(Part 2) Best products from r/sleep

Sleep: A Very Short Introduction is a fun little book that covers a lot of ground.

Dreaming: A Very Short Introduction is a fascinating perspective on dreaming from Hobson, one of the pioneers of that field. It's a little dated now (you should read some newer perspectives, like this article), but still super interesting.

The Sleepwatchers is unique in that it's a combination of facts and autobiographical anecdotes written by one of the early pioneers of sleep research.

If you want to get into the academic side of sleep, then Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine is the book. It's pretty much a comprehensive guide to the history and subfields of sleep medicine and research, from the disorders to the physiology to the psychology. Note that you'll save a bundle of cash and not lose too much by going for an edition that's a few years old, such as this one.

Lot of factors here but I’ll try to give the best insight I can.

1. To answer your question, most people I’ve worked with usually can see a shift in their CR after 4-6 weeks of consistent sleep scheduling. Now, most often, this is 3rd shifters who are trying to move from a regular diurnal pattern (e.g. 10pm-6am) to something that would fit a graveyard shift (e.g. sleep from 11am-7pm). This is a massive shift, and the one you’re describing isn’t, so wouldn’t take as long to move it 2 hours earlier bedtime/rise time.
   
   
2. I’m concerned that if you’ve been getting 10 hours of sleep consistently and not feeling rested upon waking. Have you had a sleep study? This doesn’t sound like insomnia, but could be an organic sleep disorder (OSA, circadian rhythm disorder, restless leg). You’ll see this a lot on this sub (for good reason) but you should consider a sleep study.
   
   
3. Lastly, if your circadian isn’t sending you enough “alerting” signal in the morning, you can jump start it through what we know regulates it: light. Making sure you have enough light coming into your room in the AM will get it jump started. If that doesn’t work, you can look into a light box.
   
   Hope that’s helpful! Best of luck to you.

Sounds like too much time in bed. It’s counter-intuitive, but you’d likely get higher quality and less fragmented sleep if you spent less time in bed.

This book might be helpful:

End the Insomnia Struggle

Alternatively, a good cognitive behavioral therapist who specializes in insomnia good be really helpful.

Good luck!

Sure thing! If you do end up going with Christeli, awesome. If not, all good. I think the main thing is to find a sleeping arrangement that lends you both to be able to sleep soundly. So although Christeli mattresses have been the best mattresses we have ever had, the price point is not practical for some people. I am certain that even if we bought different mattresses that we felt were comfortable (but happened to be less expensive), we would still be getting great sleep. The frames meet when we want & they separate when we want: best of both worlds. Here is a link to the Amazon frame we got. It works for a standard King & two XL twins.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017YETI16?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

I purchased mine a while a go and really happy with it. I chose it mainly because it had the zippers as I could not bare the thought of having to adjust the blanket inside its duvet when its that heavy & I also liked their smaller quilts. I bought mine off of the company website but now I've seen that they are also offering it on Amazon,here it is
Whichever you end up buying be sure it comes with a cover, mine is washing washable but not sure how I feel about having to wash a 15-lb blanket in my precious washer and dryer. The cover however is super to easy to wash ;)

I have a sunrise set up manually with my Hue lighting at home. When I'm traveling, I use the app Timely to set a silent alarm for ten or fifteen minutes before I have to be up. It's not nearly as effective as a full-on sunrise simulation, but it's often bright enough to wake me if I'm in light sleep and if I happen to wake up to roll over and see it lit up, I know it's time to get out of bed. The app itself doesn't matter I guess, but Timely allows for some very nice color and theme customization.

As for an actual traveling alarm clock, this one on Amazon seems sold under a bunch of different brand names for $25-40. I'm not sure what your budget is, but grabbing a cheap one like this and just having a backup phone alarm probably wouldn't be a bad thing. This one looks super legit but is $130.

Here's a little writeup I found comparing a few models.

Good luck man!

It might be the sunset - the evening light will make any sleep deprived person sleepy.

