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Ask HN: How to have more energy for the new year

8 points by tooembarrased ↗ HN
I have a horrible problem - I have low energy levels. Actually most people think I'm enthusiastic and high energy. The problem is though that I get exhausted early in the evening when I get home. I'll fall asleep by 7.30pm and be out cold until maybe midnight. Then I'll be awake for 3 hrs then force myself back to sleep so I can wake back up at 8am. Essentially my body is always forcing me to sleep 10 hours.

I'm so envious of other people that are able to sleep for only 7-8 hours or less. I'm really dedicated and enthusiastic and could get so much done if I only needed less sleep.

I've tried moderate exercise (30 mins swimming in the morning, 3x a week), but it hasn't helped (tried this for a couple months straight). I'm not overweight, actually am pretty skinny. Normalish diet including red meat.

I did see the doctor about this, but they just dismissed it as "some people just need more sleep". They did some simple blood tests, not sure what they did, but they didn't turn up anything unusual. I convinced them to do an overnight study for sleep apnea, and that didn't show anything unusual.

Any suggestions, anyone please? I feel like I'm wasting the best years of my life (am 30) because I'm sleeping through my leisure/after work productive time :(

EDIT: Btw, not a smoker, zero drug use, seldom use alcohol.

17 comments

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dwc
When you've been on vacation what happens if you don't force yourself to go back to sleep?

What happens if you go to sleep at 7:30pm and set an alarm for 9:00pm?

Would you like it better if you got only 7-8 hours of sleep but weren't as energetic during your waking hours?

If you were sleeping only 8 hours and felt great, would you feel cheated if everyone around you only slept for 5 hours?

All of this depends on you, and what works for you. You may have to experiment.

tooembarrased
I've tried "free cycling". My body always forces me to have at least 10 hours sleep, and scarily I can often easily be lazy and have 12 hrs.

When I try to wake up without enough sleep it just feels horrible. Sort of headache/stomach ache combo. I can set an alarm and force myself to wake up early if I need to, but I end up paying for it later and my body demands extra sleep to make up for it.

I get amazing bursts of creativity and clarity when I'm in an energetic phase - so I guess I'd be devastated if I lost that high energy. But a lot of the time there is just stuff to get done so if I had control over whether I have 8hrs or 10hrs then that would be ideal.

The reason 10vs7 is way worse than 8vs5 is that it kills my social life or side-project time. If I go to a party and only get back at mighnight, then I'm screwed if I want to get to work before 11am the next day. If I force myself to wake up at 8am, I can expect to be asleep at 6pm after work the following day.

dwc
So what was your free cycling like? Did you still do the split schedule you describe? Or did you sleep for 10 hours straight?
tooembarrased
I sleep about 10 hours straight, and often take naps in addition to that :(
chipsy
Start playing with your diet, it's the single biggest influence. Most people are unaware of what they do to themselves by eating. Also consider checking other environmental factors like air quality(dust/mildew/smoke) or noise.
tooembarrased
Any specific suggestsions re:diet? I eat lots of premium quality ready meals but also get my fair share of fruit.

How do I determine air quality? I don't smoke or live with smokers. My CPU fan does get clogged with dust a lot, but I've had this problem in several different houses I've lived in.

Vyk
re: diet -cook for yourself as often as possible. -try to avoid overly processed foods. -check ingredient lists on foods you buy and try foods with fewer additives. -do elimination trials with things like gluten and high fructose corn syrup.

It's easy to fall into a diet that's really heavy on wheat and corn, so diversify as much as possible.

I've tried all of these, and my health and energy levels have improved because of them. It's hard to stay 100% on healthy foods and cutting gluten is a huge pain (probably not worth it if you don't have celiac disease).

tooembarrased
There is the annoying side effect that if I make my own food instead of grabbing a take-out at lunch/dinner, I've now lost even more of my precious time on cooking :(

As motivation, is there a way you could describe/quantify the increase in energy levels that you were able to achieve by eating healthy foods?

Vyk
It was more of waking-day energy increase than something that reduced my sleep times (6-7 hours most nights).

Mostly I noticed that I was getting through the day without feeling run down or getting tired in the middle of the day. It was a little easier to get up in the morning. I still wasn't getting enough sleep, but I'm convinced that eating healthy kept that from catching up to me in terms of getting sick (at least for a while - we all have limits).

Ramit Sethi (iwillteachyoutoberich.com - no affiliation) wrote a blog post a while back about how he hired a personal chef to pre-make meals to his specifications for less than the cost of eating out; something like this might save you the time but still give you some control over what goes into your food.

Vyk
I had pretty much the same problem for a long time. I switched beds a few months ago, which really helped. Now I'm back in my old bed and I'm having the same problem again. Try a different mattress type and/or different pillows.

[sleeping alone in both beds]

tooembarrased
How quickly did you notice the difference? Was there any particular characteristic of the alternate mattress that you think might have made the difference?

I've slept in many different beds, and for weeks at a time in hotels and not noticed a difference.

Vyk
Switched from an innerspring mattress to a futon mattress, noticed a difference after maybe a week.
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nkurz
You mention that you've tried exercising in the morning, but have you tried an afternoon schedule instead? Not that I've got this figured out, but I've been pretty athletic most of my life, and have never found a way to make a morning workout enjoyable. But something very physical in the evening keeps me fully awake until I go to sleep, and then helps me sleep more solidly.

If your effects are seasonal, Vitamin D might certainly be worth trying. Diet certainly makes a difference, as others have pointed out. Don't necessarily assume that less is better: hungry people can be pretty lethargic too. Consider eating more and exercising to match. And I wouldn't necessarily give up on the idea of just sleeping in two shifts: going to sleep when you are tired, waking up and working without distraction from midnight-3am, and then sleeping until morning will get an awful lot done.

staunch
Idea 1) You're sleeping at 7:30PM, which is quite early. Force yourself to stay awake until 10PM, then sleep until 8AM. Do that for a few weeks until it's natural.

Idea 2) Take 10 days off working. During that time just sleep and wake according to what your body wants to do, whatever the hours are. You may discover that you feel great by just letting your body set the schedule.

znt
Maybe you have an apnea which inhibits the air intake during sleep, resulting in long sleep time. Maybe you should check for that.