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by Nevin1901 878 days ago
I thought I always felt tired. Until I got a sleep mask, ear plugs, stopped eating 4 hours before bed, slept in a cold room, and went to bed at the same time every night. I found my body just adjusted itself back to its natural rhythm. Curious how many of the contestants surveyed did exactly this and still had trouble with their sleep.

Edit: diet and general lifestyle changes (such as going to the gym and being outside) also helped.

2 comments

What led to you making so many changes to your normal routine all at once?
Not the parent, but in my case it was the attempt to optimize the process of falling asleep, in any way possible, after years of sleeping problems. There are a lot of articles, books or YT videos compiling tips and tricks. 4-7-8 breathing is another common advice.

After I had been diagnosed with sleep apnea, I received a prescription for an APAP machine (auto-adjusting pressure, in contrast to constant-pressure CPAP). Unfortunately, I still wake up every night after ~3 hours of sleep with a feeling of suffocating and panicking which makes me take off the breathing mask. Therefore I have yet to experience any positive effects from using the APAP machine to treat the apnea.

Any advice from somebody who has gone through the same thing?

I’m sure it has occurred to you to try CPAP; was it ruled out by your pulmonologist? If the pressure is incorrect enough to wake you up gasping, “it ain’t workin’”. As a CPAP user, being able to access the hidden control menu for my device was key: it allowed me to change the pressure, the ramp, and other runtime configuration that really improved my experience - which improved my compliance and thus my energy level (and that small thing of not being at risk of sleep-death!). You have to press a certain combo of buttons to access, maybe your APAP has something similar?
I implemented these changes over the course of a few months. I was so sick of being sleep deprived I eventually optimized my sleep.
How cold?