That's not true. I've been working hard on my side projects after work time and I don't have much sleep unfortunatley. I feel exausted all the time and not exactly hungry, plus to be honest I lost appetite. I'm quite skinny, lean muscle, etc.
That's true but it's also true that studies like this one, which are true on average of the population, are often not true for each individual. It's worth pointing out that it doesn't apply to everyone.
Almost nothing is universal. You could have a study that says, "Falling out of an airplane from 30,000ft is deadly" and you can still find counterexamples. So I agree, it doesn't need to be explicitly stated at every turn.
I never understood how people don't get sleep. Isn't it a net negative to be dragged through the mud? No matter how rough my day is I always make sure to get 8-9 hours of sleep. The world can wait for me you know? Yeah, sorry Boss, I went out drinking Sunday and I'm coming in at 1pm, too bad.
High energy all day with less time, or low energy all day with more time? I think the latter is worse.
I don't get people who will actively lose sleep to do work, but once you have kids your ability to control how much sleep you get leaves your hands somewhat.
Its less brutal now he's older and better able to sleep through the night, but I've had weeks where I was working normal hours and getting 3-4 hours of broken sleep a night, somehow the body adapts to it. I wouldn't say I was doing my best work during that time, but I was definitely more productive than I'd expected to be.
Even with flexible working hours, I still come to work in the early morning.
I work all day and then commute back home. I then do the chores and make supper.
By the time I am done with all that stuff, it's already 8PM or 9PM. I then get together with some night owls friends for a few beers, read all night, watch a movie or a tv show, or spend the night awake talking with my signifiant other (who is also a night owl).
If I have a really entertaining night, I might drop to 3 hours of sleep.
I don't have an energy problem and am wide awake. That being said, I have been living that way for as long as I can remember. I take naps when I do get tired.
Some people actually need less sleep. I think this has been studied. A couple years ago there were a bunch of articles about Kobe Bryant and how little sleep he needs while practicing polyphasic sleep patterns.
That's crazy, I wish I could do that. Honestly anything below 8 and I'm dead tired. My day starts at 10am, I get home at 4pm, then piano until I sleep. Repeat every day until famous.
Easier said than done. I've had nights where I've been awake for 20 hours already, been feeling tired at about 10PM, taken a combination of prescribed medications that can cause drowsiness (tamazepam/tramadol/promethazine), and still laid awake until 6AM or so. I'd love to consistently get 6-8 hours sleep, but sometimes it just doesn't work for me.
Humans are not rational creatures. We all know what needs to be done to become rich and be healthy but there are still tons of poor and obese people. Knowledge is different from taking action.
I've had one of those crazy weeks that I haven't had for a long time – up until 5-6 in the morning and then back at it again a few hours later.
There were times where I almost forgot to eat and then would suddenly find myself starving. A lot of the time I ended up raiding the house for chocolate and other munchy food. I was surprised by the behaviour but put it down to the lack of sleep.
Anecdotal, but I definitely noticed the low sleep = munchy behaviour in myself this week.
Yup. This is scary how I just saw this article. I've been up 4 days. Coffee and Coke (the sugar kind). Bit more than I could chew with what should have been a hard coded feature into a full blown lib. I can feel how my short term memory is down 50%.
Your first kids? I have 2 little girls and I find they help me focus the time I have to be productive. Having said that, I had a friend with twins and every time I saw her she looked like she hadn't slept in days. "Relentless" was her description. Good luck :-)
You may well need the extra calories :/... I wonder if our bodies have evolved with sleep deprevation most likely being due to kids, leading to this connection.
Ignorance is not a terribly compelling way to make a point. The answer in this case is to reflect upon why you don't understand that the world is not solely composed of you.
You're reaching way too far into it. I don't understand the mentality from peers in similar life situations as me that are "so busy they barely sleep". To me that just means bad time management, because no matter how busy you are (all assuming you have free will, it's your will to be busy) you still have room for great sleep every night. "I barely get any sleep" becomes a substitute to reap the gratification from peers as if you actually accomplished something.
No, it seems I reached exactly to the right depth. Clarifying the extent of your ignorance doesn't make it something other than ignorance. No one is required to explain their mindset to you, and your opinion on it is not really productive.
Poor sleep results in stress, and to relieve stress, eating is a good remedy. Good in the sense that it seems to work, but it's not healthy. Doing a short workout is probably a lot healthier, but well, you're tired, and doing a workout is not high on the list for most of us.
