How to rest well

https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-rest-well-and-enjoy-a-more-creative-sustainable-life

by rognjen • 5 years ago

326 113 5 years ago

I've been doing "shallow rest" (think your typical mindless binge on anything) for whole my life and it has been difficult to convince myself or even find resources to become involved in resting, making it "deep rest" as mentioned in the article. Anyone has a good personal perspective on how to learn to do it?

Davexon• 5 years ago

Travel alone to scenic places with no connectivity.

ddek• 5 years ago

Judging by OP, I’d say I have a pretty good handle on ‘deep rest’. I think it’s more because I’m quite deliberate than because I planned it this way, but it functions well as rest. I have almost total separation of work and personal life.

Be purposeful with sleep. Work out how many hours you need, have a schedule, stick to it. I do 2200-0600, if I’m out late I still get up at 0600, a few ‘short’ nights a week won’t ruin my energy. Also, if I’m stuck at home, nothing interesting happens after 10pm. Distractions like my phone are kept in another room.

Push mindless binging out for more intensive activities. As OP says, rest does not have to be relaxed. It doesn’t have to be solitary, although it can be. The things I do (and what they bring me) are: board gaming (social), tennis (social, competition, exercise), running (solitary, calming, exercise), woodworking (solitary, satisfaction), Age of Empires II (competition), and piano (solitary, creative). It seems a lot when I write it down, but I still have a fair amount of downtime.

andai• 5 years ago

Go to the sauna, get a massage, or float in a warm salt water tank for an hour.

kvgr• 5 years ago

Sauna is great, no phone and temperature shocks are great for me to calm down the brain.

chaoz_• 5 years ago

Is that why Finland is happiest country in the world?

0x0082• 5 years ago

I just go for walks without taking my phone with me. Works alright.

tinyhouse• 5 years ago

Same. But my brain is consistently thinking about stuff. I wonder if it's still rest?

treme• 5 years ago

Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL02HRFk2vo&

Yoga Nidra version https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=yoga+nidra+20+m...

try either, and see how you feel compared to your usual rest methods, gl

jasfi2• 5 years ago

Make it a goal for a specific day. Turn off all your devices, except for your phone (if you really have to be contactable or check something).

mlac3• 5 years ago

I’m taking this to the extreme and purchasing a bluetooth home phone, so I can leave my phone in a room with the base station, and still pick up if someone calls / texts throughout the day. But no apps or anything. Gives me a way to get out of connection anxiety.

Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086PYS5VG?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&ref_...

tradesmanhelix2• 5 years ago

I find that whatever I'm doing (binging a show, taking a walk, playing a video game, etc.) is much more restful when I'm fully present. For me, this means putting my phone and any other distracting technology away (or even turning it off) and just fully immersing myself in whatever I'm doing.

Additionally, I find a bit of boredom is helpful in making an activity restful. For example, I love The Expanse TV show but sometimes it's very slow moving and I find myself wanting to stimulate my brain more than it's currently being stimulated by the show if that makes sense. However, I've found that if I embrace the boredom, resist the urge to take my eyes off of the TV, and just "float" in the moment so to speak, after about 15-20 mins the discomfort fades and I lose myself in the narrative. I find this "losing of oneself" in an activity or experience to be very restful and rejuvenating.

neltnerb• 5 years ago

I think it's the same as trying to form any other habit intentionally.

Have a bed that you sleep in.

Don't do anything in that bed other than sleep. If you are laying trying to sleep and find you cannot, get out of that bed and go elsewhere.

This trains you to associate that bed with sleep and nothing else. It makes it so that when you go there in the future you have an ingrained habit that tells you it is time to sleep. Even reading in bed screwed it up for me.

I think basically the same approach fits any other activity. If you want to get deeply in the flow for learning karate you have a dojo that you associate with it. You get way less distracted because you only do one thing there.

