5 ms·

Not my experience at all. In hotels I tend to sleep like a baby, often better than I do at home.

by jdimov9 10y ago

dzhiurgis 10y ago
> sleep like a baby In which case you confirm research findings, as babies tend to sleep light, wake up every few hours, then cry. In all seriousness I doubt you can self asses this. Maybe I've miss-skimmed, but nothing in the article mentions about how participants felt, but rather how easy it was to wake them up.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > but rather how easy it was to wake them up. If this really happens, then I guess I'll need to switch to a nomadic lifestyle. It's impossible for me to wake in the morning at home (so I'm always late in the office), but I have no trouble getting up early when on delegation abroad, sleeping in a hotel...
  - sbarre 10y ago
    I used to have your problem, and switched to an alarm setup that uses a very small motion sensor attached to my pillow designed to wake me during a designated 30-minute window when it "feels" that I'm in the lightest sleep (based on movement etc). Speaking anecdotally, it works for me, and I wake up feeling more rested and less groggy. I use this one: https://hello.is/ https://hello.is/
    - piyush_soni 10y ago
      I've heard the Mi Band does exactly that (haven't tried myself).
      - etatoby 10y ago
        It does and it's very good at it. I bought a Mi-band specifically as a vibration alarm clock, as it's cheaper than any other such thing on the market, it follows you around, being strapped to your wrist (so you can always feel the vibration when the time comes) and has this useful feature where it monitors your movements and tries to wake you up in your light sleep. If you have a regular weekly wakeup schedule you only need the app once, to program the band over Bluetooth, then you can just wear it as a night accessory and charge it every few months. I use it in combination with those yellow spongy ear plugs, to get a bit of silence (locking the door to my bedroom, so that any intruder would hopefully make enough noise to wake me up through the ear plugs) but I suppose there are many use cases.
        TeMPOraL 10y ago
        A big reason for me buying my Pebble was the high hopes I had in the vibration alarm. But of course, it's not strong enough to wake me up at home. Even a combination of this and annoying songs set up as alarm clocks on the phone are not enough.
        sbarre 10y ago
        Ah ok if you're a super deep sleeper then I'm not sure what to suggest.. I know that Philips makes a crazy progressive light alarm clock that goes from dim to SUPER BRIGHT in the span of 10-15 minutes, designed to slowly wake you up by brightening up the room, but again I'm not sure how much light affects you, and it's actually really expensive.
        dzhiurgis 10y ago
        Actually, there are a lot of people complaining about this feature miserably broken in the latest updates.
    - slazaro 10y ago
      There are plenty of smartphone apps that do this as well. I use Sleep as Android [1] and my anecdotal opinion is that it helps me wake up in a better mood and without trouble keeping awake. [1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid.sleep https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid...
- anticitizen 10y ago
  Thank you! This entire thread is full of anecdotes about how 'well' everyone thinks they sleep when they travel. Unless they're doing a brain scan at the same time, these anecdotes are useless. Additionally, all the stories about camping and hotel stay are situations in which other factors would influence sleep - strenuous hiking, sleep schedule mucked about by jet lag, etc.
  - tamana 10y ago
    A lab also has other factors that influence sleep!
azazqadir 10y ago
It's opposite for me. I have hard time sleeping at someone else's house. I have to lay down for hours before I get to sleep. I get best sleep in my own room.
- lucb1e 10y ago
  In response to both parents of this comment, my first reaction would be that "of course" it's personal: maybe your bed at home is not that great, or a neighbouring mine makes sounds that don't register consciously anymore but still keep you up. But then again, in my experience it is a personal thing beyond a person's environment. I know people of both kinds and the location does not seem to matter. It's often the case in non-exact science studies that the results are difficult to reproduce. Besides the obvious "they're not called exact", it's interesting. What is this caused by? Would, in this example, some people lack the 'feature' of sleeping with half a brain?
- wojt_eu 10y ago
  Well I sleep great at hotels too but less so as a guest at someone's house. I suspect it's because I lock myself in a hotel room and can expect not to be disturbed. It becomes my private space.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
It probably varies by experience. I know I used to have trouble sleeping in unfamiliar places, but then there was a period of my life where I was moving, traveling, and visiting people a lot, and sleeping in a lot of guest beds or couches. It got a lot easier for me to sleep in new places after that.
- arethuza 10y ago
  Like jdimov9 I find that new places seem to make me sleep more soundly. I did a fair amount of backpacking when I was younger (mostly in Scotland) which, almost by definition, includes sleeping in lots of different places - both in tents, bothies and sometimes bivouacs. I wonder if the association of being physically tired (carrying a pack all day up/down mountains) and new places caused an association with good sleep? One odd association that I have is the sound of rain on an umbrella makes me drowsy - I've spent a lot of time sleeping in tents listening to rain!
agumonkey 10y ago
Sometimes change triggers benefits like these. But I also know that I'm way more subject to allergic reactions when not in my bed. No matter how dusty or dirty is my room, it's always worse at someone else's place.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >But I also know that I'm way more subject to allergic reactions when not in my bed. No matter how dusty or dirty is my room, it's always worse at someone else's place. That is because of the different "dust/allergen" load in the different places -- to the one in your room you have adjusted already since ages.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    'load' I don't know, but quality surely. Animals, materials, climate, cleaning level will probably change what lies around.
Edd314159 10y ago
Perhaps, then, this isn't measuring sleep in any different place (a hotel room, a friend's house), just sleep in a weird, inhospitable place like a lab with weird stuff strapped to your cranium to measure your brain activity.
- amelius 10y ago
  Yes, but if true, this finding could also invalidate other research related to sleep.
- zamalek 10y ago
  > just sleep in a weird [...] place I find that changing my orientation on the bed results in a significant improvement. I suspect that it might have something to do with the location of the window.
  - shogun21 10y ago
    I don't know if there's research backing this up, but sleeping in a bed that isn't aligned with a wall is incredibly nerve-racking. I was moving furniture around late at night and decided to just go to sleep with my bed askew. Terrible night sleep.
- abovemind 10y ago
  I've taken part in a number of sleep studies and I can say from experience that sleeping with electrodes strapped to your head does make it very difficult to get any sleep. The worst part was the feedback loop of feeling that I have to sleep, or else this study will be useless; then those feelings contributing to more sleeplessness.
  - DougWebb 10y ago
    I've done some sleep studies too, and had the opposite experience. I was suffering from sleep apnea, which makes it impossible to sleep well. The electrodes during the sleep study were weird, but for much of the night (especially after the first night of study) they were running a CPAP at various levels to determine what I needed to keep my airways open. I slept better than I had in months. I've been using the CPAP ever since, and now I sleep very well most of the time. I fall asleep in just a few minutes (used to lie awake for hours) I sleep all night through, and I often wake up a few minutes before my alarm goes off.
piyush_soni 10y ago
Yeah, I guess in some weird way Hotels are different from a 'new (unpredictable) place' ...
scrrr 10y ago
Perhaps its the quality of your bed/mattress at home..
tamana 10y ago
Maybe you need a better mattress at home, or better better noise insulation

