
Thinking of yourself as an insomniac may be a part of the problem - prostoalex
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/apr/20/cant-sleep-insomnia-identity
======
DrPhish
This is exactly the Zen moment that fixed my lifelong insomnia: lying in bed
relaxed with my eyes closed, even if I'm not asleep, leaves me feeling worlds
better in the morning than fretting about not being able to sleep. It's
something that happened when I forgot about it completely. Once I realized I
could literally just lie in bed for 8 hours and be OK, I was able to let go.

It's like a trap that closes tighter about you the more you struggle, and
releases if you allow yourself to relax

Once I really got that, sleep became regular and uninterrupted

~~~
fredley
Yup. I did a Sleepio course that had a good trick for this: Remember that
you've got through every single day after a bad night's sleep before just
fine. Even if you don't sleep a single moment, you'll get through the day.
You've done it loads of times before and you'll do it again.

For me a big source of panic was worrying about the impact on the next day a
bad night's sleep would have.

I still have nights where I don't sleep from time to time, but I've stopped
caring about it.

~~~
notheguyouthink
Man, generally I don't have sleep troubles[1], but I hate not getting sleep.
It destroys my next day. Like, objectively. I don't operate well without
sleep, so the thought of "you'll get through the day" doesn't ring nice for
me. The same is true if I stab my foot with a knife, but it doesn't mean I
won't dread experiencing the recovery from the knife wound lol.

[1]: I sleep well, I get plenty of it. The only downside I have is restless
leg syndrome which, according to my wife, has me kicking and moving my legs a
lot at night. I imagine that impacts my quality of sleep, so I try to get a
bit more sleep due to that.

~~~
Hydraulix989
Getting a lot of sleep != getting quality sleep.

If you have restless leg syndrome, you don't sleep well.

~~~
notheguyouthink
Agreed, but sleeping more still helps me. Maybe I could be happy with 7h/night
without restless leg, but that doesn't change the fact that 8h for me is
currently better than 7h. 7h just isn't enough. Which was my point - I get
enough _(more than average)_ to ensure I feel refreshed the next day.

It's definitely a problem though. I'm not a fan of medications, but I've not
researched a natural remedy - perhaps I should.

------
tjoff
> _and that even severe sleep deprivation poses no real risk of poor
> performance, health troubles or early death._

I struggle to see how anyone that has or even seen someone with severe sleep
deprivation can say this with a straight face.

You stop functioning as a human. You can not think straight, and it's not "oh,
silly me I forgot I needed to serialize access to this function" kind of
thinking, but more like - "oh, have I always had foot on my left leg?".

Yes, often stress of not sleeping is the reason for not being able to sleep. I
just have a hard time imagining that I could convince someone with sleep
problems to actually believe that it isn't bad. Yet people in this thread seem
to agree... So I might be wrong on that.

My mother used to work odd hours and always maintained that it isn't that bad
to just rest rather than sleep if you're unable to. I truly wished I believed
that but my experience has been quite the opposite. I could just as well run a
marathon as lying awake in bed and I'd be equally exhausted the next day.

This is also in collision with something that has worked well for me, just get
up if you can't sleep. Do not condition your brain that it is OK to lie down
in bed awake. That's a habit you don't want to get into, better get up and do
something for about an hour and try again. It sucks and it's hard to motivate
yourself to get up 03:30 in the morning because you want to be able to sleep
in the future, but in the long run it is worth it.

And that advice (echoed by many) is quite in collision course with the advice
here.

Not saying that either is "right", but for me lying in bed awake just does not
work. And I've really tried to commit to it.

~~~
jhasse
> but for me lying in bed awake just does not work.

Maybe because you're subconsciously thinking "I wont function as a human
tomorrow" the whole time ;)

~~~
mamcx
I already accept that I have bad sleep patterns and not worry about it, but
still I get "brain-fog" most of the days and perform poorly. Wish to know how
solve that!

~~~
gameshot911
Have you tried getting more sleep? ;]

~~~
mamcx
I sleep erratically but is common to sleep 12 hours!

------
DanielBMarkham
It's 3am in the states, and I'm at the computer. I slept for five hours, from
9 until 2. I was woken up by timer that was accidentally set to turn a TV on.

After lying in bed relaxing for an hour or so, I got up. Started working.

