Note: This file has moved to notablog.

> is it better to try to do as much as one can until one drops dead, or
> is it better to save one's energy by keeping a regular rhythm?

     A few years back I was getting pretty burned out on conslutting
and I did a little reading up on sleep and rest, etc.  In general it's
recommended to have a regular sleep cycle.

     Okay, I'm only gonna say this ONCE, people: I'm not qualified to
dispense medical advice. I'm merely trying to give you some clues so
you can do your own homework, and for god's sake, talk to your doctor!
(and sue somebody else :-).

> I ask because I do not seem to want to sleep when I should be asleep. 

     I felt this way in my 16-24 age range, much of the time.  I still
do often, but I now feel it's more an issue of not _wanting_ to go to
sleep rather than not _needing_ to go to sleep.  I have allergies,
which I didn't realize in my teenage years, which made sleep and
waking quite distressing.  I suspect somewhere along the way I picked
up a strong not-quite-conscious distaste for sleep.

     General advice on sleeping well consists of several "do"s and
"don't"s.  Most of it's fairly obvious stuff:

     On the "do" side, getting yourself to sleep is largely a matter
of habit.  Make sure you adopt consistent behaviors to encourage your
body to go to sleep.  Go to bed at the same time every day (including
weekends).  Don't do other things in bed, get yourself in the habit of
"in bed == go to sleep".  Make sure you sleep a consistent length of
time (not all sleep is created equal).  

     Sometimes it helps to have a little ritual that gets you in the
right frame of mind.  Lately, when driving home after working late,
I've started to deliberately listen to laid-back jazz on the radio
instead of rock/alternative, and to drive a little slower and more
relaxed (not that driving faster really gets you there that much
faster...).  Generally anything that can relax you is a good idea. I
like to stretch sometimes (gently, don't get the blood pounding).

     On the "don't" side, there are a number of things to avoid that
will mess up your body's ability to go to sleep and to get anything
out of the sleep.  Calm your metabolism down as the day winds down;
don't exercise in the hours before sleeping.  Avoid caffeine, nicotine
and/or alcohol before sleeping. Caffeine is obvious.  Nicotine can be
pernicious, because if the nicotine fix wears off while you're
asleep...  Alcohol will make you *sleep* but it won't make you *rest*.
Avoid eating heavy before sleeping - on the flip side, don't starve
yourself, that can interfere as well.  

     On the "sleep is a matter of habit" side, I've noticed that I'll
get drowsy at the usual bed time, but I can concentrate through it,
and often used to do so without realizing.  The problem is, by the
time I get around to going to bed, I'm no longer sleepy!  I've read in
bed all my life, and I'm not about to stop - but I have started to be
more careful about listening to my body when it tells me it's ready to
go to sleep, instead of forcing myself to keep reading.

     On the "not all sleep is created equal", essentially sleep is a
cycle.  The kinds of things your body and brain are doing in the first
twenty minutes of sleep are not the same as in the next hour or two,
and that's not the same as the last twenty minutes.  I'm recalling
this all quite vaguely, but what it boils down to is, most people's
cycle is somewhere in the 60-120 minute range (part of my brain wants
to say 90 minutes median average).  The most important part is the REM
sleep (REM== Rapid Eye Movement, which is what's happening when you're
dreaming), and the really deep, restful sleep which comes immediately
after REM sleep.

     If you get interrupted - woken up - in the middle of the cycle,
when you lay back down again you'll start over from scratch.  I
suspect that it's actually detrimental to wake up in the middle part
of the cycle, beyond simply "not getting rest" because you interrupted
the cycle.  I often wake up a little too early (7am or 8am instead of
8:30) and instead of intelligently just staying up and getting on with
my life, I lazily lay back down and go back to sleep.  I wake up an
hour later (when the alarm rings or my carpool calls to ask why I'm
not there yet :-) feeling *worse*.  Presumably I don't have enough
time for another cycle, and waking up in the middle of the cycle
causes problems.

     A quick search at google.com will turn up loads of advice.
There's a list of tips at:

     http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/howto.html

     There are also some specific disorders to be alert for, like
sleep apnea.  One of the better FAQs for apnea looks to be at:

     http://www.newtechpub.com/phantom/faq/Osa_faq.htm

     There are also some false symptoms to watch out for - for
example, if you feel really drowsy at particular times during the day,
it's quite likely your problem is dehydration instead of lack of sleep
(or both).  The average person should get AT LEAST 8 cups of water a
day (that's water;  sugary and/or caffeinated beverages don't count and
in fact increase the amount of water you need; {fresh, natural fruit
juices are probably borderline}).  This is particularly true if you
get drowsy after eating - your digestive system pulls water from the
rest of your body to do its work.

     Another thing to watch out for is allergies.  I recently got a
very serious HEPA-class air filter in my room - strong enough to clean
the air once every ten minutes on "high".  It's been running 24 hours
a day since then, mostly on "low" while I'm sleeping.  I noticed an
immediate, significant payoff in improved sleep, even though I'd
already been taking over-the-counter allergy medicines.  Almost $200
for the machine, but definitely worth it.  Also, after the first day
or two, I liked the white noise of the filter running continuously,
and the moving air keeps the room from feeling stuffy.

