Improving my sleep schedule

  • 🏰 The Fediverse is up. If you know, you know.
  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
Go to sleep earlier. If you're a degenerate and wake up too late to adjust by simply going to bed at a normal time, just stay up all night to reset. Use melatonin for a couple weeks if you're having trouble.

t. guy who goes to bed between 9-11pm and wakes up 5-6am every day
 
dark/light control. blue blocking glasses and a filter on any screens, starting three or four hours before bed, and a decent sun lamp, full spectrum, for 15-20 minutes right when you want to wake up regularly.

don't try to edge your way into it by a few minutes a day or you'll permanently fuck your circadian rhythm; do it in one jump. use lots of loud alarms if you have to.
don't stay up all night; just get what sleep you can before those alarms go off.


people always say to use melatonin but since snake oil isn't regulated neither is that, and you'll never be sure you're getting the amount or actual melatonin in anything you can buy freely. if you do sleep hygiene and light/dark, and there's nothing actually wrong with your sleep ability, it'll work.
 
cuddle striker said:
dark/light control. blue blocking glasses and a filter on any screens, starting three or four hours before bed, and a decent sun lamp, full spectrum, for 15-20 minutes right when you want to wake up regularly.

don't try to edge your way into it by a few minutes a day or you'll permanently fuck your circadian rhythm; do it in one jump. use lots of loud alarms if you have to.
don't stay up all night; just get what sleep you can before those alarms go off.


people always say to use melatonin but since snake oil isn't regulated neither is that, and you'll never be sure you're getting the amount or actual melatonin in anything you can buy freely. if you do sleep hygiene and light/dark, and there's nothing actually wrong with your sleep ability, it'll work.
Click to expand...
A $20 bottle of melatonin is unregulated snake oil, don't buy it. Buy the $50-100 worth of unregulated snakoil I prefer instead. It's all been shown to have varying degrees of effectiveness in studies.
 
i recently had some success at doing this myself. as @break these cuffs and @cuddle striker mention, going to bed earlier and dark/light control is crucial. keep inside lights low after dark and use an app that filters blue light from your monitors if you stare at screens at night (i use f.lux and i love it). these things help normalize your circadian rhythm. I would also suggest giving up on melatonin. i was reliant on sleep aids for the longest time but it only took me a few days of being strict with sleeping to decide i dont need them.

the thing that helps me the most though is not eating after 6pm. 7 at the absolute latest. if you do this, your body should be ready for sleep before 11.

regular exercise helps too.

there's been some great sleep research done lately. check out the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, or The Circadian Code by Satchin Panda.
 
BoingBoingBoi said:
I would also suggest giving up on melatonin. i was reliant on sleep aids for the longest time but it only took me a few days of being strict with sleeping to decide i dont need them.
Click to expand...
That's why I say to use it temporarily. It can take a week or two to kick in and then after a week your body should be locked into the rhythm unless you have some kind of sleep disorder. For me it's like 2 days if something has fucked me up. Might be a placebo effect, who knows. Staring at screens doesn't do shit to me personally, I fall asleep just fine. I do leave the shades in my bedroom open to the sun wakes me up in the morning, though.
 
f.lux seconded. as well as leaving blinds open for that morning light.

you don't have to pay for really much to do the dark/light stuff. maybe blue blocking glasses, they're cheap as fuck though. I wouldn't buy anything that is sleepy time snake oil. if shit gets impossible get a prescription for a short term sleeping medication from a doctor.

but you only need that if there's something actually wrong with your sleep mechanism or response to light. otherwise it's all training and timing light/dark to strong alarms.
 
When I need to get back on track, I turn of my laptop, hide it away somewhere and force myself to re-learn normal rhythms. Only takes a few days, but it's a big change, not staring at a screen in the evenings. You'd be surprised how easily you fall asleep when you don't follow drama, shitpost & watch youtube.
Gotta do that again soon, now that I think of it.
 
Have a regular sleep/wake schedule. I go to bed at a certain time and get up at a certain time, every day. It will take a while for your body to get used to the schedule.

Don't eat less than a couple of hours before going to sleep. Drinking alcohol may help you get to sleep, but you may wake up during the night.

You could take a Benadryl tablet or two about forty-five minutes before going to sleep. Should make you a little sleepy. Not habit-forming. Inexpensive.

