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Sleep & Dreaming

Owned by Nathan Wailes
Last updated: Sept 14, 2024
5 min read

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My sleep journal

  • 2015.06.25 - It's now 11:19am and I'm honestly a little shocked at how I simultaneously feel groggy if I turn my head quickly or move my eyes around quickly, and I also feel really clear-headed and alert and good. I'm shocked because yesterday I went to sleep at probably ~3am, and I woke up today at ~9:40am, so I only got about ~6.5 hrs of sleep max, but I feel more awake and alert than I have in a while, even though I've been getting more sleep in the past (~8 hrs). I was up late sorting through interesting stuff and adding it to my website (info about the Justin.tv founders, advice from Paul Graham, comments on HN by Emmett Shear and Marc Andreessen), which reminds me of how the Pokemon creator and Bill Gates describe themselves working for 36 hrs and then sleeping for 12hrs: I felt like I was in the zone and didn't want to stop. But I'm not sure if that's related to how I feel this morning. I had 1/2 cup of oatmeal, and I've just been eating better in general over the past few days, so maybe I'm just coming out of withdrawal symptoms I had been feeling after I stopped a 1-2 week period of eating ice cream every day. Actually, a major factor may be that I was sitting outside and it was relatively quiet and a pleasant temperature. People have just come outside to eat lunch and are now talking, and the noise is making my head hurt.

  • 2015.12.11

    • Problem: I'd been having trouble falling asleep before 4-6am the past few weeks, and I just realized it was because:

      • I wasn't getting off the computer an hour or two before I wanted to be asleep.

      • I wasn't using the 'Dimmer' program to dim the computer screen an hour or two before I wanted to go to sleep.

      • I was eating ice cream within 3 hours of when I wanted to fall asleep (12am).

    • Solution:

      • I stopped doing all of those things. It seems to be working. I was surprised when I realized I had forgotten about using Dimmer at night. I used to use it every night without fail.

      • Tonight I also put on my sunglasses to dim the light from the computer screen.

  • 2017.01.10 - I could be wrong about this, but I think I just noticed last night through this morning that not having fresh air while you're sleeping (ie sleeping in a place where the air is stale, ie low oxygen content, high CO2 content) can make it harder to fall asleep. Last night I was trying to fall asleep for ~1.5 hours and couldn't do it; my mind was wide awake, which was odd because I'd felt tired most of the day. I somehow had it occur to me that the air was stale, and I decided to try opening a window to let fresh air in. After a few minutes, when I started to be able to tell I was breathing fresh air, I felt much better, and IIRC it felt easier to get my mind to relax / stop jumping all over the place.

  • 2017.01.18 - I sleptĀ very well last night, better than I can remember in a long time. I think it was a combination of 1) it was warmer than it had been, 2) I worked outĀ right before going to bed, 3) I ate most of my food earlier in the day and didn't really eat anything in the hour or two before bed, 4) I was tired even before I went to the gym but went anyway, and when I got out I was totally exhausted.

  • 2017.01.23 - I didn't sleep very well last night; I couldn't fall asleep until past midnight, and then I kept waking up during the night, and ended up waking up an hour before I needed to and couldn't fall back asleep. I think the major mistake I made was to drink a full blender-bottle's worth of protein powder at ~8:30 to 9pm. That made me need to keep going to the bathroom, which is (I think) what kept making me wake up during the night. I think the drink's calories (even aside from the liquid) were partially what made it hard for me to initially fall asleep. I didn't feel groggy today because I'd been getting a good amount of sleep for the week or so before yesterday.

  • 2017.01.24 - Slept alright but not great; I think it's the cold weather. That's the major difference I can think of with the night of the 17th/18th (mentioned above). I didn't eat anything in the ~2-3 hours before I wanted to go to sleep. I did wake up and need to go to the bathroom.

Links

  • HuffPo - Admiral Jim Stavridis (Ret.) - The Military Power of Sleep

    • Nothing very insightful.

    • MI: "military commanders must think of sleep as a weapon that they can deploy. This means that the decision maker ā€” the captain of the ship, the commander of the infantry battalion, the pilot of the jet aircraft ā€” must be afforded the opportunity to gain sufficient rest. This often means providing him or her with space and time simply to sleep."

Books

Sleep habits of very successful people

Sleep system / protocol











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