
How Sharing a Bed Changed My Sleep - sdurx
http://www.thedurkweb.com/how-sharing-a-bed-with-my-girlfriend-changed-my-sleep/
======
codingdave
Welcome to the little-discussed world of adult sleeping arrangements, where
many couples secretly don't sleep next to each other. We don't talk about it
much because those who do sleep next to each other think that our
relationships must be horribly broken, and we don't feel the need to justify
our choices, or get into details of the logistics of our intimate lives. But
talked about or not, it is true -- many more couples than you might think
choose sleep separately for exactly the reasons shown by this data. A good
night's sleep is more important in the long run than physical proximity to
your partner.

~~~
ci5er
What about a king size bed? With dual twin size coverings? I'm not judging -
but sleeping in the other room or on the other bed seems to defeat the point
of being together, no?

I was married for a long while - and I miss it. That said - she only weighed
95 pounds, so maybe not having to deal with king-kong in my bed helped.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _sleeping in the other room or on the other bed seems to defeat the point of
> being together, no?_

I think that sleeping together (in the literal, dictionary sense) is the least
together-thing you're doing as a couple, because you're literally not even
aware of the time.

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ci5er
Maybe so. But, for me, subliminally - it feels when I wake up that there is a
felt difference from having spent the night alone or not. But, again, maybe
that's just me.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I think it's a personal thing. I feel better after having slept all night
alone - because we're not kicking each other in our sleep all night.

~~~
ci5er
Makes sense. I (we) had that when we first moved to the US, and were not
spending the night in adjacent futons. We got a bigger bed - and it helped.
But I can see how that would work or not depending on...

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brewdad
My wife and I came to the realization that the Europeans are onto something
with the twin size duvets on full size beds after visiting last summer.
Fortunately, neither of us snores much but she prefers to sleep with far less
covers than I do. What used to be a constant battle of covers being tossed
aside only to fail at reclaiming them later in the night now allows each of us
to determine our own sleep temperature much more easily and with far less
disruption to the other.

~~~
saghm
OT, but I'm now super conflicted about whether the correct quantifier for
covers is "less" or "fewer". I think I agree with you that "less" is more
correct, but my inner pedantry can't shake the feeling that it sounds weird.

~~~
anigbrowl
Fewer countable things, less stuff.

~~~
saghm
Right, I think that the word "covers" just feels like a typical plural noun
even though it isn't.

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RandomInteger4
I'm 31 and I've never had a partner, but every time I've had sex, the
experience of sleep (or lack thereof) that follows fills me with dread
concerning what life will be like in a relationship.

~~~
orthoganol
Same age, everyone is different, but my experience is at least in your 20s
when you're getting your first tastes of cohabitating relationships:

1) Starting cohabitating relationship: First a transition period where you
lose sleep, but then you sleep like a baby, you don't stay up late thinking or
worrying about x,y,z. The downside is you find yourself in a stagnating ball
of comfort and end up challenging yourself a lot less because you're just too
comfortable. (I look back at how lame I became in some of my cohabitating
relationships, and could say the same for others I know, but would not to
their face.)

b) Leaving cohabitating relationship: You sleep like a baby at first (nice
surface feeling of independence), maybe for a couple months even, but then you
grow anxious and feel negative effects of dependency withdrawal, and then end
up losing a lot more sleep staying up late thinking or working. That can last
a while, until you find another cohabitating relationship or find a deep
rooted sense of independence again.

Again, likely different when you're older, but I think that's the general
trajectory of being in cohabitating relationships in your younger years.

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Jedd
Towards the top of my 'advice to the young' list, is to obtain a king-sized
bed as soon as possible after leaving home. (In AU these are around
2030x1900mm - though there are regional variances with the same appellation).

Partly so you don't end up with a collection of incompatible sheeting as you
slowly trade up bed sizes for the first few years of living away from home,
but also because it makes it more likely that your sleep (arriving, leaving,
and the bit in the between) patterns are much less likely to disrupt your
partner.

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tvelichkov
Lol, you have no idea whats coming for you when you have a baby.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
In terms of sleep disruption, yes. But not necessarily in terms of disruption
in your bed. Even though it's all the rage, you don't _have_ to co-sleep. We
didn't, and our daughter slept through the night once she was 5 months and has
always been an amazing sleeper (12 hours per night like clockwork).

~~~
le-mark
Those of us who's children didn't sleep until 2+ really really hate you and
people like you.

~~~
stevekemp
I've got a friend with a four year old who wakes up every 45-60 minutes.
Nightmare.

Happily our 5-month-old only wakes up a couple of times in the night, and has
always been a good sleeper. I'm hoping that once he starts eating more solid
foods he'll be able to sleep through the night in the next month or two, but
even if he doesn't I'm still very definitely counting our blessings!

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TillE
Pretty cool to have data on this. My more recent long-term relationships have
involved actually sleeping in separate beds 99% of the time, which I'm quite
happy with.

Maybe it works for some couples, but it seems like a tradition borne of
history and culture and limited living space. Much prefer having my own room.

~~~
fiatjaf
So in the past when there were less people per square miles on Earth there was
less space and people had to share beds?

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brewdad
Homes have gotten much larger as humans have become more wealthy on average.
Compare the 1500 sq ft 1950s suburban home to today's 3000+ sq ft McMansions.

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eeZah7Ux
That really depends on the country. Many farmer houses (in warm areas) in
Europe are much bigger that the average city house.

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neom
I used to think it was weird that if I fell asleep without my girlfriend in
the bed I saw a correlation to the number of times I woke up / quality of my
sleep. We broke up two weeks ago and sleeping has certainly been the most
difficult adjustment. Also why Quantum Biology is interesting as it paints a
subconscious non-sensory human connection. :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADiql3FG5is&t=388s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADiql3FG5is&t=388s)
/
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8weQFmQYxL8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8weQFmQYxL8)

Working article link:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yrb4OPB...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yrb4OPBiGxoJ:www.thedurkweb.com/how-
sharing-a-bed-with-my-girlfriend-changed-my-sleep/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

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majewsky
Looks like hug of death:

> Error establishing a database connection

Does someone have an archive link? (Or an explanation why rendering this
article requires a database connection, for that matter.)

