While enrolled in a nighttime masters degree a few years ago I started taking low dose melatonin and it had a huge impact on my ability to get restful sleep. It prompted me to look into other sleep hacks and since then I've really been able to hone my ability to get great sleep most any night and under any condition — even when the duration isn't as long as I'd like. I really feel like a new person.
Here are some of the tricks I've found work well:
- Low dose melatonin: I've tried higher doses but there's a fair amount of literature out there stating that less is more [0]. My own experiences seem to confirm this, but melatonin definitely affects people differently! I can take it and be able to hop out of bed (morning person), but my gf (who's NOT a morning person) has tried it and ended up feeling even more like a zombie. Melatonin's definitely not for some people.
- f.lux: I've always felt that it gives your screen the quality of the page of a book. It's hard to describe the feeling, but removing the blue light definitely has a relaxing effect. I'm at the point now where if I turn off in the evening (maybe to see a graphic) I'll actually cringe.
- Sleep Cycle app: I started using this app when I read about how timing your wake up based on 90 minute sleep cycles [1] can help you avoid that morning groggy feeling. This was interesting because I'd definitely had those mornings where I got less sleep than usual but still felt awake – I was always curious about the reason. I've used the app for a little over a year and typically wake up before my alarm anyway, but the app seems to be pretty good at determining when I'm in the lightest stage.
- Earplugs: Living in a city that does garbage collection at 3am prompted this one. Earplugs are my go-to sleep hack whenever I'm traveling. I've found they help for general concentration as well.
I'm convinced the above helped me successfully complete my masters degree and also hold down 3 jobs (9-5 and 2 after hours startup roles) since then. It might seem like a lot of lifestyle change, but I did it gradually as I learned more about the science of sleep and also experienced the benefits first hand. They probably won't work for everyone, but they're worth a shot to see if they can help you!
Hi everyone! This is my 1st Hacker News submission. I'm the Data Science Director at DataCapable — we're a startup in the completely un-sexy Electrical Utility Industry. We find power outages by scanning social media; we're working to change the industry's entire approach to outage detection & customer service — and it's working!
"Read books. A lot of books." An invaluable piece of advice from a distinguished philosophy professor of mine.
As a freshmen I'd somehow found my way into his ancient philosophy course–a junior/senior elective typically reserved for PHL majors. While I was able to pass the course, I was always embarrassed by my paper submissions because they'd be returned to me dripping in red ink from his observations. This was a man that had his own translations of Plato's works published in textbooks, and he cared enough to take the time to point out my juvenile grammatical errors on 20 page papers! At the close of the course I wanted to "make amends" for my shortcomings by asking him how I could improve my writing ability. I anticipated he'd recommend some tome on grammar [that I'd never end up reading] but instead he simply said "Read books. A lot of books" and he left it at that.
I've no idea of the count of books I've read since taking his advice to heart, but it's made an enormous difference in the way I structure prose, the vocabulary I use, the tone & voice of my writing, and I could go on... I feel that if you read the works of authors you like on topics that you enjoy, you'll absorb much of what makes their works great. You'll find yourself improving without consciously trying to improve your mechanics–but you need to enjoy what you read for it to work!
And as a check on your own development? Throw in works like "A Clockwork Orange" or "Fight Club" from time to time. These works have intentional errors and nonsense thrown in by their authors to mess with their readers. If your head begins to hurt while reading them then, in terms of your own development of skills, you've done something right!
so many aspects of this article echo my own experiences, though i was likely a far worse example of a student than the author of this article. i excelled at literature (and took this talent for granted) and i had a vicious disdain for math. my time in high school was spent anticipating a “mathless” career in the NHL that never quite came to fruition… sometimes you just don’t grow any taller after your freshmen year :)
here’s how a gift can actually be a curse: i’ve always had an extremely strong visual memory and it enabled me to get by (and sometimes even excel) at courses like algebra and pre-calc. i’d simply memorize the exact structure of a solution, and “plug and play” from memory when teacher asked identical questions on exams with different numbers. it wasn’t until i was an undergrad and i decided to do my own “rewiring” experiment that i realized i hadn’t ever learned a thing about math my entire academic career. it made for quite the rude awakening, being that i was a college sophomore who’d just switched from pre-med biology to electrical engineering!
i struggled with basic problems that required even a little bit of mathematical intuition because i’d never developed an intuitive understanding of anything–to paraphrase bart simpson, it was like i was cheating on tests by using my own mind, since i could remember my notes with such vivid detail.
