I also can't sleep on my back but have no urge to change that.
I don’t have a flat face (yet?) though I can see how that could be annoying.
Apparently [1] sleeping on the side is better for your health, as well.
Then we got an overpriced mattress with the same material that NASA uses...
I'm an endless chaser of value. I hate to overpay for things. That mattress was $5k (king sized).
She sleeps on her back, and her sleep quality has measurably improved.
I had to learn to sleep on the side after smashing a vertibrae in a climbing accident, no other position offloads the spine as effectively.
(The other advice in the article is obviously also solid, but none of it, including changing caffeine habits, really ever seemed to do much for me. So I guess it will vary a lot from person to person.)
No, seriously: Since we have now a toddler running around who absolutely does not want to go to sleep when the adults are still running around has led US to much more healthy sleeping habbits
No, we haven't gone down that route ourselves. We did discuss it but decided against it. Partly because of how horrific it can be those first few nights, partly because we had friends who did it and had to redo it every time they hit a regression, and partly because of studies which suggest that the baby doesn't actually get more sleep, it just stops crying when it wakes up.
I have had conversations with friends when they complain about not enough sleep and one common theme is they use electronics in the bedroom before sleep.
When I share similar recommendations as this article about not using tv or phone in the bed and to leave the bedroom and meditate if you can’t sleep after 20min I get a lot of pushback.
The most common is that they can’t fall asleep without watching a show or movie on. This is right after they complained about not being able to sleep. The second one is around not wanting to change anything about their weed or alcohol use to improve their sleep.
I think a lot of it has to do with trying to avoid other anxieties which makes their sleep worse which increases anxiety in a cycle.
This is just anecdotal without much else to say other than in people in general seem pretty skeptical about sleep hygiene. And almost seem reluctant to experiment. But I’m a firm believer.
As someone who often has difficulty getting to sleep, I have tried every sleep hygiene thing I have seen suggested but none of it works for me, at least in terms of getting to sleep, and conversely I find actually find doing special things around sleep to be counterproductive since they make me more more stressed out about getting to sleep, so I have decided to simply not worry about them.
I do think they may be helpful for people who either don't really have issues getting to sleep but simply tend to get absorbed watching tv or something and go to sleep to late or who can get to sleep easily but have sleep quality issues, though.
Haven’t seen too many people suggest this: train yourself to wake up earlier. I wake up at 5. That’s not a hustle culture thing. Just the time when I can fit in my personal time, fitness, and a bit of free thinking before my kids wake up and the day starts.
I can barely keep my eyes open past 930.
I stuck steadfast to “sleep hygiene” for most of my life, including zero electronics and my sleep stayed as horrid as it’s been since I was a child. No caffeine/alcohol, bed only for sex and sleep, wind down periods, reading/not reading and the rest, all useless.
One day I came to a realisation that the only time I never had issues falling asleep was ironically normally when attempting to ever watch TV on the couch during the day. For whatever reason whenever I try to watch TV, it always just makes me drowsy I realised. Despite this, I refused traditionally to have one in my bedroom.
I decided to “experiment” and break my no electronics/TV in the room rule.
A TV is now my personal sleep aid. Brightness goes to zero, volume goes to barely audible levels, and I deliberately tune into it. I’m guaranteed passed out in less than 15 minutes everytime and a timer turns it off at 30 minutes.
Id almost describe it as life saving for me. Following damage to my spinal cord I was getting less sleep than ever due to now permanent pain and I’ve now largely developed a natural sleep pattern and I’ve been able to go off the strong drugs I was prescribed that whilst they knocked me out, always left me feeling shitty and groggy the next day.
I wish I had not been a such an extreme stickler for “I must keep endlessly repeating what’s recommended for sleep because obviously it must be accurate”, because for me, it wasn’t.
The damage a lifetime of poor sleep has done to me and now knowing I could have solved it by ignoring the generally recommended advice is…depressing.
Since doing this I’ve been able to turn huge chunks of my life around. It’s been nothing short of life changing.
That’s unfortunately a luxury many people can’t afford.
I’m literally sitting in my in—laws apartment in Poland right now. About 40sqm total, and for forty years they’ve slept on a fold—out—sofa bed.
A nice podcast or documentary will focus my thoughts on whatever I'm listening to and help me fall asleep easier.