This happens quite a bit, and it used to bug me a lot. I finally made my peace
with it, not because of any Zen moment (Sorry DrPhish), but because there was
nothing else to do. It is what it is.

So I stopped complaining, I stopped worrying about it, I stopped trying to
figure out if I was getting the right sleep or not. Instead I sleep when I'm
tired. If I wake up and can't go back to sleep? I work. Eventually my body
will catch up with whatever it wants to do. I work for myself. If I want to
sleep, I sleep. This is one of the benefits of being self-employed.

On the plus side, you can get a lot of stuff done in the middle of the night.
I do my best creative work when I'm up in these dark-of-the-night hours. It's
quiet, it's peaceful, and I have time to think about and consider things
instead of feeling like I'm on a treadmill.

I really enjoyed this article. It's interesting that I arrived at the same
place without realizing what I was doing. I'm going to save it to share with
my friends next time I hear them complaining. :)

~~~
drdeadringer
This reminds me of "second sleep" from medieval times.

~~~
mrweasel
Was there ever other sources for the second sleep, other than "At Day's
Close"?

~~~
freehunter
"He knew this, even in the horror with which he started from his first sleep,
and threw up the window to dispel it by the presence of some object, beyond
the room, which had not been, as it were, the witness of his dream." Charles
Dickens, Barnaby Rudge (1840)

"Don Quixote followed nature, and being satisfied with his first sleep, did
not solicit more. As for Sancho, he never wanted a second, for the first
lasted him from night to morning." Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote (1615)

"And at the wakening of your first sleepe You shall have a hott drinke made,
And at the wakening of your next sleepe Your sorrowes will have a slake."
Early English ballad, Old Robin of Portingale

The Tiv tribe in Nigeria employ the terms "first sleep" and "second sleep" to
refer to specific periods of the night

Taken from
([http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783)).
The article references "At Day's Close", sure, but it also references many
other sources.

------
Too
_" non-complaining poor sleepers" – who sleep badly but don’t define
themselves as insomniacs – don’t suffer the high blood pressure commonly
associated with severe sleeplessness. Meanwhile, “complaining good sleepers” –
who get enough shut-eye, but are heavily invested in their alleged insomnia –
were essentially as tired, anxious and depressed as those who genuinely didn’t
sleep._

Causation vs correlation? This could easily be the other way around, maybe
it's _because_ they don't feel good they complain about it...

~~~
coldtea
The key is that the non-complaining people also "sleep badly" (and fewer
hours).

So whether they complaining insomniacs don't feel good and thus complain, or
complain and thus don't feel good, we at least know that it's not the
sleeplessness (as it is common to both groups).

~~~
underwater
Isn’t that assuming that lack of sleep affects everyone in the same way?
Different people need different amounts of sleep.

I am a night owl and so find a shitty nights sleep will result in a shitty
morning; but I’ll feel much better by the end of the day. Whereas a morning
person might wake up without issues and only pay the price later on (and
counter with an early night).

~~~
coldtea
> _Isn’t that assuming that lack of sleep affects everyone in the same way?
> Different people need different amounts of sleep._

Not according to all medical advise I've read (no lifestyle advice /
lifehacks).

The body really needs its sleep, and the amount is more or less fixed to 7-8
hours.

There's only a small (1-2 hours variation with age, not with individual
people).

~~~
kharms
There is at least some variation.
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetic-
mutation-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/genetic-mutation-
sleep-less/)

------
tallanvor
This is probably good advice for people who have occasional insomnia.

But if you have insomnia more regularly, especially for days at a time, or you
consistently don't feel rested despite believing that you've slept, you really
should try to talk to a doctor - not to ask for sleeping pills (although that
may be a result), but to start the process of finding out if there's a larger
problem that can be treated.

I deal with delayed sleep onset, which is livable - it just means that it
takes me longer to fall asleep, and occasional insomnia on top of it wouldn't
be a big deal.

But I also suffer from a REM-related parasomnia which apparently has never
been officially described or named, so instead gets stuck in the "Other
parasomnias - unspecified" bucket. Basically once I fall asleep, the NREM
phases look perfectly normal, but once I enter REM, I suffer multiple arousals
(basically I wake up, but for too short a period to be aware that I'm awake).
So rather than going through REM phases, I spend that time waking up multiple
times per minute.

Unfortunately so far nobody has been able to suggest a treatment. Gabapentin
helps a little, but it's far from a solution.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I'm sure you've already investigated this route, but I thought it worth
pointing out that this sounds like sleep apnea.

