Did you sleep well on the last Friday night?
Sure you did, because no one blames you for sleeping in for an extra couple of hours of lying in bed. You go: 'Thank god it's the weekend! ZZzzz...'
Do you jump out of bed and vigorously start off a day with the sunlight shining through a window, every single day?
I don't. Not a day in my entire life. I would always stare at the ceiling for a couple of hours till I fall asleep, wake up groggy at 7:30, go back and forth between my dream and the reality til 8:00, and finally my mum would shove me out of bed and rushed me to change clothes, I would already be running late for school and make it right before the school bell rings. AND REPEAT.
Lazy, did you say? Like I had told myself so?
I flamboyantly deny it with science backing me up.
The Foundation of Sleep
Japan is said to be the worst country for a good night's sleep.
According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 25-30% of working adults suffer from insufficient sleep. The figure is about the same in the States. Worse perhaps?
However, I assume that the statistic is not accurate. The tricky part of sleep deprivation is:
You don't even realise that you're sleep-deprived. Just like the fish in a fishbowl, they have no idea if they're swimming in the sea or a fishbowl.
—Micael J. Breus
In case you aren't sure, I'll give you some signs:
- Your skin condition is bad possibly with chronic acne.
- You're always hungry for junk food and thirsty for coffee/caffeine.
- You're Moody, cranky and, impulsive.
- You're suffering from chronic fatigue.
- You always feel down in the dumps.
- Your focus and short-term memory are shot.
- You wake up crummy with a sore throat.
The most profound sign: you wake up groggy in the morning EVERY DAY.
This is about me. I used to be a construction worker, so I would usually get up at 5 a.m. and go work, which was a sheer exercise with full exposure to the sunlight, and go back home at around 5-6 p.m. and I go to bed before 11 p.m. If not, earlier.
Pretty healthy, right?
But I could never get over the grogginess when I got up.
Why? Because I had ignored the foundation of sleep, Chronotype.
Our biological functions run on the 24-hour basis, so-called biological clock, and the rhythm differs from person to person. That's what chronotype is.
You've probably heard of the words, early bird and night owl. Even though there've always been debates going on which type you are, it had remained mysterious until recently.
The author of the book "The Power of When," Micael J. Breus, PhD, a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, says that there're four chronotypes, and almost everyone falls under a specific type.
Source: The Power of When by Micael J. BreusThe figure above particularly illustrates how different those two opposing types are. For example, late risers' melatonin peaks at around 4-5 a.m., so it's not a biologically rational choice for them (and me) to get up at that time.
Any advice on sleep has to be taken in time with your unique bio-clock to work effectively.
You might have wondered if it's possible to shift your chronotype to another one, or better yet, short sleeper by training?
The answer is NO. Your chronotype is genetic.
There's a gene called PER3, which determines the length of sleep you need, and which chronotype you are.
As for short sleepers, who can get by with only 3-4 hours of sleep a day, have the mutated gene of BHLHE41that gives you a resistance to sleep deprivation.
Much like can't train yourself to be taller, and some people can hold a lot more alcoholic beverages than others, you can't be a short sleeper or another chronotype.
So don't even bother.
To early risers,
don't be the jerk who says:
'lazy man, you've just gotta deal with it, push through and get used to it.'
It's easy for you and hummingbirds (the majority, that's why society's clock revolves around them) to say, thinking we're all the same. Some self-help gurus even boast about how much they can benefit from waking up at 5 a.m., telling you to train yourself to be successful.
I don't blame them, but I dare say, they're ignorant.
WARNING:
If you're high, talk fast with racing thoughts, you're overly confident, think you don't need to sleep much any more like short sleepers, and this only began in your adulthood and your parents aren't short sleepers, please do consult a doctor.
Above all are the symptoms of mania, NOT the sign that you're an acquired short sleeper.
To my fellow night owls,
don't join the 5 AM club. I ended up with chronic acne on my face for over a fucking decay with deteriorated productivity, and I would always conk out at unwanted time of the day. I'm glad that I left the construction industry.
I now wake up at 8-9 a.m., go to bed at 1 a.m. The acne is gone, no nap necessary at all, and I'm fucking productive in the evening.
But when people get old, they do become early risers. What about that?
According to Micael J. Breus, many factors affect your bio-clock in each stage of your life, e.g. people over 65 have less ability to produce growth hormone and melatonin, which cause 50% of them to be sleep-deprived, and newborns' functionality of their brain is not fully developed, so they don't live on the bio-clock that they cry out loud in the midnight.
The Basics
Although you know which chronotype you are, the most of us still need 6-8 hours of sleep and our To-Do lists don’t allow us to sleep that much! Even some hummingbirds are sleep deprived despite the perfect match for the society's clock.
So how can we cope with it?
The Simple Outline:
- Make yourself conk out in bed by acting on your chronotype and
- have the initial 90~120 min of sleep absolutely undisturbed
- with tailor-made bedclothes.
Quality over quantity. The usual.
The first 90 min is the prime-time/key to the overall quality of sleep, according to Seiji Nishino, the head professor of the Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology Lab at Stanford University. (He also doubts the well-known 90min-cycle of REM and non-REM, and says that it may span between 90-120min depending on the person).
The significant regenerative process (recovery) occurs at the prime time of non-REM sleep, and smoothly shift into REM sleep for the creation and consolidation process for both motor and intellectual memories (self-improvement), then repeat the same process in a cycle, gradually preparing for rising.
1. Make yourself conk out in bed by acting on your chronotype.
Here's the list of common tips among sleep scientists to have quality sleep.
Getting plenty of light exposure and exercise during the daytime.
Forming a healthy meal habit and avoiding a sugar-crash at an unwanted time.
Curbing on the caffeine intake; Drinking too much coffee incapacitates caffeine and its adverse effects last up to 6-8 hours.
Dealing with the mid-day dip by napping for 10-20 min or meditating.
The evening ritual before your bedtime (in chronological order):
- Avoid heavy exercise 3-4 hours before.
- Finish dinner 2-3 hours before; making your bowels work overtime during sleep leads to poor quality of sleep.
- Take a shower/bath 1.5 hours before to optimise body temperature for a smoothe induction to sleep. Gradually dim the lights from here on.
- Avoid activating the brain, stay away from digital gadgets, clear up your mind from worries and light exercise like stretching an hour before. Smokers, no nicotine in this time. Nicotine wakes up your brain!
- Read boring books, like the ones you don't want to read, but you have to.
Source: Power Sleep, by James Maas
REMINDER: Apply those sleep techniques in line with your unique chronotype. They never work otherwise.
2. Have the first 90-120 min of sleep absolutely undisturbed.
Another important thing is your surroundings. Of course! I mean, who likes to sleep while your neighbour is raving in a house party?
Did you know that the brain is still aware of what's happening around you, ready to get back in the fight-or-flight state so even little clues like brightness change from the flickers of street lights outside or occasional noises from your air-con can pull you out of deep delta sleep?
A sleep scientist, Daniel Gartenberg is working on it. Using his app or quality earplugs and an eye mask will surely help.
Consider moving out if your surroundings are still busy at night. If you've purchased your house and it's impossible to move, You can install some soundproof furniture, and there're many websites to show you how to DIY it on a budget.
3. Tailor-made bedclothes.
Don't be stingy on this if you wake up with a sore throat, neck, back or sore-any part of your body. Bad body posture makes you continuously toss and turn in bed subconsciously trying to find the comfortable position so the brain can't rest, and wrong head position can squeeze your trachea causing snoring (skinny dudes too!) and apnea. Thus your sleep is made shallow; your quality of sleep is very poor.
Additionally, split your blankets if you have a bed partner. Your body temperature shouldn't be affected by him/her during sleep. The base temperature is different between male and female, and it fluctuates in the menstrual cycle. (Boys, you've gotta learn this if you didn't know what I was talking about!)
