you're telling me the "mental noise" of coffee-induced alertness is a symptom of the very thing i'm taking caffeine to combat (adhd)? i want to hear more about this.

Oh, that was an awkward reply to a sibling comment. It's more like a symptom of being tired/overstimulated because ADHD means the brain gets tired of choosing what to pay attention to more easily.

But caffeine makes it hard to sleep and the adrenaline rush isn't so good for you.

It took me more like 2 weeks for caffeine withdrawal headaches to subside, but I was addicted to sugary soda (never drank coffee or tea) and didn't really use it for alertness or sleep cycle management. Perhaps my headaches were related to drastically reducing my sugar intake.

Yeah, addiction to caffeinated sugary soda is really two addictions.

My advice to people is to quit one at a time. Take a few days (or even a week) to taper each one down to 0 separately.

Switch up the coffee with some loose leaf Black tea, It has naturally occurring L-Theanine in it. L-Theanine has been researched fairly extensively to improve GABA production and also reduces cortisol levels caused by caffeine, which also helps calm your nerves and helps you focus. Cortisol makes your brain go heywire and induces anxiety. L-Theanine reduces anxiety by reducing the cortisol.

I have sleep apnea and so coffee is just basic and very necessary bootstrapping for me in the morning. There's no such thing as getting enough sleep for me.

Are you not treating your sleep apnea?

Trying my best using state of the art. CPAP only gets me 60% of the way there in terms of feeling rested (which is a common occurrence according to one of the best sleep surgeons in the world).

Surgery is intense and also costs 100k (it is out of network for every major PPO insurance). The most likely to be successful procedure entails painfully breaking your jaw and moving it forward with metal plates. The recovery is brutal and requires a month long Soylent diet. Other procedures involve iteratively carving out more and more soft tissue in your tonsils until there is no more obstruction.

Sleep apnea treatment is still a pretty unsolved problem in medicine. Only half of patients end up complying with wearing the very uncomfortable CPAP breathing mask for more than four hours a night, most can't even tolerate it at all.

Be certain to try all possible CPAP masks, the sleep center should Let you try one after another. Different masks work for different people. Every type of mask has unique problems, so be sure to visit various forums and search for clues.

Also there is a dental appliance that pushes the lower jaw forward to open the airways. Look into that. If your insurance doesnt cover it you can buy an off-label "anti-snore" boil-and-bite device that does the same thing.

Are you overweight? Do you eat a simple diet that takes account of possible allergies? Do you get a lot of exercise? Do you work at a desk job in a hunched position that has curved your spine and pushed vertebrae into your throat?

> Are you overweight?

No. I weigh 150 lbs (6 feet tall), same since high school.

> Do you eat a simple diet that takes account of possible allergies?

No allergies, and I'm doing better now with diet.

> Do you get a lot of exercise?

I run 2-3 days a week (2-3 miles per run). Used to be a state competitor in high school for distance running.

> Do you work at a desk job in a hunched position that has curved your spine and pushed vertebrae into your throat?

Absolutely. I sit at my desk 10+ hours a day, and my posture definitely could be a hell of a lot better.

Please if you can try , try Ayurveda intensive treatment for 10 days and then followup with 3 months medicine. I tired after Resperonics devices etc . It is gone now , habit-ed sleep on side as well as that helps too. It is was bloody cheap in India for me but you should be able to take 10 days leave if you outside India and come and get this done. Please choose good hospital.

Sounds like pseudoscience, not helpful, sorry.

Remember, obstructive sleep apnea is caused by a physical _obstruction_. You need to either address the obstruction by splinting it open using pressurized air (CPAP) or by physically making more room via surgical techniques.

Ingesting herbs doesn't address anything in terms of there being an obstruction, so it doesn't treat sleep apnea.

EDIT: Why am I getting downvoted? I am suffering from a debilitating medical disorder, and people are suggesting I need to drink snake oil or accept the flying spaghetti monster in order to heal myself. Of course, I am going to get a little upset. Please try to understand my perspective.

You are getting downvoted because you are speaking like you are the authority on truth and also comparing an ancient traditional health system to a petty joke.

The authority on truth is the data itself -- my polysomnogram that shows I stop breathing 30 times an hour in my sleep when my tongue collapses, and then this number becomes 2 with CPAP.

Like most technologists who frequent this site, I'm all for following the scientific method and gathering data through repeatable experiments that test hypotheses, and I'm against petty tradition ("we've always done it this way" is a very counterproductive/backwards way of thinking that also precludes progress -- as an entrepreneurial community, we tend to think differently and to challenge established beliefs here on HN).

Your mistake is assuming that traditional systems can't be empirical or otherwise based in efficacy.

Could you provide some links to the scientific studies that led you to your conclusions?

I'd be very interested in reading them.

My whole point is that there are systems other than modern science that are valid and effective, so the logic is a bit circular to want sceintific studies to prove that. These systems use a different epistemology and to use science as your only filter in life is extremely limiting.

Nevertheless, I will still provide you with some samples of evidence (these are high level summaries but actual studies are linked within:

Meditation:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_on_meditation

Yoga:

https://nccih.nih.gov/health/yoga/introduction.htm#hed5

Acupuncture:

https://nccih.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/introduction#hed3

I'm not denying that there might be health benefits for meditation and yoga. Indeed, you can verify them using science. Having your claims stand up to repeatable tests is establishing their very veracity. There is no circular reasoning ("but you see, my claims won't pass these tests because they are not testable" is not a valid argument).

I just don't see how any of these can _possibly_ resolve _obstructive_ sleep apnea. For example, if you have a large tongue and it collapses in your sleep, I don't see how you can solve that by meditating. That's physically impossible.

It's very easy to see whether something has any sort of effect on your apnea; you sleep every night, and the difference is readily noticeable.

By the way, the reason I asked if you are hunched over is that I took up Yoga for my spine curvature, as I was having breathing problems in my sleep due to my cervical vertebrae pushing into my throat. After about 2 months of daily practice, the breathing problems were reduced significantly.

That's really helpful, thanks.

Sorry for the confusion, these links were not intended as pointers to resolve your sleep apnea. They were to make a point, that which is that there are other systems out there besides Western science that are effective. Furthermore they were effective before they were "proven" effective by science.

So the point is to perhaps be a bit more open minded and look into someone's suggestion rather than writing them off with a snide comment. There may or may not be something more to what they are saying, but you will never know if you think you somehow have the upper hand on truth over everyone else that ever existed.