alt Hacker NewsThe older I get the more sensitive to a single poor night's sleep I become.
The most frustrating effect is that even a few drinks in the evening (maybe over 2-3 units). Unsettles my sleep that if I'm in the process of learning something feels like it sets me back several days.
That's not even counting the slowed processing I feel, and lower productivity the next day.
I genuinely have to revisit old information.
A genuine hangover from a heavy night can put me out of action for half a week!
When I was younger I'm not sure I had many good nights sleep let alone noticed a bad one!
I've heard that small amounts of alcohol can actually improve learning interestingly by preventing interference from events later in the day.
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I’m 49 and have all but given up on drinking. It does nothing for me except make me tired and then, ironically, mess up my sleep. On fridays I grill cheeseburgers for the family and usually have one Half-Life tall boy from Manhattan Brewery because it’s my favorite of all time but that’s about it. Otherwise, I don’t drink at all. Being tired and not sleeping well is handled perfectly adequately by my job hah.
> The older I get the more sensitive to a single poor night's sleep I become.
Can relate.
> The most frustrating effect is that even a few drinks in the evening (maybe over 2-3 units). Unsettles my sleep that if I'm in the process of learning something feels like it sets me back several days.
I'm not noticing it unsettles my learning but can relate to a few drinks already upsetting my sleep. I wouldn't be surprised if my learning would be impaired by at least a bit.
> When I was younger I'm not sure I had many good nights sleep let alone noticed a bad one!
Being young is a blessing that way.
I'm +35 years old by the way.
> I've heard that small amounts of alcohol can actually improve learning interestingly by preventing interference from events later in the day.
Do you have a source? Would be curious to look some of it up.
If my Oura ring can be trusted, alcohol doesn't interfere with my total amount of sleep or my REM sleep, but it reduces my deep sleep drastically and can even result in me getting zero deep sleep, which hasn't happened a single time without alcohol.
For a long time with sleep studies they would give participants a single unit of alcohol. Alcohol has always trashed sleep, even when younger.
I went sober dor this precise reason. It's a quality of life thing.
“Their brains… look like small walnuts inside their skull… There's so much atrophy that happens with an alcohol soaked brain chronically that I would say that's, you know, far and away, the most common source of brain damage” - Dr. Matthew Macdouglas head neurosurgeon at Neurolink on the Huberman podcast starting at 1:40:00
Sounds like you have a problem with alcohol, not with sleeping.
>The older I get the more sensitive to a single poor night's sleep I become.
Back when I was 20 I had a drinking problem. One time I drank so much that I passed out sitting at a table. Woke up with friends having stripped my clothes and washed them. I woke up at 9AM, feeling 100% sober, just anxious about my 20 missed calls from my mom. I got a bit drunk at about 33 and next day I thought I was dying.
That's how I learnt what hangovers were.
Again, at around 25, I helped my brother in-law move bee hives all night, including some 8 hours of driving.
Went straight to work and in the evening I had dinner with my wife at a restaurant.
Now I crash in bed at 9PM and if I'm lucky, I also sleep (but quite often I wake up at 2AM).
Getting old(er) sucks, and I'm only 42 and I miss so much how nice being in my 20 something body felt all the time.