Sleeping on the side or front, there is a sweet spot I manage to find with soft pillows where it's not uncomfortable. The most annoying is the loud sound they emit when they're low on battery, though I think they finally added an accessibility setting to turn it down.
I try not getting used falling asleep with them on, but will wear them in the middle of the night as soon as the first noises wake me up.
Before I'd use a Bose QC35 but that was terrible on my neck and ears.
In the past I had problems both with falling asleep and staying asleep, but these days it's mostly the latter. I've tried pretty much everything, too, to no avail. What works best is melatonin, but it's still spotty and I suffer diminishing returns after 3-4 days of consecutive use. I wish you good luck.
Biggest improvement to sleep quality I had was giving up caffeine, which isn't mentioned in this article.
I'm inclined to bet, most people in the west who self report suffering form poor sleep, can narrow it down to caffeine over-consumption, since it leads you slowly to this march of death burning the candle at both ends where you drink coffee to compensate for poor sleep and you sleep poorly because of too much caffeine.
True, failed to mention that I never drink caffeine after 2pm. I never understood how some people can have a coffee in the evening and go to bed just fine.
This one https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CYP1A2. I've read somewhere that eating Broccoli enhances its activity, but likely too much is needed to have noticable effects from what I recall.
If only there was a short-acting stimulant and antidote available as a combo..
Anyways, in all seriousness the idea of taking something and then taking something else later to counteract the effects, not good but popular in black, gray, and white market.
I think this weekend I’ll give up caffeine, I’m a slow metabolizer.
I was thinking more in terms of actual antidote by either binding the active substance or speeding up its metabolism, rather than having two substances acting in opposing directions.
Anyway, I gave up caffeine earlier this year and am quite happy with the results. Steady and calm energy, no frantic meandering of thoughts, no clinging to details anymore.
Once every few weeks I'm craving the euphoric buzz and drink half an Espresso, but typically regret it later the same day as I'm unable to sleep and, interestingly, tend to wake up in the middle of the night for a couple of days after.
2pm might not be early enough. Depending on genetics the half life of caffeine in your system can vary by a lot. Even if you're in the normal range, a half life of 4-6 hours means that ~25% of the caffeine would still be in your system by midnight...
If you're that worried about sleep quality, it's baffling you have not tried cutting out caffeine altogether
You are overgeneralizing from your own experience. It happens to some but most people with sleep problems do test if reducing caffeine fixes their problem.
Came here to say the same thing. My body basically forces me to take breaks, after a couple of months of just one or two coffees a day I’ll eventually be tired to the point where I can’t function properly until I take a week off coffee. I need to quit altogether and get back into exercising, when I get on to a good exercise streak and I’m training for an hour or two every day I rarely feel tired and I always sleep well. It’s just harder to maintain when things get busy.
If it is a myth, it is a very widespread stubbornly persistent myth. If you have links to scientific sources debunking it as a myth that would much appreciated.
I came across it most recently in Tom Brady's athletic health book [0]. If I remember correctly, he states that you should drink double the amount of coffee consumed to offset the dehydration effects of coffee. This is simply to emphasize the ubiquitous nature of the myth, as he is someone who has presumably been surrounded by medical professionals for most of his athletic career, and who should have known better if what you say is correct. He singles out proper hydration as a major factor in his peak performance, something he claims younger athletes ignore.
It does not surprise me even one bit that a professional athlete's book on health and nutrition contains health and nutrition myths, especially given other stuff that he has promoted.
I participated in a time tracking exercise and I found that like-clockwork, without fail, I would urinate 1 hour after a cup of coffee at the office. On the way back from the bathroom, I'd get myself another cup of coffee. I had no idea I was having 5 or more cups of coffee every day.
I later tried to cut down or reduce my coffee intake. Most times I always resumed from a combination of missing the enjoyment/routine, flavour, and ability to focus. I finally at least cut out espresso shots, and mostly have a green tea in the morning and a coffee in the afternoon, and sometimes an (orange pekoe/earl gray) tea or a decaf coffee in the early evening.
It’s a shame this is downvoted on HN of all places. I have seen various research that suggests both caffeine (in coffee & tea) and even alcohol (in lighter beers) do not dehydrate. I’ll stick with caffeine since that’s the topic.