During sleep is also when your body prepares fat / food to convert into blood sugar.
You literally get tired at the end of the day, when you run out of energy that's easily convertible to blood sugar, so your blood sugar levels start dropping, making you tired.
If you don't get enough sleep at night, your body doesn't have enough time to prep your food / fat for conversion into blood sugar. As a result, your blood sugar starts dropping way too early in the day.
Since your blood sugar is dropping too far, but its too early to go to sleep, your body looks for other solutions, basically: "Get your blood sugar up now!" So you feel a desire to eat, and often, foods your body associates with either high amounts of calories and simple sugars.
Hence, munchies. And weight gain.
Source: I'm hypoglycemic, this is my life. Slight disclaimers as to the specifics of the above, but the processes described are correct.
and based on diet and the amount of food to be consumed, this could lead the person to feel a bit sleepy to take a quick nap/siesta just to recover and feel refreshed again and replenishing blood sugar levels in the process.
The nature knows how to get its way with all of us =)
Where are you getting this? This doesn't seem accurate. Can you cite some references to this? What do you mean by preparing to convert? What specifically is there more / less of that makes it easier to convert fat / food into blood sugar.
Carbohydrates are broken down into glucose whenever they are present in the body. The liver does this through the process of glycolysis. It doesn't have anything to do with sleep. In fact, when people are sleeping they are fasting for about 8 hours (hence break-fast). When glucose is present in the blood stream insulin is released to store the energy in the cells. Insulin also inhibits fat release.
The low energy crash you are referring to is only present in people who have heavy carb diets. Under a healthy individual 2 pathways are used to produce energy in the absence of food.
Gluconeogenesis converts protein and a little bit of fat into glucose. The amounts are usually pretty minimal though.
Ketogenesis is when the body converts fat to ketones which the body consumes for energy instead of glucose.
For people who are diabetic, overweight, or normally eat carb heavy diets the ketogenic pathway is impaired and so they feel low energy.
People who have properly functioning ketogenic pathways don't really experience the low energy state you are referring to unless it is the food comma after a carb heavy meal when insulin has overreacted.
When insulin is low and there are ketones present in the body people will not feel low energy.
Having had more tired workouts than any person should endure: It's not a good choice, either. When you're tired, your injury risk is significantly higher. You have less fine motor control, muscles/tendons are still fairly cold, and your brain is in a slight haze.
I thought this was understood for a long time. One of the TOP pieces of advice for anyone wanting to lose weight has, as far as I can remember, been to get adequate amounts of sleep.
It has. And for overweight people with sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, it is recommended they treat the sleep disorder before attempting weight loss, because then weight loss becomes easier.
The fact that lack of sleep correlates with obesity has been known for a long time, but this study is about an underlying mechanism that might explain that correlation.
Except something like 60% of sleep apnea sufferers in the US will never get diagnosed. I used to be one of those people and its only after I switched doctors out of desperation that I was diagnosed.
So its hard to tell people to just sleep better if they have a disease, the same way its hard to tell depressed people to just feel better or to think positively. As a society I don't think we fully understand the effects of sleep, sleep diseases, etc. I wish there was some well funded organization pushing this information out. Instead, we're pressured from an early age to stay up late to finish things, get up early for work/school (why does the work/school day start at 8?) and be sleep deprived to only catch up on the weekend. We're also beaming bright lights from our tablets and phones into our eyes all the time, especially around bedtime, and making many of these issues worse.
Sleep is a complex issue. I'm not even sure how we can begin to address it from a public policy perspective. I think western capitalist life will always lead to sleep deprived people. We value activities, productivity, etc over rest and downtime.
> Except something like 60% of sleep apnea sufferers in the US will never get diagnosed. I used to be one of those people and its only after I switched doctors out of desperation that I was diagnosed.
And even if you are diagnosed, there is not always a lot you can do about it. I was diagnosed with central sleep apnea about a year ago, and tried BiPAP for about six months. It made absolutely no difference to my sleep.
You probably already know this, but BiPAP is not effective for central sleep apnea. You may want to investigate Adaptive Servo Ventilation (ASV), which is far more suitable.
I think you're overblowing this. Sleep is not that complex of an issue. Many people get good sleep nowadays and it's due to maintaining a sleeping schedule and keeping your body healthy. However you're correct in the fact that many Americans fail at this.
