When we sleep, we do so in several different stages. First, we enter a light sleep. Then a deep sleep, and finally a dream-state. These stages often happen several times in a night, and run in cycles of roughly 90 minutes each. This may sound like it doesn’t matter, but sleep cycles can be used to your advantage.
Have you ever found yourself exhausted when waking up, despite a long nights sleep? You’re sure you dozed off at around ten o’clock, why are you still so tired? It’s likely you woke up in the middle of one of these cycles. When you interrupt a cycle, you often drag your brain out of a deep sleep or dream-state, and it can leave you feeling groggy and disoriented. It can have a serious affect on your concentration throughout the day, and will affect things like your attention span and your response times.
This is why sleep cycles can work in your favour. It’s possible to utilise your sleep cycles to make sure you wake up feeling refreshed, and ready to face your day. It’s a simple task: think about when you need to wake up, and work your way backwards in hour and a half steps! For example, if you needed to wake up at 7am in order to be at work on time, there are a few times that would leave you feeling good when you wake up. 10pm, 11:30pm, 1am or 2:30am.
Now, there are two important things to remember when contemplating which of these times to choose- yes, you could go to sleep at 2:30am and wake up easily but you’ll have trouble concentrating towards the end of your day. It’s still important to get a good amount of sleep to let your body recover.
The second thing is that you need to be falling asleep at these times. If you try to go to sleep when you’re already supposed to be asleep, you’ll mess up your cycles for when you wake up, and you may wake up late. It takes the average person fourteen minutes to fall asleep, so you should consider settling down to sleep roughly 15 minutes before you need to be. Of course, it’s different for every person, so try to keep track of how long it takes you to fall asleep, and tailor your cycles to fit.
With a little practice, you’ll have the hang of it in no time. Using sleep cycles to make your life easier is a simple trick, and after a while using them, you may find your will establish a sleeping pattern of it’s own accord! If you want to do that, it’s important to make sure you structure a routine that will be useful for you, and stick to it. It’s no good changing the time you go to sleep every night, whether you’re using sleep cycles or not. Your body will get confused, and you will find it more difficult to sleep than if you had a routine. Once you have a routine, getting up in the morning will be like taking a breath of fresh air.
