OT: piratecats income generator

[Graf]

Re: Re: Oooo question

Hope this helped!

Yes. This was super bad-ass.

I'm still digesting the part about sleep cycles. Though it does explain why sometimes I've been waking up from dreams and not feeling tired.

Last question
How do you recommend changing sleep cycles (related to jet-lag, etc)?
I tend to favor sleep deprivation, its painful but you can get sorted out and on a good schedual the most quickly. i.e. get up in the morning, get on the plane, stay up all night through the planeride (in flight movies improve significantly), arrive in the states and stay up until night time and have a drink or two to confuse the body and lie down. Rinse and repeat until re-oriented.
Any secret weapons?

Martin Moore-Ede's book is now on my Amazon list, I'll pick it up the next time I go home.
(sometime in Spring )

Thanks again. Appriciate you taking the time.
Graf

 

[Heretic Apostate]

PC: Does your work involve advising management about helping out employees who have home problems?

I worked grave shift for almost three years. Which was great, because there was less traffic at night. Trouble was, I have the NOISIEST neighbors. If it makes noise, they own it. Drum set for the teenager. Skateboard ramp for the neighborhood teens. Go-cart. Vehicles that need their engines revved a dozen times before going anywhere. Stereo system that still booms even through their walls and my walls. And so on.

For almost three years, I made do with maybe 3 hours sleep a day. Then I had to drive to work, sit in front of a computer doing nothing for as much as five minutes at a time.

I can't count the number of times I played "chicken" with big rigs on the way home from work.

So, do considerations like noisy neighbors figure into your calculations? Because I couldn't convince my HMO doctor to give me a decent sleeping pill prescription. The best I could manage was melatonin (that's the chemical that tells you you're drowsy, right?) and industrial-strength earplugs. And that doesn't work.

 

[Paul_Klein]

For some reason, sleep is a VERY interesting subject to me. We know so much about it, yet, we know so little (kinda like the brain...hmm).

Mostly, though, I hate sleep. Don't get me wrong, when I'm in bed, and the alarm goes off at 6am, I LOVE sleep, but I hate the fact that we even have to sleep.

They say we spend 1/3 of our life in bed, sleeping. ONE THIRD!! Life is short enough as is! There's so much I want to accomplish in my life time! I resent the fact that I HAVE to sleep.

I would like to think that eventually evolution would eliminate the need for such an archaic method of revitalizing our brain.

If they made a drug that reduced our need to sleep, I tell ya, I'd be first in line buddy!

 

[Piratecat]

Re: Re: Re: Oooo question

I'm still digesting the part about sleep cycles. Though it does explain why sometimes I've been waking up from dreams and not feeling tired.

Exactly. And you ever wake up before your alarm clock, wide awake, and think "if I feel this good now, I'll feel great when the alarm goes off!" And then when the alarm goes off, you feel like crap. That's because you've slipped back down from light sleep into stage 3 or stage 4 sleep. Hello, grogginess.

How do you recommend changing sleep cycles (related to jet-lag, etc)?

It's always easiest to fly westbound than it is eastbound (ie, it's easier to stay up later and sleep later than it is to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier.)

That being said, people naturally readjust to a new sleeping schedule by about 2 hours a day. The things which speed this are sunlight, meal times, social interactions, and exercise. If you change time zones, get lots of light in the morning. Eat breakfast and keep strict meal times for a few days, and start the day with exercise if you can manage it. this yanks your body onto the new schedule a lot faster.

The easiest way to minimize jet lag is to prep for it. One or two days before you travel (or switch shifts), stay up late and sleep late (flying west) or go to bed early and get up early (flying east.) This gives your body a head start on adjusting.

PC: Does your work involve advising management about helping out employees who have home problems?

I do seminars on this for night shift workers. It's a big part of the job.

I once had a night shift worker tell me, "I mow my lawn at 3 in the morning. My theory is that if they can wake me up while I'm sleeping, I can do the same to them." Maybe not the best advice in the world, but understandable.