~~~
tallanvor
That's certainly one of the first things they checked for, which is
understandable.

They started with a home sleep study (you pick up the equipment and are shown
how to put it on before bed), but it showed that my breathing was fine, blood
oxygen levels were normal, and I snore less than the average person.

So that's when they had me do the full study where you sleep in a lab hooked
up to monitors to track breathing, brainwaves, muscle movements, etc.

------
username3
How to Fall Asleep in Two Minutes or Less

781 points by rhapsodic 35 days ago | 190 comments

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16671944](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16671944)

~~~
lancefisher
I started doing this after I read that article last month, and it has worked
wonders for me. I was surprised it worked so well.

------
jchanimal
Yes. Telling myself it was not a big deal led me to crave the 3am wake-ups as
an opportunity for writing some of my most fluid code. Now I know the door to
productivity is clearing my sleep debt and developing the kind of surplus to
where there is no such thing as early. Speaking of, it's past my bedtime...

------
serpix
After two burnouts nowadays if insomnia sets in I just turn the alarm off,
accept that it is one of those nights and relax. If that won't work due to
racy thoughts I just get up and do something. The next day is immediately
cleared from appointments, duties, plans and exercise. Good sleep is priority
1 over work, exercise and even food. I'd rather be unemployed than being a
walking zombie ever again.

------
topmonk
I've found that if I get up and write down my thoughts, afterwards I'll be
able to sleep. I just write whatever I'm thinking at the moment. Sometimes I
end up with some very interesting insights by doing this. After an hour or so,
I feel a change in my mental state where I become more significantly more
relaxed and less stressed. When I go back to bed I sleep like a baby.

~~~
wastedhours
I'd advise to always have a notebook next to your bed in any situation - for
getting thoughts out of your head in a general sense like this, writing down
work ideas [I always get sparks of inspiration just before falling asleep],
writing down dreams if that sort of thing interests you.

------
mancerayder
What about sensitivity to noise? The guy upstairs walking around in an old
uninsulated house causes thumping which instantly wakes me up. A rug didn't
help. Next door, my bedroom is next to stairs where stompers stomp up and down
the stairs morning and night. Earplugs and noise machines don't help.

While thinking causes me to remain awake, sensitivity to disturbances causes
me to wake up. It's been a sort of punishment my entire life, made worse
because no one takes me seriously or cares, since they cannot relate.

~~~
dominotw
I moved to a highrise cos I had the same problem. Plus something about having
a doorman made it easier to fall asleep.

I can totally relate to ppl not taking it seriously.

~~~
pasbesoin
I was afraid it would be worse.

In part, no matter what something "should" be, I seem to end up with the worst
version of it.

I moved to my own house -- all to myself. To end up with the loudest neighbors
yet. Car stereo subwoofers "thudding" through my sealed up house, along with
indifferent law enforcement.

I didn't want a huge drive, nor to be socially isolated (hah!).

I bought into what was supposed to be a modest but nice community. I didn't
have the money for a snobby one where law enforcement has a big stick up their
butt.

