Hello!

Vodka prevents me from sleeping. Why is that so?

@hakre If you don't consume vodka are you able to sleep?

(you can safely ignore my question, it was just rhetorically)

@LeviMorrison That's hard to say and entirely theoretically right now. But I would assume that perhaps, yes ;)

Then theoretically I would suggest that you don't drink vodka before trying to sleep :D

Let me just write some code to chill down a bit.

That helps, too :D

@LeviMorrison Doctor told me my rhythm is messed up. She never told me why. I never asked her why. @hakre asked me WHY. When I was little, I used to have severe asthma and was unable to sleep often - but not everyday. I don't know if that had anything to do with it.

So roughly how long has this been going on?

I think you already shared a lot personally. From a first impression you clearly announced that you need sleep. I think this is totally fair.

My attention went to it only after Asthma went away. It happened around when I was 16.

Earlier I was too focused on Asthma to worry about sleep.

So is that for a while then..? :D

Great to hear Asthma went away. It's really punishing.

Sorry, I am 30, lol.

Anyway, doesn't matter that much. I am sorry you've had to deal with it for so long.

I have close experiences with a few different people with various kinds of sleep troubles and various things that helped them.

I'm around +10 just for the impression.

So that's pretty much where this advice comes from ^_^

I'm all ears :-D

Congratulations, you don't even need my first piece of advice: acknowledge it is a problem.

You've done that already ^_^

I have family and friends that clinically are lunatics (not all of them but a good share), just if you would wanted to know.

My next piece of advice: acknowledge that sometimes it takes a while to fix sleep issues.

As in more than one month is common.

@LeviMorrison maybe just find a job allowing for flexible work times?

When I look around and talking about flexible work times with friends, I'd say this is not it alone for sleeping problems.

The other few things that actually helped multiple people:

1. use natural sunlight and avoid artificial light during the dark hours.

Notably that includes tech devices in the evenings.

@bwoebi That is a good idea regardless, in my opinion ^_^

Okay, I usually have to give up "trying to fix routine" after 15 days or so because I don't get any work done and people start getting upset. I should give myself more time somehow since you made it clear that I need more than a month.

But I personally really like flexible work hours, especially if the corridor is pretty wide to control the time of day to go into the office (and stare into a computer monitor)

@Test If you've gone about 15 days already then perhaps you should file for disability benefits. Hopefully that will give you the income necessary to attend to the problem while being unable to work.

@Test The problem with trying to fix is that after a bunch of days you start to feel tired and you get done less than before … depending on the person it really needs a long while until your brain accepts it as the new normal

@hakre I work remote, in an international team. (As in, there are ~15 of us, in most timezones around the world.) That's pretty much the definition of flexible work hours. I still do 9-6pm though

2. Exercise in the mornings.

I really like Levi's style... .

@LeviMorrison it's worth a try, doesn't work for everyone though

@LeviMorrison do you have "sleep advices for young dads" too? :)

@FlorianMargaine Sleep whenever you can.

That's what I do. I have a sleeping station in my office at work.

haha

@FlorianMargaine don't sleep with hearing aids on and ask wife to handle it (hehe)

your kid isn't sleeping all night yet?

@FlorianMargaine I have two kids. Fortunately they both sleep through the night most nights now.

3. Don't take long naps. Take a 20 minute nap if necessary but no longer.

Those are the tips that helped pretty much everyone I know who have had clinical sleep issues.

Something that may be very specific to me: It's very difficult to fall asleep - okay, everybody can understand this. But I have equally hard-time getting up too. Why? What could cause that?

@Test This is almost certainly because you have had such a strange sleep pattern for so long.

@Test in this case really just jump out of the bed and try some exercise

@bwoebi that sounds easier said than done

If you cohabitate then having your roomate/spouse wake you up and make sure you get up can help.

@Test is it "waking up" or "woken up, but don't want to get out of bed"?

Sadly people living alone don't have that option :/

But doing that morning exercise can help you pull out of the grogginess if you can make it that far.

