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Forums › Trooper’s Training Forum – In memory of Col. James “Jim” R Tirey, USA › Sleeping Well
Few things can fuck up my day like a bad night’s sleep. As I’ve gotten older, I have come to prize a good night’s sleep more than ever, and am aware of the toll poor sleep takes on me even more. Things that I have learned to avoid include caffeine after lunchtime, alcohol any time, and intense exercise after dinner, as they all jack me up and make it hard to fall asleep.
That said, I still struggle to go to sleep and often take an hour to doze off. I’m experimenting with melatonin now and a few other things, and have some glycine on order, but I’m curious for you guys what, if anything, you do to ensure good sleep. Share your tips with me!
Reading books (not e-books) and listening to talk radio are my pre-sleep routine. Nonfiction is usually effective for making my eyes tired.
A deeply ingrained habit of getting up early helps a lot. I tend to awake at 5 or 6 no matter what – I can go back to sleep if I don’t need to get up, but getting up at 5 and staying up makes it tough to stay up much past 10pm for me.
Early morning practices when young and learning how not to get into the ruminating mind-suck were probably the two biggest keys to learning how to sleep well for me. Generally these days the biggest enemy of my quality sleep is caffeine addiction.
Alcohol fucks up my sleep. I fall asleep quickly, but then am up at the 3 to 4:30./5 time every time.
I’ll put this shit out there. Porn before sleep can fuck up sleep patterns.
Back in the early days of the pandemic when I was working from home I ended up doing a lot of tai chi shit during the breaks. I slept like I’ve never slept before.
BEST practices I’ve found for sleep
But the BIGGEST one is to toe the line between being okay if you wake up/don’t sleep enough AND don’t celebrate that fact.
I was in the office the other day and one of the lead admins was practically bragging about how she was up at 4 because she couldn’t sleep. And all the hens were pecking about how “US TOO! US TOO!”
And when I walked in and was all….. you all need some sleep. This isn’t healthy, they looked at me like I was satan.
Point being, if you’re up you’re up. But that doesn’t mean it’s good. Figure your shit out.
Before I met my girlfriend, I was routinely up until the wee hours. I’d drink, bathe in blue lit devices and do the other night time stuff here and there.
We now tend to go to bed before the Dan John witching hour of 11pm – I’ll still read until quite late sometimes – but her audio sleep meditations tend to knock me out too!
I am so much more refreshed, it’s like I was living half a life before. If I could, I’d even wake up halfway through the day. If only I knew how a proper sleep pattern would literally help every area of my life in my 20s…
I love beer and a whisky or cocktail of a night time. I get it affects sleep – but I don’t do the other night-time activity anymore and the world’s burning so – a man’s gotta have something.
I think we need a king size bed though. I need my personal space.
My main problem is falling asleep. Once down I don’t get up, but getting there is a hassle. I normally get up at 4:45 and try to go to sleep a little after 9:00, realistically say 9:30. But then I can easily squander an hour just waiting to fall asleep, and often I have to have some carbs to finally nod off. I’m trying to wean myself of that bad habit, but when I’m desperate to fall asleep, discipline is scarce.
Melatonin dosages are sketchy. There is a huge margin of error in that a tab could contain .3 mg to 3 mg.
Andrew Huberman, of Huberman Lab podcast had some fantastic suggestions
1) first thing in the morning, you go and get sunlight outside. You need a certain amount of lumens. In Hawaii, as in Texas, this is not a big deal. In the north it might take 30 minutes of being outside to get the lumens you need.
2) get exposure to the sun going down. the low sun angle will help signal to your body that sleepy time is coming.
Both of these are free, and they are the ‘big rocks’ in the jar.
As far as supplementation, melatonin is a dead end. A lot of people get fuck all from it, and it only helps you get to sleep, not stay asleep. Huberman sez: Melatonin suppresses puberty and has negative effects on sex hormones – instead try a cocktail of magesium threonate at 200-400mg 2-3 hours before sleep, theanine 200-400mg, and apigenin 50mg
Apigenin is found in chamomile extract iirc.
Theanine and Mag Threo are definitely something that work for me. As is L Glycine or collagen taken at night.
Melatonin dosages are sketchy. There is a huge margin of error in that a tab could contain .3 mg to 3 mg. Andrew Huberman, of Huberman Lab podcast had some fantastic suggestions 1) first thing in the morning, you go and get sunlight outside. You need a certain amount of lumens. In Hawaii, as in Texas, this is not a big deal. In the north it might take 30 minutes of being outside to get the lumens you need. 2) get exposure to the sun going down. the low sun angle will help signal to your body that sleepy time is coming. Both of these are free, and they are the ‘big rocks’ in the jar. As far as supplementation, melatonin is a dead end. A lot of people get fuck all from it, and it only helps you get to sleep, not stay asleep. Huberman sez: Melatonin suppresses puberty and has negative effects on sex hormones – instead try a cocktail of magesium threonate at 200-400mg 2-3 hours before sleep, theanine 200-400mg, and apigenin 50mg Apigenin is found in chamomile extract iirc. Theanine and Mag Threo are definitely something that work for me. As is L Glycine or collagen taken at night.
Interesting about melatonin. For me, the hard part is falling asleep. It used to be staying asleep, but having cut out alcohol, I now sleep like a damn bear. However, getting to sleep is a challenge for me, so I take 1 x 3mg melatonin right now to help. So far, not impressed. It may do someething , but it certainly isn’t a “cure” for my problem.
I just received 1g capsules of glycine, so that is my next experiement. I tried 2g last night before bed and I do feel like I slept very heavily this morning, so it may have some merit.
Last thing, I have to be careful with magnesium. For whatever reason, and I’ve read this isn’t uncommon, I get cranked up by magnesium and can’t fall asleep, so I just take it in the morning instead.
You tried valerian? I’ve had spotty results with it but there’s an individual sweet spot for everyone with this it seems as I stumbled on the right dosage (20 drops for me) that worked like a charm.
Valerian Root: Benefits, Side Effects, Dosage, Interactions (verywellhealth.com)
You tried valerian? I’ve had spotty results with it but there’s an individual sweet spot for everyone with this it seems as I stumbled on the right dosage (20 drops for me) that worked like a charm. Valerian Root: Benefits, Side Effects, Dosage, Interactions (verywellhealth.com)
I have not tried valerian, mostly because I am prejudiced against herbal shit. Most of it just doesn’t work worth a damn. That said, some obviously does, so I’ll check out your link and perhaps give it a try.
Coming late to this but I used to be a bad sleeper and am a now a very good one. A few things:
1. Alcohol not good.
2. Consider the possibility of sleep apnea. I dreaded my first sub-5 hour night of sleep in a long time and woke up relatively fine, because I’m not chronically tired. In my case this was a surgical correction due to a badly deviated septum and broken noses, but there are other options if you have it.
3. I’ve heard anecdotes of Tai Chi/qigong being useful, I think Cotter helped somebody’s kid back in the day.
4. Seems obvious but routine. A lot of my early bad sleep involved very inconsistent bedtimes between week/weekend. Comparatively boring fatherhood has been good for routine.
Spells:
Cotter’s “Little Nine Heaven” sequence helped my son with his sleep after he had a craniotomy and 31 sessions of radiation therapy for a non-cancerous tumor that ended up destroying his pituitary.
Aside from that, treating my sleep apnea with a CPAP isn’t sexy but it sure made dramatic improvements in how I felt. Going on 6 years now.
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