They don't fail because they value activities and productivity over sleep, they fail because of a lack of self respect required to do good by their body. Oftentimes this leads towards other unhealthy habits such as overeating and drug use. The number one cause of sleep apnea? Being overweight. Along with that many people can't sleep without some form of drug (alcohol or otherwise).
A person can easily interact and thrive in this society without causing detriment to their health and/or sleep.
Getting to bed early is not a complex issue - you're right. But actually getting QUALITY sleep is very much a complex issue.
Not only sleep apnea, but you can have trouble sleeping for other undiagnosed (and hard to diagnosed reasons). For example, you may suffer from adrenal fatigue, too high/too low cortisol levels, or chronic stress that can lead to early morning awakenings. You can suffer from nocturnal asthma. You can suffer from restless leg syndrome. You can suffer from COPD or some other pulmonary issue.
Wikipedia is quick to point out that there isn't any scientific support for "adrenal fatigue". What else in your comment is non-fact based? Please don't bring pseudoscience to HN, thanks!
In spite of how easy it is for people in this field to stay hydrated with water, my experience says otherwise. If you slam 4 ounces of water at the top of every hour over the course of a standard workday, you'll get 32 ounces of water in addition to whatever else was drank that day. Simple and effective hydration method.
Personally, I take care of this problem by filling my 64oz Hydro Flask [1] at the beginning of the work day. As long as I finish it all by the end of the day, I'll have satisfied the 8-by-8 water rule.
Though the rule does not seem to be backed by any scientific foundation, I anecdotally feel better when I do follow the rule. It's easy to remember and it yields good results.
Is there solid research around water intake? Are there clear thresholds for the amount of water to experience the health benefits? Is 8 cups a day backed up by any research? What exactly are the health benefits?
I've always thought that my body should be able to tell me when it needs more water and I shouldn't need to force down extra water.
You're right. No research has shown that, for otherwise healthy people, drinking water beyond what your body tells you to drink has any health effects. Hydration also does not have to come from water to be effective. The 8 cups a day rule is a myth. (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/upshot/no-you-do-not-have-..., links to research in the article)
Don't overthink it. Have water available at your desk. When it's empty, refill it.
Make it easy to drink automatically. Your body knows when it feels like having a sip, if that doesn't involve breaking your mental flow, you will have the sip. Simple as that.
There's a world of difference between being dehydrated and a bit thirsty. Try going to the beach for a day and forgetting to bring any water. You'll know the difference in a few hours.
The fun part is that you'll feel tired all day and all of next day too. I've done this way too often in various combinations (roadtrips, plane flights, marathon runs, surfing and forgetting to bring water, etc.)
Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy[1]. Including water (water overdosis exists).
A couple guys went into coma in a nearby Buddhist temple a few years ago. A dozen friends planned a "body cleaning weekend" where they fasted and drank lots of water. They got a water overdose, a condition known as hiponatremia[2] (literally "low sodium" in the blood plasma). This condition is pretty nasty, because it messes with osmosis.
So kids, drink your water but eat a little salt as well.
I think almost anything (depending on the amount) you eat before going to sleep will make it difficult for your body to relax because your stomach will be processing the food.
Lately I try to avoid eating a lot after around 8pm.
I would imagine that in some cases this eventually leads to obesity, which then becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. Those with obesity are more likely to have sleep apnea, which disturbs sleep even further.
Maybe this was intended as a joke, but the sad truth is that more often that not, sometimes people consider this option. I myself came relatively close to committing suicide, but was pulled out of this vicious cycle by a friend.
A lot of people develop this depression this way, or they became this way because of depression. It's concerning that people often underestimate depression and consider it a synonym for sadness or melancholy. Depression is—for the sake of simplification—an emotional and mental cancer.
I already knew this as it's been so massively self evident in my life. (Not that this is really a constructive comment, but every time I don't get enough sleep I'm ravenous all day.)
Sleep deprivation only gives you the munchies at first.
Just sleep so little that you actually feel sick, and food no longer seems appealing! For added effect, drink so much coffee to stay awake that your stomach hurts.
> Just sleep so little that you actually feel sick, and food no longer seems appealing!
Is this a common thing? I've been awake for 110 hours before, and was a mess at the end of it, but definitely felt more hungry than usual for the entire period.
Fourteen healthy, non-obese subjects between the ages of 18 and 30 participated in the study.
