[alfiedotwtf]

I wonder it I have this…

Both my parents go to bed around 1am and wake up at 7am, and so did all of my grandparents. My kids on weekends go to bed around 1-2am as well but do sleep in, and my average is about 4-5 hours a night…

As for me, I’ve had sleep issues all my life and found the only way to fall asleep within 20 minutes is to stay up until exhaustion. But lately I’ve been gaining back my time and pushing even further - once every one or two weeks I’ll skip a night of sleeping, staying up around 36 hours straight. I’ve been doing this for a few months now and have zero side effects so far. In fact I end up sleeping over 10 hours the next day without waking up in the middle (which /never/ happens otherwise).

[joveian]

I've read that in cave studies when isolated from any direct indication of time people will naturally sleep longer every other day like this. However, I have severe sleep issues that leave me disabled and the main issue seems to be that I have a non-24 hour circadian rhythm and can't sleep outside the rotating times but in some ways my body is still synchronized to the sun (I do much worse when awake at night). So I worry you could also potentially end up with severe circadian issues unless you are completely blind, although if you always wake up at the same time whenever you do sleep that would hopefully help prevent issues. Sleeping in late some days makes circadian issues more likely.

Taking more than 20 minutes to get to sleep is not that unusual as I understand it. I think 30 minutes minutes is quite common even in people who sleep fine. 4-5 hours is very short though. One of my parents also slept little and there is also dementia on that side of the family (I have some memory issues as well already). I don't know how much previous gnerations slept but I suspect there may be not so benign genetic short sleep issues as well. At least some issues may have susceptibility and a triggering event, with tech making the triggering event more likely. That would be another question about benign familial short sleep, if it increases the susceptibility to more severe issues.

[alfiedotwtf]

Reading one of William Dement's books on sleep, 20 minutes to fall asleep should be the amount of time to try (otherwise get up and do something else until you're actually tired, because there's no point in wasting 2 hours in bed awake).

Interesting on the dementia and sleep... though all my grandparents lived to old age, and my dad who I know hardly sleeps is in his 80s and doesn't really have memory issues. Hopefully that keeps up!

But thanks - I'll keep an eye on that one

[raducu]

> stay up until exhaustion.

I was like that, and among other remedies (like actually fixing the problems in my life that bother me), my latest last-resort is brisk walking to exhaustion, even very late in the evening. If it's 10:30 and I know I'm in a bad mood to sleep, I just go for a walk in the park for 2 hours and I fall asleep very fast when I return.

It's not ideal and I plan to switch to running, but I'm at a bad place where my cardiovascular fitness is not good enough and if I run for 30 minutes to exhaustion my heart rate stays elevated for more than one hour and running is just too activating.

Walking for 2 hours seems very wasteful right now, but it's what it takes to calm me down enough to fall asleep.

[lloeki]

Sleep starting late + driving to exhaustion + occasional night skipping then catchup sounds almost like DSPD:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder

That one sleeps 4-5h per night also sounds like one light/deep/REM sleep cycle, of which there would typically be two in an idealised 8h-ish "night".

There are hypotheses out there that a single 8h block of sleep is a myth - possibly socially induced by industrialisation and 3x8 shifts - and that waking up in the middle of these 8h is a normal thing.

"waking up" here may mean anything from near-consciousness sleep to actually waking up and possibly do shit for an hour then going back to bed; or even for some, splitting sleep in two 4-hour blocks spread around the 24h day.

In parent's post it may be that one 4h block is done, then social pressure (work/child schedules) pushes one to continue with this one-block schedule.

It may even look appealing as triggering sleep through exhaustion superficially appears to help with sleep in the short term. Long term it gets exhausting but this perceptually becomes the new normal, especially when the symptoms of this kind of sleep deprivation aren't that obviously tied to sleep habits, the naively expected ones being masked by external pressure (schedule), habit bias (normalisation of deviance through repetition), exogenic (alcohol, caffeine, nicotine) or endogenic (adrenalin, cortisol, dopamine).

The main problem is then that by the time symptoms are impacting the situation is deeply anchored; worse, because the root cause is non-obvious it is often misdiagnosed.

Don't ask me how I know.

Also, not a physician, just saying: take care.

[alfiedotwtf]

Interesting, thanks for the link!

I don’t think 8 hours is a myth, but more like that was what was observed in the 60s when the Stanford Sleep Research Centre by William Dement ran their first experiments on keeping people in white rooms without stimulation until their bodies found a natural rhythm.

It would be interesting to know if those experiments have been replicated and if there were any deviations!

[neilwilson]

I sleep 6 hours a night, always have and almost certainly have FNSS.

What's interesting is my daughter has similar symptoms as you and has been diagnosed with Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder (DSPD). She's recently been prescribed a dose of melatonin which she takes an hour before the time she wants to go to sleep.

That appears to have helped somewhat.

[alfiedotwtf]

Interesting you say that - I'm also prescribed melatonin... but I chose to mostly skip it to stay productive i.e I only take it when I /need/ to go to sleep because I need to get up early for something the next day.

But for me, 5mg does tend to knock me out and I can barely stay awake after an hour of taking it.