     If your sleep problems aren't behavior or environmental...  One
specific "cure" to be aware of (I'm not going to recommend trying it,
nor discourage it - I ain't no doctor) is MELATONIN.  (This is *not*
the same as melanin, which has to do with skin pigmentation.)
Melatonin is not sold as a drug in the US.  It's an herbal supplement,
so it's not FDA-approved or controlled.  Supposedly it simulates/
stimulates part of your body's natural sleep mechanism.

     Unfortunately, there's a major industry going in selling
melatonin and similar herbal remedies (not that non-herbal drugs
aren't a major industry and *just* as subject to marketing and
salesspiels, but the herbal stuff seems to bring out more snake oil
salesmen).  A quick google search shows a bunch of different
"melatonin FAQ" hits, but a lot of them look like they're put up by
people *selling* melatonin, and I have to wonder how unbiased they
are.  

     Okay, dredging my memory for an article I read a year or two ago,
when night falls your brain releases chemicals into your body saying
"time for beddy-bye", and you fall into a natural sleep.  If your
living environment or patterns screw this up (too much light, or
you're up too late or too early, or you work through it) then you
don't fall asleep.  Then, when you try to fall asleep later, you
can't.
 
     Melatonin supposedly simulates this release of chemicals.  The
result is that you get a good night's rest, not because your body is
drugged into unconsciousness, but because you're SLEEPING normally.
It's often pitched as a good way to "readjust" your sleep schedule to
cope with jet lag or to get back to normal after your schedule has
been thrown off.

     I tried melatonin for a while, during a particularly stressful
period of my life.  This is not a smart thing to do, generally.
You're better off eliminating the stress (by removing the source or by
learning to cope with it - change your attitude or take up meditation,
practice tai chi (I found that particularly useful, when it worked
with my schedule), etc.  But I made a calculated decision to use
melatonin as a temporary crutch while I worked on getting away from
the stressful job.

     I also used a regimen of the usual vitamins, plus ginseng
extracts and ginko boluba extract, to minimize the physical impact of
the stress.  Same caveats about treating the cause instead of the
symptom apply to them.  I suspect a lot of the benefit came just from
the vitamins alone - vitamin depletion is a result of stress and
causes ill health that adds to the stress.

Caution: I recently spoke with a person who claimed to be a physical
therapist with a strong interest in nutrition.  She pointed out some
usually-underestimated risks of herbal supplements like ginko boluba
and ginseng, and even of commonly used FDA-approved medicine.  Mainly
she pointed out that many of these supplements affect your blood
pressure or blood density.  For example, ginko boluba improves your
memory by increasing the flow of blood to your brain.  Is she for real
or full of it?  I don't know.  But it does point out that it's
important to do your own research and make your own decisions.

     Generally I found that melatonin helped me sleep well.  I woke up
feeling extremely relaxed and refreshed.  I found that if I took some
melatonin and accidentally concentrated on something (like reading a
book) too hard, the effects would vanish.  This seems like a good
thing to me, don't have to worry about being incapacitated if I have
an emergency need to be alert.

     I also found that I was incredibly relaxed and pleasant-feeling
the next morning.  Sometimes to the point of sleeping in because I
felt so good I just didn't care.  I don't think that was so much a
result of the melatonin as of the deep sleep, but I have no evidence
to support this.  In general I found I still got a good night's sleep
without the super-relaxed feeling with a half-dosage.  I'd suggest
making sure the first time you try it that you don't have a tight
schedule the next morning.

     A friend suggested that the strong reaction to melatonin might
indicate I had very low melatonin levels, which would probably be why
I was not sleeping well to begin with.  I tried not to use it very
often, mostly out of a dislike for pill-popping, though at one point
towards the end I was taking it fairly regularly.  Many months later,
after leaving the stressful situation (and ceasing taking melatonin),
I was very tired and I tried taking a melatonin pill to get a good
night's rest, but it had very little effect.  I suppose that's a good
sign, it means my problem is simply that I'm not sleeping enough, not
that I'm stressed out!

     A friend who just became an honest-to-god doctor discouraged me
from taking melatonin, because "we don't know how or why it works."
This is generally a good policy - if you don't understand it, you sure
as hell can't know if it's harmful.  On the other hand, there's a hell
of a lot of stuff modern medicine doesn't understand, and just as much
stuff which we *thought* we understood and then later on figured out
we were wrong about.  I remember reading somewhere that we didn't
understand how the hell _aspirin_ worked until quite recently (anybody
got a reference for this?).  

     In any event, by that point I wasn't taking melatonin anyway, so
I filed away my friend's comments for reference.  Remember, just
because it's "natural" or "herbal" doesn't mean it's safe.  Curare is
quite natural.  So is tobacco!

Also see Sleep update.