Is this a representative sample warranting this level of attention?
Subjects who were deprived of sleep said that they felt hungrier, and had more trouble controlling themselves when faced with the snacks. They ended up consuming nearly twice as much fat and protein as the control group.
So people who were awake more ate more. This would seem to make sense - I have literally never eaten while I was asleep.
To clarify, the effect of insufficient sleep is more generic than that. Lack of sleep will weaken your willpower and has a cascading effect on your life.
* You will be more prone to overeat and eat junk food.
* You will not want to exercise.
* You will have difficulty concentrating.
* You will be more likely to give into temptations.
* You less be less likely to do things you need to do but don't want to do.
One thing that doesn't get a lot of attention is the _quality_ of sleep, not just the duration.
After years of being a fairly thin kid and teen, I start packing on the pounds. When I saw an allergist and got on allergy shots (plus antihistamines, plus HEPA filters, plus dust mite covers on the mattress) my world changed. I wasn't tired all the time. Everything was brighter, and I was in a better mood. I wanted to snack less and had more energy.
Piecing it together over the last few years, I had near-constant drainage in the back of my throat even when I wasn't showing stronger allergy symptoms (e.g. itchiness, sneezing, watery eyes). As a result, I slept poorly even when I was getting plenty of hours of sleep.
Now, I'm allergic to pretty much everything that doesn't kill you (no food allergies, but dust, mold, our cats...) so I can't call this a solved problem, but knowing about it lets me work on solving it.
I agree with how important quality of sleep can be.
One of the hardest things for me was learning to sleep on my back. Just doing that changed my world. This wasn't possible however until I had sinus surgery and polyps removed. Throw in a mouth piece at night, some Breatheright strips, and lower the caffeine intake and now I'm sleeping like I have never slept before.
However, I had to figure all this out for myself. It doesn't seem like there is any discussion on how to improve quality of sleep (or very minimal). Wishing I knew some of this information sooner in life.
An allergist can give you a "scratch test", where they put a grid on your back and/or arms, and prick each spot with a needle dipped in various common allergens. If the spot swells like a bug bite, congrats, you're allergic! They usually* hit you once, then do another round at 10x concentration on a different spot for anything that didn't visibly, react, and then a third round for any stragglers at 100x. They rate your sensitivity on a 0-4 scale, based on the highly technical technique of measuring the size of the welt/bump.
*I've had it done twice, once on the east coast US, once on the west coast. They use local allergen blends so they can differ, and there are some candidates that they don't normally test for. I had to specifically request they test for "rat" the first time, as my fiancee had pet rats. (Turns out I was highly, HIGHLY allergic to them, but I reacted to basically everything). This does mean if you're allergic to something not in their normal regimen it will be missed.
The whole test took about 30 minutes.
After the first such test, I adopted anti-allergen mattress/pillow covers for dust mite dust and HEPA filters in the apartment, but didn't do much else. When I moved, I went from a terrible allergy place (Richmond, VA, where springtime puddles are often yellow from the pollen) to a much better one (Seattle, WA, which has molds, but far fewer pollens).
I had a pretty terrible time after the move though, and after a visit to another allergist I got on allergy shots (my research said that Europe will do doses under the tongue, but the US doesn't). Surprisingly, both allergists (Richmond and Seattle) were reluctant to put me on allergy shots, as if the cost was prohibitive ($1k-$2k/year without insurance. I've switch insurances a few times and the costs have been from fully covered to ~$15/mo) but I find happiness to be worth it. The shots themselves are, surprisingly, actually diluted doses of the allergen, ramping up the concentration. I like to joke I'm becoming immune to iocane powder.
Switching coasts messed up my progress, and I'm still working on controlling my weight, but then again, I still have multiple cats despite being allergic to them (my now-wife's happiness factors in, but she totally got rid of the rats). I have swing periods - I tend to lose weight in the spring/summer, then develop a cough that leads to seasonal bronchitis (= more drainage) that lasts 3-4 months in the fall/winter (had pneumonia once - I don't recommend it.) I recently discovered that, um, recently legalized edible substances in seattle taken before bed have prevented this months-long cough, so I'm working to see what happens this year.