@FlorianMargaine I experience both! Sometimes I keep sleeping on and on and on. If I force myself and sit straight, then I sit like a zombie for a couple of hours before I can move. (I don't sleep during this time!)

So instead of sitting like a zombie, I will just get up and dance. This is really nice because I love dancing.

Oh, the other piece of advice that worked for everyone is to make a daily pattern.

@Test don't know about getting awake at all. That usually happens when your circadian cycle is totally off from your sleeping pattern

For some reason the body loves patterns.

My body "seems" to hate it. Never sleepy at the same time.

@LeviMorrison not for me … somehow … I always feel a bit dull when I have to sleep more than a week straight at approximately same times

Right now my work situation is I take contract work at very low rate but they offer full flexibility with hours.

When you went for a couple weeks "fixing your schedule" did it seem to help at all?

@bwoebi Same with me.

Did it help at all and was just too slow of progress?

@LeviMorrison It helped as in I was up during the day and all. But it was still sooo much struggle. After a couple of weeks of break, I start getting upset emails and I go "screw sleep and time for work". So yeah.

@Test That's no contradiction at all. While I was personally confronted with Apnea while sleeoing, the doc who I consulted was telling me: The question is not how much you thinkg you slept well but how much awake you feel during the day. Which reminded me how important it actually is to be awake.

I've seriously already modified my sleep times each day a bit (i.e. like 21+11) to be awake like in the middle of the night, the day of my exam… Feeling really fit then… and then I come home, eat something and sleep at 14:00 until next day 3:00 or so and it normalizes again slowly…

You're really out of a cycle.

@hakre That's beautiful.

@Test If you can afford seeing a sleep specialist then perhaps that's your best shot.

@hakre Do you need one? The important thing is after all, as you say, to be awake.

This is perhaps something that disability benefits could also help with.

@LeviMorrison I can certainly not afford right now. The contract work is low pay. But two things that I plan to do: 1)Get up and dance if possible - don't just sit in bed. 2)Give myself 40 days instead of 15 days.

From what you express there is stress on the job.

@hakre I've been feeling a bit tired all day now because up until 6:00 today and then woken up at 12:00 (as I had a meeting at 14:00) … 6 hours of sleep isn't enough when you've been awake 15 hours before…

I fear it's quite common.

Yeah, stress is making proper sleeping very hard.

By the way, my dad needed thyroid medicine for his sleeping issues.

@bwoebi not at all. you should consider 8 hours minimum, and it's known that more sleep is far better.

E.g. you should work maximum 6 hours a day.

And that's only fucking efficiency metrics.

@hakre I agree that there is stress - my heart beats faster when I log into the work-email . They're completely flexible with hours but it's very common to get emails like "THIS NEEDS TO GET DONE ASAP." "THIS IS URGENT"... etc

@hakre 6h? lol

If it's rhythmic work you can do more, but if you concentrate for too long, it's not good.

@bwoebi More correctly certainly is four not six.

@hakre I don't know when most people will understand that programmers will be far more efficient if they work 25 hours a week as opposed to 40 hours a week. We're not robots. (Sorry about the rant.)

@hakre But I like working 12 hours at once…

@Test Yes, flexible working hours are a double-sided razors edge.

Sure, I'm quite exhausted after a week then… but it feels good at least and I can have some longer break after that

@bwoebi Do what you like, but if someone comes and tells you what to do, which is common with work, this might get you into problems.

@LeviMorrison My thyroid levels were checked in college and were fine. I do have epilepsy. I don't think it could have anything to do with it though, right?

@hakre "You cannot work more than 6 hours straight without break. Please just insert arbitrary gaps on the time excel sheet and sent it back to me"

@Test I don't know.

@bwoebi :I remember times where I was writing code at sleep.

My doctor who diagnosed me with bad rhythm didn't mention epilepsy was related to sleep issues at all.

I mean of course I need good sleep BECAUSE I'm epileptic. But I wouldn't have bad sleeping pattern B/C I'm epileptic. But then I am not doctor. Doctors I saw never made the connection.

