Study Schedules

[meat]

Made one up and going to try it for 1 month, any thoughts on this while I give this a try myself?

[Lyraina]

Made one up and going to try it for 1 month, any thoughts on this while I give this a try myself?

So you are drawing in museums daily, am I interpreting that right? That's really cool.

Looks like a nice schedule. Although I'm not sure if 0,5-1 day isn't a bit too little for personal projects? Pushing to the limits & finishing stuff is an important skill after all, too. I envy people who can stay sane and healthy with 6 hours of sleep. :(

[meat]

You're right! Is my location revealed already? I'm starting tomorrow, and will see how well this works out, other than putting a dent in my savings. HOLD THE LINE!

I can use the evening personal time for my project too, but I must do those 3d tutorials. Any ideas on where to cut out more time for personal project? My project is a comic that hasn't even started fleshing out its writing yet, although the characters and main plot milestones are settled. So that's not getting done any time soon I think. I heard that it takes years to write and draw a comic.

6 or 5 hour sleep/day is only possible when there's an outside force, well, forcing you to do so, and on a regular schedule that doesn't shift a lot. The not-shift-a-lot part is important because you can count on it to schedule in breaks for yourself to rejuvenate. Or at least that's how it is for me. My own will power isn't strong enough to force myself outta bed, but this is where this schedule comes in. I speak from experience of working in a factory before, where I sleep 5-6 hours/day with Sunday off to recharge.

[edit] well weekend one is already shot by life events - namely friend visiting from out of state, and lesson planning meeting. Either let the schedule be flexible and make up for it, or refuse more Life events.

[Tyrus]

Remeber what I said on page 1 meat? The schedule working revolves around you and how you can respond accordingly to the balancing act. Don't worry about "making up for lost time", it's already gone. Use that experience to focus on making the next sessions/days all the more worth it instead (samethingiknowbutstill) and understanding that sometimes things just come up that you can't stop. It's forever a work in progress.

Speaking of works in progress...here's mine. Couple things to keep in mind:

* My sleeping schedule is barely that. I sleep for about 4-5 hours a day routinely and I'm always shifting in and out of daytime and nightime every other week. To that end I didn't record exact hours to start, and the closest thing to attribute/do these would be to count how many hours you're awake from start to finish.

* The schedule doesn't include breaks or events that happen in between events, otherwise everything is followed strictly. The total amount of worktime accumulated can range from 6-12 hours, depending on how much there is to do.

My schedule revolves around practicing a lot before and after doing commissions and work I'm paid to do, doing plenty to challenge myself and always circulating new information/things to do so that I don't stagnate. Still working on what subjects to add in places, but otherwise? Been following the schedule rather smoothly. - 3-

Edit: To note, subject matter like anatomy and painting/coloring/color theory are done on certain days (or a stretch of days, depending). Usually stick to things until it's learned.

[meat]

Yeah I've already been shifting things around a lot and the first week's not even over! For me it works best if I push a subject until I feel I've made progress, instead of forcing myself to stop and break up the stride for Day 2's lesson. In this case I pushed on with armor study and suspended Tutorial afternoon.

I wish I can run on less than 6 hour sleep. It doesn't work here, sadly. In fact I'm still getting up only after 7-hour sleep mark. But it's only week 1, we'll see. HOLD THE LINE!!!

[Doolio]

Often you would need less sleep the earlier you go to bed. I have virtually no metabolic clock when it comes to sleeping as I've screwed it up over the course of years of playing games and stuff till late.

So, now I simply sleep the hours I need, regardless of when that happens (if there's nothing I must do at a specific time, which would make me set the alarm clock). I'm trying to fix that, but it's pretty hard as I must maintain the schedule manually even after, say, three months of fixed sleeping schedule, because even three months isn't enough for me to set that routine to default.

