How to beat that exhausted feeling

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/05/frank-lipman-spent-sleep-health

by cake • 17 years ago

47 31 17 years ago

guardian.co.uk

gms4• 17 years ago

I think one of the major causes of this, although not mentioned in the article, is the institutionalised culture of having to arrive at the office at a certain time early in the morning, then having to spend the next 8-9 hour block trapped in it.

With such an inflexible regime, all it takes is one night of going to bed late (real life can disrupt even the most disciplined schedules) and you're doomed to exhaustion for the rest of the week. Let alone the fact that people aren't clones of one another; not everyone has the same sleep patterns.

kirse2• 17 years ago

With such an inflexible regime

As much as everyone trash talks big corporations, I work for one now and have this beautiful thing called flex hours. Unless there's a meeting in the morning (rarely) I'm usually up at 915 and into work before 10am (no rush hour traffic). Some people arrive as late as 11-1130am, but as long as you're doing the work that needs to be done it doesn't matter.

It's a nice balance because it allows me to go to bed ~1am and then any shift in sleep during the week (usually the weekend) isn't so drastic to cause massive exhaustion for the next few days while trying to rotate back.

chops2• 17 years ago

As much as everyone trash talks big corporations, I work for one now and have this beautiful thing called flex hours.

Those that have flex time are lucky, and I find that programmers are more likely to have this perk. When I was an employee, I didn't explicitly have flex time, but I pretty much lived on the 10-to-6 schedule, coming in at 11 if I needed the extra hour.

I have a few friends (who are also programmers) who explicitly get flex-time.

But my wife, who is a fashion designer for a major department store, does not have that option. She has the classic "corporate" job. Be there at 8:30, attend useless meetings all day, and after 4 or 5pm the real work can finally start. But she has to be there at 8:30, otherwise she's likely to miss a meeting in the morning. The whole process from concept to delivery is one of the most convoluted processes I've ever heard, involving meeting after meeting. Nothing is approved until an army of committees have agreed to it.

edw519• 17 years ago

"having to spend the next 8-9 hour block trapped in it"

That's what hacker news is for.

lucumo• 17 years ago

On the other hand, my experience has taught me that going to bed late and not having to get up at a certain time in the morning, leads to going to bed even later. I've found that this does not make me less tired, but more.

gms4• 17 years ago

I don't disagree, but it's nice to have the option once in a while for when real life throws a spanner in the works.

apmee2• 17 years ago

Forgive me if I'm missing something, I'm not trying to catch you out but I'm curious why you believe that one late night will affect the rest of your week.

Surely a correspondingly early night the next evening will redress things?

ibsulon• 17 years ago

It's quite difficult to fall asleep an hour earlier than normal for most people.

mynameishere• 17 years ago

I'm always impressed when people can make a living giving ho-hum advice like "listen to soft, relaxing music" and "cut back on sugar".

silentbicycle2• 17 years ago

I'm always surprised by the lengths people (self included) will go to rather than just sleep, stop eating when they aren't hungry, etc. People seem to want a more complicated solution.

_cbsz• 17 years ago

We (self included) need a better way of coping with that associated sense of malaise (well, at least /I/ have one of those).

wheels2• 17 years ago

For me, personally, it's a much simpler formula. I feel exhausted when I've been doing something I don't want to for too long. Exhaustion and motivation are really tightly linked for me.

I notice that I get brutally exhausted when it's time to change jobs or otherwise move on in life. Can't wake up, have trouble getting things done, generally just worn out.

The funny thing is, if I start something else the next day, like a new job I'm excited about, boom, back to full steam. I don't sleep much and don't want to, work crazy hours and wake up excited about rather than dreading my to-do list.

Thus far the startup life has catered well to that. At one year in I'm still excited almost every day about getting up to work. I work around 100 hours most weeks and it doesn't seem like a chore. I'm really hoping that pattern holds true for the long haul.

TJensen• 17 years ago

That is the description of my life at the moment. Unfortunately, life demands (wife, children, mortgage) make it difficult to move on. In the meantime, getting out of bed is a chore.

OK, I'll stop whining now. :)

juliend2• 17 years ago

You mean that you work like 14 hours a day, 7 days/week? Is it full working hours that you could invoice or just 100 hours that you spend in front of the computer? What does your daily schedule look like? Just curious.

wheels2• 17 years ago

It's not nearly consistent as 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. First, I don't sleep on a consistent schedule. Some nights I sleep 3 hours, sometimes 10. Usual is closer to 5. These hours of sleep may or may not actually occur at night.

Second is that I'm not consulting, so "billable" and "work" aren't the same thing.

Yesterday I spent:

- 1 hour in a meeting with a potential customer

- 2 hours traveling there and back on the subway, during which I read work-related research papers

- 1.5 hours talking with my co-founder about stuff we've got coming up on the horizon

- 1 hour reading and answering mails

- 9 hours, from around 6:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m., coding with a break in there for cooking dinner

I then woke back up this morning at 7:30 a.m. and am about to get back to that code, after my morning routine of checking mail and news. :-)

lowe2• 17 years ago

I've found my own effective method for beating that exhausted feeling: I call it "supercharging" your batteries. The trick is to down two or three redbulls immediately before going to sleep. 45-50 minutes later you basically hit the ceiling, transitioning in seconds from unconsciousness to compulsive jabbering. be careful with this technique: if you're unable to fall asleep before the medicine kicks, you're screwed.

The author maintains that fats and cheap carbs can only interrupt the body and add to its exhaustion. I think this is true only if you fail to shoot the moon.

eru• 17 years ago

Sounds unhealthy. And Redbull does not taste too good, either.

lowe2• 17 years ago

I've found Bob Marley's soothing island rhythms, pitch-adjusted to 60bpm where necessary, go a long ways towards neutralizing the bad taste.

joeyo• 17 years ago

"Two or three redbulls" sounds a bit extreme to me but the principle itself is sound[1]. The idea is that a short nap helps you feel refreshed if you can keep it just that: a short nap. Caffeine also can help you keep alert, but it takes a while to absorb it when taken orally, just the amount of time as a short nap. So when the caffeine wakes you up you are ready to go.

1. With the caveat that 45 minutes sounds too long to me. It should only take 15 minutes or so for the caffeine to get through your digestive tract. Also, sleeping longer than 15-20 minutes probably results in significant grogginess.

Flemlord• 17 years ago

Work out in the morning and don't eat too much.

Everest• 17 years ago

I also want to dispute the notion that life today is so incredibly busy and challenging. Sure, we work 8-10 hours a day but for the most part its doing higher level thinking and interesting work (at least for people on this board). On the other hand, jobs at other times in history required probably the same number of hours but in more labor-intensive pursuits (farming, construction, etc..).

Whether we want to believe this or not, all of us could leave our job and find something easier. We might have to downgrade our lifestyle a little but we would survive. So not only do we work jobs that really aren't that tough but we have the flexibility to leave at any time. In short, we need to stop being whiners.

xiaoma• 17 years ago

I think he was right on about keeping a dark bedroom, but his ideas about exercise are off:

"Exercise is important too, although, says Lipman, this should be restorative rather than exhausting - he doesn't think we are built to run marathons or spend hours on treadmills.

Instead he promotes moderation, focusing on yoga and simple programmes designed to retrain our bodies to rest and recover..."

Not only are human bodies remarkably well-built for running, but it was key in our evolution. Yoga was not.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/daily/2004/11/17-running...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4021811.stm

triplefox• 17 years ago

This is why I've started adapting my desk to allow standing most of the time. I feel fresh even at 6 or 7pm. I tried standing all of the time for a day or two but I find that sometimes I want to sit too.

ondra2• 17 years ago

It's making me fucking sleepy. I can't procrastinate well enough now.

ondra2• 17 years ago

Should have gone to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=593729, my bad. I don't seem to be able to delete it, why?

How to beat that exhausted feeling

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