Hi,

I have very poor time management when it comes to sleep. I'm starting University soon and it scares me that every morning feels like I want to sleep for the rest of the day. The problem is likely the difficulty in trying to sleep earlier the day before. I suffer from insomnia every day and I want to solve this problem before I end up sleeping in lectures or something. I feel like I can do so much more in the day if I had a good night's sleep.

How many hours of sleep do you guys get every night?

A friend of mine gave me the following advice and it has worked very well.

He says always get sleep in increments of 4 hours. Getting only 4 hours of sleep is better than 5 or 6. I usually aim for 8 hours a night but I function very well on 4 if necessary (but horribly on 6!). It has to do with the cycles of sleep so it may not work well for everyone.

:)

yeah I notice sleep works like that...but then that means I need another 4 hours of sleep during the day right? hmmmm I'll have to see my schedule about that, whats that thing Kramer did in seinfeld? he slept like 20 minutes every 3 hours or something.


edit: but you see I hear a deep sleep is needed for the brain to do maintence work...so that scares me if I dont get it a lot.

This may or may not have anything to do with your specific problem, but I also cannot wake up in the morning. I've consistantly found that I simply can't do the bed at 11pm, wake up at 7am. Mornings always feel horrible and I'm literally more or less non-functional without coffee. Not to mention that going to bed at 11pm rarely happened because falling asleep that early just didn't work for my body. Fortunately for the past half a year I've been able to switch to a sleeping period of 4am-noon. I now wake up refreshed everyday and rarely have problems sleeping. Coffee is a nice morning luxury but completely unnecessary. This has something to do I think with your body being programmed to be sleepy during certain hours. For most people this is theoritically around 10 or 11pm, and sleep comes most easily then. Some of us for whatever reason don't work like that though. I'm afraid I don't have an actual scientific explanation so take everything I said with a grain of salt. I just know what happens to work for me. It also doesn't hurt that working at night is sooo peaceful and taking a walk at 4 in the morning just before bed is great.

Unfortunately you aren't at liberty to wake up later so all I can advise is trying to schedule later classes.

How much caffeine are you drinking? I finally gave it up (mostly) about 3 months ago, and haven't had much trouble sleeping since then. I used to toss and turn for an hour or two on a regular basis before finally sleeping, and even then I'd often have very restless sleep. I really love Coca-Cola, but I've given up the caffinated variety for good. I once thought that caffeine had very little affect on me, but now I know better. Give it a month or two experimentation to decide if it's working or not.

About my habits in general, I usually get a good 8-9 hours of sleep in. :) I can afford to do that, you may not be able to... which is too bad. I definitely went through 90% of my college days as you describe... groggily getting out of bed wishing I could sleep the rest of the day. One thing I did on a frequent basis was to go work my 8am-10am shift in the computer lab, and then skip my history class to go take a 10am-lunchtime nap. I don't recommend this plan, however, if you care about your GPA at all. :) I probably got around 7 hours of sleep on a typical night when I was in college. I never felt really rested until the weekend rolled around. I know it sucks, but you can do it... it's not gonna kill you.

As for sleep cycles... there is definitely some truth to this, although no one knows just how much. The typical sleep cycle is 3 hours long, give or take, but everyone is different. Personally, I think it's MUCH more important the WAY you wake up, not where you are in a sleep cycle. If your body naturally comes awake at any point, you are going to feel much better than if your alarm suddenly wakes you up. I can have 10 hours of sleep and still feel groggy if I get woken up in the middle of a deep sleep. One trick here is to drink a nice big glass of water before you go to bed... your bladder will wake you up before your alarm does. Another option is the technical one... get one of those "zen" alarm clocks (not sure what other name or brand name they go by) that wakes you up slowly. Anyway, all this may be irrelevent if you can't get to sleep to begin with.

The other important thing is to get regular exercise! How much are you getting? I won't elaborate here until I have more information...

Another thing that can affect sleeping habits is your diet. Do you eat well? Or do you eat like a typical teenager? This is more Steve's area of expertise, maybe he can chime in here... of course, he will point out that it's different for everyone and you gotta do what works for you... But I'll add one last suggestion, and that is to try fasting for a little while and see what THAT does to your sleep patterns. My experience (and that of many others) is that fasting greatly reduces the amount of sleep you actually need. My periods of extremely low caloric intake are the only times in my life when I've ever felt good on six hours of sleep or less.

OK, this post is getting too long now... hope some of this helps.

