Looking for tips to fix sleep/wake schedule...

[WushuWarrior]

I'm a night owl who has trouble getting out of bed in the morning before 8:30 am - even if I get to bed at a reasonable hour and set my alarm doesn't automatically mean I hop out of bed at 5am....I'll just shut it off and climb back in bed... I am sick of living this way "late to rise, late to work which means I leave office late, late to bed" cycle but am having an impossible time breaking it by myself... I feel like I'm on a bad autopilot.

This is the best way I can word how I perceive my bed/wake time: "everything means less than getting out of bed in the morning. Everything means more than going to bed at night." Does anyone resonate with this statement?

I'm looking for success stories or tips that helped you fix your sleep and transform from an always late to a mostly early person.

Do you work out in the mornings or just get up earlier to leave work earlier to workout in the afternoons?

What do you do about making after work plans? Movies/dinner with friends etc... Just say no?

Would this be a good first 6 week challenge life or health goal? How do I bite this off in tiny chunks?

I am very grateful for your input, thanks!!

[WushuWarrior]

So far here are my goals for the upcoming challenge but I'm not sure about how to best go about the life goal for the sleep:

1. Fitness focus: 2 days a week beginner body weight workout plus 1 yoga = 3 pts/wk

2. Food focus: Ingest at least 80 G protein / day

3. Health focus: sleep hrs per night >= 7

**Life goal: adjust sleep wake/time wake up at 6am <<is this doable in 6 weeks? Maybe measure this by having weekly mini goals in -20 minute increments -3 minutes per night?

[Kilyra]

Well, I don't have anything to offer from personal experience - I'm up at 4:45 am and pass out around 8:30 to 9:30 each night, but it's because I have to get up that early for work. It sucked moving over to that, but it was one of those things where I just didn't have a choice.

 

I did look up online and found a couple pages with great ideas though! And your idea of going in increments is recommended in all of them

 

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/05/09/7-tips-to-shift-your-sleep-schedule/

 

http://www.wikihow.com/Adjust-Your-Sleep-Schedule 

[jfreaksho]

Your problem is a lack of discipline, and that lack of discipline is manifesting itself as inconsistent bedtimes. I used to have alarms set to remind me to go to bed.  The alarm on my phone literally said, "Go to BED!!!!!"  I'd have a short period of time (10-15min) after the alarm went off to wrap up what I was doing and get to bed.  I get up at the same time every day, with few exceptions.

 

You could stop fighting your natural tendencies, at least for a while.  Go to bed late, but at the exact same time every night, regardless of how tired you are or how much you want to stay up.  Get up at the same time every single day, 7-8 hours later, regardless of how tired you are.  Once you are on a schedule and getting enough sleep, it will be much easier to move that schedule around.

 

I don't know what you do for a living, but lack of sleep has a noticeable effect on both mental and physical performance.  You are less smart when you don't sleep enough.  Taking the choice out of bedtime (with an alarm) will help you make better choices.  Especially at the end of the day when you have used up all your willpower for the day, don't rely on yourself to make a good choice.

 

You might need more than 7-8 hours.  If your body is healing anything, you could be looking at needing closer to 10 hours, not just 7-8.

 

If you are really having problems, you might need a full circadian reset.  Go camping for a couple of weeks.  No electric lights, no screens, etc.  Your body will very quickly adjust and start shutting down after the sun goes down, and waking up when the sun comes up.  A slightly less extreme way is to go with no electric light after sunset in your house- no screens, no light bulbs, only candles.  True flame doesn't keep you awake like screens do.  It's hard, because sunset is much earlier than "dark" but it's the best cutoff line.

 

All of this comes back to the question, "How badly do you want to fix this?"  None of this is particularly hard, it's just different, and requires some discipline.

[WushuWarrior]

Thanks for the replies, I went ahead and set a "GO TO BED NOW." Alarm for 10:40 pm with a second one "YOU BETTER BE IN BED BY NOW" set for 10:55 pm which gives me 9 hrs if I am still waking up at 8am.

That and a hefty dose of solid determination and self-discipline.

[PMyrrh]

As related above, you have to make the decision "What is worth more, staying up late or having better sleeping habits?"

Thats what helped me anyway. My sleep schedule still isn't 'fixed', but it is better by leaps and bounds. Stuff like no electronic stimuli 1 hour b4 bed, read boring novels, and doing extra exercise so you are exhausted by 9pm also help.

One of my best discoveries was to put my ihome station on the other side of the room and have the volume at max. Not even a metalhead can stay asleep when deathmetal is nearly shaking the room at 5 AM. By the time I get up and walk over to turn it off I am wide awake.

[PMyrrh]

Spotty 4g double post!

[PMyrrh]

Spotty 4g triple post!!

[WushuWarrior]

Well, I don't have anything to offer from personal experience - I'm up at 4:45 am and pass out around 8:30 to 9:30 each night, but it's because I have to get up that early for work. It sucked moving over to that, but it was one of those things where I just didn't have a choice.

I did look up online and found a couple pages with great ideas though! And your idea of going in increments is recommended in all of them

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/05/09/7-tips-to-shift-your-sleep-schedule/

http://www.wikihow.com/Adjust-Your-Sleep-Schedule

And thanks for the links I'll take a look!

Sometimes I wish we had hard in and out times like when I first started. The outside threat of losing my job to tardiness kept me coming in at 8:30 am on the dot but once the schedule loosened up I loosened up as well .. They don't care as long as the work gets done and you are there 8hrs during "core business hours" basically not supposed to come in later than 9:15am and not supposed to leave earlier than 4:30pm...

Main goal would be to arrive at 8 so I can leave at 4:30 pm so this is what I will be striving for here

[PMyrrh]

oops,sorry, I blame spotty 4g

[WushuWarrior]

One of my best discoveries was to put my ihome station on the other side of the room and have the volume at max. Not even a metalhead can stay asleep when deathmetal is nearly shaking the room at 5 AM. By the time I get up and walk over to turn it off I am wide awake.

Haha i like this idea But I gotta talk to the hubs about this and get back to you

But as for the electronics yes those I have to remove after 9:30 pm - which is currently a peak time for me

[Jakkals]

Some advice I've read once is to practice getting up in the morning.

 

During the day, get into bed with your sleepwear and set your alarm for 5 minutes later. And when it goes off stand up and do your morning routine while wide awake. Eventually you should be able to to do it while half asleep.

 

My wake-up reason is very easy, I have to unlock at work.

[mendesbox]

I can't say much because I work from 1pm to 9pm, so keeping a sleeping schedule is really easy.

 

I personally don't like the death metal to wake up (in the other hand, it is amazing to work on repetitive tasks) because I hate to wake up scared.

But the hacks about leaving the alarm far away from the bed is a good idea.

Another possible solution would be apps like Xtreme Alarm Clock or something. One of the options is to solve math problems to be able to turn off the alarm, but the one I like the most is turning off the alarm only when you put the phone close to a specific NFC tag. You can place that tag in your bathroom, on the door to leave or in your car.

If you have bluetooth in your car you can configure that to be the alarm set off also.

 

Alarm clock app: http://bit.ly/1JoPwUv

NFC Tags: http://ebay.to/1JoPxHS

 

Besides that, try reading 1h before the time you plan to sleep and use an app to track the best waking time depending on your current sleeping cycle.

I use this one: http://bit.ly/1NhOiLg

 

Cheers!