I think sleep or laying still and meditating is about the most useful kind of rest for me, so I originally mostly talked about sleep. I think that the ability to get deeply into a task is generally strongly associated with environmental cues. Bowing before you start karate practice is a formal way to move into deep practice, even if you're practicing on your own.

marcoslozada• 5 years ago

Essential for entrepreneurs!

oedmarap• 5 years ago

One of the strategies that changed my sleep quality for the better is to stop taking coffee after 9 AM; after learning that caffeine has a half-life of around 6-7 hours[0], but a quarter-life of around 12 hours. If you have a cup of coffee at noon, a quarter of that caffeine can still be circulating around your brain at midnight.

[0] https://youtu.be/k5BMGmf1ai0

glogla• 5 years ago

Pedantic HN style comment: doesn't half-life of 6 hours always imply "quarter-life" of 12 hours? :)

(though I wouldn't have realized that without your comment, so thanks for that)

christophilus• 5 years ago

Depends on if it’s linear or a curve, right?

marcosdumay• 5 years ago

Even if it was as simple as any physical system, it is still something one might not realize for never making the correct question.

Technically those two phrases mean the same, but people will draw very different conclusions from them.

kevinmgranger• 5 years ago

It serves as emphasis. Most people have interpreted "caffeine has a half-life of X hours" to mean "oh so it's fine to have it just X hours before bed.

By explicitly calling out the quarter-life, it prompts people to think if a quarter of the amount would still affect them.

jasfi2• 5 years ago

I only have decaff, rarely though, and only before 9AM as well. Otherwise I have green tea, and not after 1pm.

speeder• 5 years ago

I wonder why for coffee you have it decaff but you are happy with tea, that has more caffeine than coffee.

swah• 5 years ago

And how is your sleep?

sg47• 5 years ago

I switched over to mushroom coffee since I couldn’t tolerate decaf. Still has some caffeine but doesn’t leave me jittery.

yawz• 5 years ago

I have a very similar approach, but I usually drink a 2nd cup of green tea in the morning. I feel it helps my intermittent fasting.

gregoriol• 5 years ago

My non-sleep nights suddenly make sense, thanks!

hvgk3• 5 years ago

This. One cup a day here at 07:30 and that’s it. Was actually life changing.

person23849• 5 years ago

I've done the same thing, started remembering a lot more dreams, not sure if that's an indicator of better sleep though.

brendan0powers• 5 years ago

This is one of those things you just have to try and see if it works. I've quit caffeine completely for a few weeks, and didn't notice a difference in my sleep quality.

gauchojs• 5 years ago

Me too - but I stopped for 30 days and didn't cut other caffeine sources..

tarsinge• 5 years ago

Actually for me I sleep better at night with caffeine in the morning. I find it helps with having a proper active / rest cycle, i.e. concentrate energy and stress during the first part of the day so I can start to wind down in the afternoon, instead of hovering around mildly stressed all the day and the evening.

bradlys• 5 years ago

I found it didn’t improve my sleep quality or my ability to fall asleep. However - I do feel like I have a slightly easier time getting out of bed now.

I’ve been off caffeine for a year or more. Having it actually makes my stomach slightly upset now. Similar to sugary drinks - I can’t do them anymore. Once I gave them up - I couldn’t go back.

Terry_Roll2• 5 years ago

This link unfortunately doesnt really address the chemical imbalances which are normalised throughout society as stress and aging. If you consider yourself to be just a complex chemical reaction with a consciousness as the end result of the complex chemical reactions which have evolved over thousands of years, then I'd simply be looking at chemical solutions for good rest.

Its not strictly true that caffeine has a half life of 6-7 hours, nicotine reduces this to 3-4hrs and some prescription drugs also affect the half life either by shortening it or increasing it, in extreme to 24-48hrs.

I found a few grams of Taurine will improve and increase sleep, the science is out there, the more you take the more you sleep and you can sleep through fire alarms and all sorts so use with caution.

