
How to Naturally Reset Your Sleep Cycle In One Night - jmonegro
http://www.wisebread.com/how-to-naturally-reset-your-sleep-cycle-overnight
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codyrobbins
For everyone that's intent on doing this, I've tried it before and it didn't
work. I fly quite often between Honolulu and the East Coast to see family, and
there's a six hour time difference. The jetlag is pretty terrible. Someone
told me about this research and I tried it out very excited to finally have a
way to avoid the jetlag, but it absolutely didn't work — at least, for me.
Furthermore, not eating for 16 hours is not very enjoyable — arguably, it was
less enjoyable than a couple days of jetlag.

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billswift
I am planning to change my sleeping schedule tonight as it happens. I have
just enough time to try this and see if it helps. I have changed my schedule
before, so I will have past experience to compare it to. I will reply to
myself tomorrow morning to let you know if it seems to help or not.

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_pi
Be careful about this, I have personally had _a_ (as in one) horrid
experience, YMMV. (I've done this 3 times, and yes it works however I fasted
for a full 16-17 hours.)

Back story: I irresponsibly slept for 2-3 weeks. Racking up a sleep debt of
sometimes 4 hours per night. So by the time that I decided to reset my
schedule I was about 24 hours+ in sleep debt. Needless to say I used this
exact method, I didn't eat for 16 hours before, and I had to get up a 7 so I
stopped eating around 3PM. This was a bad idea, I didn't have a very filling
lunch, and after a while if you've done this before you note that not eating
makes you very very very sleepy. I left work around 5:15. I fell asleep around
5:30, unfortunately I was still driving at the time. The car veered into the
oncomming lane (it was empty) and went up the curb, on which was a small hill.
I was still asleep when this happened, and then the car went up so far it
couldn't sustain, and it flipped back into my lane (this happened at 40-50
MPH). Needless to say I awoke scared shitless as I was plummeting towards the
ground and my airbags were deploying.

I escaped the accident with just some cuts on my hand from the shattered glass
from the side windows. My car was totaled. The officer who came on site gave
me a 200$ ticket. My father took me to the hospital, where I was given a CAT
scan and everything checked out fine. However I had no way of getting to work.
The car wasn't worth much it was an 11 year old Ford Escort Coup. Blue book
value was around $4,000. The moral of the story is, be thankful for what you
have, sleep responsibly and take care of yourself.

The accident was last Monday.

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jrockway
Another argument in favor of public transportation.

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patio11
Trust the Japanese salaryman on this: public transportation is not a panacea
for avoiding accidents caused by drowsiness. You have to be able to get to the
train station and from the train station to your house, all without killing
yourself.

I have become a frequent face at a local hotel because I was so tired I did
not trust myself to do that. (The project at issue is mostly done. Thank God.)

(Quick sidenote: Five minutes before checking into the hotel to avoid killing
myself walking down the street, I was being paid time-and-a-half because my
workplace apparently thought that my presence was adding value. Some of you
people reading this will eventually be engineering managers. If you ever are,
prior to ordering Heroic Efforts (TM), please consider whether you really want
me working on a production system in that state.)

~~~
_pi
I'd argue it's much easier to fall asleep sitting rather than walking.

~~~
HalcyonMuse
For sufficiently high values of drowsiness, the difference can become
negligible.

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sonofjanoh
If I have a full meal I barely can stay awake. I know that the body switches
into a different mode to process the meal and extract the proteins etc and for
this it drains me of other energy like focusing. It is interesting how my
productivity increases with hunger. That's why lions sleep 20 hours a day.
After a massive meal they can barely do anything but digest. So I think
mammals' first thing of the day is to go out and find food. Once food found
and eaten there's no point to stay awake. I really think that a meal concludes
the day not starts it in the animal world. Although providing the body with
just enough to keep it fueled and in a way that it won't have to put you to
sleep to extract the proteins we can make ourselves do more and take hunger &
sleeping off our minds during the day.

To stay fresh just don't starve or over-eat yourselves. It works for me.

~~~
TrevorJ
It can also depend on _what_ you eat from what I hear. Some foods can wreak
more havoc on blood sugar levels than others.

~~~
sonofjanoh
True. Some types of food will take a lot of work from the digestive system to
be broken down before the body can use them as a source of energy. That's why
you put highly refined petrol into a car and not raw oil. It's choosing a
musli bar over a burger...well almost.

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speek
Actually... a burger (without the bun, ideally with lots of veggies) will
trigger a much less jagged insulin response than a musli bar will.