I had terrible insomnia for quite a number of years. I'm in my thirties now and it occassionally happens but it's not as troublesome as it was. Some things you might try: Wash your face and hands before you go to sleep. Often feeling clean helps you to relax.
Practice relaxtion techniques. I no longer do self-hypnosis but the methods I used for relaxing my body still come in handy. I use slow breathing, focusing on releasling the tension in a particular muscle group on the exhale. If you don't feel the muscles relaxing, you can try tensing them up on the inhale, then releasing on the slow exhale.
Although I've heard arguments in the contrary, sometimes exercising late at night helps me to sleep.
A number of texts suggest no reading or other mental activites while in bed, to help your brain develop an automatic rest response when you lie down. Sometimes reading helps me fall asleep, it depends on the material. Figure out what works for you and keep only those books by your bedside.
As Pyabo says, you should monitor your caffeine intake. At times I've felt caffeine has helped me go to sleep, but since I don't drink nearly as much as I used to, I'm guessing those were flukes.
Wind down. Give yourself two hours before your bedtime to cease mental activities. Stop programming or doing homework. Reduce snacking. Don't watch any TV if it's not relaxing. Clear your head of work and problems. Write down what's on your mind and tell yourself you'll read it in the morning so you can just let it go for the night.
Give a mental effort to stop thinking. My brain is going a mile a minute when I lay down my head, and if left alone that "passive thinking" can keep me up for hours. It's not really subsconscious but it's not directed either. If sleep is not coming, I'll take 15 minutes to concentrate on stopping any thoughts. When I notice I'm thinking or worrying, I'll force my inner eye onto random images, particularly relaxing ones. Interrupt your internal conversation. This can be very hard to do -- expending mental energy to stop worrying -- especially when you're tired, but it's usually worth the effort.
Don't get frustrated. If you're lying down for 30 minutes and no closer to sleep, don't. Get out of bed. Do something else for 30-60 minutes. I find tossing and turning somewhat demoralizing, so I'll get up, pick a small task on my list and do it. Then go to bed again.
Gradual alarms are pretty good, I have one. I set one alarm to play quiet music for 15 minutes before my wake up time, and the second to the gradual alarm. I try to limit my snoozes to 2, but as all insomniacs know since easy sleep is hard to come by, ignoring a great snooze is hard to do. Good luck with your sleeping habits. I think it's just a process of trying several things and sticking with what's most effective. As in shareware marketing. ;)

Why not dooze of in classes... worked fine for me :)

I used to not go to bed at all in Uni and then sleep through the classes, good thing i can sleep even when I'm standing up just touching a wall :)

Anyhows, I found the caffeine did not much effect on my sleep, but one thing I noticed that helped me alot was changing from a soft bed to a wooden floor. For some reason for me, it is easier to fall asleep in a hard surface, try that and see if it helps.


Ok, this is more a last resort technique, but if everything other people fails, try it: Sleep 3-4 hours per day for about a 3-4, don't worry if you have to rely on coffee to stay awake, just sleep those 4 hours. At the end of the week, you will be in great need of a good nap. Try going to bed at around 9-10pm that night and get up at 6-7 (or whatever hours you what, just make sure you put 8 hours in between and your wake up time is the one you need to get ready to uni). Now, next day, go to bed 30 minutes before and stay there, you will mostly fall asleep in the 30 minutes. After doing this for a while, you will be able to change your pattern of sleep. I changed from a 9am to 3-4pm to a 10pm to 6am using this method.


Good luck

I have Insomina. It is a pain but this is what I usually have to do. Thankfully my work is a little accomodating. A few things I do:

1) I will always go to bed at 10pm and I will always get up at 6am. No exceptions. I've found forcing myself to do this means my body does shut down and I do sleep a lot more than I was.

2) I do not do work, reading or anything else that invloves work in my bedroom. Tricking your mind / body into the fact that your room is a place for sleep helps so much. If your bedroom isn't clean from workspaces, make sure you aren't doing things like studying on your bed or planing stuff on your bed and what not.

3) At lunch time I take a 30min nap. This really really helps me if I didn't sleep much the night before.

4) I changed my diet. Some things I try and cut back on now are Sugar, White Flour products (white bread, pasta etc), Caffine and MSG. Now I'm not saying you should cut out all of these, just tone them down a bit.

5) I take a herb now called ginkgo biloba. Now before anyone says anything I am really sceptical when it comes to holistic medicines but I have to say this helps a lot. I also suffer from cold feet and hands and after taking this supplement in the mornings I feel a lot more alert and have found my circulation is a lot better and I can sleep a lot better too.

Now before you do any major changes in your diet or life style do it in small portions. Major changes in your diet / lifestyle can not only be bad for your body, but can also reduce your ability to keep with the changes.

I had the same problem.

I was troubled with thoughts, walking around the house like a tiger in a cage. Then I thought, why not walk/jog that? ever since then, when i have trouble sleeping (both mentally and physically), I run my 4km (during which I do the same mentally by thinking of everything again and again).

