02-01-2014, 12:19 PM
Ok, right so I'll try my best to summarise some of the things I've read/tried/learned about second hand from other's experience regarding getting to a more balanced regular sleep cycle. These are all things to try, some may or may not work for you specifically, but most are backed up by decent science and at least a smidgen of old wives tales :P Apologies for the massive post blocks of text. Can be hard to read through!
Deciding your plumage
Specific to you though Doolio, first of all I think you have to decide what way you want to ideally be working first, Owlish or Larkish style. Since you are a self-identified Lark, and it's clear in your description this is the case, I think you have to "decide" to be one and sacrifice some of that nice late night feeling you get for the greater good. You have the added benefit of getting that sense of achievement you get from waking up early! If you are lucky enough (seems like it!) to be able to have a flexible schedule tailored to what you want, first pick a "desired" time you would like to go to sleep and for how long.
Timing and sleep blocks
The number of hours "right" for you ideally would be the amount of sleep you get when you "naturally" wake up without an alarm clock. Someone earlier mentioned the 90 minute block cycle of entering into REM sleep, and that it's best to end a sleep cycle at the end of one of these blocks rather than in between. Both science and my own direct experience of being my own guinea pig definitely back this up.
So think of your sleep time as blocks of 90 minutes and only try and come out of sleep at these intervals. So a 3 block sleep is 4.5 hours. 5 blocks is 7.5hrs (this is my natural tendency), 6 is 9hrs (still healthy).
Ideally you want the full time you need, but incidentally from my own experience I have consistently felt more refreshed from a planned 3 hour (2 block) sleep than a planned 4 hour sleep. This is very useful if you need to limit your sleep for deadlines or whatever but still want to get the most refreshment out of a limited rack time.
The 20 minute powernap can be a great tool too, but it is triage and I don't think it is necessary if you have a good balanced sleep cycle already.
Since you are a lark, I'd say aim for falling asleep by 11pm at the latest, waking up around 6.30. (if a 5 block sleep is your natural) Maybe 8am if you're a 6 blocker.
Play around with this, but yeah decide a schedule and everything else will be about how to work your natural rhythms to maintain it.
I also recommend keeping a sleep log for a week or a month while trying a new cycle to see what is working for you, especially if you don't have a good sense of your own natural balances and time needs. Record stuff like, the time you went to bed, time you got up, how refreshed you felt on waking, how restless was the sleep and so on. You can even go further and log, other things like what you generally ate, what you did, exercise minutes spent. The reason for a log is, that it doesn't have to take very long to fill out at all, but the more you capture, the more you can actually look back and examine it to see any trends that crop up. Perhaps your one night a week McDicks dinner night, causes you to sleep more fitfully and wake up less rested?
May as well take the time to try and remember/write down your dreams as an added benefit that can go back into your creative work :D
Getting to sleep:
One of the hardest things about trying to slot into a new cycle is actually getting to sleep at the same time every day.
We are naturally habitual beasts and we are also directly tied to our environment in so many responsive and autonomic ways. We aren't aware of them directly but they have definite effects on us so we can actually use and tweak these to try and simulate natural responses of sleepy time at a more convenient predictable time for us.
You may have no problem getting to sleep when you need to at all but here are some tips:
All of these kinds of things, really help with signalling to your brain that, yes indeed it is sleepy time. Try and be relatively dedicated to this wind down routine and soon enough, just starting it will prompt you to fall asleep like a baby on cue every time. Try to not break this wind down schedule unless it's for very good reasons. Trying to crack the next level of that video game is not a good reason. Watching another episode of GameofBad or BreakingThrones is not a good reason. Random creative burps...not a good (enough) reason. If it can't wait till tomorrow, like a deadline or the best creative idea of the century then fine, if it can, DO NOT f* up all your hard work for a couple more awake hours that are probably less productive, or will lead to less productive hours in the future.
I actually really enjoy my wind down and look forward to it! This is when I get reading done, when I reflect on and appreciate the positive moments of the day gone, when I also do some meditation (there is tons of neuroscience on how beneficial it is for you, but I won't go there here)
Funnily enough, I often get sparks of creative inspiration in these times, so I note them down quickly and unless it's a huge idea, leave them for later.
So yeah that's mostly from sleep research and my own experience of trying various things. The hardest thing for me is undoubtedly fighting the desire to stay up later to get "enough hours on the art" since I have a day job and time on art is always at a premium. As I am an Owl it is always really easy for me to do the time and sleep at 3 in the morning instead. However I am experienced enough of doing this often enough that I know that doing that only on one night will set a cascading bad routine that ruins the entire week and require more time wasted catching up in the weekend and end up in me being less productive overall. So I really try and quell that stupid stress away, and so far it is working quite well.
Hope that is useful? Most importantly I think for you Doolio, is that at first it might feel like work, and you do need to exercise some self control and restraint especially in the urge to stay up late. Once you get used to it, it actually is such a positive ritual to follow that you will end up enjoying it.
Deciding your plumage
Specific to you though Doolio, first of all I think you have to decide what way you want to ideally be working first, Owlish or Larkish style. Since you are a self-identified Lark, and it's clear in your description this is the case, I think you have to "decide" to be one and sacrifice some of that nice late night feeling you get for the greater good. You have the added benefit of getting that sense of achievement you get from waking up early! If you are lucky enough (seems like it!) to be able to have a flexible schedule tailored to what you want, first pick a "desired" time you would like to go to sleep and for how long.
Timing and sleep blocks
The number of hours "right" for you ideally would be the amount of sleep you get when you "naturally" wake up without an alarm clock. Someone earlier mentioned the 90 minute block cycle of entering into REM sleep, and that it's best to end a sleep cycle at the end of one of these blocks rather than in between. Both science and my own direct experience of being my own guinea pig definitely back this up.
