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2
LifeHacks - - (+1|-0)
My current favorite sleep life hacks is so simple it sounds stupid(self)
2 commentsbyx0x7

I lot of people have trouble sleeping because they remain in task mode right up till sleep. There are definately things you can and should do to break that up. I could go over so many sleep life hacks that are pretty good. But the dumbest sounding and really kill one is this.

Treat sleep as a task to have your eyes closed for 8h10m. There are a few reasons why this works well. One is that by treating it as a task it fits into the mindset of a task oriented brain. It's your task oriented dimension / get things done drive that is pulling you out bed.

The next reason why it works is it removes all demand to fall asleep. As long as your eyes are closed you are doing the thing you need to be doing. So go ahead and think your thoughts instead of sleeping. Just do it with your eyes closed.

The next reason it works really well for me is that if I don't do this and sleep really well I end up screwing myself over. Sometimes I'll have gotten 4-5 hours of sleep, wake up for a second, feel great and think: Huh, I feel rested, I should just start my day. But what I thought was really great sleep was still too little and I'm still running on 4 hours of sleep. Not great. By turning it into a timed task that has a definite measure of whether you are doing it or not you force yourself to get all 8 hours. The extra 10 minutes is for the fact that I'm not spending it all of it sleeping.

The next benefit is that since you've removed the demand to actually be asleep you can do productive things like build a todo list. I'm still perfecting the process but I can just grab my phone and say "Siri add to notes: The task". This removes a lot of conflict I have between documenting the things I want to do (a lot of which comes in sleeping hours) and actually sleeping.

If I open my eyes and pull out my laptop to jot something down I'm now active enough that I probably I'm going to find myself browsing the internet.

Yeah it's goofy as fuck pretending you are blind for 8 hours but it just works. The weirdest bit is pissing. I'm able to do it just fine. Sometimes I give myself a pass, but it's also not that hard to do. Just don't miss.

Combined with other sleep hacks it's great. The other ones I use just by mentions are: IR sauna, walk/jog in the cold, lift weights in the cold, rest in the cold, stretch, drinking a shit ton of water (actually barley tea because I'm off water), and in terms of alcohol drink less but not zero. Wake hack is mountain biking and coffee after. You want to work out hard enough that it's impossible to get caffeine jitters. So now you have two things that help wake up your mind and two things that counter-act each other's downside.

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[-]JasonCarswell1(+1|0)

Good essay.

I also think of sleep as a necessary "task". If I don't get my 7 or 8 hours in I make sure to sleep in or retire early the next day. If I know I can't fall asleep I'll take a melatonin. Also if I wake at night and can't get back to sleep for about 20 minutes or more - but only if it's early enough as if taken later I'm very groggy in the morning. Usually I'll get up for a few hours and get sleepy naturally but so often I'm killing time until I'm sleepy enough - then I'll have to sleep in for 3 hours. Don't fight through the melatonin sleepiness - if doing something drop it and fall asleep while you can. The useful sleepiness won't last and resisting it will make things worse in the end. Don't use melatonin too often to avoid dependency and eventually ineffectiveness. It's best to try to maintain a consistent circadian rhythm.

If I focus on productive things I could be "thinking" all night. My best way to fall asleep is focusing on the abstract patterns and images on the back of my eyelids. They usually pull me in to lucid hypnagogia then dream scenarios.

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