 9000 karma points every time they moderate?
Re:Routine (Score:1)
Just something interesting that came to mind:
Its hard for me as a college kid to separate bed from desk when i live in a dorm room with just about enough space for those two articles of furniture plus roommate and his. (it also might help me to have a roommate who is condusive to healthy sleep habits)
and do the other sorts of things normally associated with being in bed.
well, yeah i guess, but its great on the desk too. it also helps for the roommate to be gone that night.
When to worry about insomnia. (Score:1)
By not being able to fall asleep on time, you suffer from cognative problems, speech problems, etc. This damage can become rather scary, and can harm your relationships... thus, you fear not being able to get to sleep to the point where your bed becomes a symbol of frustration and anxiety, not rest. This creates a vicious cycle that plays over and over... if this sounds like you, seek some professional help now.
Here's a couple things that you can try out on your own:
- Keep a journal (I'm talking good old Pen & Paper, not a diaryland.com deal, as tech tends to keep your brain alert), and write in it about a half hour before you attempt to go to bed. Use this time to unwind, to think about the events in the day, and to understand what you could have done better. See, many people never get a chance to think about the events that occured durring the day, and thus the person will toss and turn, thinking about the day.
- If you don't fall asleep within 20-30 minutes of laying down, GET UP, do something else. Something really borring. Read an EULA (on paper though, don't turn on your PC, that'll keep you up)!
-Keep your room dark and silent.
- Picture something peacefull when you try to get your z's. My girlfriend's kitten looks pretty cute when she sits in a window sill... that vision always helps my journey to the land of REM.
Well, I'm off to bed now. It's almost 3:00 AM. I plan on sleeping until noon. This would be impossible for me in the past... it sure is wonderfull now!
Re:Natural Cycles (Score:1)
I'd be curious to know if anyone has had strange dreams/side-affects when taking it.
REM Cycles (Score:1)
Make sure the person next to you LETS you sleep! (Score:1)
It's interesting to see the timestamps on some of those articles... 2am and so forth. New bleary eyed /. candidates perhaps :)
It's "recipies" (Score:1)
Re:sleep campaign (Score:1)
Seriously... My natural sleep cycle has been about 2am-10am all my life. Even when I was a baby, according to my mom. Too bad I need to be at work at 9...
I tried taking some pills that help me sleep, prescribed by my doctor but they made me feel drunk and made me sleep like 12 hours...
So i just kind of suck and deal...
Very good book - The Promise of Sleep (Score:1)
One theory (Score:3)
Hence, if you need three hour cycles, 3,6,9 or 12 hours will leave you refreshed but 8 won't - hence the curious effect of 3 hours seeming better than 8.
In the same way, if you need four hour cycles, 4, 8 or 12 hours works but say six or ten turn out to be next to useless.
As I said, it's just a theory but it does explain why differing lengths of sleep work differently.
Sex (Score:1)
Getting high seems to help me, too.
Re:Temperature, stress, and misc. (Score:1)
Are you on the Sfglj [sfgoth.com] (SF-Goth EMail Junkies List) ?
Re:Nature Noise Generators (Score:1)
Anything but a jet plane. I can't fall asleep for nothing on a plane. Someone pass the GHB, it's gonna be a long ride... to the runway to take off.
sleep campaign (Score:5)
The bottom line is, Americans need more sleep. The whole "less sleep is better" or "rise and shine" attitude seems to be an antiquated leftover from the 19th century when we didn't have electricity and getting up with dawn conserved time.
Anyway, from what I've been able to read:
(1) Figure out when you naturally would go to bed and naturally would wake up. "Naturally" means on vacation when you're not up 'til 4:30 at a LAN party or whatever.
(2) Try to aim for going to bed and waking up with your natural schedule. Consistency helps; getting few hours one night will throw off your sleep the next few days.
(3) Watch how much you sleep. If it's substantially different from 7-9 hours of sleep, there might be a problem, whether it be physical, psychological, or both. I've now learned, for example, that when I sleep much more than 8 hours, It's a pretty reliable sign I'm getting sick.
