Time to sleep?

Hey fellow Jedi's,

what I was thinking the last days as I was helping a friend to get more motivation for life is that it can be very crucial to set a time to sleep.

We plan our whole day. Wake up at this time, work at this time, eat at this time, meed friends at this time and so on but for the end of the day we have no plan. We just let it open so it mostly happens that as we get tired we fall into unconsciousness and bad habits and just waste our time in front of the cellphone or television without doing anything really. I call this the night zombie mode. People become to Zombies and just push the time to go to bed away. But if you would go to sleep at a fix time you would have more time to sleep and then be able to stand up earlier. For most of us we are much more productive in the morning. Also in the morning we are less pound to get distracted by social media and other things.

I suggested my friend was ether he sets himself a fix time to go to sleep, I said between 9 - 10 or you go to sleep whenever you feel you are falling into unconsciousness and are getting unproductive. Which he said would be anyway around this time.


What do you think about this?

There actually isn't a set time when 'most' people are productive. It's something the individual needs to watch out for. I'm most productive and least in pain in the morning. My husband doesn't really wake up until the sun sets. I've met a lot of people who are more active around noon, or afternoon.

But on the sleep thing, the average person tends to sleep better with a set schedule. If you start getting ready for bed at the same time, then get into bed at the same time, your body will already know "oh, it's sleepy time, let's turn on the yawns!" I think it takes three months to turn on a sleeping habit?

I have a sleep app that keeps track of things for me. After using it for a few years I found how long I need to sleep to get the best deep sleep and feel the best in the morning. Not the same for everyone. Also, there's a QUALITY of sleep over QUANTITY that we really need (patterns help with this).

I love my app because I'll set my alarm for the morning, and it'll auto calculate when I need to go to bed to get the hours I told it I wanted. Then it'll set off a message to tell me I need to go get ready for bed. (granted I mostly ignore it now but that's another story lol)

Now, I get unproductive many days before I get off of work, but I still need to make dinner and keep the toddler out of trouble lol. Then I'll sometimes try and enjoy myself even past my time-for-bed alarm. So it's not always possible to go to bed right when you've become unproductive. But it usually is a good idea to get the most quality sleep that'll do you good.

I can highly recommend the book "Night School" by Richard Wiseman. It is witty as well as informative; with a solid scientific basis. Getting a copy for your friend might let them identify for themselves their own issues with sleep and offer some solutions too.

@Kit: yes of course different people have different times of the day but even a night owl will get to the time when he falls into this cloudiness and just drifts off into Zombiland I know what you say when you take the time when everyone sleeps at night to enjoy yourself. Me to I like it, like right now by the way, to stay up a little longer and be only by myself But that too I enjoy a lot in the morning when everyone still sleeps

@Twigga: Will have to look up that book thanks for the advice

White Monkey wrote: @Kit: yes of course different people have different times of the day but even a night owl will get to the time when he falls into this cloudiness and just drifts off into Zombiland I know what you say when you take the time when everyone sleeps at night to enjoy yourself. Me to I like it, like right now by the way, to stay up a little longer and be only by myself But that too I enjoy a lot in the morning when everyone still sleeps

Yeah everyone's going to hit a time when they run out of spoons, what I'm sayin' is the time when folks are most productive varies by a great deal.

haha I already get up a 4:30 in the morning, with my daughter's schedule, I can't go to bed a whole heck of a lot sooner. She goes to bed at 7ish, my to-bed chime goes of at 8. I've cut my sleep shorter and shorter to try and get some me-time in. When it's a choice between sanity or sleep, well, one's as important as the other

I agree that it needs to be something prioritized just like any other healthy practice. I had to really work to break myself of the "sleep = weakness" mentality that I picked up during my time in architecture school. I've tended to let my workload dictate my sleeping habits during the past, pulling allnighters frequently, and it caused some problems. There's a lot of factors which influence how much sleep one needs and the optimal time (when I train more, I need less sleep). But in general I've found that making the rule that I am going to get adequate sleep does help with my overall time organization, since I'm a lot more protective of my time knowing that I'm not relying on a last minute "stay up until it's done" save.

