

Sleep Hacks: The Geek's Guide to Optimizing Sleep - mathgladiator
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3932344/40-Sleep-Hacks-The-Geeks-Guide-to-Optimizing-Sleep

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miri
The sleep bits are (probably - don't know very much about the topic) ok, but
once it gets to diet, it goes right into la-la-land. It is riddled with
misinformation and the belief that a "raw food diet" fixes all. A raw food
diet might make you lose weight, and it might get you food poisoning, but
that's about it. For more information, I recommend C0nc0rdance's youtube
videos on raw food.

For other clearly wrong, or wrongly interpreted information: While 70% of the
population is lactose intolerant, that doesn't mean _you_ are. We do know that
about 99% of the Chinese population is lactose intolerant (which proooobably
skews the numbers a bit), yet, for example, only about 1% of Dutch people are
lactose intolerant. Northern Europeans and other people from historically very
dairy-rich cultures have a very high degree of lactose tolerance, and
persistent lactase production (the enzyme that digests lactose and makes you
lactose tolerant). Very interesting genetics topic :) Statistics will not say
anything useful about whether you are likely to be lactose intolerant, but
ethnicity will. Get tested if you are in doubt. It's a simple test. Just make
sure you go to a qualified medical practitioner.

As for gluten insensitivity, this is called coeliac disease and is very
serious. Thankfully, the highest estimate for prevalence is about 1%, not 15%.
The anti-gluten brigade has been on it for years, but non-coeliac people can
and should eat gluten. It's a good protein of high quality and makes your
bread dough stick together. That's why it's hell trying to bake gluten-free
bread or pizza dough.

Casein, a milk protein, is also not a bad protein. While there are many scare
stories about casein (it being blamed for autism, cancer, et cetera), they
don't hold up very well. Casein is a nice, slow-digesting protein with a very
good quality, as any body builder who does the diet/protein thing will be able
to tell you. Drink your milk if you can tolerate it, and eat more cheese :)

As for multiple sclerosis, we actually _don't know_ what causes it other than
that there likely is a genetic component, but that other factors also
interfere. For the actual, REAL long term effects of coeliac disease, see
here:
[http://celiacdisease.about.com/od/symptomsofceliacdisease/a/...](http://celiacdisease.about.com/od/symptomsofceliacdisease/a/complications.htm)

As for cortisol, your body regulates this itself. If you're stressed, stress
down. But if your body doesn't regulate itself, you have a huge problem and
need to see a doctor right away.

While "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" is very good advice, there's
also another piece of advice that has been forgotten: "You are probably not
sick, and your body can take care if it." Just eat a normal, healthy diet.

Man. That was long. Sorry about that, but I had to get some facts out.

~~~
DanielStraight
In the U.S. at least, a normal, healthy diet is something of a contradiction.
Michael Pollan wouldn't need to promote "eat food, not too much, mostly
plants" if people were doing it already. I agree with you completely on your
other points, but telling some people to eat a "normal" diet will be
interpreted as, "eat out of fast food restaurants and freezer cases," because
for many in the U.S., that _is_ a normal diet.

~~~
miri
Oh, a "normal" diet varies a lot depending where you are. Myself, I'm in
Norway, and the diet here is fairly healthy if somewhat short on vegetables
(especially during the winter). I'm sure most other "normal" diets in the
world are quite ok, as well. Might need some added vegetables, depending on
where you are (the Dutch probably don't need any extra), but mostly, people
who are able to afford normal amounts of food will eat better than one would
expect given the media hype. They might want to cut down on the _amounts_ ,
and cut out the sugary drinks, but I think that's it.

~~~
infinite8s
Is kale available in Norway? According to most sources (for example, this
simple comparison chart: www.wholefoodsmarket.com/pdfs/superfoods.pdf), kale
is a super food, and in the US at least, grows well during the winter months.

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fauigerzigerk
It would be interesting to read but I have to say it's just too infuriating
what that Scribd crap does to the web. They ruin a perfectly good way of
displaying documents just so they can "solve" the problem they created
themselves.

That's just ridiculous and I will never ever again click on or upvote anything
that has a scribd URL. Scribd truely shows the ugliest face of the ad funded
web. It's innovation turned on its head. Ruin something just to extract some
money from "fixing" it in a horrible way. It's pathetic and it's an
intellectual disgrace.

