Sleep hacks
Jeffrey Long
kelly
You just described me exactly - I need at least 10 hours of sleep, but
seem to have a hard time waking up regardless of how much sleep I get.
I don't really have any solutions, so I'm interested in other people's
suggestions.
However, I am a graduate student in a psychology department that has
some active sleep researchers. From talking to them I've found out that
the association between REM sleep and dreaming is a bit over-simplified
- yes, we tend to dream when we're in REM sleep, but we can dream
during other stages of sleep too (for example, people often dream as
they are just falling to sleep, which isn't REM). So the fact that
you're dreaming doesn't really say what stage of sleep you're in.
I guess the only thing I've really heard is to force yourself to get up
at the same time every morning (even on the weekends), so that your
body gets used to getting up at that time. You can adjust your going to
sleep time based on how tired you are, etc. - it's more important to
get up at the same time than go to bed at the same time. Of course,
that's a lot easier said than done! I've been trying to do this for the
past few months to no avail.
I'm interested in hearing other people's thoughts/experiences!
Kelly
Jason O'Neal
absolutely can go into REM immediately upon falling asleep.
I lived with a woman for some years who had the idiosyncracy of
basically sleeping with her eyes open. She rarely slept for more than
six hours at night and took a 20 min. nap upon arriving home from work.
I envied her cause she could basically go to sleep immediately whenever
she wanted. Anyhow, when she napped she was in REM practically
immediately. You could see her eyes going bananas.
If I woke her after a minute or two of napping (I am evil), she would
recall having dreamed rather lengthy and elaborate dreams.
I've struggled with sleep all my life and once I decide whether or not
I can go back to sleeping tonight, I may post some tips I have
accumulated throughout the years.
-Jason
Justin Lilly
That might help a bit.
-justin
Justin Lilly
University of South Carolina
http://www.justinlilly.com
Peter
> know just enough about sleep to know that if I'm in dream-sleep, it's
> not the right time to be waking up.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean "not the right time." My
understanding is that although you may feel more groggy if you wake up
during a dream, it's in no way "bad for you." I don't think there's
anything you can do to time things; you're going to be going through
slightly different cycles every night. The only trick is that if you
don't use an alarm clock, you can trust your body to wake you up at a
good time. If you do use an alarm clock, some days are just going to be
better than others.
I don't mean to sound conciliatory, but I don't really think there's
any real trick. The only thing I can think of is if you setup a webcam
and programmed it to recognize when you showed physical signs of
dreaming, and then had a computer-controlled alarm go off only when you
weren't dreaming. But that's probably a little far-fetched.
Cheers,
Peter
beelers
beelers
bed. I've tried to be a "morning person" for years and am only just
beginning to be successful by simply getting up at the same time and
going to bed when I'm sleepy. Not tired, but sleepy.
birgit....@gmail.com
dozy. Got inspired to try this by my own experience and this site:
http://glenrhodes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=54&Itemid=9
and it works quite well for me.
When younger (up to my mid-twenties) I almost always slept 9 hours a
day. During the recent years, being pretty busy in my jobs I often only
got six hours but that is ok as long as I can catch up a little at the
weekends. When having slept for just 6 hours I also do a 30 minutes nap
some time in the afternoon/early evening to stay productive and alert.
I'm not a morning person at all and my partner is a night person, too,
but we both are much happier with 7.5 than 8 hours sleep.
Birgit
drumdance
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/
I haven't tried it, but it sounds fascination. Steve does a good job of
documenting the transition and results.
-Derek
Daniel Hirsch
I often have a problem of getting too much sleep. I have found over the
years that extended streaks (more than two or three days) of getting
more than 8 hours of sleep actually leave me far drowsier during the
day than less sleep. It ends up being counter-intuitive when you wake
up, because at 6-7 hours, I'm still sleepy, but once I'm up I am MUCH
more up.
Max Smith
I got a new coffee maker for Christmas that is programmable - I set it
up at night to grind and brew at 5:00 - I drink coffee every morning,
but I hate coffee that is not fresh, so it's an incentive to get up and
pour a cup and put the rest in an airtight carafe. So far, this "leave
it by the door" trick is working for me - once I get up and get to the
kitchen and pour a cup, I'm up for the day.
