this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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When your sleep cycle is broken (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (6 children)

How does one fix your sleep cycle?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Some easy things to implement:

  • Get at least 30-60 minutes of sunshine/natural light a day
  • Get 30 minutes of exercise daily (even if it's just a walk)
  • Hydrate

What the meme is referring to is actually called Circadian rhythm, it's the different stages of sleep that is referred to as the sleep cycle. In a nutshell, you usually go from lightest sleep, to deepest, then back again every ~90 minutes.

If you respect this cycle, you will be able to retrain your circadian rhythm fairly easily.

Your brain is flooded with the chemicals that make you feel "tired" during the deep part of sleep, so if you use a traditional alarm clock and get woken up at that time you're going to feel like shit.

Either wake up "naturally" (no alarm), or you can use one of those sunrise alarm clocks that emulate the light from the rising sun in your room and allows your brain to "warm boot" vs a jarring "cold boot".

This clock seems to be popular, but you get the idea: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074NB5TNW

Source: insomniac for many years. Trust me, bro. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Great advice! There is also the possibility that ~~you're just a night person~~ someone may just be a night person. There's a syndrome called Delayed Phase Sleep Syndrome which is a fancy way of saying your body prefers to sleep during the day and be active at night. If we didn't live in a society that operates mostly during the day it wouldn't be a problem, but that's not how it works. There are people who I've worked nights with who I swear had this. They were happier and healthier on nights, they wanted to work nights. If that's you, maybe look for a night shift job.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

What about going out at night? Serious question, as I tried to fix my sleep cycle but failed because of weekends with friends staying up until late, or my kids waking me up in the middle of the night.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago

Gentle Wakeup app does a better job on any Android phone, costs $5. I have been using it for over 5 years, I think? The app is made by a doctor.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Sleep schedule is probably what you want fixed, there are a multitude of things to aid, in addition to the aforementioned it is also vital to have sleep hygiene if you have problems with sleep.

Sleep hygiene is a lot of things, but the main things:

  • The bedroom and, most crucially, your bed is for sleeping, if you have a habit of scrolling or watching videos etc in your bed, it will be a lot harder for your brain to be like “well, im in bed now, guess ill sleep”.
  • Destimulation period before bed, 30-60 minutes before bed get rid of stimulating activity. Some light reading could be okay, better would be meditation, some conversation, a slow walk.
  • Sleep environment - blackout curtains, low noise or white noise (substitute sounds could be wind, rain, ocean, but not music or generally other sounds)
  • Actually rigid schedule, especially for bedtime, but also wake-up time.
  • Got into bed at the time but not sleepy? No screens, no reading. Darkness and your mind - meditate, count sheep, fantasise, think up a novel. Personally i love meditating on the actual process of my mind falling asleep.
  • Consider short term melatonin to adjust to a sleep schedule or to change a sleep schedule.
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Workout for 45 minutes at any point before 6pm

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

LPT: have your last meal 16 hours before your breakfast. It's going to reset your cycle in one day and you're going to be able to go to bed and get up more easily the next day.

For example if you want to wake up at around 8am, eat dinner at 4pm, set an alarm at around 7:45 and eat breakfast at 8am.

Also what everyone else said are good tips to keep a consistent schedule, what I said is more like a soft reset, but you gotta practice not using screens at night, not drinking caffeine / not using nicotine (or any other stimulants that disrupt sleep) in the evening.