In retrospect, on that point, be very careful about the community. If I hadn't
become so afraid of apartment/condo neighbor noise (after repeated
experiences), I could have afforded a more upscale one. Or buy out in the
sticks with enough land to physically keep neighbors at bay. But then, of
course, you have the challenge of Internet connectivity -- among other things.

~~~
mancerayder
I'm going to have to be honest here and say that moving to an upscale
neighborhood lowers the chances of thumping noise / party noise type
environments. In NYC at least, the higher end areas have snootier people and
police who are more active. As a super light sleeper and tech geek who needs
to concentrate, I have to ally myself with the snooty.

------
Waterluvian
With my old job I would often get really frustrated as I saw the potential
hours of sleep disappear to insomnia. And I bet it was a feedback loop.

With my new job I work from home. So I no longer fear having to drive or be
socially present on terribly little sleep. As a result I'm so much more
relaxed when I go to bed and the times I lose sleep are becoming quite rare.

When I was young I thought that a job fitting my lifestyle was maybe 5% of the
perk. But today I believe it's probably 50% of my compensation.

------
kingkawn
I think most of the syndromes that people suffer from are needlessly
reinforced by treating them as an aspect of one’s fixed identity

------
teekert
I hear from many people that they have problems sleeping, I have never ever
had that problem. Imho the big difference was almost always them telling me:
they fret about not being able to sleep vs. me telling them: I can truly enjoy
just getting into bed and I sometimes wrestle to _not_ fall asleep because
that feeling of being tired and hitting the bed is just so nice I want to
extend the time I experience it... The wrestle is always useless because sleep
comes very fast.

Even when I don't fall asleep immediately I can enjoy taking the time to think
about work or plan the next day or think about future vacations or what I'm
going to do to my home server when 18.04 comes out or the latest episode of
Isaac Arthur [0], there are many nice things to think about with little else
on the mind. It's almost a shame sleep disrupts my train of thought sometimes
:)

I'm a bit of a fretter myself but never about sleep.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g)

~~~
underwater
My wife is the same. I am more of a night owl and my ideal lie-in-bed time
happens in the morning. Unfortunately society seems to frown on doing that.

------
Moodles
I think accepting the situation for what it is also helps in other
circumstances. E.g. you're in the gym and about to work very hard on a few
sets. Just accept there's no getting out of it, and you have to do it. Then
it's not so bad. Climbing a mountain? abandon all hope and just get on with
it. Same with work. You just accept it, rather than resist it.

------
sourceless
A couple years ago I was diagnosed with DSPD (delayed sleep phase disorder)
after several months of non-24 hour sleep cycles.

The advice the specialist gave me was similar: don’t worry if you can’t sleep.
If that means you have to get up and do something, do that and try again
later. If you’re relaxed enough just laying there, do that.

I’ve not been able to rid myself of the timing issues that plague my sleep,
but my secondary insomnia is completely gone, and most of it was because of my
attitude toward sleep (and a little because of better sleep hygiene
lengthening the cycle time of my delayed phase).

------
arikr
100%.

The book that helped with my insomnia (cured it, actually) more than anything
else I tried (incl over the counter sleeping pills, CBT, etc) was "acceptance
and commitment therapy."

Specifically the book "The Sleep Book."

------
xab9
I believe that the article is right about how the labels we create for
ourselves start to define us, to many of us the real question is how to stop
caring, or being afraid, or being anxious though.

You can tell someone to stop fretting about something - but probably a good
psychologist is a better way to hear these pieces of advice, not to mention
how we are bombarded by advertisments and beliefs in our everyday life that go
against the message of "don't fret".

------
thisisit
I just had this insight yesterday! And now there is a thread on this.

I have been trying meditation/mindulness for a while. So, I have been trying
to meditate before sleeping, relaxing my muscles. And sometimes it worked,
sometimes it dint.

Yesterday I had an epiphany that I might be grasping for relaxation while
trying to follow my mindful and muscle relaxation exercises. So, all I did was
forget about muscle relaxation and just laid there, falling asleep in 5
minutes.

~~~
jventura
Check this other thread that someone posted above:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16671944](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16671944)

It talks exactly about what you are saying in your 2nd paragraph. Similarly,
sometimes it works for me, sometimes I focus too much on checking if I'm
relaxed and I cannot sleep..

------
kylesellas
I've had this exact problem especially on nights before important or stessful
events the next morning such as job interviews.

At first, the anxiety of the interview is what keeps me up. Then, as it gets
later and I check the clock, I get stressed about the lack of sleep I'll have
the next day.

Sometimes getting up, going to another room and getting a glass of water
before returning to bed and resetting the process has helped.

------
carapace
Lay down on something not too hard or soft, close your eyes and relax. RELAX:
scan your body with your interior perception and notice where tension is and
then relax it. There are books and courses and online videos for relaxation
techniques. Even if you don't actually fall asleep, you will get _rest_. Most
of us burn calories maintaining muscular tension that has no real purpose. It
is hard to sleep unless you are physically relaxed.

But again, even if you don't actually fall asleep you will still be rested
when you get up, if you relax.

If you cannot make this work _for any reason_ go see a doctor.

Hope I don't sound like a jerk, but this is from my personal experience. I
think most (but not all) people who have trouble sleeping are just _doing it
wrong_ as ridiculous as that sounds.

Ooo! One other tip: Darkness. The darker it is the better you will sleep. Put
black electrician's tape over all those LEDs and get thick curtains, whatever
it takes.

(In re: noise, no advice. I'm a city kid and I find it easier to fall asleep
with some traffic and sirens. YMMV.)

------
lunulata
Right... but for actual insomniacs this advice blows. Get diagnosed one way or
the other and avoid self diagnosis.