Fats and proteins tend to raise the blood sugar in a much more sustainable
fashion... thus allowing the eater to not feel sleepy after a meal.

~~~
HalcyonMuse
"A more sustainable fashion" relative to what? Carbohydrates, I'm guessing?

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jacquesm
I've flown back and forth Between Toronto and Amsterdam on a two week schedule
for over two years. My take away lesson is this:

The body can adapt fairly easily to a longer day but it hates shortening days
(and that's my body, so YMMV).

My trick to deal with jet-lag was very simple. Extend your day. Make sure you
have plenty of low energy things to do but stay awake on the day that you
travel.

Going 'west' makes your day 6 hours longer, going 'east' then makes your day
18 hours longer. 18 is pushing it a bit so I usually would go to bed around 10
in the evening and sleep for 9 hours instead of going to bed at 12 and
sleeping for 7.

This simple trick seemed to work for me and I never suffered from jet lag
after I started doing it, before it was absolute hell. It would take me
roughly until the time that I was ready to leave again to acclimatize.

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alexgartrell
Why do I read Hacker News?

Because the week I'm to fly from California to Ohio, an article about hacking
jet lag is on the front page.

Awesome

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PhillipJFry
I dunno if fasting for 12+ hours is worth it for a three hour time difference!

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Evgeny
Fasting is considered to have some health benefits by many, so maybe you can
kill two birds with one stone here. Though I guess 12 hour fasting would be
too short to benefit.

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KClough
Melatonin is natural and works wonders, and you can eat!

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin>

~~~
indiejade
The nice thing about melatonin is that it's not addictive. About three days,
and the body finds its pattern. As the article mentioned, fasting during the
correct times would work but that + a low dosage of melatonin 30 minutes
before the desired bedtime would probably work even better.

~~~
HalcyonMuse
Something important to note is that melatonin is not going to force you to
sleep. You're not going to fall asleep staring at a computer screen if you
take a dose of melatonin. It will make you sufficiently tired to sleep if you
lie down and close your eyes for a bit, but it's not going to overcome the
awareness-brainhack that is staring at bright light.

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figital
I accidentally noticed this a few years ago and have been waking up refreshed
ever since (prior to this I was consistently groggy in the morning my whole
life). I attempt to eat a large breakfast, a normal sized lunch, and then a
light healthy snack in the evening if I must. Probably not for everyone but
it's worked for me.

~~~
TrevorJ
Ah, interesting. So for you, the fact that you where eating large dinners and
not much of a breakfast was throwing your sleep out of whack before?

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figital
Not really, just the fact that I was eating later in the day. The hunch is
that the energy being used to digest food while sleeping is now being used to
re-energize my brain. I rarely need an alarm clock anymore.

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greengirl512
Nice...I've been trying to wake up earlier and get on the same sleep schedule
as hubby (I'm a night owl, he's a morning person, constant source of
relationship tension). Maybe this will work...although since I don't work well
when I'm famished, I'll have to wait until I have a free day to try it.

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Radix
I never eat a breakfast. I usually eat my first meal after 12 closer to 2. I
am now convinced I need to set up an easy breakfast the night before. Cause
this night owl stuff just isn't working anymore.

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jonny_noog
Sounds familiar. I am naturally something of a night owl. I used to really
dislike eating breakfast. I just didn't feel hungry in the morning and it
seemed like too much hassle to prepare something. But now that I have actually
started to have breakfast as part of my morning routine (I really had to force
myself to begin with) I find that my energy levels during the morning are much
improved and so is my concentration.

I'd recommend you try something that you don't have to chew too much to begin
with. Like oat meal (lots of complex carbohydrates which is good for me
because I do weight training). I buy boxes of compressed bricks of oats that
come apart once soaked in milk for a while. two or three bricks in a bowl and
I usually add a little protein powder (weight training again) and maybe a
little extra sweetener (usually the protein powder is enough). Quick to eat
and I'm not really big on chewy/crunchy stuff right after I get up, too much
effort. :)

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dbz
Seeing as I'm on a plane every few years I'll defiantly try this out.

On a side note, did anyone else find this amusing?

 _Here's a quick summary of Saper's research findings:

"For a small mammal, finding food on a daily basis is a critical mission. Even
a few days of starvation, a common threat in natural environments, may result
in death," the study said._

I would never have guessed!

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jmonegro
Well, I just tried it. Didn't it since 4pm yesterday, and woke up at around
6:50 with the help of an alarm (which usually don't work).

I just had breakfast, and will not eat after 4pm today either, and see when I
fall asleep/wake up without an alarm this time.

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ALee
This was posted on HN before. I think another article cited that it was 10-16
hours beforehand.

The other 3 tips were to focus on exposure to sunlight, routinizing the whole
sleeping/waking process, and exercising during the day.

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rms
Or, just do it with a natural nutritional supplement available OTC in the USA.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin>

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ivanyv
Hey, that can come in handy! I want to get up a bit earlier without using an
alarm, so I hope it works!

~~~
_pi
In my experience you'll wake several times in the night in bursts of energy
(as a defense mechanism telling you to get food), they'll subside if you lay
there for about 10 minutes and you'll cruise right back to sleep just from
your body trying to conserve energy.

~~~
HalcyonMuse
Very handy to know! Thank you.

