-
Website
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog -
Original page
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/01/27/relax-like-a-pro-5-steps-to-hacking-your-sleep/ -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
-
Top Commenters
-
Popular Threads
I have tried several 30 day trials (based on the poly-phasic sleep study conducted by Steve Pavlina at his site) and have settled on a bi-phasic approach of roughly 4.5 hours of core sleep and 90 minutes of afternoon "siesta".
This cycle has left me more energetic than ever before and fits perfectly in with my family life and online work schedule (I have a great night shift without interruption from my wife or 3 kids and I am recharged from my power nap for when the kids get home from school).
To everyone, do some research and consider a 30 day "lifestyle design" trial with your sleep/awake cycles, you may be very surprised (positively) with the results.
DB
I'm interested in seeing the results of the questions at the end of the post when they are available.
It's kind of strange that this post popped up in my RSS reader right now — I was just contemplating why I was waking up in the morning with headaches for the past few days. I'm convinced that it is from not eating a meal prior to bed now. I thought it could have been from over sleep, but the fact that I cannot get 7 hours of sleep right now without an alarm clock and my diet has also changed (not eating before bed) I think you are right. Food!
On a side note, I have found melatonin to be very effective at helping resetting my "clock" subsequent to a trip with a time zone change.
I'm up for experimenting with some of those questions at the end, though. Especially the "eating more protein to compensate for sleep deprivation".
Thanks, Jeremy
What is the thinking behind taking caffeine right before a nap, is it restorative? Seems counter-intuitive to down coffee when you are trying to rest.
great post though, it would certainly be interesting to figure out how to sleep better!
Erik
Tim, do you have any sources you can recommend that led you to these tips? Or was it primarily personal experimentation?
###
Hi Teresa,
It's a combination of personal experimentation, conversations with a few sports specialists, and Q&A; with the professors who taught Bio 50 at Stanford a year or two ago. If you search "PubMed" on Google, you can find a great index of recent research as well.
Tim
I would drive up there at 7pm dog tired. Finally I bought an alarm clock and took 10 minute naps in the seat of my Nissan pickup at a rest stop midway between jobs. It was uncomfortable but I woke up completely refreshed each time.
One day I left my alarm clock out of the truck but knew I had to have the nap. I looked at my watch and laid down. My eyes popped open and my watch read exactly 10 minutes later. After that I could always take a nap and sleep exactly 10 minutes without a clock, except for one variable.
I decided to sleep at home one time. My brain recognized the different location and I slept for 90 minutes.
The most incredible thing is that before this, it would take me an hour or so to fall asleep each night. Since then I fall asleep within 30 seconds of laying down 95% of the time and rarely lay in bed for more than 5 minutes before falling asleep.
One last thing about the sleeping brain. I have been able to consistently ignore noises such as other's alarm clock. I will wake up to mine but no one else's. I even traded alarm clocks with my girlfriend and now wake up to the one for me but not hers. Nothing I did on purpose, just lucky.
Meanwhile, I too would love to see the answers to some of those questions Time posed at the end...
1. Count backwards starting at 100 or say the alphabet backwards. This takes the mind off worrisome things just enough for it to turn off.
2. Listen to relaxing music. There's a great CD that I just discoved called: "Bedtime Beats". It a bunch of classical music that just makes me feel instantly sleepy as soon as I hear it.
Interesting post, as a sleep specialist I would like to add a few comments:
1) The Glycemic Index is always a topic of discussion, the data is quite interesting. If you go for High GI foods do it about 4 hours before bed, anything after that should be low GI foods. It basically falls around the idea of a sugar high and then crash. It is, as is everything, all in the timing.
2) In fact I have not heard of this one before, but rather that HOT baths will raise core body temp then causing a drop, which is a signal to release Melatonin. But thinking about it, if you can be a polar bear, and get your body cold quickly it may work. However, be careful data has shown that sleeping in areas below 65 degrees can be disruptive to sleep.
3) Great advice, I could not agree more!
4) What I have been calling the "Caff-Nap" in my book (shameless plug here) Beauty Sleep is exactly what you are discussing. However I would add that espresso is not the drink of choice here but regular drip coffee (much higher caff content) and it should be luke warm (trying to fall asleep with burns on the roof of your mouth, just ain't easy).
5) This too is great advice, remember to also mention to people that the light source that they are reading with can in fact effect sleep. I ask patients to change the bedside table lamp to a 40 Watt bulb, or use a book light (check out the lightwedge, very cool).
A while back I was asked to comment on Uberman and his sleep schedule in a blog called Health Hacks, it was an interesting discussion.
Great post, keep them comming.
The Sleep Doctor
I go to sleep just fine ... and wake up like I have slept for 39 years!!! ... ok , well for about two hours ( seriously! )
In other words, .. something is working. That 'lunch espresso nap' gives me some serious recharge.
I challenge everyone to try it and compare the results .. it is more than a little unusual... very interesting isn't it??
In response to Mike (above)... Sometimes I can wake up to an internal alarm clock, but often it's the other way around. I can predict when I'll fall asleep and how much sleep I won't get in any particular night.
My opinion is adults are like toddlers that will sleep if you give them their teddy bear, and will wake up fully after drinking cocoa. We are just more complex because we have different sorts of bears and morning drinks. I let you play with the ice bath teddy bear.
I control pretty well my sleep, and don't need more than 4 hours a night. Unfortunately, I'm not Edison.
How do I do ? I can't tell. I got used to it when I was a busy student and had to get up at 5, while I couldn't sleep until midnight at best. Like Mike, after a while I saw I could do it on demand.
**What is the fastest way to pay off sleep debt?
Probably pranayama or similar energetic breathing practice.
You may also need to drink water as deshydratation is common in modern life, do strectching, close your eyes, take a micro-nap, massage to stimulate muscles or skin. Eating ? I'm not so sure, you certainly feel more hungry for junk food when tired, but you probably shouldn't eat more.
About your number 1. Isn't your flaxseed oil stale ? Be careful it can become toxic if kept too long and not stored properly in the fridge. Maybe that's just a question of quality. Mine is sold a crazy price, but it tastes like oil, not good but not bad nor smelly. It's tasty on a salad.
From what I've read, the key is both getting to the right core temperature and having a declining temperature gradient as one goes down to the feet. The reason people take hot baths an hour before bed is to stimulate peripheral circulation. Then, once down, that helps to cool things off more rapidly. Ditto the use of foot warmers in the winter. They'd warm your feet, get the circ. going and then the feet would cool more quickly and you'd get the gradient vs. your already cold core.
A few references are listed below.