~~~
jm__87
As someone who recently got over insomnia, this is actually really great
advice for insomnia (assuming your sleep issues are not due to sleep apnea or
restless leg syndrome).

------
bernardino
Definitely agree that our way of thinking of sleep plays a critical role in
how we sleep, i.e. "To fall asleep naturally, as opposed to just crashing into
sleep when our wings melt, or knocking ourselves out with alcohol or drugs, we
must be willing to do two things. We need to lose our mind – to surrender our
waking sense of self. And we need to invoke sleep" from this article entitled
"Falling for sleep: When wakefulness is seen as the main event, no wonder so
many have trouble sleeping. Can we rekindle the joy of slumber?" on Aeon
([https://aeon.co/essays/the-cure-for-insomnia-is-to-fall-
in-l...](https://aeon.co/essays/the-cure-for-insomnia-is-to-fall-in-love-with-
sleep-again)).

------
coltnz
This has worked a treat for me so passing it on.

1\. Make a list of the 3 things to do tomorrow.

2\. Pick a scene from your life of some length that you remember with great
detail and with some fondness. Start playing it back in you head, let you mind
tell it as linearly or non linearly as it wants.

I have a poker hand where I made an apparently crazy call [Not really, there
was massive pupil dilation by an amateur]. It's a good candidate because of
length and some vivid moments in the hand with big characters involved.

3\. got to 2. If you're conscious of repeating, appreciate your relaxed state.

------
ToonDoom
I love this article. It makes so much sense, applies to other areas and bucks
the current trend or micro managing yourself.

Imagine what telling someone who suffers from anxiety that they suffer from
anxienty does!

------
2sk21
I don't know if I am alone in this but I find that listening to audio books
puts me right to sleep within a few minutes. There is something soothing about
listening to a steady spoken voice on a moderately interesting subject,
typically some scientific field other than my own.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Same, but podcasts. There have been days where it wouldn't work and I go thru
1-2hrs of them, but generally they work very well.

------
tomthe
I always worried about not getting enough sleep until I started tracking it: I
realized that I never sleep the "good 8 hours". I am completely fine with a
bit less than 6 hours.

This knowledge helped me stay calm while trying to sleep.

------
joering2
I found big difference in the way my sleep goes, if I leave the phone outside
my bedroom, ie. in the kitchen.

If my phone is even on silence mode but on the night stand, I wake up and want
to check on it immediately.

~~~
avh02
Personally solved this years ago - turn off Wi-Fi was data when I head to bed,
that way only calls (usually urgent) wake me up, sms's aren't usually a
bother. Only turn it on once I'm up in the morning.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
This is brilliant, I'm surprised phones don't have this built in.

~~~
avh02
a lot do as "do not disturb" but i've found them to be annoying in one way or
another (e.g: blinking LED in a dark room, or applications not abiding or
whatever)

so, I take the shotgun approach and kill all data.

------
jm__87
As someone who recently completed CBTI for my insomnia, I can't recommend this
approach more. I sleep quite well now. Definitely combatting poor attitudes
regarding sleep is very important.

------
furgooswft13
Somehow having boring HN stories/comments to read, or mind-numbing twitch
streams to stare at on my phone in bed exhausts my mind way faster than
staring at the ceiling and churning.

------
philbarr
I recently fixed my sleep problems by getting some earplugs and learning how
to use them properly (there's a technique). I couldn't believe the difference
it made.

~~~
mikevm
I wanted to try them, but don't you feel pressure inside the ears... which
would make it uncomfortable to sleep?

~~~
DenisM
Buy several of different sizes to find one model that works.

------
kneel
Buying a foam mattress topper and high quality pillows was the best thing I
ever did for my sleep.

I went years without before housesitting for a friend and realizing how much
better I slept.

~~~
pizza
I'm interested in getting a new pillow. What makes a high quality pillow a
high quality pillow? Any recommendations?

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I was always against the idea of memory foam pillows. I thought they'd be too
hot, they would feel "odd", they'd swallow my face and suffocate me... To cut
a long story short we stayed in an AirBnB a few months back that had them and
they were an absolute revelation. My wife and I ordered some there and then
and they were waiting for us when we got home.

You can pay a fortune for a name brand one but ours are just no-name pillows
from Amazon. I think the pillows in the AirBnB were from IKEA, IIRC.

------
dev_256
Ended in psychiatric ward because it was “not a big deal”.

------
onetimemanytime
Wake up 4 hours after sleeping. If I tell myself to just stay in bed, I fall
asleep again and get a full rest. So, there's some truth to it.

------
lisper
Sometimes I can be asleep even though I feel as though I'm awake. I know
because my wife will wake me up because I've been snoring.

------
marpstar
something that's always worked for me: slow your breathing and take medium-
deep breaths while continually telling yourself nothing but "I am breathing
deeply". I'm usually out in 5 minutes.

------
taeric
So, imposter syndrome can help break you out of bad groups too? :)

------
quickthrower2
Also cut down on the caffeine, screen time, etc.

~~~
taneq
No-one likes to hear this but it's true. Cut out caffeine in the afternoons
(it has a ~6hr half-life in your system) and install F.lux or something to
lower the colour temperature of your monitors.

(Anecdatum: When I _want_ to stay up late, I turn off F.lux and it adds
probably 2 hrs before I start feeling tired.)

~~~
maccard
Plenty of people know this, and do it, and still struggle. I limit myself to
maximum of 2 coffees a day, no later than 3pm, and no phone/games after 10:00
and I still find myself lying in bed awake at 3am regularly

~~~
GoToRO
Because it's not enough to do one thing, you have to do all the things:
exercise, go outdoors, socialize, live. It's like a chain: it only works when
all the links are intact. A 99.99% chain is as good as a 1% chain.

------
Double_a_92
Don't force yourself to sleep. Worst that can happen is that you are tired the
next day.

------
cryptoz
If you wake up at night do not look at the time. It does not matter. It will
only serve to hurt you. Just close your eyes and relax and never ever look at
the time. The sky is dark and your alarm didn't go off and that's all you need
to know.

~~~
mayneack
Speaking personally as someone who usually gets enough sleep, I'd much rather
wake up of my own accord than by alarm. If I wake up within an hour of my
alarm, I just get up.

~~~
john_moscow
Try a sunrise simulator alarm. It will gradually turn on the light 20-40
minutes before the wakeup time, relying on your body to pick it up and wake up
more naturally.

------
sundvor
Sure, no big deal.

Adjacent HN article
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079)
. `Health dangers of sleep deprivation: "If you're not sleeping enough, "you
will be both dead sooner, and the quality of your (now shorter) life will be
significantly worse"`.

~~~
paublyrne
What I understood the authors point to be was not that missing sleep is no big
deal, but that focussing on it being a big deal amplifies the insomnia itself,
while being relaxed about the need for sleep allows you to sleep more easily.

~~~
sundvor
Yep fully got that. Big catch 22 though, as you're only likely to read said
article if suffering from bad sleep.

(And: My thoughts were more like, if you don't read HN, then that's whole lot
easier.)

~~~
xab9
The mind is a bitch.

------
keithnz
funny how in the top stories in HN at the moment there is another article
about the dangers of not getting enough sleep.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079)

though maybe don't read it if you want to try this one.

~~~
ItsMe000001
The article here is not about that less sleep is okay, but that worrying about
it is counterproductive because it keeps you awake even longer.

I thought the headline alone already pretty much shows the core of the
argument. It does not say "It's not a big deal", but " _Tell yourself_ it’s
not a big deal". It's about your mental state, not about the sleep duration.

~~~
keithnz
my point is, it's hard to relax and not worry about it when you read another
article that says, you are gonna die early :)

~~~
ItsMe000001
How I solved it:

Work from home and get up whenever you want. Whenever I had an episode of
wakefulness, usually between around 2 and 4 am, I would get up, watch a video,
and get back to sleep, (perfect external aluminum) blinds fully closed, and
sleep until 10 or 11 am. So I would _always_ get a a full amount of sleep.

I recovered from (long-term very low-dose) chronic heavy metal poisoning
(treated with chelators) for years, turned out that was the source of my
occasional sleep issues. During the long excretion phase (years) the problems
got pretty bad, so I got to test what the best methods are pretty thoroughly.

That means you have to find a way to have no time pressure before noon and be
able to use that time for sleep. Then worrying stops. I found that
interruptions, while inconvenient, don't matter, your brain gets used to it
and adjusts. What matters is that you get the full amount of 7-8 hours. How do
I know? The last hour of sleep is _different_ \- if you get that last hour or
not makes a big difference. It was all a lot more intense for me for a few
years so I could get a good look at sleep phases. The worst one is the initial
1-3 hours, and the worst time is ~3 am. When you have issues such as my heavy
metal problem that's the nightmare "I have cancer I'm going to die" hour
(anxiety/panic attack, no factual basis). Somebody else asked about just this
here, I don't want to tell them I suspect they may have a problem similar to
what I had... base on my experience that is a sign that something is not
right, chemically, in the brain.

------
prmths
One of the top stories on HN right now.

"Health dangers of sleep deprivation"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079)

And then we have this. Do journalists get together to troll their readers with
clickbait?

~~~
monktastic1
I don't see any trolling. This article makes clear that there are health
dangers, but why it's important not to worry about them.

------
FrozenVoid
Its a big deal. Sleep deprived people make mistakes and cause more accidents
than normal. There is a minimum need to sleep and the body will try to take a
nap, microsleep or just give up(blackout)...and some people consider it okay.

~~~
ledriveby
Read the fine article please.

~~~
FrozenVoid
Read this fine article and stop blindly downvoting facts.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954079)

~~~
pdpi
> stop blindly downvoting facts.

The point is that those facts are irrelevant, in much the same way that it's
irrelevant to bring up that tomatoes are botanically a fruit when discussing
fruit salad.

Nowhere does the article say sleep deprivation isn't bad for you in myriad
ways. Rather, it's making the point that, for people who are sleep deprived
due to insomnia, stressing out about your lack of sleep compounds the problem,
by making it even harder to fall asleep. So one way to solve insomnia-related
sleep deprivation is precisely to not make a big deal of it, and remove the
anxiety component.

~~~
FrozenVoid
``So one way to solve X is precisely to not make a big deal of it, and remove
the anxiety component.`` Weight gain? Cancer? School shootings? Climate
Change? Air Pollution? Worrying all about that bad stuff is counter-productive
and causes stress which makes it worse... With this genius method they all can
be solved by removing the 'anxiety component'(also known as reality),
therefore making the problem go away..eventually, you just need to stop caring
about the problem!

~~~
pdpi
Anxiety is an actual mental health issue that heavily influences sleep
patterns. It also influences eating habits (emotional eating is a well-
understood maladaptive coping mechanism) so the same argument can actually (in
some, but not all, cases) apply to weight gain, yes.

Climate change? Air pollution? If you don't see how these are completely
different problems that are completely unrelated to your mental well-being, I
don't know what to say...

~~~
FrozenVoid
Weigh gain? Worrying about Weigh gain creates stress Climate change? Worrying
about climate creates stress Air pollution? Worrying about air pollution
creates stress

~~~
pdpi
What?

Of course, worrying about _anything_ creates stress. But that's as far as it
goes: Worrying about air pollution creates stress, but stress doesn't create
more air pollution. Worrying about climate change doesn't make climate change
worse.

The problem is closing the loop — worrying about sleeplessness produces
stress, which then goes on to make the sleep disorder even worse. Same with
weight loss and emotional eating.

~~~
FrozenVoid
The "anxiety removal" leads to not caring about the problem. Its not closing
the loop. Its allowing the existing problem to escalate. >Worrying about
climate change doesn't make climate change worse. If your quality of life is
affected by climate change, worrying about it will reduce it further.

~~~
jm__87
Or you can just schedule time to worry about things and have other time where
you don't worry about things... it takes a bit of discipline, but if you worry
about everything 24/7 you're going to be very unhealthy.