Here are some general tips to feel sleepy at bedtime, maybe you're breaking one of these:

1) set a bedtime alarm on your phone. Use an app like AMdroid to set up an alarm that requires something before it can be dismissed; this is under "Challenges" in the profile settings. Make another, possibly easily dismissed, alarm for fifteen minutes earlier than your bedtime, and try to end whatever you're doing before your true bedtime alarm sounds, or at least end it before you type in the Challenge and dismiss the true bedtime alarm. Go to bed at the same time every night, even weekends.

2) brush your teeth at least half an hour before bed; toothpaste can keep you awake. Make sure that it's also at least half an hour after you last ate or drank (besides water) so that you don't damage the enamel.

3) replace the lightbulbs in your house with incandescent bulbs, red bulbs, or blue-light-blocking LEDs. Regular LEDs will keep you awake.

4) google "f.lux" and download it on your computer. Look for day/night screen settings on your phone. These will lessen the amount of blue light coming from your screens at nighttime.

5) get a sound machine. I like this one. I set it to Brown Noise, loudest setting, 90 minutes.

6) when trying to fall asleep, masturbate, without using any porn. The porn would wake you up.

7) make a rule that if you fail to fall asleep, the only thing you can do is listen to a not-that-interesting audiobook or podcast. While lying in your bed, in the dark. (Some people would tell you the opposite - to get out of bed and walk around, not to get used to lying in bed awake. That doesn't work for me, though. If that's better for you, feel free to do that instead.)

8) get blinds and drapes, the darker the better. Cover any lights in your room either with black paper and tape, or by putting clothes on them.

9) go to your phone's settings and turn on automatic Do Not Disturb times. You can choose favorite phone numbers that this won't apply to, if necessary. This will also prevent notification sounds/lights. 

10) check what you're ingesting. It's best to give up coffee completely; while the first half of the caffeine will be gone in 5 hours, the other half of caffeine can stay in your system for 30 hours. Even decaf can have as much as 1/7 the amount of caffeine as a regular coffee (depending on type). Other caffeines, like soda, diet soda, or tea, quit for a while, then after you're sleeping well try having it in the morning (or before [5 hours after your intended wake up time]) and see if it's a problem at night. Cinnamon should also only be in the morning. Decaf tea, decaf coffee, and chocolate might be alright in small amounts in the mornings. Check your multivitamin for B12, too much will keep you awake (I need to stay below 8 mcg a day myself). Take your vitamins with breakfast unless a doctor says otherwise.

11) I highly recommend eating a little chocolate or cacao powder in the morning. It will give you serotonin which helps you to sleep when the cardiovascular stimulant wears off. Also, as soon as you wake up, open your drapes and blinds to get some sunlight. Exercising for 30 minutes after breakfast everyday will help your sleep cycle.

During sleep you're in an altered state of consciousness which prevents you from being aware of your surroundings. It seems like your perception of time is much influenced by different types of sensory information (such as vision, sound, hearing). Since you're no longer consciously aware of that information from the environment, there is no way for the brain to determine the time between constituent events.

Alterations of the perception of time also occur when people are intensely focused on a task, which makes it seem like time is speeding up. Psychologist call this mental state *flow*, which is characterized by complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting loss in one's sense of space and time. If you find this interesting I highly recommend Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

What is also interesting, is the fact that a lot of people report time distortions after taking psychedelics or cannabis. This probably also has to do with a different awareness of the order of events which in turn distorts the perception of time. For instance people experience dilation of time; the feeling that time has slowed down. This commonly occurs during intense hallucinogenic experiences and seems to stem from the fact that during an intense trip, abnormally large amounts of experience are felt in very short periods of time. People also experience the opposite effect, speeding up of time. This commonly occurs under the influence of certain stimulating compounds and seems to at least partially stem from the fact that during intense levels of stimulation, people typically become hyper-focused on activities and tasks in a manner which can allow time to pass them by without realizing it.

And what is even more bizarre is the experience of time reversal, reported in many psychedelic experiences. This is the perception that the events, hallucinations, and experiences that occurred around one's self within the previous several minutes to several hours are spontaneously playing backwards in a manner which is somewhat similar to that of a rewinding VHS tape.