So think of your sleep time as blocks of 90 minutes and only try and come out of sleep at these intervals. So a 3 block sleep is 4.5 hours. 5 blocks is 7.5hrs (this is my natural tendency), 6 is 9hrs (still healthy).
Ideally you want the full time you need, but incidentally from my own experience I have consistently felt more refreshed from a planned 3 hour (2 block) sleep than a planned 4 hour sleep. This is very useful if you need to limit your sleep for deadlines or whatever but still want to get the most refreshment out of a limited rack time.
The 20 minute powernap can be a great tool too, but it is triage and I don't think it is necessary if you have a good balanced sleep cycle already.
Since you are a lark, I'd say aim for falling asleep by 11pm at the latest, waking up around 6.30. (if a 5 block sleep is your natural) Maybe 8am if you're a 6 blocker.
Play around with this, but yeah decide a schedule and everything else will be about how to work your natural rhythms to maintain it.
I also recommend keeping a sleep log for a week or a month while trying a new cycle to see what is working for you, especially if you don't have a good sense of your own natural balances and time needs. Record stuff like, the time you went to bed, time you got up, how refreshed you felt on waking, how restless was the sleep and so on. You can even go further and log, other things like what you generally ate, what you did, exercise minutes spent. The reason for a log is, that it doesn't have to take very long to fill out at all, but the more you capture, the more you can actually look back and examine it to see any trends that crop up. Perhaps your one night a week McDicks dinner night, causes you to sleep more fitfully and wake up less rested?
May as well take the time to try and remember/write down your dreams as an added benefit that can go back into your creative work :D
Getting to sleep:
One of the hardest things about trying to slot into a new cycle is actually getting to sleep at the same time every day.
We are naturally habitual beasts and we are also directly tied to our environment in so many responsive and autonomic ways. We aren't aware of them directly but they have definite effects on us so we can actually use and tweak these to try and simulate natural responses of sleepy time at a more convenient predictable time for us.
You may have no problem getting to sleep when you need to at all but here are some tips:
- Get some moderate to heavy physical exercise in during your day. Nothing like a good physical workout to help you sleep like a baby. Make sure you are working out at least 5 hours prior to sleeping. A dropping core body temperature is a trigger for the sleep cycle, and your body temperature only starts dropping about 5 hours after exercise, so timing is important.
- Instill a wind-down ritual every night that primes your system for sleep. Can be up to an hour or even longer.
- Try not to eat at least a few hours before going to sleep. (someone else mentioned this above. Drinking some water probably isn't bad to keep hydrated, but you shouldn't need to drink half a lake if you are hydrating well during the day anyway. If ever you eat just before bed.....welcome to a fitful sleep, nightmares and oh yeah lots more of those calories converting directly into fat. Fun.
- Restrict stimulants at least 4-5 hours + before bed. No coffee, no coke, no crystal meth.
- Just be very aware of anything that may affect the stimulation of your brain. If you like having a late evening toke, or have a couple of glasses of wine or anything that affects your nervous system, it will all potentially affect your sleep cycle. May not be bad, but it may not be good or controllable.
- Lighting temperature and level affects our brain response. Bluer brighter light simulates day and makes us more alert, warmer redder dimmer light makes us less so. On the wind down to sleep, start dimming down lighting levels around you, avoid bluer fluorescent type lights. This includes any screen time. Don't go to bed and then shove a tablet, phone, laptop or tv in front of your nose for an hour. Read a book or maybe sketch on paper, reflect over the day gone, the day to come (write a list of what you want to achieve) listen to music, meditate, whatever. Just don't brighten the levels of light your eyes are getting.
- The last point includes things like bathroom time. Going to the bathroom to perform ablutions just before bed, with the bright lights can often be a direct wake up prompt rather than a sleep prompt. So do that stuff earlier.
- Ensure that the room is pitch black or as pitch black as it can be during your sleep time. Get some good blockout curtains if it gets light earlier than you would like it to.
All of these kinds of things, really help with signalling to your brain that, yes indeed it is sleepy time. Try and be relatively dedicated to this wind down routine and soon enough, just starting it will prompt you to fall asleep like a baby on cue every time. Try to not break this wind down schedule unless it's for very good reasons. Trying to crack the next level of that video game is not a good reason. Watching another episode of GameofBad or BreakingThrones is not a good reason. Random creative burps...not a good (enough) reason. If it can't wait till tomorrow, like a deadline or the best creative idea of the century then fine, if it can, DO NOT f* up all your hard work for a couple more awake hours that are probably less productive, or will lead to less productive hours in the future.
I actually really enjoy my wind down and look forward to it! This is when I get reading done, when I reflect on and appreciate the positive moments of the day gone, when I also do some meditation (there is tons of neuroscience on how beneficial it is for you, but I won't go there here)
Funnily enough, I often get sparks of creative inspiration in these times, so I note them down quickly and unless it's a huge idea, leave them for later.
So yeah that's mostly from sleep research and my own experience of trying various things. The hardest thing for me is undoubtedly fighting the desire to stay up later to get "enough hours on the art" since I have a day job and time on art is always at a premium. As I am an Owl it is always really easy for me to do the time and sleep at 3 in the morning instead. However I am experienced enough of doing this often enough that I know that doing that only on one night will set a cascading bad routine that ruins the entire week and require more time wasted catching up in the weekend and end up in me being less productive overall. So I really try and quell that stupid stress away, and so far it is working quite well.
Hope that is useful? Most importantly I think for you Doolio, is that at first it might feel like work, and you do need to exercise some self control and restraint especially in the urge to stay up late. Once you get used to it, it actually is such a positive ritual to follow that you will end up enjoying it.