I'm still experimenting with my own sleep patterns out of desire for more productivity. Meanwhile, I wish you luck with your insomnia.
-JR
Tigard, Oregon
Physiology & Behavior
Volume 90, Issue 4, 16 March 2007, Pages 643-647
doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2006.11.018
International Journal of Nursing Studies
Volume 42, Issue 7, September 2005, Pages 717-722
doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2004.11.011
Neuropsychopharmacology
Volume 25, Issue 5, Supplement 1, November 2001, Pages S92-S96
doi:10.1016/S0893-133X(01)00315-3
I have never tried the ice bath, but that's now on my must try list! What I do however is take a colder than usual shower before going to sleep. This gently cools you down and sends the right signals to your body.
Also check out NapSounds (link above) if you want help with power napping. Voice guidance and binaural beats are quite helpful to bring you in and out of sleep in a very short time.
Sebastien - NapSounds
What I've recently started doing, (and it works really well) is to drink 1-2 cups of Lemon balm tea one hour before sleep - it induces a pleasant relaxed feeling that gets me ready. Turning off all audiovisual stimuli - no music, no movies - during this time is a must as well. I had the extremely bad habit of listening to high-energy music and turning it off just moments before going to bed - no wonder I couldn't fall asleep for 3-4 hours at minimum. Nowadays, I just read fiction - if, for any reason, sleep won't come, at least there's a good feeling of doing something constructive.
Do you think that the caff-nap works with yerba mate/green/black tea as well? Is there any difference between coffee or tea that's relevant?
One website that might interest you is www.soundersleep.com, and the sleep inducing excercises created by Michael Krugman.
Also, the book, the 20 minute break, is a great book on how to get the most out of those daytime naps, for relaxation, creativity, problemsolving and more.
http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Minute-Break-Perfo...
Although I won´t stop sleeping for five days I think I´ll give the 4.5 hour sleep plus nap schedule a try.
Always great to read your posts.
Interesting stuff. Since everyone spends on average around 20 years asleep you might also want to look into lucid dreaming. Basically it's the practice of keeping the conscious part of your brain awake whilst you're asleep so you can control your dreams. Some people use it to live out their fantasies whilst other people use it for more practical reasons such as creating music, rehearsing scenarios or overcoming nightmares and fears. It's been scientifically proven that people can do it. Have a look:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming
Adam M
great post. For your falling-asleep problem there's something called "Schlaftraining" (lit: sleep training). However it's not easy: You give yourself only 5 and a half hours of sleep per night. No naps, no siesta. Do this for 3 Months (no exceptions). This is hard, but after those 3 months you'll fall asleep like a baby.
If you do it as therapy rather than experiment, there's more to it like keeping notes concerning your sleep and awak periods. The general idea is to match your time in bed with the time you actually need to sleep. See: http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/psych/diagnost... (german)
I was just talking to my wife yesterday about her problems sleeping. Headaches and fatigue when she wakes up, with problems sleeping through the night on occasion.
I'm going to recommend a few things to her that you mentioned above.
Great post!
Ciao
Where did you get a picture of Julia Roberts sleeping?
Great points, maybe i'll sleep better tonight!
###
LOL... it's not Julia Roberts! Cute girl, though, I'll admit. From Flickr under the Creative Commons. The link below it will take you to the photographer's page.
Cheers,
Tim
(It's a great book but it doesn't put me to sleep)
###
Hi Barb,
Good question. The books aren't so much to put you to sleep, as reading has never done this for me, but rather for requiring visual imagination so you are focused on the present vs. what you need to do the next day. Natural fatigue and circadian rhythm would then initiate sleep.
Hope that helps,
Tim
The suggestions for experimentation with different sleep cycles to maximise energy are very intriguing and I plan to try them.
Fortunately, it can be treated.
So if you're consistently getting elbowed by your partner in the middle of the night because you're snoring, you might want to get checked for apnea.
As soon as you lie down in bed, vividly imagine that you are relaxing on a beach (or other stress-free location). Tell yourself that your muscles are becoming relaxed, one-by-one, head-to-toe (i.e., my forehead is relaxing, my face is relaxing, my neck is relaxing, etc.) and really visualize it.
I'm usually out before I get to my toes.
Casein (a milk protien) is ideally suited for your evening snack. It's slower digesting than most other protiens so you're covered for a longer period during a sleep fast and you'll get less of an insulin spike. Cottage cheese is the easiest way to get it, but many companies are now putting out protien shakes largely composed of Casein for body building.
Fish oil (cod liver oil) may also be a better choice over flax seed, though you'll have to take it in capsules (get the enteric coated, non-fish burp kind). The Omega 3's in Flax seed oil (ALA) are not easily converted to the beneficial EPA and DHA that fight cancer, reduce inflamation, etc. Fish oil already contains EPA and DHA.
Oh by the way I'm loving grand central. No more giving clients my cell number!
about mistakes made regarding food, sleep deprivation, lack of energy. It is all connected to health via the mind, body, and soul.
I rarely take naps, but I have this routine where, when I'm tired, I can lay down for maybe 10 minutes and close my eyes. It never seems like I'm falling asleep because I'm aware of my surroundings and if someone is next to me or near by, they don't perceive me as sleeping. But after a few minutes of this, I open my eyes and feel refreshed, as if I've had a proper nap (proper naps have never worked well for me.) I've been doing this since I was a teenager. I don't know why it works, but it seems to. Anybody else "nap" like this? Just curious.
Great tips! I wonder if you have heard about benefits of sleeping with earplugs. I have discovered completely by accident that sleeping with earplugs I fall asleep immediately, and sleep deep in precise 90 minute cycles -- I never had that regular sleep cycle before. I used to feel that I needed 9 hours to function, now after 3 cycles (usually about 6 hours) I'm ready to go. Also, as a side benefit, my wife says it stopped my snoring (I really can't explain that one).
I love the "commando nap" (coffee before 20 minute catnap). It works especially great with Pzizz.
###
Hi Cliff,
Dang -- you're right! I forgot to mention this and always travel with earplugs. Excellent recommendation, though I usually sleep at home without them because I chose a quiet neighborhood in which to live.
Thanks!
Tim
My current crop are:
Hometown Tales
BBC's In Our Time
Make It So (Star Trek)
Anything Ghost
Table Rappers (audio book)
Once again fascinating stuff..you have one of the best blogs out there. It reminded me of a great book "Never Cry Wolf" by the biolgist Farley Mowat. He lived amongst wolf packs for months in the Canadian tundra and eventually adopted their sleep patterns. They usually nap throughout the day and night in 15 to 20 minutes blocks. He claims it's most refreshing and even improved his health even though he never allowed himself to fall into a deep sleep. On an evolutionary scale it makes sense. The majority of our history as modern humans (about 85,000 years) centered around a hunter-gatherer society; agrarian, industrial, and the information age arrived only during the most recent few thousand years. New research shows that violence was more prevalent amongst hunter-gatherer tribes than previously thought. This would explain the advantage of never going beyond Stage 1 sleep in that one could be ready for action at any time. Some anthropologists argue that the extreme violence forced physically weaker humans into becoming farmers, being able to isolate and sustain themselves apart from the packs and incessant danger. I plan to test out this theory in my cubicle George Castanza style!!
-vh
Having that list off-loaded out of your brain gets you free of the 'trying to remember what to stress about' mode, and you can actually relax/sleep. Kind of like GTD applied to Insomnia.
This has to be activating some part of my mind or shutting down another part.
Cheers
I've found the about 5 hours a night I can cope with fine, only it takes time to get to that amount.
Like eating, I've found that I sleep usually more than I actually need to.
Afternoon naps of 20 mins to 30 mins are great. (I learnt this in Spain - very civilised.)
Great post - I noticed that you mentioned it takes you over an hour to zonk out. As a serial napper I regularly amaze my friends with my ability to go from hyper-awake to out-cold in 5-10 minutes max. My trick revolves around visualizations. I refer to it as lucid dreaming, but it's not. So, let's just call it lucid-pre-dreaming.
Basically, when ready to go to sleep. Kill the lights, relax, close your eyes and begin to visualize a scene w/ activity (think of a mental movie). For propriety's sake, let's use a visual of flyfishing in the Colorado Rockies. Visualize the picture, and then play out the action/activity in your head. For me, the sensation is as though i am watching a movie on my eyelids. Allow your subconscious to play the movie out, while tweaking it with your conscious mind. As it unfolds, try and visualize as much as you can.
The result is, even if it's a daydream i'm really caught up in, i'll be out cold in a flash. I think it's largely tied to allowing my mind to clear, and focusing on something that doesn't agitate my physiological state (such as whatever im excited about from the day, or worried about). If the dream is drifting in a direction I don't care for I simply change body positions and face a different direction.
I'm a spatial person, so the technique may vary based on visualization type - but give it a go.
A second technique i use is learning naps. In college we learned that memory is transferred from short to long term memory in sleep. My solution to studying was to study hard for 15-30 minutes then to take a 20-40 minute power nap (on par with the caffeine naps you've mentioned). I would wake up, spend 10 minutes centering myself then rinse and repeat. After 2 or 5 sessions like this (depending on the material) I was golden.
For people who are currently taking tablets of any kind they first need to get off them safely, so here's some videos with helpful info:
http://www.SelfHelpSleepingPills.com
It's a 3-step hack for taking sleeping pills safely for the minimum time.
So then you can get on with the ice-baths :-)
A couple of things though, ice baths before bed! I thought that activated the sympathetic system.
We use epsom salt baths, the relaxing effects of the magnesium make you sleep like a baby.
We'd use soem tryptophan rich foods as well and maybe 5HTP or melatonin.
Some of the players do well on growth hormone amino acids, like arginine.
Keep me posted though like I siad there's some great stuff in your site.
Matt Lovell England RFU Nutritionist
For me sleep is the result of 2 aspects: Regular exercise and peace of mind (the absence of anxiety/stress)
20-30 minutes of Meditation helps to quiet the mind and induce peace of mind (probably much like your fiction) Exercise causes the body to want to slow down and get some R&R.
6-7 hours is all it takes for me.
Tim, I love reading your blog, but I have to say that I am a bit worried that I might find a flashing circuit board behind your ears should we ever meet. From email filtering ninjas to 34 lbs in 28 days, and now this! Seriously, are you really an android? Or is all this super-human systematization just the extra-ordinary core of who you are?!
Kudos once again,
Nate
It takes me a while to fall asleep too, although I never have trouble staying asleep. How do you factor this in with your caffeine naps? I would imagine laying down, and after not having fallen asleep before 20-30 minutes the caffeine would already come into affect, making it even harder to get to sleep.
Bed time: 10.15
Wake time: 6.23
Total time in bed. 8hrs 7mins
Estimated sleep cycles: 5*90=450mins=7hrs 30mins
Estimated time to sleep: 37mins
Pre bed snack: Half an apple, 5 spoonfuls of low fat yoghurt
Pre bed activity: 4hrs before - dinner. 3hrs before - exercise. 2hrs before - hot bath. 1 hr before - relaxing music (and internet).
Overall morning feeling: Great! It was nice to wake up with out an alarm and then hitting snooze 12 times.
I think I woke up at 4:30 something as well but that doesn't seem to fit into the 90 minute sleep cycles. Plus I haven't designed a day that starts at 4.30 yet!
Thanks for the post. Regarding your question on how to counter sleep deprivation, here is my take (gotten from some source in the past that I can't quite recall....never used to index my notes back in the day so it's just categorized under useless info in my head! :-) )
Sleep deprivation causes the body stress, and when the body is stressed it creates a lot of acid. Acid in the system wears the body down and makes you feel tierd, fatigued and sucks the energy out of your cells. The only real way to counter acidity is alkalinity. Green drinks (as disgusting as flax seed oil, I'm sure...or Cod Liver oil...even worst) are one of the quickest way to fire up your cells with alkalinity and restore the ph balance in your body. This has worked for me with lots of events - sleep deprivation being one, hangovers being another (miraculously cures hangovers instantly), and poor diet mixed with lots of stress being another. Now, I will say that I don't think anything other than actual sleep - maybe induced REM can cure long term sleep deprivation - but the whole alkalinity bit is worth a try for a short term fix.
For more of a long term fix, I mentioned induced REM. Meditation works WONDERS. They (again, I'm not sure who) say that people who meditate regularly don't need as much sleep as people who don't meditate. I fully believe this. In true meditation, your brain exponentially simulates a sleep cycle. I am not sure if it simulates REM....but 30 minutes of meditation can replace many hours of sleep.
Hope that helps.
Anjani
I'd like to add a ponderable to your current list....
Ever have those sleep cycles that you just can't wake up from? Ones where your dreams are so vivid and the interplay between the dream world and the real world is very very fuzzy because you are half awake and arn't dreaming in REM. I guess it's kind of like conscious dreaming. Then you finally wake up for the next 15 minutes you are not sure what is actual reality and what is not reality. What is this type of sleep cycle called and how do you get ridof it? For me, this is worst than sleep deprivation....it reverses the rest gained from sleep. Any scientific ideas?