~~~
prodigal_erik
The trouble with Scribd is it tries to legitimize PDF for browsing. We'd be
better served by a tool that rescues the text and images from the boneheaded
universal print-derived layout that assumes a very high resolution portrait
display and pointlessly huge margins. Google has a lot of trouble with this,
but bless them for trying.

~~~
jules
I find PDFs a pleasure to read. They are better typeset, the lines aren't
ridiculously long, the fonts look beautiful and the pages give me a feel of
how much I've read.

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dansingerman
While on the face of it it may qualify as a 'Geek's guide', there seems to be
a fair amount of woo.

"It is estimated that 70% of the population is lactose intolerant (dairy). 33%
have yeast sensitivity. 15% have gluten sensitivity (wheat). And 35% have
fructose or sugar sensitivity."

Really? Any references to back that up?

"Some raw-foodists say they need less sleep on a raw food diet compared to a
cooked food diet."

Again no evidence, or references. And they would say that wouldn't they?

One source he does link to (on the page the above quote comes from) is Stanley
Bass, a proponent of Natural Hygiene, and Orthopathy - very much in the realms
of alternative medicine (if you look at the website linked to -
<http://www.drbass.com/>, it is obvious quackery,and an assault on the eyes).

~~~
icegreentea
At least for the lactose intolerance, it completely depends on the population.
It's fairly well known (and studied) that Asian populations have much much
higher rates of lactose intolerance (thus the love of soy milk). The wiki
article on lactose intolerance puts 75% of the global adult population at some
degree of lactose intolerance.

Of course, if the majority of the people you know are white (European), then
of course 70% looks fudged.

It's likely the same for many of the other stats, though I can't say.

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Ernestas
Nothing worked until I started exercising. Quality of sleep greatly improved.

~~~
rtra
I tried running, but it didn't help at all. the only thing that has worked, so
far, has been a strict meal/sleep schedule and melatonin.

~~~
achompas
Have you tried lifting weights? That could be the physical exertion you need.

~~~
jules
Running is _way_ more exhausting than weight lifting. If you're not exhausted,
run faster and longer. You can't do the same with weight lifting. You can get
your arms tired, but your arms will give up long before you run out of energy.

~~~
kareemm
If you're lifting weights with your arms, you're probably doing it wrong.

Try the olympics lifts: power cleans and snatches and squat cleans and
snatches. Or their components: deadlifts, front squats, presses. Or back
squats and thrusters. Do a bunch of those in rapid succession and your whole
body will be much more tired than doing a 5k run, guaranteed.

~~~
jules
This is not my experience. After a couple you won't be able to lift anymore,
but you won't really be exhausted either. At least I can't lift any more just
because my muscles fail. I don't regularly lift weights though, so perhaps if
you're more experienced you can. That said, you don't need experience to get
exhausted running (but the tendency of many people is to stop long before that
point).

~~~
achompas
You're probably lifting too much weight, or leaving the gym too early. I know
this isn't helpful, but you should be exhausted once you leave the gym.

~~~
jules
How much weight should you lift? How long should you spend in the gym?

~~~
achompas
It's more complicated than a simple formula. If we're talking about olympic
lifts (squats, deadlifts, clean & press), start with the bar and increase 5
lbs every day until you start hitting a limit.

Check out Mark Rippetoe's "Starting Strength" [1] for more info. Great program
for anyone new to weightlifting.