Asking because I live with a relative who has a similar problem (needs a tv on to fall asleep) and that noise directly stops me from falling asleep in the next room much of the time.
It really sucks. :(
If it was bothering other people around me I'd listen with my airpods.
Interestingly, my parents who are in their 60s, have no problems getting to sleep early, and they both fall asleep together to TV all the time, mostly watching reruns of old shows like Columbo
How would a creator feel to find out most of their views are people falling asleep?
No, literally a lot of creators target this market now — for instance by making a mega mix of their existing content which runs for two to three hours. Or releasing a video „xxx hours of yyy to fall asleep to“
It’s the new ‚meta’, apparently a big part of the YouTube algorithm is watch time, and it doesn’t know if the viewers are awake or not. Even if those viewers aren’t being shown adverts, it means your other videos may get additional promotion. Plus if your viewers have YouTube premium I believe watch—time literally translates directly to payment rates.
I've done a stretch of 2 weeks to 2 months of being an early riser, but inevitably, like clockwork, the sleep schedule drifts back to me going to bed around 2 AM and waking up around 10AM.
And yes, I've tried everything.
It's certainly an imperfect compromise, but it works well enough.
1. https://www.nature.com/articles/npp2009230 2. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00125-015-3533-8 3. https://www.sjweh.fi/article/3299
Edit link: https://x.com/EMSKEPhyto/status/1774210043971305814
“Research shows that blue light suppresses the body’s production of melatonin, the sleep hormone. This can be helpful in the morning, when you want to wake up…”
I find this to be a much easier habit to maintain, at least during summer: as close as possible after waking up, get as much light as you can, and at a regular time if possible. Sun lamps are an expensive but effective option during darker months, but they generally aren’t covered by insurance.
The first I heard of this was when I spoke to a sleep doctor, and it has worked much better for me than melatonin ever did.
Not many books get read that way unfortunately, I used to read a lot before that.
These days I do wake up at weird hours though, not sure what to do when I wake 4AM.
I think an important part of it is that is made me stop worrying. Sleep will come to me eventually and meanwhile my body will continue working. Maybe my brain does not work optimally, but well enough.
Sleep is my friend.
(I was not anything like a navy seal but a commander of ~25 soldiers).
As I mentioned I was also a platoon leader so I guess I had som more freedom.
But some weeks we had to go on without much sleep. (And you are constantly freezing).
Another thing I learned involuntarily was being a timekeeper. There is always a clock counting towards the next event in my head.
The reason I think this is worth saying, is that sometimes, to break the vicious cycle of [stress -> sleep-deprivation -> more stress -> ...], you need to shift the focus to tackle the real life problem first, and don't beat yourself up for not being a good sleeper. Trying and failing to develop sleep hygiene can pile on the frustration and worsen the vicious cycle.
Doesn't always work, enough anxiety and you can't immerse yourself.
For the particular issue you described, one approach is to journal before bedtime. Write out what is worrying you about the project, its deadline, etc. Put on paper the thoughts that are swirling through your head. Once captured in that manner, they may leave your brain alone for a few hours. It also helps to be organized, so you can reassure yourself that you have a plan.
Then there is the dreaded 3 or 4 am wake up, where all the thoughts can come rushing back in, preventing sleep for the next hour or perhaps even for the rest of the night. I have found that body scan meditation is helpful at these times.
I am not always successful, and these methods won’t work for everyone. The key is, like I said before, experimenting to find methods that work, and practicing the ones that show promise.
This is the fundamental shift - accepting everything including meta. People tend to distance from themselves, as if they were two distinct parts, one broken and one debugging. But the debugging part is also broken.
I find journaling a bit like physical exercise: It feels like _work_ in the moment, but you never regret writing it after. And you feel a lot better - there's a therapeutic effect to it. There's studies on this.
And dumping it out by journaling is much better than letting bad thoughts swirl in your head, which leads to even more rumination.
It doesn't mean it's not worth doing, but it is an effort, yet another thing to add to the pile.
When I'm in another country on a surf holiday, especially in a country with a rich culture like Indonesia, I just forget everything going on back home, and just relax.
Completely broke when I started a job again and has been difficult ever after.
In the end I saw a sleep doctor and he prescribed a low-dose melatonin regimen (1mg in a sublingual suspension, I take it about an hour before bed) and it’s actually worked pretty amazingly. Per my sleep tracking I’m averaging more than an hour extra per night and spending a lot less time in bed trying to go to sleep.
I have "good" insurance in the States and I still had to pay $700 out of pocket for a sleep study and another $750 to rent a CPAP that my insurance company demanded nightly uploaded logs from.
6am is a whole new ball game. Not sure how I could deal with that.
It's the family bit that's hell, with a partner who lives on almost a perfect 06:00 - 22:00 schedule and can adjust that to waking earlier if needed, and now kids who also don't like to sleep past 07:00. I'm now stuck in a limbo of family forcing me to get up early, and all my body and mind and soul making me stay up late. A tug of war that's been going on for years now.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder
I have to set an alarm for bedtime, but I still struggle with being disciplined about it.
Direct your attention to sleep. Whenever you go to bed and notice yourself actively thinking about something just direct that attention back to sleep. Think about it, it's the attention that keeps you awake. Note that 'actively thinking' is different than mind-wandering which is passive and actually helps in falling asleep. This will be difficult initially but you will get better over time at controlling attention. This is because attention is like a muscle so you need to train over time.
I have been doing this for months and it works.
My strategy is to try to jumpstart the memory reconciliation process, which is kind of a passive way of directing my attention toward sleep. It basically just recounting the day from the beginning when I woke up and tracing back to the current moment. It does cause my mind to wander and sometimes be too active, but if I notice that, I will just start restart the recounting process. I think this might also be what makes journaling so useful - memory and thought reconciliation.
I think (but I am not an expert in this) it slows down the heart and with that, allows you to fall asleep easier.
A resource that I've been using lately that has some details regarding this particular part of the breathing process: https://midlmeditation.com/meditation-for-anxiety
seriously though after I started getting up every single day without fail at 6:00 am, no matter what happened the day before, no matter what’s on my schedule today, ever since I have had no trouble whatsoever ever falling asleep. Usually by 9:30 pm I am feeling v sleepy and by 10 pm I cannot help but lie down and close my eyes.
The only thing that modulates this is caffeine. No caffeine after 2:00 pm otherwise I may be up until 11:00 pm even midnight.
but even then, wake at 6:00 am the next day without fail, that was the magic bullet for me
all this stuff about bedtime routines, warm bath, soft lighting, etc, seems funny to me - like I said by 9:30 pm and certainly by 10:00 pm I cannot help but lie down and close my eyes, I don’t need any enticements.
Why?
Waking up super early without having a decent amount of time is just another form if self harm.
in contrast, walking up late one day because you slept late the previous night will wreak havoc.
I'm only trying to clarify this because it works the same way for me.
I used to set an alarm every night in bed for 7-8 hours later, relative to whatever random time I was getting in bed. For years the only advice I ever heard in terms of sleep quality was "getting a good 7-8 hours", so this led to years of awful sleep.
Now, I set an alarm once and don't ever touch it again. It goes off every day of the week, weekends and all, everyday at the same time. And it's been one of the biggest and most directly noticeable changes I've ever done for my routine and wellbeing. Sure, sometimes I go to bed late and I don't get my 7-8 hours, but for the first time since I was a kid I feel sleepy at night and it doesn't take 1+ hours in bed to fall asleep.
If anyone reading is in the same situation I was, please try it. Even of you usually wake up late, even at noon or later, just wake up at the same "late" hour everyday. "Early" doesn't matter. But after a while you can make small 15-30 minute changes in the wake-up time every month to two months or so, if you wanna start waking up earlier. If you still have trouble falling asleep, even some light exercise like a light walk around the block, helps a lot, particularly if you spent the day sitting.
Maybe this is super obvious for most people, but it wasn't for me, so it might be helpful for someone else.
If I get up even an hour later than 5:30am, the stress builds as things fall behind schedule.
- Shower before bed. Going to bed clean feels so much better. - No programming just before sleep - A cold-ish bedroom - Read before sleep (a novel, not HN). - As little light as possible in the bedroom
Curious if anyone here was taught how to fall asleep by their parents or school? We teach our kids so much, but we don’t seem to teach the importance of sleep as well as we teach the importance of brushing your teeth or nutrition.
