I read a very interesting article on sleep patterns and thought that I would do a quick summary of what I learned, applied to my own situation. The Center for Applied Cognitive Studies (CentACS) has reported that people basically sleep in 90 minute cycles, and that if you were in an environment with no interruptions (e.g., no light changes, illness, full bladder, noise, OR KID INTERRUPTIONS – my own entry), you would sleep for 90 minutes, then partially awake and then drift back off to another cycle. These cycles are broken up into 3 segments:
- 65 minutes normal, non REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep
- 20 minutes of REM sleep
- 5 Final minutes of non-REM sleep
So, when you plan your “go to sleep” time and your “wake up time,” you need to think about these 90 minute blocks of time. For example, I used to go to bed at 11:30 PM (after watching the local news) and waking up at 5:00 AM. That is NOT divisible by 90 minutes. If I were to follow that pattern, I would really have to wake up at 5:30 AM (which would get me late to work). So, by shifting my schedule to make “bedtime” at 11:00 PM, I would be ensured 4 complete cycles, totally 6 hours of sleep. CentACS says that someone sleeping complete cycles will actually “feel more rested” than someone who sleeps 8 to 10 hours but who has their cycles interrupted.
The article also goes on to suggest some good (somewhat obvious) points on obtaining the “optimum sleep value,” including:
- Don’t take sleeping pills
- Don’t drink caffeinated items within 6 hours of bedtime
- Always try to get up at the same time, even if you have a bad night’s sleep
- Don’t got to bed until you are sleepy
- Others are listed in the article
I would like to ADD one to the list, something that I recently changed in my own environment. If you are a parent, you may appreciate this more. We have a baby monitor that we kept running during the night for our younger children’s room. Unfortunately, if you have very small children or infants, you WON’T be able to make this change. But, if you can, turn your baby monitor OFF. Many children are noisy when they sleep, due to nightmares or dreams in general. These noises can be disruptive to your own sleep patterns. As your children get older, they are able to get up and come to you if they have some sort of issue. While I don’t recommend turning off your monitors with younger children (I personally think it is good to know what is going on), try to turn them off when they get older.
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The last part of the article that I found interesting had to do with getting a Power Nap during the middle of the day. It boiled down to two things: timing and caffeine. Some experiments done at Loughborough University in the UK showed that you only need “a cup of coffee and 15 minutes of shut-eye to feel amazingly refreshed.” The steps?
- Drink a cup of coffee right before you doze (will take time to travel the body)
- Close eyes and relax
- Limit it to 15 minute ONLY. Too much and you will feel worse
I haven’t tried this out but it seems to make sense to me.
HTD says: Time to get some GOOD sleep!