I've found that using ALCAR and Theanine before bed reduces the total need for sleep, at least in the short term. Take 700 mg ALCAR 600~800 mg l-theanine 2 -4 hours before bed; I found I would subjectively feel the same as if I was getting 8 hours in spite of the fact that I was getting 6 or less. Those who have followed this protocol longer indicated that your need trends back upward, but never quite reaches your baseline.
I use melatonin and lunesta as smart bombs for sleep i.e. adjusting to new time zones.
Best,
Skyler
Excerpt here: http://www.sleepnet.com/apnea48/messages/447.html
- Karl
Couple things to throw in the mix (none of which are particularly scientific):
1. Ayurveda recommends massaging warm sesame oil onto the soles of the feet as a relaxation trigger before bed. Nice to do to oneself, even better if someone else is willing to pamper you. It puts me out like a light every time. Adding a little lavender or other essential oil might enhance the effect.
2. Reiki - again on oneself or with a volunteer - highly effective for me at inducing warm fuzzies and sleep.
3. Yoga Nidra - if you've ever been taught to systematically tense and then relax individual muscles before bed (my mom taught me this as a young child) - it likely came from Yoga Nidra. For Yoga Nidra you're actually supposed to stay awake, but it could be effective for either "power napping" or falling asleep depending on your intention. Lot's of resources out there - just do a search.
One thing that I've come to rely upon is Transcendental Meditation. It's not a religion and it's got nothing to do with any belief system. It's a terrific techique for completely relaxing both the body and mind. I find that after a twenty minute sesion in the afternoon I feel as though I've had several hours of relaxing sleep. The trainers of TM recomend two sessions a day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon but I find that I wasn't getting anything out of my morning meditation so I cut it out.
If you go through the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi website you'll end up paying about $2,000 do learn TM, but if you go to a local Natural Foods market you can usualy find a local trainer that will charge about $500 for the same training. It's money well spent and there are a ton of other health benefits that don't belong in this conversation. However, as "sleep replacement" or a "power nap", nothing that I've ever tried comes close to the energized feel after a good meditation using TM.
Thanks for the post and all the great ideas.
The icebath might do the same thing, kinda, but I'd've thought you'd want it quite soon before bed. And also, it sounds like it might be partially the body trying to shut down to cope with the energy loss caused by the cold bath. It may have hit you like elephant tranquilizer, but did you feel as good the next day?
Nobody's tackling this, so I'll try my best. >_> The whole "how caffeine works" to promote wake in the brain is still a bit iffy, and people are still arguing over some things. Hell, I'm studying adenosine receptors right now and I still don't have a full grasp of it.
There are two adenosine receptors that caffeine blocks with more-or-less equal affinity: A1 and A2A receptors. Give a mouse caffeine at bedtime and it'll be awake for a few extra hours. Give an A1 knockout mouse caffeine and it'll also stay up. But if you take an A2A knockout mouse and give it caffeine, it won't stay up any later... it just goes to sleep as usual. This suggests that caffeine inhibits sleep through blockade of A2A receptors. These receptors are actually present in a cluster of neurons in the brain that induce non-REM sleep by inhibition of wake neurons - meaning that caffeine acts by preventing non-REM sleep neurons from inhibiting wake neurons and thereby conking you out.
Those same A2A knockout mice also will not show recovery sleep if you sleep deprive them for a few hours at bedtime (if they sleep from 9am to 9pm, keeping them awake until 1 will not make them sleep in to compensate for sleep loss).
From this I'm getting the impression that adenosine, by action on A2A receptors, is responsible for inducing sleep by being a homeostatic marker of sleep debt. Whether or not it's necessary for controlling sleep depth is something I don't know about. But blockade or elimination of A2A receptors fools the body into thinking "nope, I don't have that much sleep debt" or "Hey, I paid it all off already even though I stayed up until 4" and would probably then end up affecting sleep length at the very least.
Half of that is pure speculation on my part, and the story as I told it is nowhere near that simple, but I tried. I think I need to read more. :D
###
Jessica, this is fantastic! I'm fascinated by adenosine, and this is the first potential explanation I've heard of the receptor-specific action of caffeine. Thank you!
Here's to clinical reading :)
Tim
By the way, very recent lurker -and- first time commenter. I have to say I nearly crapped myself when I read your About page; I didn't know it was possible to do that much stuff by thirty! Now I have all this catching up to do! D:
Love the blog and kudos to you.
Tim--to fall asleep: when I (rarely) have trouble with this, I find that closing my eyes and rolling my eyes up and back into my head somehow triggers a "relax" and "sleep" vibe. If I do this repeatedly it tends to knock me right out.
There is one gadget which helps you to get up at the right time: http://www.axbo.com
I am not associated with the comany ;) - just read some reviews, and they where all very positive, so maybe worth to try.
It took me forever to fall asleep too. Then i bought myself the pzizz.com software. listening to this sort of meditation thing i usually fall asleep in 30mins.
it's sort of relaxing soothing voice talking over binaural beats. it also features a power nap mode.
I was skeptical first. but i can highly recommend it!
cheers
...priceless. Sorry Tim...just can't do the flax seed oil...whole foods gets enough of my money as it is.
Love the tips...i'll give it a go!
I was so wrong. All of what you're saying about sleep is profoundly insightful and completely new to me, and that says a lot because I'm pretty addicted to social media.
Oh here's my 2 cents on sleeping since I'm here:
For the longest time I used to listen to pink noise. That was hit and miss. Just like listening to rain, thunder, or ocean mp3s. Then I bought a pzizz license and while it was very effective at first, it's become too familiar now and has ceased to help.
My secret for falling asleep now that I'm basically retired is that I just work/digg/red/stumb/clip/youtube until I can't keep my eyes open any longer.
Oh and Mile Davis's (for all the punctuation cops out there, yes I know s's is usually reserved for JC, that's why I'm using it) Kind of Blue will help me fall asleep too because it's so stilling.
Thanks for keeping it real bro.
I too have had onset insomnia for years. The brain can keep me up for hours thinking, planning and worrying.
My solution? Fiction books-on-tape (mp3). Light-hearted (and usually kid oriented) books on tape are pleasant and not too thought-provoking. Keep the volume on so low that in order to hear it you can't move to prevent tossing and turning.
My favorites include Harry Potter, anything by Terry Pratchett (lite comedy fiction), Ender's Game, etc. Since using this method (5 years now) I find I usually fall asleep in 15-20 mins.
My father's solution? Meditation. He started meditating 5 mins at a time and now does 45 mins every day. It's cut down on heart palpitations and stress and has visibly improved his relaxation and mood. He recommends Body Scan Meditation (from a mindfulness meditation cd) if you're interested.
Very good tips (even the strange point 2 :P).
To sleep and to have a good sleep, I've found very useful to drink a glass of water, before I go to bed and when I wake up (better if you drink water many times during the day).
I think it is good for your body to have water for his operations during the sleep.
The foods also are important to the sleep (thank for the tip 1): in the digestion phase you could be very tired, but I've seen it could give you a bad and poor sleep. I don't know the explanation of it.
Could you suggest some website about nutrition?
[quote Kelly]...I find that closing my eyes and rolling my eyes up and back into my head somehow triggers a “relax” and “sleep” vibe. If I do this repeatedly it tends to knock me right out...[quote]
When I was a child, I used this kind of eyes-technique to fall asleep and start a story I wished to dream while sleeping. Now it become harder to do it, I don't know why
Last question: how can I calculate the time that I need to fall asleep? When I lay to sleep, my time perception change and I know I don't have a perfect 90min cycle
Bye!
Rod
Here it is:
1. Wake up early.
Here's the recipe:
Get up at 5 am. Do something obnoxious to yourself if you have to. (e.g. set alarm very loud and far from the bed).
Don't take any naps.
Don't do anything to rev up your mind after 8pm.
Listen to soft, classical, piano music.
If necessary - drink Nyquil.
Do this once - and you'll be set for the next day and the day after that... etc, etc.
If there's any other Stanford kids out there...drowsiness is red alert!
###
LOL... drowsiness is red alert! Your Stanford folks told me about this professor challenge. FYI, I got a world-champion in benchpress to do this on camera for a Stanford friend. To your expert, though, I would suggest there are multiple factors that can contribute to post-sleep fatigue, not just unaddressed remaining sleep debt. Glucometer tests can shed some light on what I'm suggesting, but it's just part of an explanation, certainly, not the whole explanation.
Tim
Circadian is a latin word, where 'circa' is to be translated as 'around' rather than as 'roughly'. And *dia* is incorrect: the correct form is *die*, yes, as in 'sine die'.
Thus 'circa die' is not 'roughly a day', but 'throughout a day', althought both meanings fit well.
Besides, it's 1:47 AM here in Italy. It's time to catch my 4 hours of deep (and almost dreamless) sleep.
During the beginning of the Afghanistan air campaign, we were all authorized pretty much unlimited use of what were jokingly called "go pills" and "no-go pills." The go pills were some sort of stimulant. Honestly, I never took them, because I saw enough fighter pilots with the thousand yard stare and the shakes in the chow line that I feared them. But the no-go pills were Ambien. To be "prescribed" the drug, all you need to was present yourself at the flight doc's tent and ask for them. Typically, you never even saw a doc, but were just given your baggie of little blue pills. "Crew Candy", we called it. :) I'm sorry to say I kicked back far more of those things that I probably needed to accomplish my mission, but I learned some interesting things.
During the Tora Bora campaign, I was using them pretty heavily, because our schedules rotated constantly. You might fly a 11-hour mission (that doesn't sound bad, I know, but include the pre- and post-flight and a poorly pressurized cabin, and it's killer), and land at 6pm, only to find out that you were scheduled to take off at 4pm the next day for a 9-hour mission. Ouch. Ambien got us all through it by forcing our bodies to sleep when normally we wouldn't wanted to have rested at all.
I think for maybe three or four weeks I never had any sort of schedule. I remember once going to chow and being excited about pancakes, and when I opened the door, I was shocked that it was roast beef that was being served. :)
Not surprisingly, the effectiveness of the Ambien declined, and my ability to sleep without also started to go downhill. When I realize done day I was using them for regular sleep, I quit.
What's funny is I was forced to find alternatives, and the first time I tried melatonin, it was like getting hit with elephant tranquilizer!! I was still "acclimated" to the Ambien, so I expected the melatonin to not be that big of a deal, but it laid me out!! Strange, I thought... and I quit with all chemical sleep aids. I decided being tired was better than being disoriented with super-weird dreams.
Fast forward a few years and it's Iraq, and I'm back in the air. During the Fallujah campaign, it was all the same insanity again. This time, I steered clear of the Ambien and tried a little melatonin. Very little effect. It was like nothing... one day I was driven to try some Ambien, and it didn't work so well either; as if I'd never quit it. But when I went back to the melatonin again the next day, BAAM!! Elephant tranquilizer.
I suppose that's a rambling story... but I'm convinced there's a link that should be studied. Since then, I stuck with Nyquil, the Aircrewman's Friend. :)
Thanks, Tim, for the interesting post... Hayley
###
Dear Hayley,
Thank you so much for this amazingly interesting comment! This is really fascinating -- it's as if Ambien sensitizes receptors to melatonin or otherwise upregulates receptors that are then hammered by the melatonin (something in the RAS?) when you make the switch. Fascinating stuff...
Be safe and thanks for contributing!
Tim
I am sure you will change your opinion.
1. First of all - I did get up at 5am the morning of, which helps
2. When time to go to sleep (10:30pm), I grabbed my wallet and took a mental snapshot of my credit cart number.
3. I lied down and just envisioned the credit card number over and over again. I imagined it being 10x bigger than reality and I was feeling the shapes of the numbers. I dabbled with the mathematical tricks of how to remember the numbers.
Next thing I new - it was 4:50am, 10 mins before my cell phone alarm went off. A total of about 6.5 hours is all I need. I might take a 20min nap, which will supercharge me late in the day.
In addition to getting a good nights sleep quickly, I've got my credit card number memorized.
Tonight: my library card number!
Re. consuming low-GI foods and or protein before bed.... That's great advice. This is especially great advice for people at risk of hypoglycemia. Re. a slowly digesting protein source...the more complete proteins such as the total milk solids and micellar casein are digested the slowest with aminoacids still trickly out into the blood stream up to 8 hours post meal (1). This is why perhaps the yohurt seems to be a good suggetion. Additionally the flax seed oil, being a fat, will slow down the digestive process as well.
Re. using meditation to help you sleep.....I would necessarily recommend this to someone who hasn't meditated before. Meditation (not guided meditation), in most, tends to turn up the flow of thoughts going through the mind. The awareness moves from the outer to the inner. Someone who is not accustomed to meditation may become even more fixated on their thoughts. Perhaps becoming acclimatized to meditation first by practicing it during the day until you learn how to maintain the focus on a simple object such as the breath, would be best before diving head first into meditation straight before bed.
Contemplative single point meditation such as focusing on the breath has a profound effect on one's neurochemistry.