@hakre sleepwalking? … with code …? o_O

@bwoebi More dreaming of code. I could quickly type it then from remembering my dreams, and yes, it worked very well. Sleep is quite productive.

But it's more or less a state of mind. If you're really focussed, it takes everything with you.

@hakre Sleep usually solves conceptual problems or gives me good debugging ideas … but never dreamt of concrete code

@bwoebi I was much younger and just didn't stop coding. So I didn't stop while sleeping.

Nowadays it's much more I get the ideas while taking the shower on the next day. Not all time in the office is enough to actually fix the things, but it's good to have some alternatives to choose from :)

@hakre showers are a good place too… basically anytime you're bored

@bwoebi Mind popping thoughts.

And I'm not bored when showering :)

@hakre Haha, no. I meant when not being focussed on anything with your senses

@Test: What would you say you need to find some kind of rhythm?

@bwoebi When you sense everything you mean?

@hakre What do you mean? I'm confused. :)

@hakre What do you mean?

Well if the senses are not focussed on something (so that your conciseness drops the rest (which is work)) you sense everything (not filtering anything).

ah okay

@hakre understood sense in the wrong meaning (fühlen ≠ wahrnehmen)

you or me?

@hakre I.

okay because I understand sense as "fühlen" as you always do and "wahrnehmen" is a higher verb then (no idea what the one or other English term could be then) as it is a state of mind (you can depress some feelings so that you don't realize them even if they are there)

This is actual work of the brain to filter things out.

yeah, I've understood now … time for bed for me … night :-)

far over, lol

but it looks as if @Test is tired, too ?

@hakre Nah, I feel I bored everyone with my sleep issues so I shut up for a little bit, lol.

@hakre But what did you mean by "What would you say you need to find some kind of rhythm?" ?

@Test Well, next to what your doctor diagnosed, what would you say yourself: Are you personally missing some kind of rhythm or are you enjoying it the way it is?

@hakre I secretly enjoy it. Main thing is money. I can't accept well paying jobs because of it.

So your way of life is too expensive and that stresses you (like constantly not having enough money (as a thirty something)), or your personal plans like founding a family is just not possible at all that way?

That was maybe a too personal question for a chatroom and I have to excuse.

For the job situation it's perhaps much more important to enable you to aquire a job of which you think that it will improve your situation.

Which I think would just be fair.

@hakre Family is in credit-card debt and can't file bankruptcy due to a personal reason. I didn't have much to do with the debt.

So I have to earn $2500-3000 per month. For a programmer, it should still be easy.

That also means I can't just take a break of 2-3 months to sort my sleep cycle.

So there is actual, real reason of your current stress. Just talking loudly.

I would like a job with 20 hours per week. Programmers usually earn $50/hour. So I should still be earning $1000 per week. That never happens. (I don't get paid $50/hour FYI.)

Also, I perform horribly on "on-the-spot" programming tests. Like ones they would ask me to solve a problem on whiteboard while they watch. That's not how I roll, lol.

I was selected for Microsoft interview but performed very badly.

I don't know where you are located. Over here it's possible to just apply for a part-time job and it's clear within two weeks.

@hakre mind telling me where you're located?

@Test I refer to german law.

I live in USA. I live in a very low-cost area (as far US cost of living goes) so that helps a bit.

@Test do you want to share where that is in the US? (which state)

@hakre North-eastern Ohio.

My private idaho was alos about sleep, wasn't it?

@hakre What?

Just some movie reference.

Anyway.

I have to get some sleep

@hakre I don't watch English movies. Thanks for all the chit-chat and reminding me that sleep IS important and I should stop being hard on myself, lol.

It's an US movie I think.

With Keanu Reeves who is Canadian as Internet tells me.

yeah I dont watch hollywood

Okay, well, not the badiest idea probably :)

And the person who could be hard most on yourself is you (:

Hope to see you from time to time in chat, was nice talking to you.

@hakre... same here :)

Yeah nice :)