Healthy Sleep General - Groundbreaking study from John Hopkins finds sleep is good

[EnemyStand]

Super unhealthy because I'm on call 24/7/365 and have to go in if someone's unavailable. This week, for example, I worked four 16 hour days, usually only getting 6 hours or so in between. I may be getting used to a 6 hour schedule, though, but since it was so irregular with the shifts being at all hours who the fuck even knows.

 

[wunhunglo]

Being drunk and fucking until dawn, waking up and getting 4 shots of espresso that do nothing for alertness and just make a pleasant body high feeling, going home and crashing out cold is a good way to sleep

 

[Apis mellifera]

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For the past few weeks I've desperately been trying various 'self improvement' methods to deal with a noticeable decline in concentration and work performance I'm suffering from. The TL;DR of it all is that poor sleep seems to be the main factor contributing to it. The "obvious solution" would be "lmao just go to bed earlier bro", and that's true but it's easier said than done for most people. When you get tired, you have reduced judgement, so snappy and responsible decisions become harder to make.

I wanted to list some observations, quirks and oddities that I personally struggle with, and I wanted to know if others experienced these same things in the same way. The covid lockdowns over the past year have hit me hard, and I think elevated anxiety has certainly contributed to my screwed up schedule, but that's a much larger demon that I'm not sure I can fix.

• As it gets later into the night, if I'm working or messing around online, there's a tendency to lose track of time much easier than in the middle of the day. Two or three hours can easily slip by and it feels like 30 minutes. It doesn't help that as I get tired, my judgement reduces so it's harder to 'check myself' even if I set a timer.
  
  
• We're all familiar with going to bed earlier being more difficult due to your circadian rhythm, but I find there's an additional problem with me needing to fulfill a "ritual" of some sort before bed. For instance, no matter if I'm sticking with my schedule or not, if I don't talk to my friends before bed I find I have a much harder time sleeping. This further complicates the above point because if I get into a conversation, I don't just want to drop it, but at the same time that's when I'm in the 'danger zone' of hours flying by.
  
  
• This is less 'sleep' related per-say, but I have fairly severe problems getting out of bed in the morning. If I have my phone by me, I dick around on my phone in a zombie like state with reduced judgement for an hour. If I don't have my phone by me, I sit there and contemplate getting out of bed for an hour in a zombie state but don't actually do it. If I put my alarm clock across the room, I get up in a zombie state, turn it off, then go back to bed in said zombie state. This is definitely some kind of willpower issue but it's like I'm still half dreaming and I'm not sure what to do beyond getting shocked with a taser.

Do you suffer from stuff like this? What stupid tricks have you done to overcome them, if you have? I'd prefer to not make this about chemical assistance such as melatonin or klonopin. I'd rather stick to methodical ways of fixing the issues if possible. However, if you did have to use a chemical to solve your sleep issues, that's worth a mention as well.

I like to workout in the morning before hopping in the shower to wake myself up, try doing a personal best for pressups if you can, but any amount of exercise will suffice. Also, if you're unopposed to leftover coffee, you can leave some black coffee next to your bed for the following morning to drink. Don't put cream in it or anything, it'll go sour as you sleep.

For sleep, I like to meditate and clear my mind before going to bed, really helps me to make the ol' racing thoughts shut up, and it improves my sleep quality. Also, get yourself tested for ADHD and ASD if possible; while not a definitive symptom, a fucked up sleep schedule and a tendency hyper-focus at night seems to be a shared trait amongst me and my autist friends.