A review paper back in 2003 (2) discussed the complex mental process(es) involving changes in cognition, sensory perception, affect, hormones, and autonomic activity. The process starts with the willful intent to focus on the breath. The willful intent to focus on the breath is what starts the process by activating the prefrontal cortex.
Here's a snippet from the paper about just one part in the chain of events, the Thalamus. (see paper for references)
"Several animal studies have shown that the PreFrontal Cortex (PFC), when activated, innervates the reticular nucleus of the thalamus, particularly as part of a more global attentional network. Such activation may be accomplished by the PFC’s production and distribution of the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate, which the PFC neurons use to communicate among themselves and to innervate other brain structures. The thalamus itself governs the flow of sensory information to cortical processing areas via its interactions with the lateral geniculate and lateral posterior nuclei and also likely uses the glutamate system in order to activate neurons in other structures. The lateral geniculate nucleus receives raw visual data from the optic tract and routes it to the striate cortex for processing. The lateral posterior nucleus of the thalamus provides the posterior superior parietal lobule (PSPL) with the sensory information it needs to determine the body’s spatial orientation.
When excited, the reticular nucleus secretes the inhibitory neurotransmitter ?-aminobutyric acid (GABA) onto the lateral posterior and geniculate nuclei, cutting off input to the PSPL and visual centers in proportion to the reticular activation. During meditation, due to the increased activity in the PFC, particularly in the right hemisphere, there should be a concomitant increase in the activity in the reticular nucleus of the thalamus. While brain imaging studies of meditation have not yet had the resolution to distinguish the reticular nuclei, our recent SPECT study did demonstrate a general increase in thalamic activity that was proportional to the activity levels in the PFC. This finding is consistent with, but does not confirm, the specific interaction between the PFC and the reticular nuclei. If the activation of the right PFC causes activity to increase in the reticular nucleus during meditation, the result may be a decrease in sensory input entering into the PSPL. Several studies have demonstrated an increase in serum GABA during meditation, possibly reflecting increased central GABA activity. This functional deafferentation related to increased GABA would mean that fewer distracting outside stimuli would arrive at the visual cortex and PSPL enhancing the sense of focus."
WOW! When I first read that review paper I was blown away. It's well worth the read.
Finally, re. the caffeine nap.....man that's a hard one to explain. Someone had a go at it before and I think they are on the right track. It's thought that caffeine increases the clearance of adensoine from the system. Considering I think that it's a little more complicated than that. Adenosine (mainly through the A1 receptor) is thought to promote sleep by targeting arousal networks in the brain stem such as the cholinergic system (3) however caffeine is a non-selective adenosine receptor antagonist. Research looking into deep brain stimulation and tremor (4) suggest that nonsynaptic mechanisms involving the activation of A1 receptors suppress tremor supporting the clinical notion that caffeine, a nonselective adenosine receptor antagonist, can trigger or exacerbate essential tremor. Back to square one hey!?
I did find something recent and perhaps promising recsearch that might shed some light on the situation (5). It involves Adenosine A1-A2A receptor heteromers. It is thought that the A1-A2a heteromer forms (in rats) during chonic use of caffeine producing an opposite effect (sedative??) than expected perhaps explaining the well-known phenomenon of tolerance to the psychostimulant effects of caffeine. If that's the case it would be interesting to try and find out if the caffeine nap is more effective with people who use caffeine daily compared to someone who doesn't drink caffeine.
Anyhow....congrats if you got through all that I just wrote. I didn't. I'm devastated. :)
References:
1. Lacroix M, et. al.
Compared with casein or total milk protein, digestion of milk soluble proteins is too rapid to sustain the anabolic postprandial amino acid requirement.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 Nov;84(5):1070-9.
2. Newberg AB and Iversen J
The neural basis of the complex mental task of meditation: neurotransmitter and neurochemical considerations.
Med Hypotheses. 2003 Aug;61(2):282-91
3. Society for Neuroscience
http://www.sfn.org/index.cfm?pagename=brainBrie...
4. Bekar L et. al.
Adenosine is crucial for deep brain stimulation-mediated attenuation of tremor.
Nat Med. 2008 Jan;14(1):75-80. Epub 2007 Dec 23.
5. Ferre S et. al.
Adenosine A1-A2A receptor heteromers: new targets for caffeine in the brain.
Front Biosci. 2008 Jan 1;13:2391-9.
###
Doc, what an awesome review and contribution -- thank you so much for the comment!
Rock on with the clinical support and exploration :)
Tim
I'd love to hear your answers to the questions you raised, particularly:
-What is the fastest way to pay off sleep debt?
-Can you eat more food — or protein specifically — to compensate for sleep deprivation? To what degree?
-Can coffee and its effects on adenosine affect sleep depth or length?
Do you plan to cover these questions some time? Excellent post!
Over the course of a terrible week I left coffee (I had the suckiest continuous headache), but now I sleep within 5 minutes of going to bed.
I also have a nice bowl of cereal (but not with milk but a substitute, usually almond milk because regular milk will sometimes give me heartburn and wake me up).
I used to have terrible insomnia. It was tough going to sleep at night, and then I'd wake up constantly. All the standard "sleep hygiene" tricks, meditation, yoga, exercise, even light/sound machines didn't help. Sleeping pills would knock me out, but they weren't something I wanted to take every day. Thankfully, the melatonin has done the trick. Of course, check with your doctor before doing something like this.
brian
It's very hard to impossible to fall asleep if your feet are cold. And often you don't even realize they are cold.
Normally I fall asleep very easy, but every time I had trouble falling asleep it was true: my feet were cold.
Since then whenever I have cold feet I lay on my back with my feet tucked under my thighs for about 10 minutes. As soon as they are warm I fall asleep easy again.
It was the best sleep advice I ever got and it works every time.
I have had serious insomnia problems, typically sleepng well for about 4 or 5 hours and then waking up wired and ready to go, problem is it's 4 am. At 7 I am then tired again, but time to work ... stress due to a lot of change in my personal life has contributed to this.
I have been using a biofeedback device called the emwave (google it) to do a kind of guided heart meditation, it has helped a lot. Also put me in a much more positive state emotionally.
But ... about twice a week - I must stay up until around 3am and wake up at 6:30 am ...
And - as you would expect - at 6:30 am I am tired.
But about twice a month - I wake up on these '3.5-hour-nap' mornings TOTALLY RESTED and refreshed! I even wake up BEFORE my alarm goes off??
That is correct. When this 'event' happens ... I am not tired when I get up - my body feels like I have rested for 6 hours or more!
So, it has happened to me so often that I decided to post it here to see if anyone has had a similar thing happen>?
Anyone know how I can repeat this more frequently ... ??
