😴 Sleep

Updated at 2018-09-05 22:15

This note is about sleeping. Related to happiness.

Sleep influences everything you do. It influences thinking, muscle recovery, hormone regulation and alertness. Sleep is the single most important thing you must get enough. You should be thinking sleep as activity to recovering from the day.

Sleeping routine is very important. Go to sleep at the same time and wake up at the same time. Sleeping routine is a lot more important than the amount of sleep you get. 40 minute sleep window is good.

Sleep       22:00 - 23:00
Wake up     06:00

There are three stages of sleep: deep sleep, REM sleep and light sleep.

You enter deep sleep early stages of your sleeping time. After you feel tired, the later you go to bed, the less deep sleep you get. Deep sleep releases growth hormones that help muscle and immune system recovery. Deep sleep replays your short term memories, storing those as in long memory.
You enter REM sleep later in your sleeping time. REM sleep stores your short term memories in your long-term memory. REM sleep increases ability to make connections between known facts. REM sleep affects how refreshed and focused you feel the next day.
The rest of your sleep is called light sleep that is basically inefficient variant of deep sleep.

Relax before you go to sleep. Your aim is to get your blood pressure and heart rate down. Drink cold water, gets your temperature down. Learn to relax using your preferred method:

Reading a book. No highly emotional books like thrillers or action.
Meditating by counting breath.
Meditating by counting points in your body.
Listening to ambient sounds.
Yoga.

Take naps only early in the day. If you have problems sleeping on your scheduled time, do not take naps.

Keep your legal drugs in check. Caffeine and nicotine get through your system in six hours on average. If you don't want them to affect your sleep, don't take them after 16:00.

Your sleeping environment should be quiet, cool and dark. Noises can awake you at night, even if you do not remember it. Earplug can help this a lot, but use only quality ones, they do not cost much. Too hot or cold and you will get less deep sleep. You get less deep sleep if there is light. It might event awake you too early. If you experience cold feet, use socks, it improves deep sleep.

If you are dedicated to fall asleep faster, do the following training when you go to bed:

Relax your face, tongue, jaw and eye muscles.
Drop your shoulders as down as you can.
Drop your left arm as down as you can.
Drop your right arm as down as you can.
Breath out, relax your chest and legs.
Spend 10 seconds by thinking one of the following:
1. Lying in a canoe on a calm lake with nothing else but a blue sky above you.
2. Lying in a black velvet hammock in a pitch-black room.
3. Keep saying "don't think" to yourself over and over.

If you are hardcore, you may want to try polyphasic sleep rhythms to increase your awake time. With Polyphasic sleep rhythms, you must keep the routine constant or else it will lose its effect.

Monophasic (8h / day) [sleeping 33%]
    8h

Biphasic (6h 20min / day) [sleeping 26%]
    20min
    6h

Everyman with 2 naps (5h 10min / day) [sleeping 22%]
    20min
    20min
    4h 30min

Everyman with 3 naps (4h / day) [sleeping 17%]
    20min
    20min
    20min
    3h

Everyman with 4 naps (2h 40min / day) [sleeping 12%]
    20min
    20min
    20min
    20min
    1h 30min

Dymaxion (2h / day) [sleeping 8%]
    30min
    30min
    30min
    30min

Uberman (2h / day) [sleeping 8%]
    20min (06:00 - 06:20)
        Go to work.
        Work
    20min (10:00 - 10:20)
        Work
        Eat
    20min (14:00 - 14:20)
        Work
        Return home.
    20min (18:00 - 18:20)
        Freetime
    20min (22:00 - 22:20)
        Freetime
        Eat
    20min (02:00 - 02:20)
        Freetime

😴 Sleep

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