The primary study that spread the idea that caffeine dehydrates is from a 1928 study with a sample size of three men[0]. It may very well be that caffeine does dehydrate, but I have yet to see overwhelmingly conclusive evidence to make such a claim as matter of fact. For now, I believe it’s safer to err on the side of moderate and regular caffeine consumption not causing dehydration to a perceptible level. This could of course be entirely incorrect, but I haven’t come across research that has convinced me otherwise so far. My understanding is the reason a cup of coffee (or tea’ does not dehydrate the consumer is because it is almost entirely water.
I think an important frying to remember is that science is a field of research and discovery, so we should try to avoid arriving at conclusions and refusing to accept differing opinions. Look at how we treated Ignaz Semmelweis for an extreme example of that type of fallacy.
I have experimented with caffeine for years (periods of off and on) and noticed dehydration (it is a known diuretic after all). The problem with many of these types of studies that claim there is no effect of x from their inability to detect an effect of x is that they don't rule out sub-populations who may experience the effect. In other words, it's possible for there to be no effect on average, but for the population to be comprised of different groups who do and don't experience the effect. This is particularly relevant to the linked studies which (aside from the first one) have very small sample sizes (n=19, 21, 12) that would not differentiate sub-populations.
After reading the abstracts and skimming some of the studies you linked, I don't personally find the quality of evidence convincing enough to discount what seems to be a commonly reported anecdote about the effects of caffeine.
As an example, the second study makes a glaring statistical error (equating p>0.05 lack of a difference between groups with equivalence of groups) that renders the entire conclusion invalid.
The fourth study (which probably has the best methodology aside from the small sample size) actually did find caffeine has an effect on water retention.
The other studies use various indirect measures of hydration (blood osmolality and urine metabolites) where it is unclear if sub-clincical diuresis would actually impact these measures.
Giving up caffein is the single most important thing most people can do to improve sleep quality. Wikipedia says "Caffeine is the world's most widely consumed psychoactive drug", so it's obvious why coffee is so addictive for many. It is very hard to stay away from coffee, when it is literally everywhere. Somebody is always brewing coffee at the office, every street corner has a café, every meeting starts with someone serving coffee. It doesn't makes things better living in Norway, which has the worlds second highest coffee consumption per capita.
It has been incredibly hard for me to quit as the consumption of caffeine feels directly tied with work performance and mood for me. It also doesn’t help that I love the taste of coffee and the routine.
There are a lot of good decaf coffees out there. Also teas.
You don't have to give up the taste or the ritual to cut back on the caffeine, you don't even have to give up caffeine totally. You can cut down a lot on it too.
In the UK I use Redber for beans, I drink decaf (Swiss Water prices) fresh ground in the afternoon and have 2-3 caf cups in the morning. Redber had a wide selection and several roast levels.
No caffeine after noon. I use a 2-cup espresso Bialetti stove top, the second smallest.
It doesn’t. Some of the Swiss waters are very good. My baseline for coffee is quality single origin Geisha, and good Swiss water is better than most espresso places.
Off the back of yours and the child comments, I tried a swiss water decaf for the first time (beans) and it tastes amazing - I wouldn’t know it’s not regular coffee.
For reference for anyone interested, I used a Mochamaster filter brewer with these beans (which I freshly grind - which probably helps the taste too):
Lavazza Decaffeinated, 100% Arabica Medium Roast
This is exciting to me as I can finally wean myself off caffeine while keeping my {difficult to kick} coffee habit!
Exactly why I had such a hard time quitting. I kept rationalizing it by telling myself that abstaining was killing my productivity (it was in the short term.) But after /finally/ quitting it has absolutely been worth it and my productivity is back to where it was plus it's not in manic bursts like it was with caffeine use.
I gave up caffeine on a lark during lockdowns. Man, great decision. I've never slept better and my anxiety went way down too. I'd had no idea what that stimulant happened to be doing to my system.
I had been tapering down my caffeine consumption too, but going cold turkey had a major difference for me.
I'll caution that 3 days of pretty intense headaches were the cost, but for me, the benefits were immense.
I still go through a coffee ritual-thingy in the mornings with teas, so that is still nice to have.
Others in my family have tried this, but saw no real benefits, so went back on coffee. Your mileage may vary too. Still, I think it's worth a shot if you're having sleeping issues.
I don't understand going cold turkey. You said it had a difference for you. What was it? I've tapered off before, it probably took like a week at most and I experienced no headaches.