You could also listen to something relaxing, such as instrumental New Age music, maybe sounds of rain. If you are the religious type, you could lay in bed and pray.

Stay patient. Will take a while but should pay off.
 
eat fast food and go until your body forces you to crash for like 4 hours then do it all again

It's good enough for Trump, should be good enough for you.
 
@Gorillagorillagorilla

So in order to help you transition your sleep hygiene, there are a few small steps that you can take that will help the transition period. The first thing you need to recognise is that this will be a transition period and you will need to either find the windows in your circadian rhythm that work with your timing goals or be willing to go through the process of reprogramming it.

So challenge accepted.

Pick a time to wake up, say 7am. And then figure out the time that you need to go to bed in order to get a minimum of 8 hours sleep.

So why 8 hours?

Unless you're outside of the average, you will need 8 hours of sleep a night to maintain optimal functionality, and while you can do better with less, sleep deprivation has an aggregated effect on physiological and mental response times. This is a well studied field, and the literature universally agrees that sleep deprivation has a net negative impact on quality of life.

The longer you suffer from deprivation, the worse the effects are in terms of lose of cognitive ability and function, and it can take up to 2 weeks of regular sleep to return the balance to optimal performance, so don't skimp.

If you must miss out, make sure you keep the same wake up time. This is because it's what your circadian rhythm is synced to, and so waking up outside of it, will have the effect of making you feel lethargic or ill rested.

TLDR; Sleep 8 hours a night. You do whatever it is your doing later. Wake up same time every day.

So in order to help this natural system you need to establish some sleep hygiene rules. These will help you also form the habit of getting better sleep throughout the need, because your body will adjust to it as it becomes a form of habit.

If you can remove all electronic devices, including computers and phones from your sleeping space. If you must have them, then make sure they are turned off or silent and will not cause any distraction during the period of time you expect to fall asleep. Do not use anything that casts a blue light, such as screens, phones, etc, before bed as it will have an effect on wakefulness.

Get into the habit of using your room and your bed for sleep. Make sure you make your bed, it's a good habit to have, doesn't take long and makes the bed more comfortable when you do lie down to sleep.

Keep track of how long it takes you to get to sleep, most people average 20 - 35 minutes. You may need to lie in the dark for that period and sleep. So make sure you unload your thoughts beforehand, either by relaxing and reading a book, or writing in a journal. Also try to get a low light lamp, as that will help you get used to sleeping.

No heavy meals, smoking, or caffeine in the four hours before going to bed. If you must eat, make sure it's light and has a higher carb load, the glucose spike will actually make you feel sleepier.

Leave your alarm in a place where you have to get up to turn it off.

Good luck.
 
I find it helps a lot if I stop actively engaging in stuff down to picking media from a pile a few hours before I go to bed, like I'll hop over to a synchtube I have set up of every episode of MST3k so I just have passive entertainment and it slows down my neurons firing, not even paging through menus and stuff.
 
Don't use your phone in bed before sleep, not even for shitposting here.
Go running no later than an hour before you go to sleep.
Use the sleep mode setting on your phone so it doesn't make noise unless it absolutely has to.
Drink green tea, take your morning showers cold, and do a decent morning fitness routine.
 
Put briefly, you know how people shouldn’t eat when they’re not hungry? Don’t sleep or try to sleep if you’re not tired. Otherwise you just lay there when you could be productive.
 
For the past two months I did a couple things to improve my sleep schedule. 1. I now only go to bed when I'm tired. 2. I started staying up for longer during the day. 3. For the past few months I was staying up overnight until I have to go to work. 4. I stopped taking sleep medication.

Essentially until the other day, that's what I had been doing. The funny thing is I found myself beat at 2am in the morning so I closed my eyes to fall asleep. Ended up sleeping until 8 in the morning. I stayed up until 1 in the morning, woke up at 5. Then this morning went to bed probably around 1, and woke up at 2 different times. 3:50AM, then went back to sleep until around 7. The whole gist of my story is that if you want to make changes to your life, you need to make the changes and do things you won't expect. My method to getting the kind of sleep I wanted worked for me. I did have to nearly destroy myself and my sleep patterns to make it happen but I did it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom