To help you adjust to your new sleep schedule, try some of these better sleep tips below. But sticking to it every single day comes with its challenges. Setting an optimal time to sleep is easy enough. Thankfully, there are many online sleep calculators and tools to help you find the best time to go to sleep, get enough rest, and wake up at the ideal stage of sleep. The first few cycles have longer periods of non-REM deep sleep, while later cycles are mostly spent in light non-REM and REM sleep. However, sleep cycles change as you sleep. To wake up feeling refreshed, your alarm clock should go off when you’re in a light sleep stage, early in the sleep cycle.Ī simplified approach would be to base your sleep on 90-minute increments, say 7.5 hours, and set your alarm accordingly. A full night’s rest of 7 to 9 hours of sleep will typically have four or five sleep cycles. All these stages make up a complete sleep cycle and last about 90 minutes total. Rather than one long slumber, we go through four stages of sleep - three stages of non-REM (rapid eye movement) and one stage of REM sleep. The final step is to account for your sleep cycles. You know what time you have to get up and have an idea of how many hours of sleep you need. But if you feel physically spent at the end of the day, try to get some more shuteye. A good rule of thumb is if you are fairly tired, 7 hours of sleep may be enough. These all add up to the total energy you expend in a day, and therefore, how much more or less sleep you need to compensate. You may have to be up at a certain time every day, but what do you do during the hours you’re awake? Are you on your feet the entire day, or sitting down most of the time? Do you engage in physical activities or lead a more sedentary life? But for the most part, being aware of your natural sleep-wake cycle can help you decide whether you’re inclined to sleep a little bit earlier or later. Even the slightest shift can mean the difference between someone being a morning lark or a night owl.Ĭircadian rhythms are also affected by external experiences, like light exposure, traveling through time zones, climate, etc. Studies show that genetics - specifically the PER1 and CRY1 genes and other parts of our hypothalamus - play a big part in your sleep habits, sleep needs, and preferred bedtime. The circadian biological clock is something you’re born with and is primarily determined by your genetic makeup. All humans have an internal clock, known as their circadian rhythm, in place to regulate their sleep-wake cycle. Much of the way you sleep is embedded in your genes.
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