Even at ~1/4th caf as my once daily cup, I still got ~3 days of headaches when I finally quit entirely.
After that, I slept much better. I could finally fall asleep, it wouldn't take me an hour to nod off. I stayed asleep, I wasn't getting up 2-3 times a night. My anxiety, which I then found out contributed to my sleep problems, that pretty much went away. I used to plan and replan scenarios in my head, come up with pithy quips to conversations that would never happen, fear saying or doing the wrong thing in imaginary conundrums.
It all just disappeared after I quit caffeine. I felt 'normal' for the first time in decades. I woke up having the best night of sleep in my memory. And then it happened the next morning, and the next.
Currently, I don;t sleep all that well, but a new baby is the culprit. I can't imagine having a newborn and being on caffeine again, my anxiety would spiral out of control. I'd be a mess for my kid, projecting things, being a jerk.
One of the best little random challenges I ever gave myself.
I have the exact same issue as op, I wake during the night and going back to sleep after that can take hours. Tried to get rid of the cofee, more precisely stopped drinking for 2 weeks, but didn't have any effect for me, so yeah the results may vary.
Same, quitting caffeine made a massive difference in my sleep. Daily consumer for 20 years, quitting suuucked and took me probably 20 tries but finally did it. My mind works so much better now.
I have cut out all forms of caffeine including soda and chocolate, yes. It's great, I feel well rested. If I want soda or chocolate, I make sure to have them before noon, but even still, it's actually noticeable the next day.
I was a regular espresso drinker, one in the morning with my wife before work and giving it up has made a world of difference. Even a coffee at 7am was impacting my sleep, I suspect I just metabolise caffeine slowly.
I can still have a tea in the morning to replace the ritual, and chocolate doesn't cause me any issues (in moderation) so I'm not 100% caffeine free, but it's made a huge difference to my sleep quality and overall mood. The first week or so felt very sluggish, but one I was sleeping properly I now feel more alert and productive without coffee than I ever did with it.
I still have one occasionally (~2 a month I guess) because I enjoy it, but I definitely notice the sleep impact that night and feel crap the next day.
I gave up caffeine (tapered off to one cup, was at 6 cups a day and I’m a small human) and I almost immediately noticed my anxiety levels cut by 75%. In terms of sleep, I didn’t notice a huge difference, but I also am not good about setting a calming routine before bed. If caffeine is playing a large role in your insomnia you should feel more able to fall asleep quite quickly . Caffeine can greatly increase cortisol levels and sometimes that can take some time to come down
What I found out recently: people are different. Some people have a slow and some a fast caffeine metabolism.
I’m a fast metabolizer. I can drink coffee very late and don’t feel anything. A friend of mine stops drinking coffee after 1pm because he won’t sleep otherwise.
While I love a good coffee, the sleep cycle mess it causes isn’t worth it for me except very occasionally - this also means there is no tolerance build up. I drink on average one cup of cappuccino every 1-2 weeks, and seek out the good stuff to make it worth it. You really notice the effects too this way vs drinking it daily.
Also, and this might be obvious, turn off some time before going to bed. I am in the habbit of 'trying one more thing the fix this bug' before bed which makes me sleep simply terrible.
Eating old cheese also helps for me but can make me feel groggy in the morning.
~ My average sleep efficiency (time asleep vs time in bed) according to Apple Watch & Oura is ~85%, meaning to get my 7h30 of sleep to feel rested I will stay more than 10h in bed. That sucks!
85% of 10h is 8.5h :) To get 7.5h with 85% you need ~8.8h in bed.
I think the biggest detriment to the quality of sleep is to start trying to improve sleep. It should not be a performance with self monitoring and evaluation.
Yeah as I get older my sleep cycle has naturally shorten. I wake up early most of the time, but come the weekend and that might be 2 or 3 hours later. Your body knows what you need, no need to force more bed time if you're getting proper rest.
Yeah agreed. You can get hung up on an idealization of a perfect nights sleep that is 8-9 hours, falling asleep at once, and not waking up untill morning, which is very rare and not at all nessesary for a good nights sleep. This will set you up for failure and lots of frustrations.
