Ask HN: What does your sleep hygiene look like?
Hey HN,
I'd love to hear from others about their sleep hygiene. I'm mostly curious to hear how people are tackling sleep hygiene to see if there are other things I could add to my arsenal to continue improving my own :).
I'm specifically curious about:
- What aspects of sleep do you optimize, if any? - Examples: Deep sleep, duration, specific windows, etc. - Why do you care about sleep hygiene, if at all? - How do you track your sleep hygiene? - Examples: Specific apps, journals, etc. - How long do you aim to sleep for, and how long do you actually sleep for? - What are your circumstances? - Examples: Do you work from home? In an office with a long commute? etc. - What are the 3 most impactful things you've done to better your sleep hygiene?
In the spirit of fairness, I'll go first: I work from home 5 days a week, and I use 2 apps to pay attention to sleep (Pillow and Autosleep). Their algos are slightly different, so I like to quickly compare and do a mental average of the two. I also use Gentler Streaks and Training Today to understand how much gas I have in the tank for workouts based on HRV and sleep metrics. I aim for 8.5 hours of sleep—normally getting 9 hours—and rarely use an alarm (unless I have an early meeting). I mostly care about sleep duration, followed closely by # hours of deep sleep. I've completely cut out alcohol and caffeine, and I've noticed a big change in my sleep quality since doing so ~1.5 years ago.
I've adopted the unusual habit of inverting my hours, waking at midnight, very productively working until ~6am. taking a nap, and screwing around the rest of the day. I usually need another brief nap in the afternoon.
For my lifestyle its been great, having daylight hours to do whatever and getting productive work out of the way when no one or nothing is around to disturb me.
Well, almost great. The problem with needing afternoon naps is that you will get caught up in things and not take them, this causes a form of sleep deprivation one doesn't really notice on account of the daylight.
I got baggy eyes and over time this has become somewhat dysfunctional.
Reversing or changing sleep patterns is very hard mentally and on the body. Despite really enjoying getting work done in the twilight hours, I do not recommended the grueling consequences of missing regular sleep.
Yeah, that sounds like a wild shift! In my teens I used to be nocturnal and loved the quiet. Nocturnal living definitely takes its toll though. The body needs sunlight. I hope you're able to find a pattern that works well for you! Maybe you can become a 4am–7pm person and get the best of both.
Apps? The only electronic device permitted in my bedroom is an alarm clock. I have an old one with seven segment displays. It's impossible to doomscroll at midnight with it.
That's fair! Love that take. It's what my partner does and it works wonders for her.
Honestly, stop. Just...stop with the apps and "optimization".
Go to bed at a regular time. Get up at a regular time. Make sure your bed and bedroom are comfortable for sleep. Done.
Fretting over the details is not useful.
I'm glad that works for you! Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for me and still led to some pretty groggy/brain-foggy days. Hence the "optimization" to understand which levers to tweak. They've now just become a habit and helped me stay in tune with why certain things might be off.