[1] <http://startingstrength.com/>

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rednum
I haven't read the whole guide yet but on page 8 it mentions polyphasic sleep
(with annotation that majority of people who try it fail). Isn't polyphasic
considered a popular hoax? As far as I remember, mentioned in the presentation
dr Wozniak actually believes it simply doesn't work. Also, I've read a few
blogs of people who tried it and failed (some of them appeared on HN) and
don't recall a single person that succeeded. Taking that into consideration it
makes me feel sceptical towards this guide. Sure - some sleep patterns work
for certain people and don't for other, but why include something that seems
to work for noone?

~~~
cqm
I was polyphasic for about six months a number of years ago. My schedule was a
fairly standard 6x20 minute naps (commonly called the Uberman schedule). After
the initial (very, very difficult) adaptation period, I felt great nearly all
of the time. I would get tired right before a nap, but by the end I didn't
need an alarm to wake up after 20 minutes, and naps left me feeling completely
refreshed and alert. I was in graduate school at the time, so my schedule was
pretty flexible, and I had a mixture of cognitively demanding work (my
research: a project in geophysical fluid dynamics) and less mentally demanding
work (grading, family and home responsibilities). Again, after the adaptation
period, I wasn't particularly cognitively impaired.

There is a lot of misinformation out on the web about polyphasic sleep, both
by its proponents as well as its detractors. Some of the things that have been
written (polyphasic sleepers only get REM, for example) are just false. One
problem is that there isn't a very large body of peer reviewed literature on
the subject; the canonical reference is a volume of conference proceedings
from 1991 which can be hard to lay hands on. The fact that (a) adaptation
takes a long time (on the order of weeks) and (b) the polyphasic schedule is
incompatible with the way most people live their lives has made researching it
difficult.

I'm currently involved in a polyphasic sleep experiment organized by the folks
at Zeo. They asked for some volunteers to use their hardware to monitor our
sleep as we either adapt to a polyphasic schedule or (for those already
adapted) function on one. We're not following any kind of rigorous
experimental protocol, so this isn't going to be publishable research, but it
will at least provide us with some measured anecdotes.

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DrStalker
One tip I don't see there is using supplments to aid sleep; I started taking
zinc just before bedtime and found it helps me get to sleep better and feel
more refreshed in the morning.

I take it as "ZMA", which is a blend of zinc/magnesium/vitamin B designed to
help rest & recovery from physical activity, but the same sleep benefit comes
from regular zinc tablets from the chemist.

~~~
ubuntuftw
+1 for this. It worked for me. Although (and there may have been other reasons
for this), the effect fleeted with time.

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cskau
Does anyone have a download link to this?

I would greatly prefer to read this on my Nook instead, but it seems you can't
download from Scribd without a subscription..

Thanks

~~~
dimm
[http://download.cnet.com/40-Sleep-Hacks-Geek-s-Guide-to-
Opti...](http://download.cnet.com/40-Sleep-Hacks-Geek-s-Guide-to-Optimizing-
Sleep/3000-2129_4-10864038.html)

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nevinera
Shorter answer: Eat fewer calories.

I have been having sleep problems for a decade, but any time I run a calorie
deficit I sleep like a baby.

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jcro41
Wanted to correct a mistake I noticed: Seth Roberts (as far as I know) has
never documented trying a raw, whole foods diet. If you search his blog,
you'll see that he has been tracking other things to see how they effect his
sleep. Eating animal fat, standing on one leg, and sunlight are all examples.

[http://www.google.com/search?q=site:blog.sethroberts.net+sle...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site:blog.sethroberts.net+sleep)

edit: Maybe he's referring to this post?
[http://www.blog.sethroberts.net/2008/06/09/less-carbs-
better...](http://www.blog.sethroberts.net/2008/06/09/less-carbs-better-
sleep/)

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semerda
Problem today is we spend a lot of time in front of back lit devices like
smart phones, laptops/pcs & tv's before bed time. Therefore our melatonin
levels stay low. I've been supplementing with melatonin tables to help with
sleep before bed and I get an awesome night sleep.

Also things already covered like regular exercise (w/ weights), sleeping in a
pitch dark room and consistent sleep & wake time work wonders.

I blogged about some of this last year here:
[http://blog.ernestsemerda.com/2009/09/24/sleep-less-and-
have...](http://blog.ernestsemerda.com/2009/09/24/sleep-less-and-have-more-
energy/)

Enjoy. ~ Ernest

~~~
moeffju
What helped me was f.lux
<[http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/>](http://www.stereopsis.com/flux/>), a tool
that adjusts the color temperature of your screens during the day, following
the natural daylight pattern. It's available for Windows, OS X and Linux, and
it's free, so I recommend trying it out.

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knodi
About a year ago I had lucid dreams on regular bases and they where amazing I
have been trying to recreate the same experience again to no avail. All of a
sudden my lucid dreams stopped about a year ago and not knowing that they
where called I couldn't research them but now after reading this short ebook I
finally know what they where and how I can induce them more consistently.

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lupatus
I have an infant son and only sleep 1 - 4 hour stretches at a time. I feel
like I am getting a higher quality sleep than I have in years. Also, when you
have a reason that you cannot ignore (crying baby), it is much easier to leap
out of bed and start doing things.

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gsivil
I really need that :).

Too tired to read and apply them now, too insomniac to sleep.

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bendtheblock
Has anyone tried the suggested 28 hour day (hack 3)? Does it work? What are
the advantages/disadvantages?

