How to sleep 101: The Basic Principles.
Ever wonder how you can sleep 8–10 hours and feel tired?
It is a Sunday morning, I roll over to check my phone and see what time it is. It’s 11 o’clock. Nothing annoys me more, knowing that some people have been up for a good five hours more than I have and squeezing the very best out of their day. The worst is, I feel just as tiered as I did 10 hours ago, when I hit the hay. If you are one who loves to sleep all day dreaming, stop reading……. now.
Highlighted two years ago by my college golf coach at Queens University of Charlotte, the team was informed about how to achieve an entire extra day a week. After asking several players in the team what time they were getting up, it became apparent that the likes of Stanford were getting up on average three hours before us each morning which equated to 21 more hours a week of extra practice. Check out a standard day in the ex college Stanford student Mr Woods, who set the tone for this — here
The art of hacking your sleep has always interested me. The statement “Recommend adults need to get at least 8 hours of sleep every night for good health” This is what we know as schema.
Schemas: Help us create complex messages from simple materials.
The use of schemas can sometimes involve a somewhat slower route to the real truth. We live and breathe them each day and follow the rules of these sticky concepts which have been programmed into our brain for generations. Here are just a few which we follow each day,
- You need to drink 8 cups of water a day.
- The Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure visible from space.
- You only use 10% of your brain.
- And of course — You are supposed to sleep 8 hours day.
However here are some facts that are not built on schemas.
- The number of hours you sleep is not as important as the quality of sleep.
- Eating the right foods improves your sleep.
- Supplementing with vitamins can better your sleep.
Here are the three main problems which we all struggle with when we hit the hay.
- Taking too long to get to sleep (onset insomnia)
- Waking too often throughout the night (middle insomnia)
- Waking early and being unable to get back to sleep (terminal insomnia)
Hacking your sleeping cycles.
REM — after about 90 minutes, we enter into REM sleep in which our brain activity changes dramatically. Our muscles become inhibited but our eyes start flickering. The brain is said to be more intense in REM than when we are awake. Most of our beautiful and scary dreams come in this stage. A typical adult will enter around 4–5 times per night and each REM will last around 90 minutes. The rest will be spent in a Non- REM cycle, where the brain physiological processes reboot.
Having grown up playing golf with a gentleman called “Gunner” an army officer who got his name from, quite literally gunning the enemy down. I always remembered his 20 min power naps throughout the day. Whether it be in the club house lying in one of the thick leather chairs or on the drive home pulling over on the hard shoulder for a quick power nap. This chap slept 3–4 hours a night and was a sharp as a cookie 24–7!What I did not realize was that he was acting out an Uberman sleeping cycle.
So what sleep cycles can you test on yourself? Be your own human guinea pig.
Monophasic — 8 hours of sleep. Biphasic — 6hrs & 1x 20 min nap. Everyman — 3 hrs — 1.5 major nap & 1x 20 min nap. Uberman — 6 20 min naps.
My Sleep cycle — Tuesday 14th January 2014. Sleep Cycle App.
5 Sleep Hacks you can start today.
1. iPhone sleep app — called SleepCyle , in order to track your regular sleep patterns. Just put your phone under your sheet of your bed, and set the alarm. It will track your sleep quality using the microphone on your phone, and wake you feeling more refreshed at the top of a sleep cycle. It is bloody great! Working opposite to an alarm it will wake you up when you are in a light sleep cycle i.e. Non — Rem stage, so you don’t wake up half way through that amazing dream and feel groggy and tiered in the mornings. Important: Make sure you put your phone on airplane mode so you don’t cook your head with RF.
2. Prior to bed — have a small snack such as: a almond butter, a mandarin orange or 5–8 almonds, To prevent low blood sugar levels. To enhance lucid dreaming take Alpha Brain 15- 20 mins before! WILD!!!
3. Distress — The Genie — I simple could not live without this thing. And for everyone who knows me personal see it on my head where ever I go. A great way to unwind before bed!
4. Caffeine naps — down an espresso and set your alarm for no more than 20 minutes, which prevents awakening in the middle of a restorative sleep cycle. Interrupting cycles often leaves you feeling worse than no sleep (though some researchers assert your performance will still improve in comparison with deprivation).
5. Routine — going to bed at 10 o’clock one night and then 1 o’clock the next night will only play with your cycle even more. Be as strict with your time keeping as an army general.
