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Sleep Habits


Django

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How many of us traded sleep to spend on more gaming hours?

I have been at both sides of the night. Either I was playing until very late at night, even sometimes playing all night in the holidays when I was still at school, or more recently (2 or 3 years back), waking up early to game in the morning when everyone was still asleep. This was an illusion I created, a system I believed would make it possible to enjoy gaming and spend quality time with the family. I was dead wrong.

What sleep habits do you have or would like to have?

Right now, I'm trying to get to bed early at all time, not only when I'm working. When I'm working, I have to wake up at 5:30 because I want to leave a 06:30 and be at work around 07:00. I'm working on making this a daily habit. While going to bed early (08:30 - 09:00 PM max)

I don't force myself to fall asleep. I'm either reading on my e-reader or listening to an audio book/podcast. I have been watching YouTube also but I won't do it again and I highly recommend against doing that.

By doing this, I doesn't take a while before I fall asleep. If I fall asleep at let's say 10:30 PM, that's still 7 hours of sleep which is fine. It seems some successful people can do with less. The thing is to have a good balance between fatigue and the ability to spend the time not sleeping by doing something useful and productive.

This week has been trial and error. One day I woke up at 5:30 am, the day after I did the same but just slept on the couch for two more hours, then I woke up at 08:00 am with guilt and today, while sleeping before 10:00 PM the evening before, I just slept until 08:00 am but without the guilt. It is weird, I could easily have done it, but I just laid in bed, because I felt good and knew I wasn't ready to do something productive in those hours.

What's also funny, is that I can do it without a problem, going to sleep early or not, when I'm working. Waking up late is not an option while working! It's all about the traffic and it can be a pain to be in it while going to work! So if I could fine something like that traffic excuse for on day offs, It'd be more effective!! ;)

 

Edited by Django
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@Django

Thanks for inspiration! I'll share with you about my experience with giving up sleeping.

When I was in elementary, I was able to wake up at 4a.m. Then do homework for couple of minutes, because the day before I've been playing for the whole afternoon. After quick breakfast I had been playing Tibia until I had to go to school Can you realise it right now? I've been playing TIBIA. Stupid game about making my pixel stronger. And since today the mechanisms in this pixel game was so addictive that sometimes I wanted to play it as a form of relapse. But now, it's gone. Never more Tibia.

During last year I've been in strange routine to play video games since I came home to about 2a.m. I was tired next day with lack of concentration and after coming back home I was so tired that I was able only to play more. What a vicious cycle.

Now I try to sleep at least 7-7,5 hours to be well-rested and ready for the next day. I also to try fall asleep at 10-11p.m. and wake up 5-6a.m.

What's most important to sleep well is to take screen off before 1 or even 2 hours before bedtime. Why? Because our brain interpretate screen light as a signal that it's still a day, so it doesn't secrete enough melatonin - hormon responsible for sleeping and day and night cycle. Also improtant for me is to set alarm clock 2 hours before sleeping and put my phone away (most times I'm plugging it to charger)

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What's most important to sleep well is to take screen off before 1 or even 2 hours before bedtime. Why? Because our brain interpretate screen light as a signal that it's still a day, so it doesn't secrete enough melatonin - hormon responsible for sleeping and day and night cycle. Also improtant for me is to set alarm clock 2 hours before sleeping and put my phone away (most times I'm plugging it to charger)

That's right, indeed! I have an e-reader (Kobo Aura HD) to read books. And unlike a phone or a tablet, it's an e-ink device without a backlit screen. So no short-wavelength light! ;)

If I use my phone, it's mostly (and this is new since a week or two) to listen to an audio book. So I don't look at the screen.

There is an app that could help a bit with the light of computer screens, phones or tablets. It has already been recommended on the forums by a few : f.lux. https://justgetflux.com/

Never used it but I might take a look as my son is watching some stuff on the notebook in the evening ...

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By far the BIGGEST impact on my improved ability to sleep at night is due to f.lux.

Also, I regularly fall asleep around midnight and rarely have coffee past 4pm. Generally speaking you want to think about a 7 hour window with caffeine.

For those who have trouble sleeping, you may also try taking 5HTP (you can find it at most health food stores) one hour before wanting to fall asleep. It helps me a lot.

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f.lux is an amazing app, I downloaded it on recommendation by my sister and it works great! My eyes don't feel used up at night so I don't look more tired next day. That isn't an excuse to stay up late at night though. I like hycniejsy's suggestion to remove computer usage one hour before sleep. Could read a book for example instead of that.
I generally fall asleep at 11.30 pm. A human needs about 7-8 hours of sleep a day. So that leaves enough time to go to work/school the next day.
But the thing is, most productivity comes in the morning. So if we go to bed earlier, let's say 10.30pm and sleep for 7-8 hours, you should be awake at around 5.30-6.30 am. That's alot of time in between you can use for school/work/other things. I myself find it hard to implement that because I went to bed late night for years, that's a bad habit to change. But hey, it's possible to change that pattern over time.

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Well, I think that our productivity time depends on our type: We can either be night owl or early bird (in Polish called skylark). That's interesting theory because it's based on prehistoric times: some people in the group have to stay late at night to protect others who were sleeping. And then, the rest of people have to wake up early to guard those who need a rest during that time.

However, I don't think it should be an excuse to stay up late at night. I'm definitely a skylark (I have couple of months in my life when I was able to wake up 4.15 a.m. and be productive), but I was able to stay up to 2 a.m. at night when I was playing video games.

So, the best way to discover what type of human we are, we have to just test it out and see at what time of the day we're the most productive.

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