Ah, the old moralising trick played by those whose natural body clocks are set to waking early.
“Early to bed, early to rise....” “The early bird....” And other such bollocks!
The sleep thread
- Thread starter windhoek
- Start date
Ah, the old moralising trick played by those whose natural body clocks are set to waking early.
“Early to bed, early to rise....” “The early bird....” And other such bollocks!
mikemusic
pfm Member
Was a big problem 30 years ago.If I thought about it as a 30 year unsolved problemI doubt I'd ever sleep.
Improved as soon as I started working on it.
Usually I go to bed and fall asleep.
Record may be when I got into bed, the boss was talking to me and I fell asleep instantly
windhoek
The Phoolosopher
I've finished reading Why We Sleep by Mathew Walker and as far as I'm concerned, sleep is no longer something I'll treat as something that can be dispensed with for trivial reasons, like watching something on TV, surfing Youtube or posting here on pink fish. Don't get me wrong, if Mahler 3 is playing in town I'll definitely go and see it even if it means I get home late and miss out on some sleep. But nights like that will be few and far between from now on because, with me being a natural morning lark, I know the chances of making up lost sleep with a long lie-in the following morning are slim to none. In a nutshell, come ten past ten, it's bed or bust!
I've already posted a few things Walker says can help improve sleep but here's the full list:
- go to bed at the same each night and get up at the same time each morning as often as possible - regularity is king!
- sleep in cool conditions: 18 degrees Celsius is ideal for most people;
- avoid caffeine and alcohol as much as possible if not entirely;
- avoid large meals late at night - a very small snack is okay;
- avoid medicines that disrupt sleep - consult your GP if medication is affecting your sleep;
- do something relaxing in the hour or two before you go to bed to give your mind the opportunity to unwind, as it were;
- avoid napping early/mid-evening and if you’re having difficulty sleeping at night, avoid daytime napping after 3pm;
- avoid exposure to strong light and/or strong screen light in the evening, ideally cutting the latter off two or three hours before going to bed;
- if you must use an alarm clock, use one that eases you into wakefulness rather than one that rudely awakens so you don’t experience the stress of fight/flight response
- don’t hit that snooze button as you expose yourself to stress every time the alarm goes off so either get up or go back to sleep;
- if you go to bed and find you can’t sleep - or wake up during the night and find yourself unable to fall back asleep for a significant amount of time - get up and do something relaxing till you feel sleepy to avoid associating your bed with wakefulness;
- remove clocks from view in the bedroom to avoid clock-watching anxiety;
- avoid exercising within 2 or 3 hours of when you will go to bed as it takes a long time for your body to cool down enough to allow the onset of sleep;
- expose yourself to natural sunlight for at least 30 minutes each day (mmm, I live in Scotland...)
- avoid taking sleeping pills as much as possible - they should be considered as a sleeping aid only as a last resort and only if all else fails!
I've already posted a few things Walker says can help improve sleep but here's the full list:
- go to bed at the same each night and get up at the same time each morning as often as possible - regularity is king!
- sleep in cool conditions: 18 degrees Celsius is ideal for most people;
- avoid caffeine and alcohol as much as possible if not entirely;
- avoid large meals late at night - a very small snack is okay;
- avoid medicines that disrupt sleep - consult your GP if medication is affecting your sleep;
- do something relaxing in the hour or two before you go to bed to give your mind the opportunity to unwind, as it were;
- avoid napping early/mid-evening and if you’re having difficulty sleeping at night, avoid daytime napping after 3pm;
- avoid exposure to strong light and/or strong screen light in the evening, ideally cutting the latter off two or three hours before going to bed;
- if you must use an alarm clock, use one that eases you into wakefulness rather than one that rudely awakens so you don’t experience the stress of fight/flight response
- don’t hit that snooze button as you expose yourself to stress every time the alarm goes off so either get up or go back to sleep;
- if you go to bed and find you can’t sleep - or wake up during the night and find yourself unable to fall back asleep for a significant amount of time - get up and do something relaxing till you feel sleepy to avoid associating your bed with wakefulness;
- remove clocks from view in the bedroom to avoid clock-watching anxiety;
- avoid exercising within 2 or 3 hours of when you will go to bed as it takes a long time for your body to cool down enough to allow the onset of sleep;
- expose yourself to natural sunlight for at least 30 minutes each day (mmm, I live in Scotland...)
- avoid taking sleeping pills as much as possible - they should be considered as a sleeping aid only as a last resort and only if all else fails!
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windhoek
The Phoolosopher
And sure enough, after a huge dinner with friends and a lot of stimulating chit chat last night, I'm now in the wide awake club. I'll faff about on Youtube for a while and see if I can get an hour or so of sleep before I start work at 9 o'clock in the morning. Oh well, so much for me becoming a disciple of sleep lol
I have almost finished reading the book. All very good advice.
I have changed my approach to sleep and wish that I had done so years ago. Definitely feel better after more sleep, but have still not got to 7 hours a night of sleep (based on my Fitbit tracker, which has been tested to be pretty accurate for assessing your different sleeping stages (awake, light, non REM and REM)). I seem to lose an hour a night due to briefly waking up. So need to be in bed for closer to 9 hours to get 8 hours sleep. As we get older we get less efficient at converting time in bed trying to sleep, to actual time asleep.
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hifinutt
hifinutt
And now apparently ministers are going to tell us how much sleep we need !!!! they must be bored !
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48972243
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48972243
gavreid
Pretty Words...
My stroke completely bu**ered my sleep pattern. After a year with a fantastic psychologist I'm a lot better - he recommended The Sleep Book, by Dr Guy Meadows. It's a deceptively simple self-help book, and a very easy read. From what I'm reading, and my issues derived from stress and anxiety as it turned out, I think most people here would probably benefit...
windhoek
The Phoolosopher
My sleep has increased from 5-6.5 hours a night to 7 hours on average since I decided to get serious about my sleep routine. I knew my sleep wasn't great but I thought it wasn't too bad either as I could still function fairly normally. But now I know I need 7 hours at least each night without compromise (except in exceptional circumstances, like Mahler 3 coming to Glasgow).
But very it's interesting to hear you've been using a fitbit to track sleep - I had no idea those gadgets could do that. I knew they tracked a variety of physiological things but I simply never knew sleep was one of them. One of my mates using a fitbit when he plays squash so I'll mention it to him and I might end up buying one myself because as you say, our sleep efficiency deteriorates as we get older and I want to grow old with my mental and physical wellbeing as intact as possible.
windhoek
The Phoolosopher
This makes me wonder whether sleep is considered as a strategic asset in F1 seeing as we know how poorly functioning people become due to a lack of sleep and how important strategy is in F1. If you can't say that's cool, but it's interesting that Walker notes how Google among other companies has paid heed to the need for sleep and presumably reaped the benefits accordingly.
windhoek
The Phoolosopher
Of course, NASA - that's the other big organisation that up-prioritised sleep.