I would LOVE to only require 3.5 hours of rest a day.
So here is some additional information about myself and my diet:
I follow the bodyrx diet plan as the book with the same name ( Dr Scott Connelly ) and for my body size and weight.
... 200 grams of protein a day and 60 grams of fiber. In addition I consume very few carbs ( 150-200g ) daily.
Before bed I have fat free cottage cheese and two tablespoons of flaxseed oil.
I drink coffee ( a lot ... 1.5 pots a day ) ... but usually my last cup is several hours before bed.
I am 6'4" ... workout 4 days in a row, off two , repeat a 4 day cycle ( as per bodyrx ).
My weight is 190 lbs - .. waist 34.5 -
Any explanations about the 3 hour POWER REST?? ...
I'm no expert, but drinking a pot (and a half!) of coffee does not sound like a sustainable solution. How long have you been doing that?
I strongly suspect that your unusual sleep cycle is due to such a high intake of caffeine.
I drink one cup of tar in the morning (I get 6-7hours of sleep) and I good for the whole day.
Take a calcium and magnesium supplement before getting in bed . This combination is great for sleep. Can't recall the science of it but it encourages the natural sleep process. works great for me -- try it out.
As I'm righting this I'm shivering so much I can barely type. Yes, that's right, I just tried nr. 2 on your list. You've got to get back to us on the whole sperm count-benefit-thing, because right now I'm feeling as though my privates will never again produce anything.
Loved your book, by the way!
Much love from Norway. ;)
How does someone with a full-time job fit a siesta into his schedule???
Interesting research here. Beer does it for me. Just heard on the radio about a new scientific study that concludes that people who nap are more likely to develop seizures! Anyone else hear about this? Googled it but found nothing.
And I must add, BUY AN EXCELLENT mattress. I have a Wenatex and it is without doubt sleep inducing, and has about a 50% increase in sleep quality (ie 6hrs is like 9hrs in other beds)
Sleep Deep!
Acupuncture zones me out. I noticed the effects have been heightened since I started a morning meditation practice (sometimes only 5-15 minutes).
Once the needles are in, I literally bliss out for the length of the session (20-25 minutes). It feels like the back of my skull *drops* into the sea, cradled and calm. It's that gorgeous mushy state of pre-sleep neverland -- and it lasts until the LAc comes back in the room.
And thanks for the bit about food before bed to avoid morning headaches. I'm looking for my walnuts now...
In the rare instance that this combination fails, I tend to engage in some full contact origami at around 10:30pm. And then, while lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, I try to masturbate while wearing boxing gloves.
Six hours later, I wake up feeling incredibly refreshed.
Not having any sleeping problems in the past ,I do however awake feeling more refreshed.
I'd like to know how to stop snoring????????????
If I had the financing for it, I would love to do a study on the question: What is the interplay of the hypothalamus and RAS (reticular activating system)?
This would be a fascinating study!
Marie Ennis, RN, MSN
Talk about timing - right when I needed to grow in my business, I come across the exact book I need. Thank you, Tim.
I am going to try the ice bath for at least 7 days and track my results and thoughts. I am hoping for better sleep and then better productivity and energy in the day.
Click on my name to the left to read more about my personal experiment.
Anyway, thanks for this. I've dealt with chronic insomnia since I was a kid, so I'm always looking for ways to get to sleep easier without a prescription. I intend to try the flaxseed, too - I have capsules, but I've been taking them in the morning, and not with much consistency. Thanks again.
What's your take on "polyphasic" sleep, as described here:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyph... ?
Since you're always pushing the envelope, thought it would be good to get a second viewpoint on the subject.
Dan
Particularly pt 4 - about sleep, and the need for pre-sleep, or factoring in time-to-sleep.
I have trained myself over the years to be able to sleep. It started when I had this job in a bakery that had me starting at midnight (Sundays), 4:00am (Monday -Thursday), and 11:00am (Fridays). As you can imagine, ones' sleep pattern was quickly shot to pieces!
I had to learn to sleep, so remembered what I had learnt years before about deep breathing and meditation, and combined with what I had learnt about relaxion (in a self-hypnosis video I have) - combined it all - and Presto!!
I usually fall asleep within minutes of going to bed. If I find I am not falling asleep readily, I go back and practise my deep-breathing/relaxation cycle. It always works.
Magnesium oxide, the cheapest form, is poorly absorbed. Among the better-absorbed forms, magnesium citrate is the cheapest, but can cause diarrhea if too much is taken; magnesium glycinate, though more expensive, doesn't cause this problem. You can mix the two forms in order to keep your dose of the citrate form lower: e.g., two 200mg tabs of magnesium citrate and two 200mg tabs of magnesium glycinate is a helpful dosage; you can also then add another one or two tabs if needed.
To require less sleep and yet still feel awake, energetic and not sleep deprived in general:
The single biggest factor for me has been the elimination of all dairy products from my diet. I have experimented with this over 4 years now and it is clear the most benefit is achieved with the most radical approach to this. In other words...removing dairy products completely from my diet has the biggest benefit. Yes this means no chocolate, no products with whey in them, no milk, yoghurt etc etc. it's also interesting to see how difficult this is to do, but the benefits are so astounding from an energetic lifestyle point of view that I do it for long periods of time at a stretch.
To recover fast from sleep debt:
Have a nap before you go to sleep. Let me explain this a bit more:
I regularly go for weeks with only 4 or 5 hours of sleep and then occassionally do a 2 hours per night evening and so am sleep deprived the next day. The best recovery obviously is to sleep as long as you need on a day off, but afterwards it take about 48 hours to re-normalise, this however is pretty essential I find when you have been sleep-deprived for long periods, that is weeks in a row.
For periods of sleep deprivation that are not as long (say a week with little sleep) the fastest way to recover I found is to have a good diet beforehand (see above) (and this applies to all sleep deprivation in general) Then when you have to crash because you're tired, do so naturally (for me it's usually on the couch, I don't even get to the bed. And wake up after about 1 or two hours. I don't set an alarm, this happens naturally to me. Sometimes the nap is only 30 minutes or so. Then re-awake and do whatever you do for at least another hour or two before going to sleep. Again I don't "force" this it happens naturally. One factor that i think is pivotal is that the nap should be taken in a different location from your regular sleeping place.
Assuming this is your bed, then nap on the couch, on the floor, or wherever, but not your bed. Go sleep in the spare room if you have one, throw a sleeping bag on the floor of your lounge and lie there or wherever but make it a different place.
This is becoming a long comment but anyway...the reason for the different location is that I think your body naturally will then just take the rest you need and not transition into a night's sleep, but rather make you wake up when it's done what it needs to do.