Something I observed while spending time in India with my wife's families is how no one follows any sleep schedule. Everyone from babies, to toddlers, kids, and adults are just really busy all day with various chores (the younger ones with just play of course). Once night rolls around, people just start falling asleep, anywhere they are, even in a crowded room with the lights on and people chatting, and sleep like a rock until the morning. Then you do it all again the next day. Theres also no "sleeping in." By 7:30-8 AM everyone is up and busy with something
I think the idleness of modern culture has created a lot of the "insomnia" we hear about, which is just a mind that seeks some sort of stimulation at night after being disengaged all day.
So people are staying 4-5 families per house. Everyone just sleeps on couches, floor mats, moms & babies get the beds. etc...
But besides that its just a community based culture. Family, cousins, neighbors are always over... there are maids/helpers staying over.
Then growing up, I observed my brain was in overdrive. This was circa 2010 and I would spend 7-9 hours online everyday.
I would conjure up things to discuss in my brain and that would consume good chunk of my sleep time and render me tired in mornings.
So, I set out to do the impossible.
I trained myself to shut off my mind. Not think, not to imagine, not to go off on a tangent and build imaginary stories.
That helped a lot.
I am able to fall asleep in 20-30 seconds now thanks to this.
Also, about 7-8 years ago I started listening to audiobooks (thanks MaM) and I found a nice quirk. I am able to follow a story (if I want to) as long as I can actively listen every word. If I start skupping, I will fall asleep.
I found the 20-30 seconds time after recording a start time for a boring book, then listening to the book and trying to fall asleep and next day see how much I can remember. If I do, means I was awake. That gave me an average 20-30 seconds for really boring stuff.
Same for when I am not listening to audiobooks. That time I have to be extra careful and not think.
Not really. Never had problems with it, except in high school, when I learned the hard way that worrying about how little sleep time you have left is a good way to not falling asleep.
Nah, I can fall asleep any time, anywhere, at a moment's notice, if I'm in a horizontal position. In fact, I can't really stop it from happening, which is why I actively avoid lying down during the day - otherwise I end up with an unplanned nap. My problem is that I can't possibly make myself to go to bed unless I'm really, really tired.
I didn't have this so extremely but could sleep pretty much any time during the day. Turns out I have sleep apnea. Now since using a CPAP machine, sleeping during the day is much less of a thing for me.
There’s so much going on with circadian rhythms and the difficulty of trying to go against your natural rhythm can be (in my experience) almost unbelievable to someone who hasn’t experienced having actual disorders in that area.
For some people it’s just not ‘knowing how to sleep’ or an issue with discipline, but for a decent number there’s actually deeper causes that are incredibly difficult to fight against (my sleep doctor literally advised me that I might have the best success in the long term moving somewhere where the culture is to wake later!).
I don’t mind the change at all and don’t think it’s impossible for most people to habituate themselves to a different schedule.
Nobody is being tortured (literally or figuratively) and it is highly generalizable.
I have my daily standup at 10:30, so I have enough time to drink water, and do morning rituals before I start to work. Feels good. I don’t know what would be the advantage of going to sleep at 10pm and waking up at 6:45.
I have always been curious how people manage this to workout so early. Do you skip pooping? That would wreak havok on my workday.
Nothing wrong with that, but it’s at least a little shady to present themselves this way.
A Sleep Doctor brand, SleepFoundation.org was acquired from the National Sleep Foundation in 2019 and is no longer affiliated with the non-profit organization. The National Sleep Foundation is an independent, 501(c)(3) based in Washington, D.C.
2. wake up at desired hour using alarm clock and drink one coffee
3. don't fall asleep before your desired hour of going to bed
4. rince an repeat until the alarm clock is no longer needed
5. Never drink coffee or tea again unless it's just one after waking up timely (not late)
many decades later (now I'm a white collar 9-5er) I can still do it.
It realy is just a matter of self control. (for me at least)
I have an alarm on my phone at 10pm which signals the end of any activity other than reading with my Kindle in bed. It has worked wonders. The first couple of weeks I took 1mg of melatonin which helped my body reset the clock.
I fall asleep around 11pm every day and wake up without alarms around 7am. I work at home on my own projects so I don't need a fixed schedule but my body is very happy with this.
Artificially, similar can be done: turn on all lights when you get up. After sunset, use minimal light, with as much red hue as possible.
The other points I think hold pretty well and also are important: get exercise, avoid caffeine later in the day, etc..