Now a restless mind can also keep people awake, so increasing 5-alpha reductase by consuming Glycine can then break down cortisol. You will laugh your head off with lots of Glycine, so dont blame me if you laugh your head off in a stressful situation and get fired from a job or something!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5%CE%B1-Reductase#List_of_conv...

BizarroLand• 5 years ago

What 5-alpha reductase would you suggest for someone wanting to test this out?

ggregoire• 5 years ago

Why talk about half-life and quarter-life here instead of full-life (which I guess is around 18-24 hours)? Having less than a quarter of caffein in your system does not impact your sleep?

amalcon• 5 years ago

It's an exponential decay, so full-life is not really a coherent concept. Detectable (but unnoticeable) levels will persist for quite some time and undetectable levels will persist for a bit after that.

Tenoke• 5 years ago

I'm not certain how relevant that is. I definitely don't feel more awake 6 hours after coffee let alone 12 so clearly not all effects are still there. Claims like these are quoting numbers while implying things which aren't true a priori.

Sleep is admittedly easily disrupted but I also haven't noticed a difference in sleep quality when skipping my afternoon cup.

pps4• 5 years ago

Different people reacts differently. I normally drinks 2-3 cups a day, last one sometimes after 8 PM. So to test some claims about coffee being so bad etc, I completely removed coffee from my life for a month - zero difference. And the same is true for Yerba Mate for me (although with Yerba I definitely feel different for few hours). But I believe that some simply react more to this substance.

wpearse• 5 years ago

I’ll often have an espresso in the evening after dinner, and I sleep well after.

zuj• 5 years ago

Thanks. Being a HSP(highly sensitive person) I am always careful of my coffee after lunch. Now I realised I need to either have it early morning or not at all.

MrJagil• 5 years ago

Good timing, I’ve been meaing to ask HN: what’s the best book on “sleep”?

i_love_limes• 5 years ago

This is a very popular and quite detailed pop science book on sleep written by a prof of neuroscience: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep

nojs• 5 years ago

Note that this book tells you all about why we sleep, and gives you a lot of scary stats, but almost nothing practical about how to sleep better. If you already know sleep is important and want actionable advice, this book won’t help.

600frogs• 5 years ago

This book actually gets quite a lot of hate on HN as parts of it have been debunked (or are at least heavily argued about): https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/

pps4• 5 years ago

Not books, but I recommend Huberman Lab podcast on YT (at least two episodes on sleep) and https://themattwalkerpodcast.buzzsprout.com/

drclau2• 5 years ago

I second Huberman Lab podcast. He has now a monthly newsletter too, and September’s was about sleep. You can read it here:

https://hubermanlab.com/toolkit-for-sleep/

Thanks for the second suggestion, I’ll have a look.

sdevonoes• 5 years ago

A 20-minute nap provides an energy boost comparable with a cup of strong coffee (without the later crash).

This is not true for me. If I get a 20-minute nap in the middle of the day, I wake up wasted. It takes around another 20 minutes for me to get really awaken.

Juliate• 5 years ago

Been there.

If you haven't do so already, perhaps you could try to experiment within +/- 5/10 minutes, to see where you sleep cycle hits better. It can make a whole lot of a difference.

hvgk3• 5 years ago

Same trouble here. I find it’s better to get up and go for a 20 minute walk instead. That pulls all the right strings in my brain.

xwdv2• 5 years ago

20 minutes is too long. You can get similar benefits by performing a few minutes of depth jumps to shock the central nervous system.

khariel• 5 years ago

Something to factor in here is if you're sleep deprived. I can normally nap for 20 minutes and get said boost, but not when I'm sleep deprived. In that case, it feels way harder to wake up at the 20-minute mark, I also wake up groggy and I feel like napping longer (and that's what normally ends up happening).

droopyEyelids• 5 years ago

You hit the crux of the problem here.