Not my experience at all. In hotels I tend to sleep like a baby, often better than I do at home.

by jdimov9 10y ago

Not my experience at all. In hotels I tend to sleep like a baby, often better than I do at home.

> sleep like a baby In which case you confirm research findings, as babies tend to sleep light, wake up every few hours, then cry. In all seriousness I doubt you can self asses this. Maybe I've miss-skimmed, but nothing in the article mentions about how participants felt, but rather how easy it was to wake them up.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
> but rather how easy it was to wake them up. If this really happens, then I guess I'll need to switch to a nomadic lifestyle. It's impossible for me to wake in the morning at home (so I'm always late in the office), but I have no trouble getting up early when on delegation abroad, sleeping in a hotel...
- sbarre 10y ago
  I used to have your problem, and switched to an alarm setup that uses a very small motion sensor attached to my pillow designed to wake me during a designated 30-minute window when it "feels" that I'm in the lightest sleep (based on movement etc). Speaking anecdotally, it works for me, and I wake up feeling more rested and less groggy. I use this one: https://hello.is/ https://hello.is/
  - piyush_soni 10y ago
    I've heard the Mi Band does exactly that (haven't tried myself).
    - etatoby 10y ago
      It does and it's very good at it. I bought a Mi-band specifically as a vibration alarm clock, as it's cheaper than any other such thing on the market, it follows you around, being strapped to your wrist (so you can always feel the vibration when the time comes) and has this useful feature where it monitors your movements and tries to wake you up in your light sleep. If you have a regular weekly wakeup schedule you only need the app once, to program the band over Bluetooth, then you can just wear it as a night accessory and charge it every few months. I use it in combination with those yellow spongy ear plugs, to get a bit of silence (locking the door to my bedroom, so that any intruder would hopefully make enough noise to wake me up through the ear plugs) but I suppose there are many use cases.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        A big reason for me buying my Pebble was the high hopes I had in the vibration alarm. But of course, it's not strong enough to wake me up at home. Even a combination of this and annoying songs set up as alarm clocks on the phone are not enough.
        sbarre 10y ago
        Ah ok if you're a super deep sleeper then I'm not sure what to suggest.. I know that Philips makes a crazy progressive light alarm clock that goes from dim to SUPER BRIGHT in the span of 10-15 minutes, designed to slowly wake you up by brightening up the room, but again I'm not sure how much light affects you, and it's actually really expensive.
      - dzhiurgis 10y ago
        Actually, there are a lot of people complaining about this feature miserably broken in the latest updates.
  - slazaro 10y ago
    There are plenty of smartphone apps that do this as well. I use Sleep as Android [1] and my anecdotal opinion is that it helps me wake up in a better mood and without trouble keeping awake. [1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid.sleep https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid...
anticitizen 10y ago
Thank you! This entire thread is full of anecdotes about how 'well' everyone thinks they sleep when they travel. Unless they're doing a brain scan at the same time, these anecdotes are useless. Additionally, all the stories about camping and hotel stay are situations in which other factors would influence sleep - strenuous hiking, sleep schedule mucked about by jet lag, etc.
- tamana 10y ago
  A lab also has other factors that influence sleep!