how’d i fix it? i became a voracious reader. i started reading “popular” science books about math that actually interested me, and i realized that textbooks were only part of the puzzle. once i was able to grasp the theoretical concepts (aided by the “pop” books) i could return to the textbooks without being bored to tears with the dry, abstract concepts–i could actually relate the concepts to reality! i also took a keen interest in physics because it connected calculus to the real world. when i realized that a parabola could actually be the path of a cannon ball, it changed my entire outlook on math. things started to click.
so how’d it work out? getting through b.s. degrees in both electrical and biomedical engineering (i was a masochist and picked up a second degree) was nonetheless a struggle, due to the fact i was essentially several years behind my peers in terms of my mathematical ability. also, i constantly had to fight the urge to rely on my memory. old habits die hard or simply just go into remission, but i made it!
where am i now? as an MBA student (please bear with me here) i was fortunate enough to be at a university that recently embraced data science. i fell in love with the field because data can tell a story, and my (now) strong mathematical background enabled me to grasp the underlying math & algorithms that yield the wonderful insights you can uncover if you look in the right places.
was it worth it? absolutely. i feel as though i am a different person that’s capable of using both sides of their brain! although i must admit i’m still a natural “right brainer” and i need to use a calculator more frequently than i’d like to admit. i’m an engineering manager at a 9-5, i work as a data science lead for a startup, and i dabble with inventing products. i’m convinced that had i not put myself through the wonderful torture that was rewiring my brain, i’d likely not have achieved a single thing in my career.
if you’re really curious to see how someone like me thinks i’ve done some writing here: www.takeiteasythursday.com/liox
hi there and congrats on taking your first step towards founding! i am currently in the midst of several projects so i can provide some "in process" advice; hopefully it will help to give you some perspective about the daily grind and about “what it takes” to get to where you want!
- my "day job”: i’m a manager at a medical device company (run training department along with driving self-guided data mining projects that improve training & engineering efficiency)
- tech startups: i do biz dev and provide data science guidance as a co-founder for two tech startups (one is an offshoot of a school project, one is a social monitoring service specifically aimed at the utilities sector)
- non-tech startup: i also have a product i’m in the process of bringing to market that will make the men’s necktie a much more useful item. a little random? yes. it’s one of those ideas that just happened to come along and so far i’ve been able to [successfully] run with it!
- part time MBA: i also am working towards an MBA on a part-time basis in NYC. i’ve been able to adjust my specializations so they’re “tech focused” and I’ve met some really awesome people in the data science/startup community in NYC as a result.
how is it possible to do all of this? they key [for me] has been alignment. i began by finding issues at my 9-5 that both captured my attention AND presented the opportunity to be spun off into separate projects (if i played my cards right and made sure there wouldn’t be IP issues down the road). i then started aligning my 9-5 projects with my school related projects, thus turning work into school and vise-versa. a year and a half later i’m heavily involved with many ventures that i thoroughly enjoy, and while i put in a lot of time and effort each day, it’s work that i enjoy so burnout hasn’t been a concern (so far).
Here are some of the tricks I've found work well:
- Low dose melatonin: I've tried higher doses but there's a fair amount of literature out there stating that less is more [0]. My own experiences seem to confirm this, but melatonin definitely affects people differently! I can take it and be able to hop out of bed (morning person), but my gf (who's NOT a morning person) has tried it and ended up feeling even more like a zombie. Melatonin's definitely not for some people.
- f.lux: I've always felt that it gives your screen the quality of the page of a book. It's hard to describe the feeling, but removing the blue light definitely has a relaxing effect. I'm at the point now where if I turn off in the evening (maybe to see a graphic) I'll actually cringe.
- Sleep Cycle app: I started using this app when I read about how timing your wake up based on 90 minute sleep cycles [1] can help you avoid that morning groggy feeling. This was interesting because I'd definitely had those mornings where I got less sleep than usual but still felt awake – I was always curious about the reason. I've used the app for a little over a year and typically wake up before my alarm anyway, but the app seems to be pretty good at determining when I'm in the lightest stage.
- Earplugs: Living in a city that does garbage collection at 3am prompted this one. Earplugs are my go-to sleep hack whenever I'm traveling. I've found they help for general concentration as well.
I'm convinced the above helped me successfully complete my masters degree and also hold down 3 jobs (9-5 and 2 after hours startup roles) since then. It might seem like a lot of lifestyle change, but I did it gradually as I learned more about the science of sleep and also experienced the benefits first hand. They probably won't work for everyone, but they're worth a shot to see if they can help you!
[0] http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2001/melatonin-1017
[1] http://lifehacker.com/remember-the-90-minute-rule-to-ensure-...