> Rattenborg found that ducks with a bird on either side of them put their entire brain to sleep and kept both eyes closed. "However, the ducks at the end of the row slept more with one half of the brain at a time," he says. "And when they did that they directed the open eye away from the other birds, as if they were looking for approaching predators."
When I park my semi truck in a truck parking lot in late afternoon or evening, if the space on either side is empty I leave my parking lights on, until both spaces are filled.
And if I'm unlucky enough to park on the end of the row, I leave my parking lights on all night long. And go to sleep with half my brain awake.
Wow. I would love to hear more about this. A lot of people on here suffer from burnout in some form or another, and I would imagine very view actually cut the cord. Do you have a writeup anywhere about your experience?
I sort of do. I've sent hundreds of emails and pics home to the fam. I aim to put some of them up. Eventually.
Oh, here. I sent one of those to my boss, and it got forwarded and shared internally, and with my permission the company put it up on their Facebook page.
I'm not on Facebook. If it's still up, I imagine you can find it by searching "Swift Transportation" and "Aaron".
As for burnout ... You'll probably miss the money. I'm making half what I was, and I was nowhere near SV salary expectation.
EDIT: I don't speak for ... disavow all knowledge ... etc etc
I'm not them, but I'm a non-programmer on HN. I'd love to be a professional programmer but I'm simply too stupid. I continue to teach myself and learn in my spare time.
Programming is really about persistence, focus and dedication. I'm not naturally very intelligent but I am extremely stubborn so I simply keep trying, keep reading, keep googling until I solve the problem.
That describes me perfectly. I feel as if I've taken months to do stuff a normal person would've prototyped in an afternoon and it's all thru sheer stubbornness. I'm hoping I get good enough to be employed but I still have a long way to go.
I second what nightowl_games is saying. I hope you are not equating programming with an ability to crunch through leetcode problems. There is more to programming than that.
There are plenty of companies out there which hire folks without putting them through the leetcode hazing ritual.
Thankyou. I certainly hope so. I wouldn't have a hope in hell of passing any of the programming interview questions I see posted.
I'm trying. So far my biggest problem has been not getting interviews because recruiters pretty much slam the phone down the nanosecond they ask me how many years professional experience I have so far and I answer honestly.
I'm trying to get some projects into a usable state so I have a few things to point to and say "well I created this and this", but I'm... I'm not fast at this, at all.
Currently stuck on trying to pass an array of floats from C++ back to C# and getting a bunch of random values and NaNs
>Rattenborg found that ducks with a bird on either side of them put their entire brain to sleep and kept both eyes closed. "However, the ducks at the end of the row slept more with one half of the brain at a time," he says.
So it's better to sleep with two partners at a time? I've always maintained this to my spouse!
>When I park my semi truck in a truck parking lot in late afternoon or evening, if the space on either side is empty I leave my parking lights on, until both spaces are filled.
So, how do you deal with one driving off early while you're sleeping? Or does that not traditionally happen?
When sleeping in a new place, new home, hotel, or vacation I often have this fairly stressful reoccurring dream of living in a slightly dilapidated house (different every time). I often wake in the night feeling very confused where I am or if the dream is real (if that’s where I actually live) it takes a few minutes for me to figure out what’s what.
I’ve often thought that this was probably something left from when we were living in caves or hiding from predators were you need to be sure that a new sleeping place is safe.
More likely the worry is other humans. We are territorial. Sleeping indicates a confidence in one's safety in a location. It can be a sign of dominance. Watch any cat sleeping in a dog's bed just to show who is in charge. I suggest that when in a new place we worried more about the locals not wanting us in their territory than the lions wanting to eat us.
I've actually experienced both sides of this in a way. Usually when I go camping, I have the mentioned brain-half-tuned-in effect. However the first time I went to a Regional Burn (a mini-Burning-Man-esque offshoot event) and camped right in the middle of Tent City, I felt completely at ease. I was quite literally surrounded by my tribe, and it was a really comforting effect.
It definitely made me ponder about Dunbar's number and what tribal life must be like.
Coincidentally, the three demarcations at this particular burn, the theme camp (~30 people), the field/block (~100), and the whole burn (~500), correspond to the lower end of the types of groupings Dunbar observed.
> Dunbar noted that the groups fell into three categories—small, medium and large, equivalent to bands, cultural lineage groups and tribes—with respective size ranges of 30–50, 100–200 and 500–2500 members each.