But, that's beside the point:) My point is, that I've been sleeping in all the periods you can imagine around the clock (literally all, every part of the day, I've covered it). And the thing is, if you sleep during the day (I don't mean napping, I mean the "big" sleep), you will need like 10-13 hours or so and you will feel like shit, not only when you get up, but the whole day throughout. And if you go to sleep at like 23h, you would jump out of the bed at 5 or something like that.
At least that should be the rule and if you ask me, it works, I've tested it:) I'm the "10h of sleep" guy, I am LITERALLY screwed up all day if I sleep, say, 7h or 8h. I really mean it:)
But, if I somehow get to the point where I feel sleepy and can in fact go to sleep at 23h or midnight, I get up at 6-7 and run around in circles like a squirrel:)

Now, of course, it's individual in some aspects and to some degree. Tesla slept for like 4 hours or something.
But two things are generally important and they reduce duration of sleep and increase the amount of rest:
-schedule
-making your night sleep the "nightiest" possible (go to bed with the dark and get up in the dawn and you may hit the 5h mark even).

[meat]

Often you would need less sleep the earlier you go to bed. I have virtually no metabolic clock when it comes to sleeping as I've screwed it up over the course of years of playing games and stuff till late.

So, now I simply sleep the hours I need, regardless of when that happens (if there's nothing I must do at a specific time, which would make me set the alarm clock). I'm trying to fix that, but it's pretty hard as I must maintain the schedule manually even after, say, three months of fixed sleeping schedule, because even three months isn't enough for me to set that routine to default.

But, that's beside the point:) My point is, that I've been sleeping in all the periods you can imagine around the clock (literally all, every part of the day, I've covered it). And the thing is, if you sleep during the day (I don't mean napping, I mean the "big" sleep), you will need like 10-13 hours or so and you will feel like shit, not only when you get up, but the whole day throughout. And if you go to sleep at like 23h, you would jump out of the bed at 5 or something like that.
At least that should be the rule and if you ask me, it works, I've tested it:) I'm the "10h of sleep" guy, I am LITERALLY screwed up all day if I sleep, say, 7h or 8h. I really mean it:)
But, if I somehow get to the point where I feel sleepy and can in fact go to sleep at 23h or midnight, I get up at 6-7 and run around in circles like a squirrel:)

Now, of course, it's individual in some aspects and to some degree. Tesla slept for like 4 hours or something.
But two things are generally important and they reduce duration of sleep and increase the amount of rest:
-schedule
-making your night sleep the "nightiest" possible (go to bed with the dark and get up in the dawn and you may hit the 5h mark even).

Lol, running around like a squirrel! I shove myself in bed at 23Hr, and was supposed to be up at 0500. Hope that will be the case in a few weeks, but right now it's still like dragging a sitting donkey at 0630.

[Doolio]

I think you'll manage. If you keep a tight schedule, sleeping, eating, activities etc. We are good at adapting if we actually keep at it:)

For me, there's one more problem, which has less to do with biological clock and more with preference... I simply ADORE to stay till like 3-5 in the morning. I love to catch both day and night. I get up (noon or something like that) and I get to be a "daily person" and do what others do, see people, walk etc. and then, after, say, midnight, I rule in my realm of whatever, undisturbed by humans. I draw or watch stuff or read or whatever, undisturbed. But, that's bad as I have to sleep longer and I'm less energetic while I'm awake.
So I try to go to bed at 23h or so, but I don't like it actually. I would love if I could shift it for like 5 hours and still be "metabolically good":)

[Adam Lina]

One of the major things to consider when managing your sleeping schedule is how much REM sleep youre getting. Your body naturally goes through usually 3 periods of REM sleep during the night. The first REM cycle starts at about 90 minutes after you've fallen asleep and lasts 10 minutes. After that you'll have 40 minutes between the next stages of REM of increasing duration. REM can get up to a hour long. Eating, drinking or smoking anything within 4-5 hours of going to sleep will interrupt REM and not allow your body to do its rejuvenation thing.

The other thing to consider is how much melatonin and and serotonin your body is producing. Serotonin is produced by exposure to direct sunlight and is responsible for producing feelings of happiness. Melatonin is produced in the evening hours when the body is exposed to lower dim lights and is responsible for making you feel tired. Not getting enough of one or the other will screw up your circadian rhythm. The life style of an artist tends to keep us from getting much sunlight but its a vital part of staying healthy and productive. Being an artist doesnt mean you have to or need to be depressed and unhealthy to be creative. Its just a side effect of the life style.

[Lyraina]

That's an interesting point, Doolio. I always felt like no matter how early I go to bed, getting up earlier than, say, 9 am just feels awful. I also don't wake up early without an alarm clock, even if I went to bed at 21h. So every morning I am kind of forcing myself out of bed and hate the world... but I didn't yet know that sleeping earlier is better. I love being awake at night, too, but if sleeping earlier and getting up earlier really is a way to decrease the amount of sleep needed, it would be worth it for me. Do you know if this depends on time (as in, go to bed earlier than midnight) or is it just linked to the room being light/dark etc?

Hypnagogic Haze; I've experimented with that for quite a while (still do).. basically trying to sleep a multiple of 90 minutes (so basically get up 6 oder 7,5hrs after falling asleep), hoping I would be more awake in the morning and getting the optimal amount of sleep. It's quite a hit and miss though :/ Can't really say that it makes a difference for me. There are smartphone apps and watches which are supposed to track sleep phases and wake you up in a light sleep phase... has anyone tried those yet?

Another thing which I found to be useful is sleeping the absolute minimum at night or a bit less, and catch up on that with a 20 minute power nap in the afternoon. It is fascinating how much energy 20 minutes of sleep can give. Only works if one is tired enough to fall asleep instantly of course.

[Doolio]

Do you know if this depends on time (as in, go to bed earlier than midnight) or is it just linked to the room being light/dark etc?

No, no, it's more of a "universe" clock, not "personal", so to speak:D It doesn't have much with your individual shift in your daily rhythm.
For example, we produce thingy X (which is used to blablablah) while sleeping between 2am-4am (I forgot all that stuff, hence thingy X and random hours). And that's it:) We don't produce it if we sleep at some other time, nor if we are awake at 2-4am.
Our metabolism can adapt to some of the unnatural stuff, but there are stuff that are always connected to the actual cycle and not our personal. So, we could live by night and we would adapt to eat at night and sleep during the day, but we would be screwed in numerous other things, as our circadian clock is tuned with the "real" day/night cycle.
So, for example, we get jet lag:)

For example, Haze mentioned serotonin. For serotonin you need Sun. And there's no Sun at night. So, your organism is probably more in the mood of producing serotonin at 14h than at 03h. And even if we were to put you in front of some artificial sun at 03h every day, it wouldn't be optimal, because your body is like "oh, it's 03, we are in deep sleep now", no matter what you actually do or how much you've adapted to the night lifestyle.
That's why it's important to try to achieve and maintain personal cycle as close to the natural one.

And here I am blabbering when there's google:D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm#Humans

[Amit Dutta]

Coincidentally I listened to a talk about some new research about our circadian rhythms and came away with a few points that might be interesting to think about.

- Our circadian rhythm or internal clock isn't dictated by the 24 hour earth cycle alone. It is usually either somewhat faster or somewhat slower than this, which leads to two things:
-If your clock is slower you tend towards being an Owl (up late to bed late)
-If your clock is faster you tend towards being a 'Lark' (up early, to bed early)
-We aren't all necessarily one or the other but can be in between.
-The clock isn't a one time set and forget thing. It actually does shift somewhat depending on our age. From infancy to adolescence the clock tends to be that of a Lark. In teenagers, the shift towards being an Owl happens (this is why it's so hard to get them out of bed for school). By early 20s it is starting to shift back towards Lark. Then older people up to seniors the clock tends to shift more towards being a Lark again.
-What your clock is naturally set at is hereditory to some degree. If there is a tendency for Larkness in your family, you are more likely to be one.

The research showed that people are more productive when they are allowed to go about their daily business that aligns with their circadian rhythm rather than fight it. So having a one size fits all time schedule is incredibly unproductive for large numbers of people (hello business world, schools basically everything that is on a standard clock!) The idea of a traditional 9-5 work day is actually a very outdated concept that doesn't work very well. The research also showed that working with your natural rhythms may not make you smarter but it does help with things like emotional resilience and depression, engagement and things like that which definitely affect your wellbeing.

So what I learned was, whatever your current natural Owl or Larkness is, you should try if possible to work with it, rather than against it.

So that's the clock. With respect to the number of hours of sleep to get. Yes we all need different amounts. There is something like an urban myth going around that "genius never sleeps". Tesla slept 4 hours only, DaVinci was awake 22 hours of the day and slept in small chuncks at a time. etc It is mostly impossible to reliably confirm that these stated things are true. Do YOU keep a sleep log and tell people regularly how many hours you sleep? Even if there was truth to them, Correlation does not imply causation. In other words, just because Tesla may have slept 4 hours a night, does not mean you will become a genius if you also sleep 4 hours a night. It may also not be the reason he was a genius. Maybe he would have been twice the brain if he got 8? Unfortunately most of us are not and will never be Tesla or a genius of any kind and 4 hours of sleep is rarely going to be enough for most individuals.

The idea of polyphasic vs monophasic sleep cycles is also what you guys are talking about a bit. As babies we are polyphasic, ie sleep in shorter blocks throughout the day. Many animals are polyphasic. We shift towards monophasic, or a single block of sleep after our initial development. And actually, there is a lot to show that monophasic is much much better for us. Polyphasic tends to be very disruptive, even more so than shift work or jet lag. In modern society it is practically impossible to implement well, so Lyraina the idea of sleeping less than you need, and doing power naps is actually a poor attempt at Polyphasic sleep, and while I agree that a good 20 minute nap can be rejuvenating, the rest of your sleep would be so bad that you aren't doing yourself any favours in general.

Read this if you want a lot of intersting stuff to do with that
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic.htm

@Doolio, IMO sounds like you really need to sort out your sleep patterns. While you say you are getting the correct number of hours...it's more than just hitting a number. It's the quality and the regularity. A huge amount of disruption happens when there is no regularity to your sleep cycles, so I can only assume but am pretty sure it is really affecting your productivity. You may not actually realise it. When I was doing a stupid 5-6 hours sleep a day only, I thought I was coping....I only realised after fixing the balance how much of a zombie I had been. There are a lot of things you can do to get a more healthy natural cycle up and running again, but they do require a small modicum of discipline to try. I can help you with some of those if you want :)


Basically guys a few rules.
1. Know and work to your natural rhythm whenever possible.
2. Get the amount of sleep you require...never less
3. Monophasic beats Polyphasic.

:)

Oh and @Meat: That schedule does look pretty intense. Everyone is different, but it looks similar to what I tried to do when I had nothing but time for 3 months, and for me it was workable but much less productive than it could have been. I only realised this towards the end of the 3 months. Also to keep your day off, half filled with chores....dunno...to me that sounds like a sucky day off :D You could try using chores as a way to actually break up your work day. Going away and working in the garden for an hour is a fantastic way to take a break from the screen! Just keep tweaking it, tweaking it to work...and keep us updated!
With regards to the comic....half of my weekly schedule was supposedly to be put onto a short comic that I was supposed to finish in 3 months. So every day between 1-5pm or whatever, it was comic time. Did I do that...nope. Should I have..yeah probably, but the rest of my schedule screwed it because I was constantly overrunning or running behind. Totally agree with Tyrus on that part....don't be so beholden to the schedule that it becomes a negative factor.
What's funny is that it was only after the 3 months, when I started work again, that I just needed a break from the incessant boring study and even imagination illustration thing, and I banged out the synopsis story and 3/4 of a script in about one week. The key thing was that it was consistent time...not sporadic one day a week. I think that is the key to something as long term as a comic...get excited and then ride the wave. Scheduling in one day a week to work on it just didn't jive with the way I work personally.

[meat]

My scientific hat is quite small and flat, but I recall our bodies do most of the detox and defrag and regeneration between 2300 and 0400? That said I do like working alone in the silence of the wee hours of the morning. Also eating less heavy stuff like meat or big bowl of pasta helps your body get ready to go with less sleep. My guess is those stuff takes longer and more work to process in our bodies.

"Eating, drinking or smoking anything within 4-5 hours of going to sleep will interrupt REM and not allow your body to do its rejuvenation thing." Wow really? I almost always drink something right up to the point of going to bed, ranging from herbal tea to whiskey... I mean one gets thirsty not drinking anything for 5 hours!

A nap certainly rejuvenates you, but the moments of just waking up from that 20 minute nap were murderous!

... I have always been an Owl, but I am freakin determined to be a Lark! It ain't our kind to accept our fates and not seek change! I am aware I might never wake up earlier than 6am without the pressure of working at a factory, or being in the Marines, or in prison, but that's still only 7hr sleep compare to if I let Sloth have its way with me until noon...

So far I've already not go to museum for 2 days, one being armor study is better from vids than from armor propped up on a stand, and I just rode the armor wave and drew the entire day of armor. Friday I scratched it all because I really needed progress on 3D project again. The day at the museum was very exciting and sent me on an art high, but simultaneously it was aimless, as I didn't have a goal in mind, and just wandered through the halls until I randomly picked a room to sketch random skeletons in. It was still fun, but it'll be better if I go in with a study goal and motivation in mind.

Yeah I agree the schedule is too tight, and already a lot of things have changed. I think the museum won't be daily anymore, but I will have to keep the 3D training up, and instead of going after the standard Creature-Character-Environment-Prop/Vehicle quartet for concept art, I will try to prioritize studies that pertain to what I have in mind for the personal comic project, which covers 3 of the 4. So follow a human anatomy book, go to museum to draw animal skeleton and specimen. As I flesh out the story, and partake in some forum event somewhere (or fanart, anything where the design idea/criteria comes from not-me), I should encounter more need to study, say, props, etc. Then there'll be more motivation as well as clearer goals to hit the museum.

Let's all do our best at fighting whatever's going against our productivity! HOLD TH-*gets smacked with brick *

[Amit Dutta]

Couple of things too. Sleep deprivation from stress (I include the time/hours available stress all artists seem to go through at some point in the learning stages as bad stress) or insomnia or bad habits, is decidedly bad. Sleep deprivation from motivation, inspiration, creative spurts etc I think are actually not a bad thing at all if not sustained for too long. And if it ties into being an owl, you shouldn't feel guilty about that at all.

I'm an owl too, but I love that feeling of waking up at 6 or 7 and if i actually get down to it by 10am I feel like I've already achieved a day full of work, and still have the whole day ahead of me. So yeah those are two opposing ideals. I recognize that naturally I have better intuitive motivation and insight at night. The morning stuff is more a sense of efficiency and self worth than anything else. Both are useful. Waking up isn't the issue for me, it's the not distracting myself with bullshit in the morning because it's not my natural time for inspiration and creativity. Damn frikkin internet!

[Doolio]

Monkeybread, thank you so much for these posts, they are very informative!

Oh, and I certainly will ask you for a general advice:)

While you say you are getting the correct number of hours...

Yes, I actually meant it as a bad thing. Because it shows that my clock adapted to, well, having no clock. I'll do my amount of hours and that's it. Besides it shows that I lost every trace of rhythm, it also goes against creating a schedule and maintaining and adapting to a rhythm. Say that I get up at 9. And I should go to bed at 00. If I stay up to 2, for whatever reason, I simply slide to waking up at 11. And, of course, then I can't force-sleep myself at 00, but rather go to bed at 2+. And in ten days, here I am, waking up at 21 lol. Also, I think that I have an inclination to have a 25-26 hour cycle.
Of course, I can make myself to get up at exactly the same time no matter what, so I could maintain the rhythm even if I stay up late, but it requires a lot of discipline in my case because if I don't get my hours of sleep, I get shitty the whole day. And there's no way around it.
So, it's a bit of a vicious circle of going through all the variants within a month or two. Which is EXTREMELY bad, I mean, I know it and feel it.

While I am an "emotional owl" (I like being up at night, as in liking the feeling, not necessarily being more productive or more inclined to night life), I believe I'm actually a lark. Because, when I am at the part of my circle when I'm getting up at, like, six or seven, my day is long, epic, I have the energy (I practically rush to the store to by groceries because I want to do it, I walk by the river and I'm like "oh, good morning mr. tree, good morning grass" like some kind of disney girl etc). At about 19h I'm like "well, I feel this day already lasted for like 30 hours and it has more to go, that's cool". And all that stuff. So, I think that I'm the most energetic and happy and productive if I sleep, for example, 00-08 or something similar.

I Succeeded in maintaining the similar rhythm for about a month (which is like impossible achievement for me), but slipped a week ago, when I stayed up drawing till 5am and that was it. Speaking of which, I don't have problems with staying awake beyond my rhythm, so I even if I went to sleep at about midnight, I had absolutely no trace of a problem staying up till 5. I mean, not even a slight sense of sleepiness. If I went to bed at, say, 1 or 2, I would probably fall asleep in seconds, but because I was sitting and drawing, I had no problems whatsoever.

I might have probably forgot some things, but that would be me in a nutshell:) So, regarding that discipline, what would you suggest?:)

[Amit Dutta]

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:

• 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.

[Doolio]

You know what? I am a HUGE psychology lover and I've been reading and applying and chasing psychoterapists for a talk and finding both academic and shunned psychological mumbo jumbo probably more then I've spent sleeping AND drawing together:D
That said, that post of yours is music to my ears, really:) Not only do I find it helpful (and you get a big thank you for that!), but also extremely enjoyable to read. I don't know why you felt the need to put a disclaimer about it being hard to read:)

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

This indeed is a great idea and personally I love it, I mean, if there's anything I'm good at it's introspection and analysis:)

As for power naps, I don't think they are good for me... if I sleep during the day, I get squashed by it, it doesn't do me good at all. Maybe they are good when one gets it's life in order, but I've never had a refreshing daily nap.

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

Ah, that reminds me, some ten years ago, when I was all like I WANT TO HAVE JUNG'S KIDS, I use to write down dreams quite frequently (when I remember them, that is). And I have written down one in particular (I have actually got up in the middle of the night and furiously typed it down before it could vanish from my memory) on eight pages in Word, font 8 :D And then I read through it and analyzed it and read it and analyzed it and...
So, I better not do that lol:D

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.

Thank you for mentioning the wind down phase, as it's something I sorely need. While I am well aware of necessity of all things mentioned in this quote, a lifestyle without an enforced schedule (9-5 job? army? school? brain?) can, with the passing of time, silence all the plans, knowledge etc. and wake up neurotic and schizoid thingies in us, due to simple fact that we don't have a constructed scheduled life to rely upon. And so, even if I have practiced meditation or autogenic training before and even if I very well know the difference between the overthink and the reflection I simply fell victim to my unorganized lifestyle. Which, as you know, creates bunch of other stuff too, such as laziness, for example, or the inability to acknowledge delayed gratification and all that other cool stuff that regresses you to a teenager:)

The thing I'll probably find the most difficult is getting to sleep at a specific time. Not because I'll stay up to finish that Gaming bad season, but because I could never sleep if I am not quite solidly sleepy. I can literally lie down in total darkness, close my eyes and stay like that for 10 hours trying to sleep if I don't feel like sleeping. But, I guess that won't be a problem if I gradually build the routine and if I get up at the same time, I would be spent by the time I should go to sleep.

About the darkness... could it be individual? Or it's definitely a general thing? Because, I've always preferred to have some kind of light source, of course, not the main light, but, say, street light or light from the neighboring building. And I've also always liked to hear something, winamp, movie, kids smoking weed on the stairs:)

Restrict stimulants at least 4-5 hours + before bed. No coffee, no coke, no crystal meth.

That reminds me... I kinda got myself hooked on ultra energy (that coca cola energy piece of crap), I need to stop drinking that. Well, I quit smoking cold after like 15 years, this should be piece of cake:D

Hm... I probably forgot to mention bunch of things, but what can you do... Thank you once again for the effort and for the quality post:)

[Amit Dutta]

Great man, glad it's appreciated. :)
Apparently the darkness thing is directly connected to specific receptors in our eyes that based on light levels trigger neural pathways connected to our nocturnal/diurnal or sleep/wake cycles. So while you may have certain preferences the general mechanism is in you anyway.

The not being able to get to sleep thing can totally be a tough one which is why I included that whole section in the post. Of course we are all different physiologically and there are many factors and variables that can affect it, but I think if you try and implement some or all of those things there will be more chance of having success at keeping to a good schedule. You also can't rule out things such as sleep disorders and other stresses that may be additional factors, but it sounds like you are suffering from too much freedom (yeah it's a thing :D) and you should just try and be a bit more regimented at least for a month or two and see what progress you make.

I personally only occasionally experience not being able to sleep when I want to , and when I do, the main reason is that my brain hasn't switched off enough and it is chewing over something in particular. Generally I have found a good wind down ritual and some meditation tends to help that pretty well.

I have more coffee than I need as well (but try not to have it in the afternoon) which doesn't seem to be bad for my sleep, but I am going to cut down to 1 a day max from purely an excess caffeine point of view. I think you definitely should cut that stuff down a lot if not out completely.
Give it a go, and good luck!

[Lyraina]

Nice block of information, monkeybread, thank you. One thing to add about the one size fits all time schedule - this actually is a huge problem concerning pupils, as they are not only less productive at school, but it actually is damaging to their health to be forced in a (for them) unnatural sleep schedule.

meat, if done right, that 20 minute nap (or 15 or 25, whatever works) should leave you completely fresh & awake without disturbing the ability to fall asleep at night due to the short amount of time. And not as dead as after a 2 hour nap in the evening. About the "not eating/drinking before going to bed" thing - I'm pretty sure it doesn't include water (or sugarless tea), as those liquids pass through you pretty fast. Staying hydrated is important (I even wake up at night if I didn't drink enough before). Whiskey for most people isn't as good, despite making you tired, the following sleep is not as rejuvating since your body has to work getting the poison out of your system. Eating meat (haha :P) actually should be fine, in normal quantities obviously, as the body needs protein to rejuvenate, especially after exercising... carbs, not so much (as you said).

monkeybread, you mentioned exercise ... any advice about when is the best time to do that? I have the problem that I just can't exercise in the morning because I get dizzy and perform very badly, but if I do it in the afternoon, I have a hard time falling asleep later. Would be really cool if I could work out early in the morning and be refreshed for the whole day (also for the feeling of accomplishment), but that just seems not to work for me (not sure if that can be practiced).

As for falling asleep, in addition to meditation, writing a (quick) journal entry can help too, to make the brain slow down a bit and put certain things out of the brain. This actually made me realize that when my brain is very frantic, it can pursue several trains of thought simultaneously (while writing), no wonder that this makes falling asleep hard. I wonder why this only happens in the evening/night, while I don't have problems sleeping at daytime (which I obviously try not to do).

[Amit Dutta]

Yeah exactly Lyraina, the study that I talked about was done on teenagers at a school, and delaying their start times had all sorts of positive effects on them. It didn't affect their grades at all in this case but it did make them happier, more engaged, better behaved etc.

I think that late afternoon is the best time for exercise, around 4 or 5pm if you sleep around 11pm. One of the factors I failed to mention in the previous getting to sleep post is body temperature. A dropping core body temperature is also a trigger for the sleep cycle. What exercise does is raise your core temperature by anything ip to 2 degrees. It takes about 5 or so hours for your body temperature to start decreasing after a good workout. This is why it is hard to sleep if you workout even a few hours before bed. If you time it right you should be able to coincide the dropping of your body temperature from exercise with when you are ready for your wind down.
Morning exercise is perfectly good too. It's a great stress reducer and can have great benefits throughout the day. I've had success with both times to be honest. I'm not sure why you feel dizzy in the morning exercise, but it certainly isn't good. it might be an inadequate fuel intake thing, or the type of workout. Yeah not sure, sorry, I'd say just experiment a bit to see what might work, and maybe do some research on your specific symptoms and issue with morning exercise. There's bound to be someone who's experienced similar things. I doubt that you would be incapable of being able to do it in the morning on some level, so yeah, examine that a bit more and see if you can figure it out.

And yes, writing a journal, or just writing is an awesomely singular thing to focus on to help process thoughts. I second that fully! From meditating a lot one realises that our minds are always frantic, even when we think it isn't. We're practically insane...with a thin veneer of supposed self control over it...I think of my mind as my own inner Joker. It's anarchy always trying to stir shit up. Haha