Our brains compensate for sleep deprivation by releasing increased dopamine in the striatum, which is involved in motivation and reward, and the thalamus, which is involved in alertness. On top of that, one of the effects of sleep deprivation is a reduction in your ability to tell how sleep deprived you are.

If you're sleep deprived, you're running on a natural high. If you get just enough sleep to get close to rested, that extra striatum and thalamus dopamine stops, and you also regain your ability to perceive yourself.

That feels really bad. Not only do you forego the high, but you can feel every bit of the lack of rest. It's like the end of a bender. The only good thing is knowing you're making progress back to relatedness.

mrweasel3• 5 years ago

I have that issue, and I've tried with anything from 5 minutes to 30 minutes. Regardless of the time frame I wake up feeling confused, sleepy and my head hurts.

tradesmanhelix2• 5 years ago

Anecdotal, but for me this means I'm sleep deprived. When I'm getting enough sleep on a regular basis, a 20-minute "nap" (even if it's just closing my eyes and listening to something like [0]) is extremely refreshing.

[0] https://youtu.be/dPqCRyzhXn8

el_benhameen• 5 years ago

I’m curious how folks here manage a midday nap. I usually fall asleep quite well at night, but unless I’m unusually exhausted (stayed up too late, one of the kids was up during the night), I can’t calm my mind enough to actually sleep during the day. Even if I can manage to do it, it takes a long time, so a 20-minute nap really takes an hour+ given the wind-down time.

helpfulmandrill2• 5 years ago

So we've got to optimize rest now? I'm so tired of this world.

unethical_ban• 5 years ago

We always have. This article is for the person who doesn't understand, or hasn't implemented, good work/rest balance.

leobg• 5 years ago

Haha. I said the same thing to Tim Ferriss in 2010 when he talked about “hacking” meditation. He did not take that well.

mrweasel3• 5 years ago

That is hilarious. Ferriss is an interesting guy, but there's something funky going on when you're trying to "hack" century old concept. It's basically Schwarzenegger telling you to sleep faster.

rocketpastsix• 5 years ago

Unfortunately, yea we do. Now that more people are working from home the lines between work and not work are incredibly blurred. Add the increased connectivity we all have (email/slack/teams/etc on phones, laptops as work computers), it is essential we build good and meaningful habits of rest.

glial• 5 years ago

Relevant recent post from the always delightful Convivial Society:

https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/you-cant-optimize...

Takeaway:

     There are two key points. First, our exhaustion—in its various material and immaterial dimensions—is a consequence of the part we play in a techno-social milieu whose rhythms, scale, pace, and demands are not conducive to our well-being, to say nothing of the well-being of other creatures and the planet we share. Second, the remedies to which we often turn may themselves be counterproductive because their function is not to alter the larger system which has yielded a state of chronic exhaustion but rather to keep us functioning within it. Moreover, not only do the remedies fail to address the root of the problem, but there’s also a tendency to carry into our efforts to find rest the very same spirit which animates the system that left us tired and burnt out. Rest takes on the character of a project to be completed or an experience to be consumed. In neither case do we ultimately find any sort of meaningful and enduring relief or renewal.

embeng4096• 5 years ago

Thanks for sharing this. I've subscribed to the newsletter

HPsquared• 5 years ago

Tired? Sounds like you need more rest.

2-718-281-8282• 5 years ago

Sorry, but this is one of those articles where I don't care about the content but only about the discussion here.

shoto_io• 5 years ago

no need to be sorry about :) I always jump to the discussions first before reading the article.

2-718-281-8282• 5 years ago

I mean I tried reading it but it was so shallow an meandering - couldn't bear it

jader201• 5 years ago

I almost always prefer reading discussion of a topic from many people, vs. a monologue of one person’s opinion.

