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by instagib 748 days ago
https://archive.is/2gbWb

So, the lie is that you can only do so much to improve your sleep while poor and working.

It comes down to being rich, not being required to work, no boss, not submit vacation days a year in advance, able to get quality healthcare whenever needed or electively wanted, have time to exercise, meditate, and eliminate any worries or concerns with money that you rarely care about the costs.

There’s a lot of sleep hackers I’ve looked into who dive into EEG scalp mounted machines worn at night, 8sleep active waterbed addon coolers with sleep data, or sleep bands/rings. The latest is tracking and improving HRV heart rate variability numbers.

2 comments

> It comes down to being rich, not being required to work, no boss, not submit vacation days a year in advance, able to get quality healthcare whenever needed or electively wanted, have time to exercise, meditate, and eliminate any worries or concerns with money that you rarely care about the costs.

You can have all of this and be middle class if that's what you prioritize instead of Keeping Up with the Joneses.

You will likely not have both, though.

> It comes down to being rich, not being required to work, no boss

> You can have all of this and be middle class

???

The Joneses became the central banks so good luck ignoring them.
This is the reality that nobody wants to accept as the root cause of these problems
Hamilton is basically Sweeney Todd for the historically literate.
> meditate

Meditation is free and does not take a lot of time. Anyone can meditate, nobody is too busy to have 15 or 20 minutes a day for meditation. The same goes for exercise. 1 hour is 4% of the day.

This is a very miscalculated take.

Work is minimum 8 hours. Add another 2-3 hours for commuting, getting ready for work, and getting ready for being home. Add about 2 hours for cooking and clean up.

So far we’re at 12-13 hours. Add at least 7 hours for sleep (and sometimes turning in bed). We’re now at 19-20 hours. Add about an hour a day of incidentals that come up (social expectations, phone calls with family, etc). Add about two hours if you have kids.

Now we’re at 22-23 hours. Add an hour to two for entertainment and that’s your day.

Now you can change up the math a bit, and you’ll see that “only 4% of the day” is just a bad system for measuring time.

Things I didn’t include:

- bureaucracy related stuff, governmental stuff

- healthcare

- education

- elder care

It's not miscalculated. The calculation is exactly right. It's really about how you choose to spend that time.

The time split you did isn't set in stone, you can change most of that. Don't cook for an hour, move cleaning up into the weekend. 2-3 hours is a long commute, consider remote work or getting a job closer to where you are. 8 hours is a typical office workday but other arrangements are possible from contract work to 4-on-4-off type jobs.

I'm not saying that changing these things matches your lifestyle or what you want to do, simply that they are within your means to change (very likely) and that they are a decision. Even a decision that's not consciously made, like falling into a routine that everyone is doing, is ultimately a decision.

So you see, if you’re not at least middle class a lot of these options (go remote, for example. Or shorten your commute) are not realistically achievable.
Some are not, but others open up. There is still personal choice.
A commute of 2-3 hours means you have lots of time to meditate or read, if that's something you want to do.
Again, I'm sure that everyone has 10 spare minutes each day at a minimum to meditate. You can meditate even during a commute. It's your choice to make the time if it's important to you. Nobody is so busy to be unable to meditate even for 10-15 minutes.
The biggest of all: childcare