Psychologically, though, the impact has been huge. I went from being a homebody that was basically tired all the time to someone that, though still lazy, will actually go out and do things and be willing to endure some exercise and effort. I snacked often, and craved sugar. (I suspect the latter was for the feeling of energy - I had already cut caffeine from my diet to try and improve the quality of my sleep). Now I still enjoy a soda now and then but water is fine and my portion sizes have gone down. The last few years, whenever the annual cough came around I started to get really exhausted by month 2, and it made me very resigned over the season. This year I avoided that and I can definitely feel the psychological benefits of not being worn down like that, and expect that I'll be losing more weight and being healthier over the next few months, but time will tell.
When I first went (with the rats), I had spent 6 months in a funk. It had gotten to the point where I would simply sleep through my alarm clock, and when I was awake I was extremely groggy. The effect was gradual, so I didn't really realize something environmental had changed until I compared myself then to myself months prior.
Thanks a ton that was more than what I'd been looking for. I'm sure many of us would love if you were to blog about this somewhere, this bio-hacking sounds really great and I'm looking forward to getting my tests drawn up as I've had terrible issues that have impacted my professional life.
I've been planning to get started on Keto for a while but had been worried if it would affect my NAFLD, I also have depression and concentration issues.
95 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 156 ms ] thread"Well, it says 'one'; that's a small number out of all the people in the study."
I think it's implicit with practically every study that the results aren't necessarily applicable to everybody.
High energy all day with less time, or low energy all day with more time? I think the latter is worse.
Its less brutal now he's older and better able to sleep through the night, but I've had weeks where I was working normal hours and getting 3-4 hours of broken sleep a night, somehow the body adapts to it. I wouldn't say I was doing my best work during that time, but I was definitely more productive than I'd expected to be.
Trust me, I always want to get a full night of sleep but I've learned that sometimes it's not even worth bothering until 2-3 am when my mind lets go.
Also, anecdotally, I agree with the munchies conclusion.
Even with flexible working hours, I still come to work in the early morning.
I work all day and then commute back home. I then do the chores and make supper.
By the time I am done with all that stuff, it's already 8PM or 9PM. I then get together with some night owls friends for a few beers, read all night, watch a movie or a tv show, or spend the night awake talking with my signifiant other (who is also a night owl).
If I have a really entertaining night, I might drop to 3 hours of sleep.
I don't have an energy problem and am wide awake. That being said, I have been living that way for as long as I can remember. I take naps when I do get tired.
I'd love to get 8 hours a night, and I definitely would make time for it. But I can't.
Enjoy your good sleep health!
What's next? "I don't understand how people don't have money"?
There were times where I almost forgot to eat and then would suddenly find myself starving. A lot of the time I ended up raiding the house for chocolate and other munchy food. I was surprised by the behaviour but put it down to the lack of sleep.
Anecdotal, but I definitely noticed the low sleep = munchy behaviour in myself this week.
Your first kids? I have 2 little girls and I find they help me focus the time I have to be productive. Having said that, I had a friend with twins and every time I saw her she looked like she hadn't slept in days. "Relentless" was her description. Good luck :-)
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11224584 and marked it off-topic.
You literally get tired at the end of the day, when you run out of energy that's easily convertible to blood sugar, so your blood sugar levels start dropping, making you tired.
If you don't get enough sleep at night, your body doesn't have enough time to prep your food / fat for conversion into blood sugar. As a result, your blood sugar starts dropping way too early in the day.
Since your blood sugar is dropping too far, but its too early to go to sleep, your body looks for other solutions, basically: "Get your blood sugar up now!" So you feel a desire to eat, and often, foods your body associates with either high amounts of calories and simple sugars.
Hence, munchies. And weight gain.
Source: I'm hypoglycemic, this is my life. Slight disclaimers as to the specifics of the above, but the processes described are correct.
The nature knows how to get its way with all of us =)
Carbohydrates are broken down into glucose whenever they are present in the body. The liver does this through the process of glycolysis. It doesn't have anything to do with sleep. In fact, when people are sleeping they are fasting for about 8 hours (hence break-fast). When glucose is present in the blood stream insulin is released to store the energy in the cells. Insulin also inhibits fat release.
The low energy crash you are referring to is only present in people who have heavy carb diets. Under a healthy individual 2 pathways are used to produce energy in the absence of food.
Gluconeogenesis converts protein and a little bit of fat into glucose. The amounts are usually pretty minimal though.
Ketogenesis is when the body converts fat to ketones which the body consumes for energy instead of glucose.