I have to say it's tough some days though, I have a gorgeous wife whose
warm soft skin feels soooo good on cold winter mornings that it tempts
me to stay in and snuggle - and she's a snooze buttoner - alarm goes
off at 5:15 and then every nine minutes until around quarter til seven
- I can't do that, it makes me want to get out of bed even less every
time it goes off.
Coffee's working so far...
Max
Ryan Irelan
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-early-riser/
It's about much more than just getting up early, it's about gaining
full control over your sleep pattern and keeping it consistent.
I started this about three weeks ago. I rise every day at 6 AM, no
matter the day. I had an entire week off of work between Christmas and
New Years. I still rose at 6.
Jeffrey, you might want to try this out.
--
--
Ryan Irelan
www.podcastfreeamerica.com
Joanie McCollom
hard to roll out of
bed, but I love the morning because it's my time; everyone else (most
importantly, my kids) are
still asleep. It also helps that my cat expects to be fed at that time.
It's important to be consistent. It's easy for your body to get thrown off. I
also notice that daylight
savings can throw me off. It's easier to get up in the summer.
Anyway, somewhat related, and more as a "sleep hack," I have a sure fire way
to get yourself out of
bed. I do this when I go to bed late and need to get up really early. I drink
A LOT of water. This
makes me have to pee real bad, enough to make me get out of bed.
-joanie
____________________________________________________________________
Mark Hurd
as I go through my routine in the morning (quick light breakfast, work
out, shower/shave/dress, another light breakfast, then head to work)
I'm alert and energetic immediately afterwards.
During school though, I absolutely HATE having morning classes. I can
be fresh and ready to go, then sit down in class at 9 AM and start
falling asleep. On the other hand, if I do all my errands and whatnot
in the morning and have class in the early afternoon I don't have a
problem.
Mark
neoLady
to keep my sanity , i would say it is mainly discipline to wake up at a
set time.
but maybe you find this gadget useful:
it is a sleeptracker wrist watch you wear at night and wakes you up
pretty close to the time you set, i say pretty much because it chooses
the best time (light sleep) to do so.
beelers
Matt Sweeney
Basically trying to get up during a light sleep cycle, instead of a
deep sleep cycle. I've had good success by using the ability of my
alarm clock to set two different alarms.
The first alarm of the morning is set to the radio. The volume of the
radio is set loud enough so I can understand what is being said (it's
a local news station, instead of music. Not sure if this makes a
difference) but not loud enough to pull me out of a sound sleep.
The second alarm is set to the buzzer and the time is set as late as possible.
So far, I seem to have fallen into a situation where I wake up with
the first alarm, shortly after it goes off, and then just kind of
lightly doze until the buzzer goes off.
On a side note, I've also found that my cycle from deep to light sleep
seems to be about two hours. I found this out by falling asleep on
the couch with the TV on, several times. I noticed that it was
ussually about two hours before the TV would wake me up.
I've used this bit of knowledge to realize that I need to think about
sleep in two hour increments. So, if I can't get 8 hours of sleep,
then I try for 6, if not 6, then 4, etc. This has deffinetly helped
in making sure my alarm isn't going off when I'm in the middle of a
deep sleep.
Matt
p.s. While I haven't actually used this yet, the radio/buzzer option
has another possible plus. Traffic here in DC can be a huge variable.
One well placed accident can turn an hour commute into a 2+ hour
commute. The station I listen to (WTOP) is known in the area largely
because they do traffic reports every 10 mins. Traffic reports that
can let me know if I need to get up early because it is going to be a
long commute, or can doze for a few extra minutes because traffic is
light. I'm not sure how valuable something like this is to other
people, but it seems like potential for some kind of mind hack.
On 1/4/06, Jeffrey Long <ta...@jeffreyclong.com> wrote:
> I have a horrible time waking up in the morning, and seem to require about
> 10 hours of sleep.
>
> This morning when I was struggling with consciousness, I noticed that while
> dosing and waking, I was hovering in and out of dream state. I know just
> enough about sleep to know that if I'm in dream-sleep, it's not the right
> time to be waking up.
>
> So, how do I find the optimal time to wake up? Is there some ballpark
> before I'm in dream sleep that would be the right time?
>
--
Matt Sweeney
mattws...@gmail.com
http://www.tsuibhne.net/
googleartist
Evan Edwards
> The second alarm is set to the buzzer and the time is set as late as
> possible.