Drink one cup of coffee less per day, and stop it completely after 3PM. This was one of the many small things that helped me sleep better. There were more sinister things I discovered to be the true reason for my poor sleep. Something to do with poor mental health, but I’ll write about those some other time.
there is interesting historical research, which pops up from time to time, showing that people in many cultures before the advent of electric lighting commonly slept in two phases -- about 4 hours, a couple hours awake, and about 4 hours.
i think it gets too strong when people claim that this is "natural" or "better" or something. but the historical evidence suggests it's at least "okay", and if you sometimes wake up at 3am maybe just embrace this, get up, do something tedious, and go back to bed.
i remember reading quotes from historical people who were all pretty clear that this is how they slept, and often implied they considered it not to be unusual.
>But humans have never had a universal method of slumber. A 2015 study of hunter-gatherer societies in Tanzania, Namibia, and Bolivia found that most foragers enjoyed one long sleep. Two years later, another study found that a rural society in Madagascar practiced segmented sleep. Two years after that, a study found that the indigenous residents of Tanna, in the South Pacific, largely had one uninterrupted sleep.
Many parents wake up in the middle of the night to feed the baby and change the diaper.
I liked it better when I wake up in the middle of the night. At some point, my child could sleep until 5 or 6am, which is a more difficult time for me to return sleeping.
Do you have a source? It sounds interesting and I always want this to be true, but with the natural circadian rhythm slightly longer than 24h and just the fact that most cultures adopt mono/biphasic (”siesta based”) sleep it seems surprising.
My first reaction is, if I'd worry that much about my sleep I would sleep bad, too.
Then again I don't think the OP has a very unusual sleep pattern. But if it bothers the OP, go get checked up. I would make it possible to be in the country where I have a doctor's appointment in three months if it is important to me.
I don't sleep enough. I don't usually have a problem with falling asleep as much as I do staying asleep. I've found Magnesium Glycinate extremely helpful with sleeping longer.
I don't use any of them, but I've heard firsthand from some like the author complaining about inaccurate data from devices like the Apple Watch and Oura, some getting rid of them due to this.
Since the OP continues to use them, am I to understand there is no better alternative that is comparable on the comfort/ease-of-use/cost-effectiveness axis with these devices?
The idea of making health decisions based on bad data makes me queasy, but do people who continue to use these devices despite knowing their inaccuracy still recommend their use because one shouldn't let "the perfect be the enemy of the good"?
There's a Youtube channel from a Dutch researcher doing scientific tests on sleep and fitness tracking performance of wearables[1].
Ardently Apple devices and Oura are at the top in terms accuracy of what wearables can do, but if you want proper accuracy then you need to invest in dedicated sleep monitoring equipment as a watch on your wrist will never come close to electrodes on your head.
Just yesterday, someone was complaining about having gone a hike and his watch registering 10k distance, while the watches of the two others registered 6k. Was wondering how common a problem that was before I came across this article.
I love his channel and comparisons but at the end of the day the tests are on a population of 1 and I guess accuracy can highly fluctuate between persons.
Also in some videos I remember he was using the Dreem headband as comparison standard.
I bought the Dreem 2 when it came out as it seemed like finally an accurate sleep tracker but the software and recording were very dubious: every night that didn't fit in a perfect sleeping pattern it failed to give any useful data. I ended up sending it back and wouldn't trust much the results after that.
Correlates with what I’ve seen. My Garmin is laughably bad but does give a rough idea of when I fell asleep and when I awoke (usually). Everything else in middle is trash.
Apple Watch was more precise with how I “feel.” Haven’t done an actual sleep test with either but I know Garmin is generally wrong and apple might be nearing an accurate approximation based on how I feel.
Outside of devices used for sleep studies, sleep tracking is notoriously inaccurate in general.
There is even a condition for people who develop insomnia from sleep tracker anxiety. It's called orthosomnia, and you can learn more about it here: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/orthosomnia
I used to use AutoSleep religiously. It told you how much "sleep debt" you've accumulated. I've definitely lost sleep over worrying that I wouldn't "pay down" the debt (a useless endeavor, since sleep quality is something that's mostly out of your control once you're asleep).
These days, I just use Apple's built-in sleep tracker, and I don't put too much stock into it.
I've heard it said they are not especially good at absolute numbers, but for comparing i.e., last night to the night before, or to three months ago, that is, seeing the trends they are good.