People are willing to spend over $20,000 for a new car every 4-5 years, yet they only spend an average of 1 hour a day in their car. However, even though people spend 1/3 of their life in bed, people tend to try and save money when buying a mattress. If you have sleep problems you should buy the best mattress you can conceivably afford and replace it about as often as you replace your car.
- DANIEL GARTENBERG
I bought my tailor-made pillow for about $400 four years ago, and it's fucking good.
The Pragmatic Strategy
Don't try to pay back "sleep debt" on weekends. There's no such thing.
Sleeping in on weekends is the common Don't-Do among sleep scientists.
As sleep becomes shallow and gets ready to wake up towards the end, and the hormonal circadian rhythm is on the active state during the daytime, prolonging sleep duration as well as sleeping in the daytime is a bad strategy. Besides, you would get trapped in the vicious circle of "sleep in on Saturdays, can't sleep on Sunday nights and drag the Monday fatigue all week and repeat."
TGIF partying costs. Please give in.
You can still sleep in for 1-2 hours but don't go past that amount.
Keep the desire till the night to have a deeper sleep and vigorous weekdays.
We'd better not sleep in anyway.
This is the most brutal fight we've gotta go through. Put it up!
Parties aside, hectic work takes away the time to sleep from you.
If this is the case, leave the company and look for another one.
Seriously. Don't let them treat you like shit till you waste away.
But if the busy period is only temporary and you'll be back in peace later on, there're some temporal get-arounds for you.
I guess you get the idea. I know it's hard but try to secure the undisturbed 90min of sleep. As the best napping duration is 10-20min, any time longer or shorter merely gives you drowsiness. Instead, go deep for at least 90 min and get the restorative process of the prime time.
REMEMBER: This is a temporary get-around. Don't take polyphasic sleep as a regular sleep method to shorten your overall sleep time. It's proven that it doesn't work.
Secondly, You should anchor sleep if you're a shift worker; make an overlap in your sleep time to avoid sleep disorder.
REMINDER: sleeping in the daytime is not biologically rational even for night owls, so try to sleep at night whenever possible if you work in night shift unless you're a 100% Dracula. You are a human after all.
Lastly, going to bed earlier than usual to wake up early for the next day's special event is not recommended. Again, it's hard but go to bed at the regular time and shorten your sleep length and go deeper on the next day. If you really need to go to bed early, shift all the evening rituals backwards (earlier) starting with dinner, shower and everything. Remember, you can only temporarily tune it by an hour or two.
Another common understanding among sleep scientists: it's much harder to shift your sleep time backwards (earlier) than to shift it forwards (later). That's also the reason why they don't recommend sleeping in on weekends.
You Never Waste Your Time While You Are Asleep.
The sleep disorder has so many disadvantages in your life. It causes the lifestyle diseases and makes you less productive or worse yet, mental.
In other words, our society is making us fat and sick and stupid.
Flip it over by having good night's sleep. You'll be healthy and beautiful, more productive and motivated. Simply put, you'll be a lot happier.
Quit your job if your boss calls you "a sleeping ugly." There're companies that allow you to work in flextime.
Just because you're not conscious, doesn't mean you waste your time. The brain sets a limit at 10% of its capability while you're awake so you don't wreck yourself lifting up a grand piano with one arm or dry up like a mummy calculating astronomic math to process the big data for a marketing strategy.
What if the brain works at 100% while we sleep? I'm not sure about it, but at least it does a much better job wrapping up things that happened and getting rid of the stress and the fatigue for the day than we do when we are awake.
I recommend that you keep tabs on the latest news on sleep science and chronology because their history is only about 70 years old, so lots of things remain unknown.
P.S.
Our biological evolution can't keep up with our technological development.
Once we get a new tech, we need to know how much it would make us deviate from the wildlife where our biological system rationally works, and study the possible adverse effects on the deviation to get the best out of it.
Like the invention of the light bulb gave us convenience and madness at the same time.
Kazie