Anyone who has tried car/van camping in public should be familiar with this feeling. While sleeping in my van I've had plenty of nightmares where the nearest neighborhood forms an angry mob to have my vehicle towed away.
I usually have the opposite phenomenon. I go traveling for a few weeks sleeping in different places with no issues whatsoever. But then when I'm back home I find myself waking up in the middle of the night not grasping where I am for a few minutes.
You really feel this effect when sleeping alone in the wilderness. You can hear every mouse or rabbit for hundreds of feet in any direction, even while asleep. If you know there are other apex predators in the area, you'll feel some primal instincts come back to life. It's worth experiencing at least a few times in your life.
Here is something strange. I have constant intestine issues, i go poop 4-10x a day, for 25 years now. Except when i go sleep in a new place like vacations, i wont poop for 4 days in a row.
it's normal, at least from my experience. i hypothesize it is related to being vulnerable to predators while stopping somewhere to poop in an unfamiliar environment.
but it sounds like you are also eating something your body doesn't like. for example, before i discovered i was allergic to gluten, i would also poop dozens of small sessions per day. all that went away after doing an elimination diet (systematically introducing 1 new ingredient at a time until you find the problems).
Doesn’t help with carbohydrate intolerances. If there’s any carb structure your body can’t crack apart, you will get those exact symptoms due to over feeding the microbiome.
Sorry, gluten intolerance, and there are many variationions - I have a form with an occurrence of one in 10,000, possible 1 in 100.000 - CON NOT be diagnosed with a prick test. A wheat allergy, which is a totally different thing, might be.
Tests and tests,no one knows, i gave up on diagnosing, its none of the usual conditions. It gets better if i eat exclusively rice and water for a week but i cant be bothered to do that.
I travel for work, sometimes for many hours accross many timezones; other times I'll only have to drive or fly for an hour or two. Regardless of the above, I've often felt that my sleep when I first get to a place only feels like it's about 60% effective.
I used to have a job with a very heavy travel load and had the same experience. First 2 nights at a new location was terrible, even if it was a really nice hotel.
Some of the customers I used to work with had me visit them multiple times. After I had gotten used to a particular hotel (typically the second visit) I slept much better. Over multiple visits comes a basic level of familiarity with restaurants, roads, shops, etc and my level of stress dropped as well.
It's hard for me to separate out the effect of air travel or a long drive from just sleeping in a different place. I suspect it's a little of both given that I would say that having trouble sleeping is more pronounced after a plane flight than a 3-5 hour drive. But being in a different place/different bed can have an effect in both cases.
The low level stress and discomfort from the time I arrive at the airport, must have an effect. So much more goes into 2 hours of flying vs 2 hours of driving (maybe even 4!).
I have a different experience. I had to travel a lot for work for years, and always slept much better while away. I think what made the difference for me is that hotels always (or almost always) have blackout blinds, so the room is pitch black.
I've worked with sleep labs on a project regarding actigraphy data and another interesting tidbit is the fact that we wake up 20-30 times per night but have no recollection of it.
We don't know why this is the case, but one theory is related to the story of the ducks in the article. In our past we used to sleep in groups and so at every point in time, at least one group member was alert to watch out for predators.
>In our past we used to sleep in groups and so at every point in time, at least one group member was alert to watch out for predators
This is also the reason behind evolutionary pressure to have a certain percentage of night owls among the tribe who naturally sleep late and act as eyes and ears against predators.
> My whole brain is awake the first night in a new place. I just can't sleep.
Me too, it usually takes me 3 nights to really feel like I'm able to sleep.
The first 2 nights I'm pretty much consciously awake the whole time. By the 3rd night I usually have spurts of dreams I can remember and generally feel more rested the day after.
I don't have any issues sleeping at home tho. I tend to goto bed when I feel tired, fall asleep easily and haven't woken up to an alarm clock in 15 years other than a few times where I set it because I had to be up much earlier than usual for very important things.
> The first 2 nights I'm pretty much consciously awake the whole time.
I believe that this is your experience, but I wonder it's actually true or there are short sleeping periods (microsleeps or perhaps longer) that you don't notice or remember. I've heard from some people for example that they literally didn't sleep for a week at some point, but this is very dubious regarding health effects.
