[epidemian]

You've received a lot of criticism for that comment, but, considering myself as having a very bad memory, i'm grateful that you posted it. It made me reconsider how much of my "terrible" memory is because it actually sucks or because i already have a preconception that i'll forget about everything if i don't write it down.

You see, it's not that my memory is equally terrible for all things. Sometimes i forget about things i was told literally seconds ago; but somehow i remember quotes from The Simpsons episodes that i haven't seen in years, or equally seemingly useless stuff. So, what makes these things different? Maybe the situation of being told something and thinking "shit, i must remember this! [but i probably wont]" actually makes things much worse.

[300bps]

You've received a lot of criticism for that comment, but, considering myself as having a very bad memory, i'm grateful that you posted it

Thanks. Just to dig the hole deeper for myself - I used to have a terrible time falling asleep when I was younger.

For the past 20 years though I sleep like a baby every night. If I wake up in the middle of the night (normally due to one of my 3 children or my wife), I fall back asleep with no problem.

Honestly the only thing I did differently was I managed to convince myself that I am a great sleeper. I found the thing that was keeping me up nights was worrying about how much sleep I was going to eke out that night.

I'm sure someone will now say how arrogant and smug I am because they have a disorder that causes them to smack themselves in the face every 10 seconds which makes good sleep impossible.

i already have a preconception that i'll forget about everything if i don't write it down.

I purposely write nothing down temporarily. I deal with CUSIPs at work a lot and I will purposely memorize them for short time periods instead of copying/pasting them because I find the more I do it, the better I am at it.

[JRobertson]

This topic is one that my wife and I talk about regularly.

She is slowly learning to better control her anxiety, but one side effect is that she worries about sleep, all the time. She almost universally resists committing to morning activities because she's worried about how much sleep she'll get the night before.

We just got back from a vacation where she slept like a rock the whole time despite sharing a room with our two kids, a noisy ventilation system and the sounds of the city. I told her it was because she didn't care how much sleep she got.

I've noticed the same thing in myself. The nights I slept the worst are the nights where I care/worry how much sleep I will get.