Sleep Series, Part 1: Introducing Sleep Cycles
Picture this… You set your phone alarm for the next morning and tuck into bed. After an hour of tossing and turning, you finally manage to drift off to sleep. You wake up in a daze… and wondering what time it is, you glance at your phone. Only two hours have passed. Imagine this process occurring four times throughout the night, every night.
This was my life a few years ago as I was studying my Masters. At first I didn’t feel horrible the next day, but eventually the constant waking up throughout the night started stressing me out, and every time I looked at the time, I started getting anxious and frustrated about how little hours were left before the next day was to begin.
Worrying about sleep is an obstacle many of us face when trying to get the amount of hours that we need. Going to bed when you’re not tired causes problems, and stressing in the middle of the night isn’t going to help you get back to sleep either. Once the worry kicks in, stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) are released, making us even more alert.
A while ago, I learned to think of sleep as cycles rather than hours per night. Under clinical conditions, 90 minutes is the amount of time a person needs to go through the four stages of sleep, which makes up one cycle.
If you can relate to my story in any way at all, I want you to give this a try:
Set a constant wake time
Yes, this includes on weekends. And yes, this is also when I want you to actually get up. Now before you give up on this idea, hear me out. Setting a constant wake time is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal when looking to improve the quality of your sleep. Look over the last few months of your life (taking into consideration both work and personal life), and select the earliest time you have to get up. This is a time that should be achievable every day and there should be nothing in your life that requires you to get up earlier apart from special circumstances. Ideally this should be at least 90 minutes before you have to be at work or university, so that your body has enough time to prepare yourself after waking up.
Using your chosen wake time, count backwards in 90 minute cycles to determine what time you should be asleep
If you’re the average person aiming to get around 8 hours of sleep each night, that would mean 5 cycles per night (which equates to 7.5 hours). So if your wake time is 7.30am for example, you should be aiming to be asleep by midnight.
If you do this every night, you have a 35 cycle week
This would be ideal, but is not always achievable and so, you need to have the flexibility to work with this. I still want you to get up at the same time every day and work backwards in 90 minute cycles to determine your bedtime. For example if your wake time is 7.30am and you miss your midnight sleep time, your next best time to sleep is 1.30am, which gives you 4 cycles, and so on.
What about if you’re someone who needs more or less sleep?
I want you to start on five cycles and see how you feel after one week. If it’s too much, change it to four cycles. If it’s not enough, change it to six cycles. You’ll know when you’ve hit the optimal number because you should feel good once you’ve adjusted.
The goal is to try and achieve at least four ideal nights each week
Once you’re comfortable with your ideal number of cycles per night, you can look at tailoring it to fit in with the demands of your lifestyle. Remember it’s okay to miss a cycle here and there, but try not to have more than two consecutive nights where you are not meeting your ideal number.
By viewing sleep in cycles per week rather than hours per night, the pressure is taken off immediately. Instead of aiming for 8 hours per night, we have more room to work with in aiming for 35 cycles per week. What I also want you to feel is the confidence that you are in control of your sleep – Something that I wasn’t able to feel for a long time.
Start with that base for the time being, and stay tuned for part 2 of my sleep series, where we will build on this, incorporating new elements to further improve your sleep.