For me, if I actually skip 2 nights sleep (e.g. travelling) I'm barely able to speak in coherent sentences or make decisions, my vision blurs, I feel derealization etc.
I think there's a really big difference between legit staying up, as in not even laying down to rest for 48 hours and laying in bed with your eyes mostly closed for 6-8 hours at night while consciously knowing you're not sleeping.
Human bodies react very differently too.
I remember doing a tech related trip once where it was crazy schedules (up at ~6-7am and back in the hotel room at 9:30pm-10pm) for 3 nights and then waking up at 4:45am on the last day to catch a 6+ hour flight home (10 hours with lay overs) and arriving at home. That was with very limited travel experience and having to be video recorded / mic'd up for 6-8 hours a day to interact with multiple tech presentations. Basically very stressful for someone who never did any of that before and is generally not that outgoing.
I never really felt too tired in the moment and I know for sure I didn't sleep the first 2 nights and did get a few solid hours of real sleep on the 3rd night. Honestly I was pretty surprised at how well things turned out. I used to pull a lot of all nighters as a teenager playing video games. Usually by ~36 hours I felt some side effects like brain fog and being ridiculously tired but by the end of that stretch it was a way different (and worse) experience than that travel experience, or laying in bed for ~6-8 hours with my eyes closed at night but not sleeping for a few nights.
> laying in bed with your eyes mostly closed for 6-8 hours at night while consciously knowing you're not sleeping
I remain highly skeptical that this is actually true, it would have to be measured. I don't doubt that it feels so and that you are honest, but I wouldn't even trust myself to accurately describe what really happens over several hours with eyes closed. I assume some sleep can go unnoticed.
There are also people who honestly insist they don't ever snack and eat healthy and magically get fat. Anecdotal self reports are very unreliable, similar to eye witness testimony. But people are really upset to hear this.
> For me, if I actually skip 2 nights sleep (e.g. travelling) I'm barely able to speak in coherent sentences or make decisions, my vision blurs, I feel derealization etc.
Then do an all-day on-site technical job interview.
I have found that having a nap as soon as I arrive in a new hotel room actually helps a lot. Even if doesn't work for you at least you'll have had the benefit of the nap.
> Sasaki says that brain response is involuntary and there's nothing people can do to prevent it, even if they've just flown in for a big presentation the next morning. So lots of coffee the next morning.
What if you sleep with VR goggles, showing images of home?
Or (more practical) what if you sleep in a hotel room for a week, then move to a hotel room in a different country which looks exactly like the old hotel room?
In the UK at least, the rooms in all major budget hotel chains are almost identical reagrdless of location. I have stayed in many and, as reguler travellers may agree, it's normal to wake up and not be entirely sure which location you're currently at.
I can confirm, from personal experience at least, that it makes little difference - the first night is always difficult in terms of getting a good night's sleep.
I don't know about you, but I shut my eyes when I try to sleep! Sensory stuff is likely to be more subtle, mostly subconscious things like differences in the mattress, ambient temperature, smell etc and your brain probably stores the fact you navigated to a different place somewhere.
Makes me wonder if people going for some 24 hour observation research (epilepsy patients, etc) shouldn't at least go for 2 nights, 48 hours monitoring.
"Sleep researchers discovered the "first-night effect" decades ago, when they began studying people in sleep labs. The first night in a lab, a person's sleep is usually so bad that researchers simply toss out any data they collect."
So my questions stems from that I had trouble sleeping as an early teenager and did a sleep study - and it was only one night. Are other sleep labs to check for sleep apnea or other problems generally multiple nights then? It sounds like they'd need to be to get accurate data.
I've interacted with a number of different sleep labs (Germany and UK). All physicians I've spoken to are well aware of the fact, however, the effect size of what they are typically looking for is greater than this 1st night effect. E.g. if you have sleep apnea it will (very likely) show up on the first night already.
If your condition is more subtle (e.g. sleepwalking) they will already book you for two nights.
In addition, there is a counter-effect where people are struggling for years with their condition and being in a sleep lab brings some form of 'being taken serious'.
When I park my semi truck in a truck parking lot in late afternoon or evening, if the space on either side is empty I leave my parking lights on, until both spaces are filled.
And if I'm unlucky enough to park on the end of the row, I leave my parking lights on all night long. And go to sleep with half my brain awake.