High CBD cannabis flower, usually marketed as hemp, is not as helpful as full-spectrum 1:1 (CBD:THC) flower. I'm discovering that I'm reacting differently to each cannabis strain, some producing far longer hangover effects than others. It may be a case of personalized medicine, or maybe there actually are terpene profiles that lend to zero, if not low, hangover effects. There are strains marketed for daytime use, usually of the sativa variety, where as there are strains for night-time use, of the indica variety. Yet, I've found that 5 vape puffs of certain sativa-dominant strains yielding 8 hours of deep sleep with minimal hangover. Short-term memory, however, always seems to be affected regardless of what kind of flower is consumed.
Yes, this is my go-to in times where I've had trouble sleeping. It's rare, as I lift weights and don't drink coffee after noon, which gets me good sleep consistently, but if needed a few hits will knock me down for sure.
I think the author's real problem is the constant change of environment, bed, etc. I've had the same thing happen to me when I've done that. The weather also plays a major role.
For about a year already, I use ASMR audio/visuals when I go to bed (strange, not even mentioned in the referenced post). I found they help me falling asleep (though, probably, not staying asleep). Also, not just any ASMR stuff does the job, there is a lot of ASMR junk out there. Plus, ASMR triggers differ in efficiency from one person to another, so I preliminarily assess if a particular recording might be good for me. Most of all, I like educational ASMR about history/culture/languages/etc.
Absolutely. I forgot to mention - at around the same time I bought open earbuds (Samsung buds Live, to be concrete) which I found comfortable - they don't block external sound and I practically don't feel them in the ears.
Running and a food diary. I found I was waking at night because of histamine intolerance. The food you eat has a huge effect on your circadian rhythms and it could last for days after eating a specific food. For me, it was fermented foods. The last four weeks, my moving average on sleep has been the best this year.
My tactic for falling asleep just about anywhere is over-ear headphones (QC35) and a sleeping mask.
Sleeping slightly on your side is no problem with QC35 and if the noise around you is low enough you don't even need white noise. The battery lasts a couple of nights too (esp with no white noise on).
I've tried doing the same with Sonys over-ear but they make a loud noise when I move my head so they don't work for me at all. AirPods Pro work in a pinch but the battery runs out and my ears start hurting.
Another thing which I find mildy helpful which wasn't mentioned here is Valerian. If my lack of sleep is stress-related Valerian works sometimes for calming. If my lack of sleep is due to bad routine / off schedule Melatonin works very well but if I'm stressed it does not work at all and leaves me groggy in the morning.
I also have a light sleep. In my case, light sleep means that I wake up very easily to almost any sound or movement. I most of the time fall asleep very quickly but sometimes not.
I tried most of the things shared in the article, and indeed, for most of them, it is hard to say if they improved or not over the long run.
Here is one thing that worked for me:
1. I am doing 20 to 30 minutes of what I call light sports every day.
2. I take magnesium l-theonate and apigenin 1-2 hours before sleep.
3. I lost about 10kg, from 100kg to about 90kg.
4. I eat something light around 6 PM.
What do I mean by light sport? For me it measn zone 2 running or I adapted some HIIT training to tone down a bit the intensity or walking a lot (when I am in vacation).
Why 20 minutes to 30 minutes? I only have time for that. It may be better to do more, but that is the amount that I am sure I can commit every day.
Why every day? For me, the effects of this started to kick in after 1 week or more. The first week of doing sport every day I slept well, but I also felt tired the next day. But after 1-2 weeks, I noticed that the tiredness during the day started to disappear.
This is not a scientific study, so I am unsure if magnesium and apigenin have any effect or if it is just a placebo. I plan in the next period to not use them at all for 2-3 weeks and see the effects.
I noticed that if I do this every day, my average sleep gets very good: I wake up less times during the night, the sleep is deeper. I fall asleep around 09:00 PM and wake up at 05:00 AM, fully energized.
Something I've started doing that's had a very marked impact on my sleep is going for a walk each morning. I've always been very active at night (with terrible trouble falling asleep), and always been a zombie in the morning; but this seems to have shifted my wake cycle in such a way that I'm alert and productive during the day and tired at night instead. Hell of a thing.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 170 ms ] threadI try not getting used falling asleep with them on, but will wear them in the middle of the night as soon as the first noises wake me up.
Before I'd use a Bose QC35 but that was terrible on my neck and ears.