I use my cell as the second alarm. It's also something that my wonderful
and "capable of turning off my alarm clock in her sleep" fiance won't mess
with. If all goes well, I wake up grab my cell, head for the office and turn
off the alarm before it ever goes off.
I get up at 5am, she gets up at variable times depending on what classes
she's teaching that day, but usually around 9am.
--
Evan "JabberWokky" Edwards
http://www.cheshirehall.org/
Tom Lieber
> I've been doing some experiments recently along these lines.
> Basically trying to get up during a light sleep cycle, instead of a
> deep sleep cycle. I've had good success by using the ability of my
> alarm clock to set two different alarms.
Using [Citrus Alarm Clock software][1] (Windows-only; currently
looking for a Linux equivalent), I use music in a similar way to find
a light sleep cycle for me. I turn my volume all the way up before
going to sleep and tell Citrus to fade the music in over a period of
15 minutes. I usually wake up about 5 or 10 minutes into this, and
feel relaxed, especially with some of the more 'active' piano pieces
in my playlist, or a song that I like very much.
[1]: http://www.ornj.net/software/citrus/
> Matt
Sincerely,
Tom Lieber
t...@alltom.com
http://AllTom.com/
Evan Edwards
> currently
> looking for a Linux equivalent
Amarok has at least one... just go to Tools, Script Manager and click "Get
More Scripts". The one I noticed was weekalarm:
---
Extension to the alarm script included with amaroK. This script is based
off of the Wakeup plugin for Noatun, but with the addition of wakeup
playlists and snoozing ability. You can also set different alarm times for
different days, and can set the player to gradually increase/decrease the
volume to a specified level.
---
And here I just wrote a bash script for you to do the same thing. This one
has a nice gui interface, so it'll probably be better for most people.
Joanie McCollom
-joanie
____________________________________________________________________
Karl Vogel
> I have a horrible time waking up in the morning, and seem to require
> about 10 hours of sleep.
I'd recommend taking a "sleep apnea" test. You may be waking yourself
up through the night. My aunt had the same sleep problem, and the test
revealed that she was waking up about 67 times *per hour*.
I wake up quite a bit at night due to snoring, and I got a mouthpiece
from my dentist which adjusts my lower jaw to prevent blocking the
esophagus. It's called "Silent Nite"; works quite well.
--
Karl Vogel
AndyC
Multiples of 90 minutes again! 4.5 hrs is OK to, as long as I can
catch up on the weekend.
One thing I really should start doing: when I wake up within 90 minutes
of the alarm going off (6:20) I should just get up. Often I wake up at
5:30 and then feel like death warmed up when the alarm goes 40 minutes
later.
I also think I should try to go to sleep (not to bed, read for a while,
etc) at 90mins increments from when the alarm goes off.
Of course, doing all this is great if you're on your own. When there's
someone nice and warm in the bed, you just want to stay there.
Chris Thompson
early riser. Only a really overwhelming cold is preventing me from
doing it this week.
The links earlier in the thread about Steve Pavlina's site are good
ones. While I am not going to attempt polyphasic sleep, I am going to
use his techniques for early rising, namely up at 6 every day and go
to sleep when tired.
One way to cut the fog in the morning is to get bright light in your
eyes as soon as possible. I'm planning on building a light box with
some full spectrum bulbs. This, combined with the alarm clock across
the room and INSTANTLY getting in the shower should help me get
functional quickly.
On 1/4/06, Jeffrey Long <ta...@jeffreyclong.com> wrote:
> http://www.JeffreyCLong.com/journeyPastorhacks: Productivity for Pastors
> http://www.JeffreyCLong.com/pastorhacks
>
>
--
------------------------
Chris Thompson
Vicki Brown
asleep right away. So, ... 90 minutes from... when?
:-(
--
- Vicki
ZZZ
zzZ San Francisco Bay Area, CA
z |\ _,,,---,,_ Books, Cats, Tech
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|,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' http://heatercats.com
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tal...@gmail.com
to sleep)
Amit
my naps during the day. And my naps at night turned to be 5 hours. So
I nixed it. I've always struggled with my sleep schedule. I'm a night
person, at least by sleep schedule. For some reason I get my energy
boost at around 11.
My class schedule doesn't help. I've got mostly evening classes. But
then that leaves the rest of the day for me to do my errands and etc.
Right now I have that kind of flexibility.But in a year and a half
that'll change.