It's a fascinating complex subject, full of unanswered questions ;)

It was effective, but unreliable for me. The best experience I had was using a low dose of slow release melatonin. I've experimented with four different brands/doesages, and I can firmly say that less is more. When I took a low dose (<2 mg) I had a much higher percentage chance of staying asleep for the entire night. The higher doses (> 5mg) would cause me to fall asleep quickly, but I would usually wake up 3-4 hours later and be wide awake for the rest of the night. I'd recommend this as a good one to try: Natrol 1mg Melatonin Slow Release Tablets

1mg will allow you to start with a low dose to test the effectiveness and then experiment with higher does by taking more than one.

Good luck!

I have this Sleep Innovations Cool Contour Memory Foam Pillow https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0029LHHP4/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_7UZYxbHF0X4X0 and I love it! I think I only paid like $25ish for it though. Its super supportive and has a higher and lower side depending on your needs which I like!!

This is a weird one - have you been check for adrenal fatigue ? Look into that.

• Also look into a Mg supplement like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Vitality-Magnesium-Stress-Orignal/dp/B000OQ2DL4
  
  This one had a really good impact on my life in terms of being in a calm alert state after I wake up. Most supplements you hope are good for you like Vitamin D, B12 etc since their effects tend to be long term and harder to measure. But this one is different - you will feel the short term impact on your mood, stress levels, focused energy levels almost immediately, something you can't say for a lot of other mineral or vitamin supplements.
  
  
• Take a plant protein based shake before you go to bed. Protein is essential for metabolism, and if you are running low for some reason during sleep, you will wake up without energy.
  
  Again, these are experiments. You will have to try many things that you think can make sense to you and see if it works.

It's going to be very very very difficult, but whenever the schedule gets early enough, wake up early and see plenty of daylight. It's the thing that tells you to wake up.

In fact, if there isn't much daylight coming through the windows, get some bright lights (ANYTHING, but CFL / fluorescent, light quality is horrible) and slowly turn those up in the morning. Then go outside very very soon.

Edit: To break up all the lighting talk, make sure to stick with reliably timed, breakfast, lunch and dinner. That also moves the sleep / wake schedule around so keep it consistent.

Also at night, dim all the lights, and use warm yellow lighting, very similar to a candle flame. In fact, if you have candles or a lighter, you can use that and match the lights to it.

This probably only works well with halogen or older incandescent bulbs so if you have any of those around still (hopefully!) then go ahead and use those with a plug in lamp dimmer, if you don't have that then just throw a light yellow / orange shirt over the light to dim it down. If you opt to get the light dimmer, I strongly suggest you get a few of them. You'll probably really like it if you get it, so having more than one is really nice--I got a couple.

A couple of things that I've started taking and coincide with better sleep are nice and natural (by which I mean supplements), here are the Amazon links:
Nature's Way Vitamin D3, 2000 IU, twice daily.
Doctor's Best Magnesium 200mg, three times daily.

I have the Amazfit Bip it’s on sale right now on amazon for $69. It has 30day battery life, tracks heart rate, sleep cycle and is very useful for insights. It tells me what my resting heart rate is after a good nights sleep. It also shows my deep sleep, light sleep, and if I wake up at night. I love the app and how it tells you about every little detail. The app is called Mi Fit. This may not be what you’re looking for but it definitely does do the job for tracking sleep at an affordable cost.

This:
https://www.amazon.com/LectroFan-Fidelity-Machine-Unique-Non-Looping/dp/B00E6D6LQY

plus earplugs is probably your best bet.

This is the best alarm clock I have ever owned. You might want to try it. Also has many dim settings.

https://www.amazon.com/PICTEK-Projection-Bedrooms-Function-Charging/dp/B07JDPQYH1/

Def recommend the LectroFan. Although now I have to travel with it because the silence in hotel rooms is deafening. I've heard you can detect the "loop noise" on the one you posted.

https://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Sound-Technologies-LectroFan-Non-Looping/dp/B00E6D6LQY/ref=sr_1_1_s_it?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1543427736&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=white+noise&psc=1