Up All Night: The Science of Sleeplessness (2013)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/03/11/up-all-night-2?currentPage=all

by benbreen • 12 years ago

103 20 12 years ago

jacquesm• 12 years ago

Very interesting read. I have a completely different problem, I'm addicted to the night. It's much more quiet, fewer distractions and I tend to be far more productive than during the day. Much easier to get into the 'zone' at night than during the day.

As a result when I'm not on the clock for someone I tend to sleep very erratically, get up at the weirdest times and go to bed at even weirder ones. When I'm inspired the hours just fly by. I forget to eat/drink. This usually is not a huge problem but it can take a while to re-sync with the rest of the world when I have to. Not having a watch (and not compulsory checking the phone) really helped me to no longer think of this as a big deal. But there are still days when I freak out and go 'seven already???' thinking it must be early afternoon.

I also tend to completely forget what day of the week it is which can lead to interesting situations when having to deal with authorities and other companies. Arriving at the municipality office on a Sunday is definitely not going to get you served.

I think there is a small error in one sentence in the article, at some point it reads "When the subjects woke, they tended to say that they’d slept better when they’d been together. ", I think given the rest of the sentences around there that a 'than' should have been present before the 'when'.

kelnos• 12 years ago

No, I think it's correct as written. The subjects believed they'd slept better together, but in reality, they had not. Starting the next sentence with "In fact", when they point out they actually slept worse, suggests that.

At any rate... I'm not quite as disconnected as you are when it comes to a sleep cycle, but I'm just shifted. Left to my own devices, I go to bed around 6am, and get up around 1pm.

mattgreenrocks3• 12 years ago

Inspiration is weird like that. Very occasionally, it impedes my ability to sleep. In these cases, I'll try to sleep for about 45 min, then get up and start hacking. Time flows extremely quickly at night when I'm in this state, despite the fact that the clock is always visible on-screen.

When I finally look over, it's 4am, my hands aching from not moving out of typing position for at least 4 hours, and I can usually settle into 4 hours or so of sleep. The resulting sleep is usually very deep and relaxing.

If that's the price of being courted by a muse, I'm fine with it.

MacsHeadroom• 12 years ago

Whatever works for you. But 45 minutes is outside of the sweet spot for naps.

Our bodies produce sedative hormones after about 30 minutes of sleep and don't let up for another 30-60 minutes after that.

chanced• 12 years ago

Ah, this after I laid awake in bed (or so I believe) until 5, decided to get up and get to work. I'm cursing myself with insomnia by cycling in and out of 24, 48, and, in rare cases, 72 hour cycles. Yet I seem to work best with at least some degree of exhaustion.

I generally hit peak efficiency between 20 and 32 hours. Beyond that, I'll have bursts of productivity with the remaining time filled by mindless distractions. Those bursts last anywhere from thirty minutes to several hours but their frequency drops as the day(s) go on.

If I'm well rested I feel a lot better in general but I'm so easily distracted that my productivity drops like a rock.

Having written this,I suspect I'm on a perpetual downward spiral where my sleep patterns fuel an unhealthy lifestyle which I then remedy by subtracting sleep...

simonswords82• 12 years ago

I was up until 2am this morning, simply couldn't sleep. Once the initial thought of "oh no, I can't sleep" hit me I knew I was destined for a late night. It's 20x worse if that thought hits me and I know I've got an early start the next day.

I've met lots of people who self-medicate their sleep patterns using a combination of alcohol, sleep tablets (Melatonin for example), or weed. Over time a dependency forms which then means they can't sleep without their particular crutch.

Personally I've found exercise and avoiding work and computers 2 hours before bedtime to be the best way to get a good night's sleep, but these good habits are hard to maintain.

happyscrappy• 12 years ago

At times I inexplicably wake at 2am no matter how tired I am. After three nights of this I will start taking a single Melatonin tablet before bed. This works and I stop after a week and then generally go many months before it starts again. If I kept using Melatonin it would certainly lose its efficacy.

krrrh• 12 years ago

A couple quick notes here further to your point: the effective dose for melatonin seems to be around 250mcg, while most supplements are sold at 1, 3, or 5mg. There is no evidence of melatonin losing effectiveness over time that I'm aware of, but there is some evidence that larger doses are less effective than 250mcg. Try splitting your pills or titrating your liquids and see how it works for you.

Source: sorry, on mobile and just taking a quick break, this information has appeared in other discussions on HN though, and should be googlable.

makeset• 12 years ago

One thought pattern that's helped me with that kind of dread-feedback is to say "No problem, I can just lie here awake all night. At least I'll rest my body, and I can handle an occasional day without sleep."

I do often fall asleep shortly afterwards as a result, but it requires actually not stressing over in the odd case that I don't.

petercooper• 12 years ago

This article emphasizes just how weird sleep is and also how personal, but I think there's far more to it than preferred sleep timing but also environment.

It took me ages to get to sleep, unless I freecycled around the clock, until a few years ago when I realized I often easily fell asleep while other people were talking around me (think visiting family in the evening, Christmas, etc.)

Since then I've put a podcast/audiobook on, earphones in, and almost every night since I'm asleep in 20 minutes. Realized I'm a verbal thinker and my brain "stops thinking" if other chatter is distracting it, whereas silence guarantees me a bad time. Now I sleep totally normal hours no problem.

Shengbo• 12 years ago

You should try listening to ASMR videos to put you to sleep then.

chris_wot• 12 years ago

I can't help but post the following horror story, the Orange Soda sleep study:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXXnPRhAZbI

Sorry, I couldn't help posting this.

omurphyevans• 12 years ago

Until recently I thought I had a serious sleep issue - perhaps apnea. I would be tired during the day, and by mid-afternoon almost asleep at my desk. I would even feel my brain shutting down while people were discussing things with me. I'd drink several cups of coffee a day just to stay awake.

Then for an unrelated reason I stopped drinking alcohol in the evening during the week. The effect was immediate. After a day I felt better. After two days I was alert all day - no coffee, nothing.

It seems I could drink in my twenties and it didn't matter too much. Now in my mid-thirties a couple of glasses of wine is enough to make me a tired the next day. Any more and I'm a wreck...

mattgreenrocks3• 12 years ago

Alcohol keeps me from having restful sleep, both mentally and physically. I find I don't dream much, and I'm usually extremely warm from metabolizing the alcohol.

tanvach• 12 years ago

For anyone who experience 'inner chatter' when trying to sleep, I highly recommend meditation. A few months ago I noticed that during meditation classes I kept drifting off, so now I am using it as a sleeping tool. The act of focusing on breathing and practicing to be thoughtless helped me through the initial stages of sleep.

Unfortunately I am an owl, so it's still a fight to try to sleep in the first place.

Zenz• 12 years ago

Similar to petercooper, I used podcasts and audiobooks to counter the chatter in my brain.

But Shengbo's suggestion is a great one because I also found ASMR videos even better. There are a variety of styles, but some are reading stories and in a very relaxing voice - so best of both worlds.

You can read more about how ASMR videos may cause your brain to relax and induce sleepiness here: http://asmruniversity.com/origin-theory-of-asmr/

JoeAltmaier• 12 years ago

I use meditation. Deliberately let the chatter drift away, watch it disappear into the void...asleep. 30 years of this, I can go to sleep in seconds.

Up All Night: The Science of Sleeplessness (2013)

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