For people who are diabetic, overweight, or normally eat carb heavy diets the ketogenic pathway is impaired and so they feel low energy.
People who have properly functioning ketogenic pathways don't really experience the low energy state you are referring to unless it is the food comma after a carb heavy meal when insulin has overreacted.
When insulin is low and there are ketones present in the body people will not feel low energy.
If you can, go back to sleep.
It was fun while it lasted, but I'm sure glad to be done with it :)
Two of the simplest pieces of advice that can go a really long way for your mental and physical health.
So its hard to tell people to just sleep better if they have a disease, the same way its hard to tell depressed people to just feel better or to think positively. As a society I don't think we fully understand the effects of sleep, sleep diseases, etc. I wish there was some well funded organization pushing this information out. Instead, we're pressured from an early age to stay up late to finish things, get up early for work/school (why does the work/school day start at 8?) and be sleep deprived to only catch up on the weekend. We're also beaming bright lights from our tablets and phones into our eyes all the time, especially around bedtime, and making many of these issues worse.
Sleep is a complex issue. I'm not even sure how we can begin to address it from a public policy perspective. I think western capitalist life will always lead to sleep deprived people. We value activities, productivity, etc over rest and downtime.
And even if you are diagnosed, there is not always a lot you can do about it. I was diagnosed with central sleep apnea about a year ago, and tried BiPAP for about six months. It made absolutely no difference to my sleep.
They don't fail because they value activities and productivity over sleep, they fail because of a lack of self respect required to do good by their body. Oftentimes this leads towards other unhealthy habits such as overeating and drug use. The number one cause of sleep apnea? Being overweight. Along with that many people can't sleep without some form of drug (alcohol or otherwise).
A person can easily interact and thrive in this society without causing detriment to their health and/or sleep.
Not only sleep apnea, but you can have trouble sleeping for other undiagnosed (and hard to diagnosed reasons). For example, you may suffer from adrenal fatigue, too high/too low cortisol levels, or chronic stress that can lead to early morning awakenings. You can suffer from nocturnal asthma. You can suffer from restless leg syndrome. You can suffer from COPD or some other pulmonary issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_fatigue
Though the rule does not seem to be backed by any scientific foundation, I anecdotally feel better when I do follow the rule. It's easy to remember and it yields good results.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Hydro-Flask-Insulated-Stainless-64-Oun...
I've always thought that my body should be able to tell me when it needs more water and I shouldn't need to force down extra water.
Make it easy to drink automatically. Your body knows when it feels like having a sip, if that doesn't involve breaking your mental flow, you will have the sip. Simple as that.
There's a world of difference between being dehydrated and a bit thirsty. Try going to the beach for a day and forgetting to bring any water. You'll know the difference in a few hours.
The fun part is that you'll feel tired all day and all of next day too. I've done this way too often in various combinations (roadtrips, plane flights, marathon runs, surfing and forgetting to bring water, etc.)
A couple guys went into coma in a nearby Buddhist temple a few years ago. A dozen friends planned a "body cleaning weekend" where they fasted and drank lots of water. They got a water overdose, a condition known as hiponatremia[2] (literally "low sodium" in the blood plasma). This condition is pretty nasty, because it messes with osmosis.
So kids, drink your water but eat a little salt as well.
[1] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/paracelsus.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia
Lately I try to avoid eating a lot after around 8pm.
A lot of people develop this depression this way, or they became this way because of depression. It's concerning that people often underestimate depression and consider it a synonym for sadness or melancholy. Depression is—for the sake of simplification—an emotional and mental cancer.
Sleep deprivation only gives you the munchies at first.
Just sleep so little that you actually feel sick, and food no longer seems appealing! For added effect, drink so much coffee to stay awake that your stomach hurts.
Not that I am currently doing this or anything.
(Never again.)
Is this a common thing? I've been awake for 110 hours before, and was a mess at the end of it, but definitely felt more hungry than usual for the entire period.
Is this a representative sample warranting this level of attention?
Subjects who were deprived of sleep said that they felt hungrier, and had more trouble controlling themselves when faced with the snacks. They ended up consuming nearly twice as much fat and protein as the control group.
So people who were awake more ate more. This would seem to make sense - I have literally never eaten while I was asleep.
To clarify, the effect of insufficient sleep is more generic than that. Lack of sleep will weaken your willpower and has a cascading effect on your life.