I'm inclined to bet, most people in the west who self report suffering form poor sleep, can narrow it down to caffeine over-consumption, since it leads you slowly to this march of death burning the candle at both ends where you drink coffee to compensate for poor sleep and you sleep poorly because of too much caffeine.
By building tolerance and genetics.
If only there was a short-acting stimulant and antidote available as a combo..
“We buy drugs” whitest kids u know : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I2AQ6FwpSrc
Anyways, in all seriousness the idea of taking something and then taking something else later to counteract the effects, not good but popular in black, gray, and white market.
I think this weekend I’ll give up caffeine, I’m a slow metabolizer.
Anyway, I gave up caffeine earlier this year and am quite happy with the results. Steady and calm energy, no frantic meandering of thoughts, no clinging to details anymore. Once every few weeks I'm craving the euphoric buzz and drink half an Espresso, but typically regret it later the same day as I'm unable to sleep and, interestingly, tend to wake up in the middle of the night for a couple of days after.
I know that energy drinks use taurine to combat some of the effects of caffeine, but I don't think it will work for sleep.
If you're that worried about sleep quality, it's baffling you have not tried cutting out caffeine altogether
However, if I have caffeine too early in the day, it makes it harder to clear my mind and sleep that night than if I had no caffeine at all.
For this reason, I aim to only have caffeine after 3pm (preferably later, depending on when I plan to go to bed).
You'd be surprised how many people are oblivious to this.
This is a myth. Coffee has water in it. Just drink enough water from all sources.
I came across it most recently in Tom Brady's athletic health book [0]. If I remember correctly, he states that you should drink double the amount of coffee consumed to offset the dehydration effects of coffee. This is simply to emphasize the ubiquitous nature of the myth, as he is someone who has presumably been surrounded by medical professionals for most of his athletic career, and who should have known better if what you say is correct. He singles out proper hydration as a major factor in his peak performance, something he claims younger athletes ignore.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/TB12-Method-Lifetime-Sustained-Perfor...
I later tried to cut down or reduce my coffee intake. Most times I always resumed from a combination of missing the enjoyment/routine, flavour, and ability to focus. I finally at least cut out espresso shots, and mostly have a green tea in the morning and a coffee in the afternoon, and sometimes an (orange pekoe/earl gray) tea or a decaf coffee in the early evening.
The primary study that spread the idea that caffeine dehydrates is from a 1928 study with a sample size of three men[0]. It may very well be that caffeine does dehydrate, but I have yet to see overwhelmingly conclusive evidence to make such a claim as matter of fact. For now, I believe it’s safer to err on the side of moderate and regular caffeine consumption not causing dehydration to a perceptible level. This could of course be entirely incorrect, but I haven’t come across research that has convinced me otherwise so far. My understanding is the reason a cup of coffee (or tea’ does not dehydrate the consumer is because it is almost entirely water.
I think an important frying to remember is that science is a field of research and discovery, so we should try to avoid arriving at conclusions and refusing to accept differing opinions. Look at how we treated Ignaz Semmelweis for an extreme example of that type of fallacy.
[0] https://jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/33/2/167
More studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3886980/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11022872/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21450118/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9194998
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...
After reading the abstracts and skimming some of the studies you linked, I don't personally find the quality of evidence convincing enough to discount what seems to be a commonly reported anecdote about the effects of caffeine.
As an example, the second study makes a glaring statistical error (equating p>0.05 lack of a difference between groups with equivalence of groups) that renders the entire conclusion invalid.
The fourth study (which probably has the best methodology aside from the small sample size) actually did find caffeine has an effect on water retention.
The other studies use various indirect measures of hydration (blood osmolality and urine metabolites) where it is unclear if sub-clincical diuresis would actually impact these measures.
Probably because it’s the first thing which comes up when people complain about poor sleep.
Caffeine consumption is certainly the first thing every doc I’ve seen asked about.
You don't have to give up the taste or the ritual to cut back on the caffeine, you don't even have to give up caffeine totally. You can cut down a lot on it too.
Wow, I had never heard of this before. The chemical process for decaf had always put me off before.
From their website: [0]
> When you see the Swiss Water® name, it means your favorite roaster offers 100% chemical-free decaffeinated coffee.
You may have just convinced me to switch to decaf...