After doing that, I'm so wasted that I try not to fall asleep during the shower. Also, It's a great way to relieving stress which usually the cause for insomnia. either that, or making sure youll be physically-wasted (which is great for your health).

I always have had problems waking up the morning. Every morning, if its before 12 or whatnot, I always have a stomach ache...
Waking up at 7 and being nauseous is never fun.

If your body has to work excessively on digestion and "garbage collection" while you sleep, your sleep won't be as restful. My sleep improved dramatically when I stopped eating complicated cooked dinners. If you eat a very light, raw evening meal like a small salad or some fresh fruit (often I'll just eat a couple apples for dinner), I think you'll notice a major improvement in your sleep, and you'll wake up feeling more alert and energetic (and you should see this improvement the very first day you try it). I used to wake up tired even after getting 8-10 hours of sleep. That went away completely just by eating simple, raw dinners instead of cooked ones. Now I normally go to sleep with an empty stomach, but I don't feel hungry.

This is one of the best articles I have read on sleep and how to get a good nights sleep: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm

It talks about sleep cycles, things that get in the way of getting good rest, such as eating anything heavy before going to bed like Steve mentioned. It gos into detail about what your brain is doing during sleep and why it's so important to get good sleep.

For several years I had serious problems with insomnia myself. I don't anymore though. The one thing that made the biggest difference for me was quitting drinking coffee. If you are an insomniac this is the first thing you should do. Seriously. There is a wealth of scientific evidence on this issue(just do a google search on the words coffee+sleeping problems). Coffee has a very detrimental effect on human sleeping patterns. I've read that caffeine can interfere with sleep up to twenty hours after you consume it.

Stopping reading in bed helped too. As well as not eating right before bed. I used to love my midnight snacks. Now I have a 10:00 snack instead.

Thanks for the advice guys, I don't drink coffee at all but what I definately do is eat before sleeping. I'll stop that for sure! :)

I'll keep reading more articles until I get a good plan going.

damon - that article is great! It has confirmed a number of things I suspected and it appears to support that my crazy sleep schedule is not unhealthy. :)

Glad it was a help :)

It certainly was an eye-opener for me. Especially the part about how sleep deprivation effects your learning capacity, memory and job performance. Really changed the way I think about sleep.

Originally posted by Sirrus
I always have had problems waking up the morning. Every morning, if its before 12 or whatnot, I always have a stomach ache...
Waking up at 7 and being nauseous is never fun.

Interesting... I get the same thing any time I have to get up early in the morning. I know it doesn't happen when I'm asleep, or if I wake up and fall right back to sleep.

You're both probably pregnant. :p

ROFL

I hope not... that would throw all the assumptions I've made about my gender right out the window. :)

I spent 99% of 1989 through 2003 gaining weight (roughly 180 pounds). Fourteen years of virtually zero responsiblity for my eating habits along with a complete lack of physical exercise actually made it quite easy to gain all that weight.

I haven't slept regularly since 1989. Bouts with insomnia, sleep deprivation, apnia, back trouble, exhaustion, stress, and anxiety made it easy to say "heck, what's a few extra hours here and there? It's no big deal."

About 3 months ago, my Dr. told me that it'd be a really good idea if I lost some weight (I believe his exact words were, "Daniel, you want to see your kids grow up, right?". Kick in the face!

I decided (set goals) that I was going to start exercising and eating right.

Well, it's been 3 months. I now get up every weekday morning at around 5 am and head to the gym.

I eat right (for me -- I haven't given up my meats yet, steve ;) ).

I've never felt better. Sure, I miss my sugar fix (in the form of Dr. Pepper and Reese's cups), but I get over it. I have a protein drink or a huge glass of water instead.

The best part?

I go to bed between 10 and 11 pm EVERY NIGHT. I get up between 5 and 5:30 am. I generally do this without an alarm clock. I have had to use an alarm clock religiously since 1985.

Is it worth it? I don't have back pains, apnia, nor exhaustion any more. At 10pm, I'm pretty much ready to go to bed. When I get up, I work out and I feel great the rest of the day. I've lost at least 30 pounds of fat and I'm getting in shape.

My point? Remember what your middle school phys-ed teacher always told you? You remember, right? The one about "eat right, exercise and get a good night's sleep?" Well, it wouldn't be a cliche if it weren't true. Try to pay close attention to your diet and exercise for the next three weeks and see if it doesn't improve. If you're not in shape it'll probably take a few more weeks than that to get past the huffing and puffing, but you'll start feeling better within the week -- at least I did.

Good luck, and remember, I'm no doctor, so you definitely should not listen to anything I say.

-daniel