That’s the way I almost always use HN, for better or worse.

curtson• 5 years ago

This is actually a great read that helps me understand and appreciate the importance of rest.

machiaweliczny• 5 years ago

I was on the weeding and got super tired once so I wanted to take nap. Couldn't really nap (I can't) but just relaxed body and tried to not think about anything for 20 minutes. I felt after that like after whole night good of sleep. Was very surprised that it worked.

themodelplumber• 5 years ago

That's a great result. Sometimes I think resting as "waiting while doing nothing" is good enough if it simply keeps one from working during the bottom of a local ultradian pattern. Coming back up out of that pattern by itself should naturally feel better.

randcraw• 5 years ago

How different is that from alpha meditation, where you free yourself from all thoughts, thereby entering a pre-sleep state of mind?

doreal• 5 years ago

One of my favorite essay is Adorno's "Free Time" in The Culture Industry [0]. When someone talks of work and rest as opposite, I always think of this quote:

I have no hobby. Not that I am the kind of workaholic, who is incapable of doing anything with his time but applying himself industriously to the required task. But, as far as my activities beyond the bounds of my recognized profession are concerned, I take them all, without exception, very seriously.

Free Time and Rest are actually what makes us intelligent and creative. Work is experienced within its own constraint while free time let us explore and make fortunate mistakes.

[0] http://xenopraxis.net/readings/adorno_freetime.pdf

bobthechef• 5 years ago

Josef Pieper[0] has written about leisure at length. What we call "rest" today is largely either idleness or recreation and something meant only to "recharge us" so that we can continue to work. But this is ass-backwards and not leisure. Leisure is what we work for and this was reflected, among other things, in the medieval culture of religious feasts. Our modern culture is a work-centric culture, but the middle ages were more of a leisure-centric culture.

To better understand what leisure is, Pieper points to the etymological roots of words like "school" (from the Greek word for "leisure") and points to the distinction between the liberal arts and the servile arts (the former are superior to the latter and what the latter exist to enable). By definition, work is for the sake of something; you don't work for work's sake. Our culture either worships work for its own sake (an absurdity and largely a neurotic distraction from our own nihilism) or it terminates with a preoccupation with consumption and indulgence of various appetites. A culture frustrated by a false materialistic/mechanistic anthropology will produce this kind of vulgar ethos.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/767958.Leisure

mattgreenrocks• 5 years ago

This is one of the few books I re-read on a yearly basis. It is convicting.

justinzollars• 5 years ago

Best advice for quality of sleep: Stop drinking.

BareNakedCoder• 5 years ago

Best advice for quantity of sleep: don't stop drinking :)

drclau2• 5 years ago

Rather, be more selective about what you drink, and when. :)

Typically, you want to avoid even water some time before going to sleep, such that you won’t wake up to go to the bathroom.

dec0dedab0de• 5 years ago

One thing that really helps me rest better is sleeping on my back. It's more difficult to fall asleep that way, but the sleep I get seems to count more. I dont know why, but it does. I've been doing it since I was a kid, so it's gotten easier, but It's still a struggle to not roll over a few times a week.

WesolyKubeczek• 5 years ago

Looks like you’re my opposite number or something. I cannot become sleepy unless I’m on my back, but then to actually sleep, I need to turn over.

l33tbro2• 5 years ago

Honestly just take magnesium before bed and thank me later. 150mg should do it.

pps4• 5 years ago

I'm on 200mg of magnesium taurate. Magnesium l-threonate years ago when the hype for it started. Absolutely no difference in anything. Also taking l-theanine + apigenin (mix that Andrew Huberman recommends) - same effect. But for people with not-the-best diet magnesium is definitely beneficial for health so it's good to take it anyway.

l33tbro2• 5 years ago

Might it be a biochemistry thing rather than diet? I eat very few processed carbs and sugars and enjoy deep, restful sleep with most off-the shelf magnesium.

L-theanine is fantastic too with my morning coffee. Alertness without the jitters.

jordanmorgan10• 5 years ago

I guess I missed the most important step which probably was don’t have three kids under 7.

How to rest well

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