[0] https://www.swisswater.com
For reference for anyone interested, I used a Mochamaster filter brewer with these beans (which I freshly grind - which probably helps the taste too):
Lavazza Decaffeinated, 100% Arabica Medium Roast
This is exciting to me as I can finally wean myself off caffeine while keeping my {difficult to kick} coffee habit!
I gave up caffeine on a lark during lockdowns. Man, great decision. I've never slept better and my anxiety went way down too. I'd had no idea what that stimulant happened to be doing to my system.
I had been tapering down my caffeine consumption too, but going cold turkey had a major difference for me.
I'll caution that 3 days of pretty intense headaches were the cost, but for me, the benefits were immense.
I still go through a coffee ritual-thingy in the mornings with teas, so that is still nice to have.
Others in my family have tried this, but saw no real benefits, so went back on coffee. Your mileage may vary too. Still, I think it's worth a shot if you're having sleeping issues.
Black tea and green tea, like Earl Gray or Matcha, yes they have caffeine.
Chamomile or tea of an other non-caffeinated plant boiled in water, no.
After that, I slept much better. I could finally fall asleep, it wouldn't take me an hour to nod off. I stayed asleep, I wasn't getting up 2-3 times a night. My anxiety, which I then found out contributed to my sleep problems, that pretty much went away. I used to plan and replan scenarios in my head, come up with pithy quips to conversations that would never happen, fear saying or doing the wrong thing in imaginary conundrums.
It all just disappeared after I quit caffeine. I felt 'normal' for the first time in decades. I woke up having the best night of sleep in my memory. And then it happened the next morning, and the next.
Currently, I don;t sleep all that well, but a new baby is the culprit. I can't imagine having a newborn and being on caffeine again, my anxiety would spiral out of control. I'd be a mess for my kid, projecting things, being a jerk.
One of the best little random challenges I ever gave myself.
I drink one 10oz cup a day. Occasionally more but rarely. I do love it.
Knowing that everyone’s physiology is different, I wonder if I would generally see notable gains in quitting 1 cup a day.
I find that the people who say quitting made a difference were often drinking a pot a day. But maybe that is not true for you?
I was a regular espresso drinker, one in the morning with my wife before work and giving it up has made a world of difference. Even a coffee at 7am was impacting my sleep, I suspect I just metabolise caffeine slowly.
I can still have a tea in the morning to replace the ritual, and chocolate doesn't cause me any issues (in moderation) so I'm not 100% caffeine free, but it's made a huge difference to my sleep quality and overall mood. The first week or so felt very sluggish, but one I was sleeping properly I now feel more alert and productive without coffee than I ever did with it.
I still have one occasionally (~2 a month I guess) because I enjoy it, but I definitely notice the sleep impact that night and feel crap the next day.
I’m a fast metabolizer. I can drink coffee very late and don’t feel anything. A friend of mine stops drinking coffee after 1pm because he won’t sleep otherwise.
While I love a good coffee, the sleep cycle mess it causes isn’t worth it for me except very occasionally - this also means there is no tolerance build up. I drink on average one cup of cappuccino every 1-2 weeks, and seek out the good stuff to make it worth it. You really notice the effects too this way vs drinking it daily.
Eating old cheese also helps for me but can make me feel groggy in the morning.
85% of 10h is 8.5h :) To get 7.5h with 85% you need ~8.8h in bed.
As a non-24 the graph looks more like this: https://photos.app.goo.gl/pdsZmimGqKmKm4wE9
It has improved over the years since, thanks to melatonin (285 micrograms), sleep masks, and if all else fails, Xanax.
- be active (Walking, Running) for at least 20 min a day
- do not drink coffee after noon
i think it gets too strong when people claim that this is "natural" or "better" or something. but the historical evidence suggests it's at least "okay", and if you sometimes wake up at 3am maybe just embrace this, get up, do something tedious, and go back to bed.
i remember reading quotes from historical people who were all pretty clear that this is how they slept, and often implied they considered it not to be unusual.
https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shi... https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/dont-worry-if-you-ca...
However, I did find this article from The Atlantic: https://archive.is/MYcgm#selection-1033.0-1049.105
>But humans have never had a universal method of slumber. A 2015 study of hunter-gatherer societies in Tanzania, Namibia, and Bolivia found that most foragers enjoyed one long sleep. Two years later, another study found that a rural society in Madagascar practiced segmented sleep. Two years after that, a study found that the indigenous residents of Tanna, in the South Pacific, largely had one uninterrupted sleep.