* You will be more prone to overeat and eat junk food.
* You will not want to exercise.
* You will have difficulty concentrating.
* You will be more likely to give into temptations.
* You less be less likely to do things you need to do but don't want to do.
After years of being a fairly thin kid and teen, I start packing on the pounds. When I saw an allergist and got on allergy shots (plus antihistamines, plus HEPA filters, plus dust mite covers on the mattress) my world changed. I wasn't tired all the time. Everything was brighter, and I was in a better mood. I wanted to snack less and had more energy.
Piecing it together over the last few years, I had near-constant drainage in the back of my throat even when I wasn't showing stronger allergy symptoms (e.g. itchiness, sneezing, watery eyes). As a result, I slept poorly even when I was getting plenty of hours of sleep.
Now, I'm allergic to pretty much everything that doesn't kill you (no food allergies, but dust, mold, our cats...) so I can't call this a solved problem, but knowing about it lets me work on solving it.
One of the hardest things for me was learning to sleep on my back. Just doing that changed my world. This wasn't possible however until I had sinus surgery and polyps removed. Throw in a mouth piece at night, some Breatheright strips, and lower the caffeine intake and now I'm sleeping like I have never slept before.
However, I had to figure all this out for myself. It doesn't seem like there is any discussion on how to improve quality of sleep (or very minimal). Wishing I knew some of this information sooner in life.
Did you go back to your ideal body weight, BMI and body composition wise? Was weight-loss easier?
How did this affect you psychologically? Did you get rid of depression, mood-swings, etc?
*I've had it done twice, once on the east coast US, once on the west coast. They use local allergen blends so they can differ, and there are some candidates that they don't normally test for. I had to specifically request they test for "rat" the first time, as my fiancee had pet rats. (Turns out I was highly, HIGHLY allergic to them, but I reacted to basically everything). This does mean if you're allergic to something not in their normal regimen it will be missed.
The whole test took about 30 minutes.
After the first such test, I adopted anti-allergen mattress/pillow covers for dust mite dust and HEPA filters in the apartment, but didn't do much else. When I moved, I went from a terrible allergy place (Richmond, VA, where springtime puddles are often yellow from the pollen) to a much better one (Seattle, WA, which has molds, but far fewer pollens).
I had a pretty terrible time after the move though, and after a visit to another allergist I got on allergy shots (my research said that Europe will do doses under the tongue, but the US doesn't). Surprisingly, both allergists (Richmond and Seattle) were reluctant to put me on allergy shots, as if the cost was prohibitive ($1k-$2k/year without insurance. I've switch insurances a few times and the costs have been from fully covered to ~$15/mo) but I find happiness to be worth it. The shots themselves are, surprisingly, actually diluted doses of the allergen, ramping up the concentration. I like to joke I'm becoming immune to iocane powder.
Switching coasts messed up my progress, and I'm still working on controlling my weight, but then again, I still have multiple cats despite being allergic to them (my now-wife's happiness factors in, but she totally got rid of the rats). I have swing periods - I tend to lose weight in the spring/summer, then develop a cough that leads to seasonal bronchitis (= more drainage) that lasts 3-4 months in the fall/winter (had pneumonia once - I don't recommend it.) I recently discovered that, um, recently legalized edible substances in seattle taken before bed have prevented this months-long cough, so I'm working to see what happens this year.
Psychologically, though, the impact has been huge. I went from being a homebody that was basically tired all the time to someone that, though still lazy, will actually go out and do things and be willing to endure some exercise and effort. I snacked often, and craved sugar. (I suspect the latter was for the feeling of energy - I had already cut caffeine from my diet to try and improve the quality of my sleep). Now I still enjoy a soda now and then but water is fine and my portion sizes have gone down. The last few years, whenever the annual cough came around I started to get really exhausted by month 2, and it made me very resigned over the season. This year I avoided that and I can definitely feel the psychological benefits of not being worn down like that, and expect that I'll be losing more weight and being healthier over the next few months, but time will tell.
When I first went (with the rats), I had spent 6 months in a funk. It had gotten to the point where I would simply sleep through my alarm clock, and when I was awake I was extremely groggy. The effect was gradual, so I didn't really realize something environmental had changed until I compared myself then to myself months prior.
I've avoided going to a sleep...
I've been planning to get started on Keto for a while but had been worried if it would affect my NAFLD, I also have depression and concentration issues.