(4) Don't take substances close to before when you go to sleep (alcohol, caffeine, etc.). The key is to not mess up REM sleep. Dreams are your way for your brain to learn and assimilate what's happened during the day. When it can't do that, you have problems.
(5) After you get little sleep, there is sometimes a feeling that you have extra energy or some such thing. This is somewhat of an illusion: attention and cognitive performance actually inevitably degrade with lack of sleep, the feeling of extra energy is fleeting anyway.
Sweet dreams!
More Sleep tips (Score:3)
8-hour workday max, no exception! ;-) (Score:1)
You part about the 9-hour workday reminded me of an anecdotal fact:
In the transportation industry, all mission-critical positions are based on 8-hour shifts and anyone exceeding that receives a penalty. This applies to air traffic controllers, train dispatchers and the like. On trains, they have an exception for train crews operating in remote areas: they are allowed to stretch it up to 12 hours, but just enough to reach the nearest terminal where they can be releived by another crew. The basis for this is that, on average, a healthy person cannot keep their focus at a mission-critical level for longer than 8 hours.
Routine (Score:1)
Avoid using your bed as an office, communications center, or TV lounge. Regard it as a place to rest, sleep, and do the other sorts of things normally associated with being in bed.
Exercise is fine, but plan to exercise earlier in the evening so you've had a change to cool down before you're ready to sleep. Don't snack too heavily late in the evening, either. Milk is said to contain natural substances that promote sleep.
Try to get into the same routine on work nights. It can be whatever is comfortable for you -- shower/read for a few minutes/glass of milk/pray or meditate if that's your spiritual path/sleep. Just try to follow the same basic pathway every evening. This quiet routine is how loving parents assist their infants in developing good sleep patterns, and it works just was well for us as adults.
If you can compose yourself for sleep, and associate a routine with sleep, you may be pleasantly surprised to find you're waking up ready to move out before your alarm has gone off.
Sweet dreams!
Annie
Melatonin (Score:2)
As for sleep problems, as a couple of other people posted, light has a lot to do with it. If you work in your well lit office, go home, sit down in your well lit den and type away on the computer you may be setting yourself up for difficulty sleeping.
Re:sleep campaign (Score:1)
whats considered close ? I drink a lot of caffeine and would be thankful if you tell me(as for what you've read) what a good time to stop is
Re:Water (Score:1)
I find too much sleep a very Bad Thing. It slowly slides me into the blues.
The answer is to occasionally do curious and strange things 'till 'bout 3am to scratch the sleep pattern around a bit. Result :- I sleep better the rest of the week, I'm happier etc. etc.
To counter the effects of tiredness drink lots and lots and lots of water. Not coffee. Water. Lots of it. Chuck in a slight overdose of multivits as well.
Cyclical Fun... (Score:1)
As an example, I used to be on the rowing team. I would fall asleep at about nine at night, and wake up at five in the morning. very painful for the first week (ended up napping in class), but then it was all good. Much like during vactions I go into a 2am to 2pm sleep cycle, which leaves me feeling hungover for teh first while, but good after that.
Also, I love using those airline eyeshades. Yes, they distort the natural light (so you don't wakeup with the sun), but I've got old enough ones that they don't really cover my eyes, just dull the light so that when the sun is filly out, it seems like its just coming out (through the eyeshades).
Lastly, I can only really sleep well if I don't have somthing on my mind. If, after getting into bed, I remember somthign that has to be done (liek a deadline), I'll get up and put it on a Post-It on my monitor, otherwise I'll be too busy worrying if i'll remember it to concentrate on sleep.
sleeplessness promotes bad spelling. (Score:1)
guess the encryption! "spmr upi jRW RU[OMF PM
Re:sleep campaign (Score:1)
personally, I find that I wake up quicker after a day of heavy coffee drinking... guess I'm still fairly caffinated, even after 6 hours of sleep...
God bless those Albino Ninjas...
physical exertion (Score:1)
Re:physical exertion (Score:1)
Don't wake up during a rem sleep pattern (Score:2)