I liked it better when I wake up in the middle of the night. At some point, my child could sleep until 5 or 6am, which is a more difficult time for me to return sleeping.
Then again I don't think the OP has a very unusual sleep pattern. But if it bothers the OP, go get checked up. I would make it possible to be in the country where I have a doctor's appointment in three months if it is important to me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/15ceths/timerel...
Since the OP continues to use them, am I to understand there is no better alternative that is comparable on the comfort/ease-of-use/cost-effectiveness axis with these devices?
The idea of making health decisions based on bad data makes me queasy, but do people who continue to use these devices despite knowing their inaccuracy still recommend their use because one shouldn't let "the perfect be the enemy of the good"?
Ardently Apple devices and Oura are at the top in terms accuracy of what wearables can do, but if you want proper accuracy then you need to invest in dedicated sleep monitoring equipment as a watch on your wrist will never come close to electrodes on your head.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/@TheQuantifiedScientist
Just yesterday, someone was complaining about having gone a hike and his watch registering 10k distance, while the watches of the two others registered 6k. Was wondering how common a problem that was before I came across this article.
Also in some videos I remember he was using the Dreem headband as comparison standard.
I bought the Dreem 2 when it came out as it seemed like finally an accurate sleep tracker but the software and recording were very dubious: every night that didn't fit in a perfect sleeping pattern it failed to give any useful data. I ended up sending it back and wouldn't trust much the results after that.
Apple Watch was more precise with how I “feel.” Haven’t done an actual sleep test with either but I know Garmin is generally wrong and apple might be nearing an accurate approximation based on how I feel.
There is even a condition for people who develop insomnia from sleep tracker anxiety. It's called orthosomnia, and you can learn more about it here: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/orthosomnia
I used to use AutoSleep religiously. It told you how much "sleep debt" you've accumulated. I've definitely lost sleep over worrying that I wouldn't "pay down" the debt (a useless endeavor, since sleep quality is something that's mostly out of your control once you're asleep).
These days, I just use Apple's built-in sleep tracker, and I don't put too much stock into it.
I think the author's real problem is the constant change of environment, bed, etc. I've had the same thing happen to me when I've done that. The weather also plays a major role.
Either the headphones are not comfortable or my wife gets annoyed.
And it has to be something which I don't need to 'get rid of' after falling asleep like headphones or so.
Sleeping slightly on your side is no problem with QC35 and if the noise around you is low enough you don't even need white noise. The battery lasts a couple of nights too (esp with no white noise on).
I've tried doing the same with Sonys over-ear but they make a loud noise when I move my head so they don't work for me at all. AirPods Pro work in a pinch but the battery runs out and my ears start hurting.
Another thing which I find mildy helpful which wasn't mentioned here is Valerian. If my lack of sleep is stress-related Valerian works sometimes for calming. If my lack of sleep is due to bad routine / off schedule Melatonin works very well but if I'm stressed it does not work at all and leaves me groggy in the morning.
I tried most of the things shared in the article, and indeed, for most of them, it is hard to say if they improved or not over the long run.
Here is one thing that worked for me:
1. I am doing 20 to 30 minutes of what I call light sports every day.
2. I take magnesium l-theonate and apigenin 1-2 hours before sleep.
3. I lost about 10kg, from 100kg to about 90kg.
4. I eat something light around 6 PM.
What do I mean by light sport? For me it measn zone 2 running or I adapted some HIIT training to tone down a bit the intensity or walking a lot (when I am in vacation).
Why 20 minutes to 30 minutes? I only have time for that. It may be better to do more, but that is the amount that I am sure I can commit every day.
Why every day? For me, the effects of this started to kick in after 1 week or more. The first week of doing sport every day I slept well, but I also felt tired the next day. But after 1-2 weeks, I noticed that the tiredness during the day started to disappear.
This is not a scientific study, so I am unsure if magnesium and apigenin have any effect or if it is just a placebo. I plan in the next period to not use them at all for 2-3 weeks and see the effects.
I noticed that if I do this every day, my average sleep gets very good: I wake up less times during the night, the sleep is deeper. I fall asleep around 09:00 PM and wake up at 05:00 AM, fully energized.
For sleep apnea, I think there was a post on HN recently that recommended trying a mandibular advancement device before trying sleep masks.