azazqadir 10y ago

It's opposite for me. I have hard time sleeping at someone else's house. I have to lay down for hours before I get to sleep. I get best sleep in my own room.

lucb1e 10y ago
In response to both parents of this comment, my first reaction would be that "of course" it's personal: maybe your bed at home is not that great, or a neighbouring mine makes sounds that don't register consciously anymore but still keep you up. But then again, in my experience it is a personal thing beyond a person's environment. I know people of both kinds and the location does not seem to matter. It's often the case in non-exact science studies that the results are difficult to reproduce. Besides the obvious "they're not called exact", it's interesting. What is this caused by? Would, in this example, some people lack the 'feature' of sleeping with half a brain?
wojt_eu 10y ago
Well I sleep great at hotels too but less so as a guest at someone's house. I suspect it's because I lock myself in a hotel room and can expect not to be disturbed. It becomes my private space.

InclinedPlane 10y ago

It probably varies by experience. I know I used to have trouble sleeping in unfamiliar places, but then there was a period of my life where I was moving, traveling, and visiting people a lot, and sleeping in a lot of guest beds or couches. It got a lot easier for me to sleep in new places after that.

arethuza 10y ago
Like jdimov9 I find that new places seem to make me sleep more soundly. I did a fair amount of backpacking when I was younger (mostly in Scotland) which, almost by definition, includes sleeping in lots of different places - both in tents, bothies and sometimes bivouacs. I wonder if the association of being physically tired (carrying a pack all day up/down mountains) and new places caused an association with good sleep? One odd association that I have is the sound of rain on an umbrella makes me drowsy - I've spent a lot of time sleeping in tents listening to rain!

agumonkey 10y ago

Sometimes change triggers benefits like these. But I also know that I'm way more subject to allergic reactions when not in my bed. No matter how dusty or dirty is my room, it's always worse at someone else's place.

coldtea 10y ago
>But I also know that I'm way more subject to allergic reactions when not in my bed. No matter how dusty or dirty is my room, it's always worse at someone else's place. That is because of the different "dust/allergen" load in the different places -- to the one in your room you have adjusted already since ages.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  'load' I don't know, but quality surely. Animals, materials, climate, cleaning level will probably change what lies around.

Edd314159 10y ago

Perhaps, then, this isn't measuring sleep in any different place (a hotel room, a friend's house), just sleep in a weird, inhospitable place like a lab with weird stuff strapped to your cranium to measure your brain activity.

amelius 10y ago
Yes, but if true, this finding could also invalidate other research related to sleep.
zamalek 10y ago
> just sleep in a weird [...] place I find that changing my orientation on the bed results in a significant improvement. I suspect that it might have something to do with the location of the window.
- shogun21 10y ago
  I don't know if there's research backing this up, but sleeping in a bed that isn't aligned with a wall is incredibly nerve-racking. I was moving furniture around late at night and decided to just go to sleep with my bed askew. Terrible night sleep.
abovemind 10y ago
I've taken part in a number of sleep studies and I can say from experience that sleeping with electrodes strapped to your head does make it very difficult to get any sleep. The worst part was the feedback loop of feeling that I have to sleep, or else this study will be useless; then those feelings contributing to more sleeplessness.
- DougWebb 10y ago
  I've done some sleep studies too, and had the opposite experience. I was suffering from sleep apnea, which makes it impossible to sleep well. The electrodes during the sleep study were weird, but for much of the night (especially after the first night of study) they were running a CPAP at various levels to determine what I needed to keep my airways open. I slept better than I had in months. I've been using the CPAP ever since, and now I sleep very well most of the time. I fall asleep in just a few minutes (used to lie awake for hours) I sleep all night through, and I often wake up a few minutes before my alarm goes off.

piyush_soni 10y ago

Yeah, I guess in some weird way Hotels are different from a 'new (unpredictable) place' ...

scrrr 10y ago

Perhaps its the quality of your bed/mattress at home..

tamana 10y ago

Maybe you need a better mattress at home, or better better noise insulation