Making it valuable gives it back some priority, whether its making dreaming a hobby or realizing muscle grows in your sleep if your trying to get big, what works might need to be something individual for best effect. There is that quote in one of Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne books that 'sleep is a weapon', well same thing, he was an assassin and so made it relevant and important for his job. Or if one is younger then about 25, then getting sleep can be associated to getting smarter!!!! As up to about 25 years old the brain hasn't finished developing, and so if most body repair and growth occurs in sleep it could be said more sleep equals better brain development

... even for the older soul, good sleep habits help with cognitive degeneration - Alzheimer's and dementia. I think you're right Adder - I know when I learnt more about sleep I really started to value it, and treat the process with more respect; fewer crazy all-nighters; letting myself catch a nap if I had to burnt some midnight oil. I hope your friend can find value in sleep

The last week I started programming myself to wake up once I'm ready and we'll rested ☺ always woke up between 3 and 4 am well rested and fully motivated ☺ I had enough time to be powerful the whole day ☺

I know, there are many tactics how to sleep less, but being more productive. I'm not sure it really works without any harm for your health.
Recently, together with my husband we noticed that we can't sleep normal all the night, but there were anything which could distract us, like noises or light. Sometime after it, we realized that it's all about our old mattress. We got a consultation from a specialist and she recommended us to buy a new mattress and the main thing is that it should be firm!
We decided to try and, you know, it worked. We bought the firmest mattress according some guide article, devoted to special mattresses for arthritis sufferers . To be honest, we were afraid of buying very firm one, but finally we decided listen to a professional. It worth it, even if such mattresses may be pretty expensive. Now we sleep really well and feel ourselves fresh all the day.
Sometimes it's better to solve the problem in radical way to avoid harmful effects.

So you can only fall asleep an hour after your body starts kicking out melatonin (which is negatively regulated by blue light). TV can often down regulate your melatonin if you watch that before bed.

Also eating will kick your body's metabolism up as well, so avoid doing that before bed.

If you're really curious, get a fitband or something to check your heartrate overnight and test out different habits

I work night-shift, and have for the past 14 years. I tell my new guys on nights that the best way to make sure you're getting enough sleep is to figure out how many hours your body needs to sleep. Everyone is different. While I need about 7 hours, my mother only needs 4, while a co-worker is a bear if he gets anything less than 9.

You can do that with a fitbit (if you have one) or just a regular journal. Logging what time you lay down, how long it took to fall asleep, what time you woke up, how you felt after you got up. After about a week or so, you'll notice a time trend.

Once you figure out that number(ish), set up a bed time and stick to it. I make sure, no matter what, I'm in bed by 0600 every morning, even if I'm not tired yet. No phone, no TV, no distractions. I just lay there and relax until I fall asleep. I sometimes use this time to meditate or reflect on my day.

The second thing you need to do is set up a wake up time and stick to it. Don't sleep in. Don't hit snooze. Get up. Eventually, your body will regulate itself to being sleepy around the time you set.

Now I know that's for adjusting your schedule to sleep at a certain time, but it works for you non-vampires as well. It's about making sure your body gets the required rest it needs. Some people are blessed with being able to sleep and wake and be good. Other's need to set reminders to go to bed and alarm clocks to wake up (like me).

When I get sick of my current career and become a serial killer, I'm only going to murder people under 30 who wear fitbits (or equivalent data collection devices), in order to create a statistical blip that suggests people who wear fit bits die sooner....

ANYWAY, aside from tracking your own moods and energy like a bloody adult, I find the biggest detractor from my quality of sleep is, uhh, my wife, so I sleep in a separate bed as often as possible.

Although I do agree with lorelei that hitting snooze shows a remarkable absence of character.

You should connect your smart watch directly to the state revenue office, and every time you hit snooze you get an hour's wage taken from your account. Either get up, or just set the alarm to the time you actually want to get up, not some magical made up time you think you should get up but obviously have no intention of doing so.

If the very first thing you consciously do in a day is overturn one of your own decisions, how do you think the rest of your day, or life, is going to go?