~~~
fiatjaf
Because it is using Wordpress or some other useless PHP-based CMS.

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sdfhbdf
They're not useless when you don't have time to program your own CMS.
Wordpress is good for blogs. It takes no time to set up, is crazy customizable
and widely supported. Writing your own solution in whatever nodejs-react
wonderland would take much more time than is necessary.

A good alternative would be to use github pages.

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88e282102ae2e5b
These differences appear quite small. It would really benefit from just having
error bars, or any kind of significance test.

~~~
noobermin
Honest question, most of the plots I see on r/dataisbeautiful or other pop
data science sources would get me heckled at a group meeting. Does this mean
a) my group is exceptionally harshly pushing for clarity and precision and
life will be "easier" in the real world or does it mean a good chunk of
statisticians in the field do poor work?

~~~
kortex
I think a good chunk of the OC on /r/dataisbeautiful is not done by
statisticians. Honestly at this point in the game, a tiny part of me gets
annoyed any time I see ANY data without some indicator of variance.

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dankohn1
Anyone recall that back in 2011, the default setting for your Fitbit data was
public _and_ it was set to be indexed by Google, leading to some rather
embarrassing search results.

[https://techcrunch.com/2011/07/03/sexual-activity-tracked-
by...](https://techcrunch.com/2011/07/03/sexual-activity-tracked-by-fitbit-
shows-up-in-google-search-results/)

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codemogul
Extra points: Provide a graph showing correlation (or inverse) sexytimes vs
Bedtime(apart) and Bedtime(together) LOL

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sdurx
Have been explicitly forbidden ;(

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caseysoftware
I honestly LOL'd at this, especially trying to imagine the discussion:

 _" But honey, it's for science! Don't you want to make the world a better
place!?"_

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seshagiric
The title takes the cake for click bait :)

I think the interesting part is as the relationship matures, there is no
emotional pull down in not sleeping close to each other and couple happily
sleep a little far but on the same bed.

~~~
dang
We took Show HN out of the title because the article is more of a blog post
than a thing people can try.

We also took out "with my girlfriend", a form of bait in its own right, since
the substance of the title remains the same without it.

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markyc
Earplugs have been a game changer for me in this department. As an extremely
light sleeper I've been struggling all my life with other people snoring or
even semi-loud breathing.

After I started using earplugs I'm now sleeping through the night even better
than when I slept by myself. I feel like when I wear them I'm in an isolation
chamber :)

The trick was finding earplugs that don't hurt after wearing them for 8 hours,
but after having tried a few I landed on some acceptable ones (I can still
feel them but they're not uncomfortable if inserted properly)

~~~
oski
Which kind of earplugs did you settle on?

~~~
markyc
[https://www.amazon.com/Quies-Pair-Foam-Earplugs-
Pack/dp/B009...](https://www.amazon.com/Quies-Pair-Foam-Earplugs-
Pack/dp/B009FAJVEW)

There are probably better ones out there but these work fine for me. I also
like that they don't cover the louder noises (I also hear the alarm clock),
but if you're dealing with a heavy snorer they might not do the trick

PS: with these the trick is in how you insert them in the year: not too little
(they'll slip off during sleep) and not too much (your ears will hurt in the
morning). As per their instructions, you roll them between your fingers a
little and then pull on your ear lobe before gently inserting them

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SeoxyS
Mostly it's just a matter of getting used to it… when I first moved in with a
long-term girlfriend, I didn't sleep well sharing the bed. But I quickly got
used to it and it became a non-issue within months. years later, we broke up
and I went back to sleeping alone… These days I frequently share a bed with
various people and it's a non-issue; I sleep perfectly regardless of anyone
else being in the bed.

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r3bl
I'm interested. You've mentioned when you got the Fitbit, but haven't
mentioned how long have you been sleeping together. Considering that you have
recorded ~13 months in total, is the amount of data you have approximately the
same or is the amount of data tilted on one of the sides in any way?

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anigbrowl
If she sees this your problem may well fix itself :)

I do agree about the merits of a large bed though. With a wife and two huge
dogs things get a little crowded but since I've been an insomniac since
childhood this is merely a new version of an old problem.

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inopinatus
I have a different experience, viz. that sharing a bed reduces the jitter in
my sleeping patterns, with long-term benefits perceived in cognition, mood,
and self-care. It'd be interesting to make a proper data analysis.

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_nalply
It's a problem of upbringing. If you as a child learnt to sleep alone early
you will have a problem sharing a bed. Case in point: My Asian wife sleeps
happily with our children all over her. It's amazing.

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Camillo
When you stay up late, does your girlfriend also stay up? If it were me, I
would stay up after she went asleep just so I could get some alone time. Maybe
it's the same for you.

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sowbug
Or the FitBit is confused by the second person, counting both person's
movements as the wearer's movements.

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timwaagh
glad you are getting laid man. but this is like such a non issue.

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shaunrussell
Site down.

Advice: set up cloudflare for caching / cdn, it is free.

~~~
bbcbasic
Not bad advice, if is good enough for HN...

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fiatjaf
"Error establishing a database connection"

Oh, PHP and MySQL.

~~~
Viper007Bond
What's PHP have to do with an overloaded database server?