Be careful of not then going all night again without sleep because you will feel refreshed after the nap. I sometimes do this and if you do it two or three nights in a row then you will need a big sleep to recover and a couple of days on the other end of that to rebalance.
Generally I have yet to find another human that can keep up with me when it comes to going for extensive periods of time without sleeping, but I also think the emotional component is huge. The more energy you have, the happier you are (natural energy, not drug induced that is). The happier you are the more things you will try to do, and hence less sleep you will have. Mood is important. Getting a sense of peace and self-love (like hugging yourself you're so pleased with your life) is also important to get to sleep quicker.
I generally also suffer from onset-insomnia so had to figure a lot of this out by trial and error.
Hope it helps.
Melatonin seems like it is pretty damn powerful. I found out later that I could take 1/2 a tablet with great effectiveness and no drowsiness the following day.
Works better than any sleep drug including the brand name pricey ones.
Dont have a hot tub or sauna? Read TF's book and learn how to make more money, LOL!
the best way to get complete refreshing sleep is to understand your sleep cycle.
The best resource on it that Ive come across till date and has helped me personally is PowerfulSleep.com. (no, its not a site promo)
theres an excellent ebook written by the guy who runs the site about how to sleep less and have more energy that I use as a life hack to get the best from my day.
No need to maintain complicated pre sleep rituals and snacks, just some intelligent bit of information and the best ways to apply them.
Cheers man
Ruhvee
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/naps/
re. how to sleep.....side or back? well for me because I have severe sleep apnea it's better for me to sleep on my side because my airways are harder to completely close over. In my opinion the best way to sleep is the easiest way to sleep. Some might say that it's best to sleep on your side in the fetal position but if that's painful then how is that the best way to sleep? There are various arguments out there for both sides (pun not intended).
Good stuff, I'm interested in learning more on how this can be applied to shift workers. I work a compressed work week where I work from 7p-7a 3-4 times a week then convert(or at least try) to convert to the schedule of the rest of the world when I'm off.
I am very curious to try out the caff-nap method.
Never even occurred to me to try reading a fiction book before going to hit the dream machine of my sleep. I'll have to go find a fiction book.
I'm finding myself looking forward to reading more and more of your works. Thanks.
Timothy
The only times I can sleep are friday and saturday nights, but even on those nights, these days I am finding it hard to drop off. I find my nights anything but relaxing, and usually have to drink myself to sleep about 2 or 3 in the morning for about four hours (sometimes less) of alchohol induced sleep. I have been walking around this last year in a painful daze. And my spirit is completey depleted.
I have tried so many things to get to sleep, but nothing has worked. However, I will give your 5 steps a go and get back to you. It is good to know that I am not alone with this insomnia problem. And I can say that there is nothing so soul-destroying as not sleeping.
I'm not sure I like the ice bath concept either, but I did assemble a list of non-pill techniques to help bring on sleep in my post, so if anyone's still reading these responses, feel free to take a look (in URL in name).
Thanks!
Anne
"2. Use ice baths to provoke sleep."
Already the thought of it makes my 'you know what' want to withdraw twoards the inside... (c:
Over here in Europe it's unfortunately not common that convenience stores sell bags of ice... that makes it a little bit more diffucult to get that much ice...
but sure worth a try!
you're still owing as an explanation, I think, about the "fat-loss and the sperm count" (c:
How on earth did you come up with the second one? I mean: is the change in amount just so obvious or is that one of the things the NR do with all their time, after having outsourced their live...? Huahuahu... sorry for the joke, but that was just too tempting (c;
Why is that a problem? Well, sleeping 10 (often 12) hours sleep a night is an utter waster of time. Not to mention the fact that i don't feel refreshed when I wake up and will often feel the overwhelming need to nap. As someone with ambition this is seriously cutting into my ability to get things done.
I exercise, eat a balanced diet, have a positive outlook, have virtually eliminated alcohol and have tried the snack before sleep idea but continue to oversleep regularly and feel lethargic.
People (including doctors) tend to take the problem with a pinch of salt, as if to pat you on the head and say "there there, just sent an alarm and stop being so lazy". Condescending and unhelpful I'm sure you'll agree.
I hope someone out there has some good advice... I'm pretty desperate. Cheers.
You know that feeling when you wake up and you can't clench your fist through sleepy weakness? My entire body feels like that. My brain will be alert but my body is immobile. After 5-10 mins it feels as if my body is being flushed with energy from head to toe and I can jump out of bed.
Strangely, about once every two months I will have the opposite. I will jump out of bed after 7-8 hours, full of energy and have the most incredibly productive day. I wish i knew the variables which caused this because obviously I'd just repeat them every day! But it seems utterly random and unconnected to my actions the previous night.
Note: I am not related to the company in anyway just a happy customer.
I couldn't give you the praise you deserve without appearing to "suck up", so I'll just let it go. :-)
Two things: I have a recorder next to the bed in case I think of something I just HAVE to remember to do. Also, it's much easier to control wake up time rather than go to sleep time.
I noticed after my last post in "Things I learned and loved in 2008" that it got off the list. I hope my sword...errr tongue wasn't too sharp.
I'm sure the effects of the ice bath will pass... or I wouldn't admit that my son and I laughed until tears rolled down.
If the lunch-times naps help, then I am doomed. I am in the military and it's immoral for us to take a nap in the middle of the work day.
Thank you,
Jacob
Cooling works well for me, but the ice bath is overkill. I just wear fewer clothes than necessary before bed. This time of year, I'll take off my sweater and socks 10-20 minutes before getting into bed. I'll be chilly when I enter bed and asleep as soon as I warm up.
Another important thing is to reserve the bed as a place for sleep. Spending daytime/evening hours typing in bed either puts me to sleep at the wrong time or prevents me from sleeping at sleep times (or at worst, both).
If I'm ever unable to fall asleep because my mind won't calm, it really helps to get out of bed. I'll write down important ideas, then play a simple meditative computer game to clear my thoughts for 15-30 minutes, in low light, while cooling back down. Much quicker than laying in bed.
I don’t know how many of these suggestions I have tried in my life, but I will try some again. My rheumatologist says that my life time of insomnia combined with an over active autonomic nervous system has caused fibromyalgia. His prescription is for sleep. (He secretly wants me to drop out of my last term of school and somehow survive on working part time.) Without restorative sleep your body does not restore dopamine levels that buffer the pain receptors in the brain. I have done the sleep deprived hallucinations before, not on purpose (mine are scary). Chemicals make me "foggy" the next day, melatonin gives me restless legs, no sleep means a painful day. Any stroke of brilliance on that?