Smarter Sleeping 101

Archive for April, 2008

Wired just published this article about a woman who has begun a regimen of polyphasic sleeping.  She’s not an insomniac, but merely a self-described geek, and is trying the experiment just to see if it works as well as a full night’s sleep.  Check out the excerpt below and then follow this link for the rest of the story.

There are various types of sleep regimens floating around the internet, but the one Rachel tried was called the Uberman (though she’s not much for the name).

It works like this: you break up the 24 hours of the day into 4 hour chunks. At some point in each 4 hour set, you take a twenty minute nap; the total amount of sleep adds up to about two hours. The schedule meant she’d have to sleep some during the workday, which her bosses approved, as long as she documented her progress on the how-to site. Her boyfriend was even up for trying to match their schedules.

“McConnell began her sleep regimen,  and at first things went well.

‘I was able to get more done. I was up at three in the morning thinking, “Ok, what can I do now?”‘ she said. ‘I was able to make significant headway on my enormous to-do lists. I would go out on bicycle rides in the middle of the night.’

But by day five, her experience was already starting to deteriorate, even as she held out hope that her body would acclimate to the new sleep schedule.

‘Despite the feeling awful part of the time, I am definitely getting things done,’ she wrote. ‘If I don’t acclimatize and feel crappy half the time like now, it is not worth it.’

Indeed, she made a few changes to her regimen, adding sleeping time, but about 17 days in, McConnell got sick and decided to quit the sleep experiment. In her farewell note, she summed up her experience,’My current belief is that polyphasic sleep is a method for handling sleep deprivation as well as possible, but that it likely does not provide enough sleep for an average person.’”

I’m starting a new series on the topic of dream recall. My other series, Insomnia Stories, details the events that occur when people are unable to sleep (there have been a few interesting ones so far.) I listen across the blogs for unique and interesting stories, then post an excerpt here with a link back to the rest of the story. It has proven popular among the Smarter Sleeping readers so it seems only fitting that I introduce a series on our dreams.

I encourage you to comment if you have experience similar dreams, or have any insight as to what these dreams may mean. Hopefully this will spark up some great discussions on dream recall! If you have dreams of your own you would like to see posted on Smarter Sleeping, please email me at patrick@smartersleeping.com and I will post it here.

Our first Dream Recall comes from a livejournal entry from livingtodream:

“I have nightmare after nightmare last night… and people wonder why I dislike sleep, because I wake up only enough to stop it then pass out into another one… I have a KILLER headache, it sucks.

I can’t recall most of them, most of them where more weird then nightmareish. All of them took place in this house, one thing that threw me off because, they never take place here. In fact they typically take place at Bob’s…

The one that made me WTF was one where I had dogs, I don’t know if they where fosters or not but one was a shepherd I called Shadow, a kick-me-dog, and another mid sized brown thing. At one point I had them all leashed to go outside, and something happened. I can’t recall, maybe knocked over? I let go of the leashes, and they took off after a dog up the street, I knew they where all playful but still freaked and chashed. After they sniffed the dog, the two smaller came back to me, but the bigger jumped up in a low tree (one that branched 3 diffrent ways about 4′ off the ground so it wans’t much a leap). He then proceeded to jump out and back up, like a puppy almost bounding around. Until he got tangled, and jumped off the backside. He would have hung himself if he’d been left that way. I was running at that point but I snapped awake when the leash went tight. All I recall was i kept yelling Shadow, over and over in the dream.

Another one was someone came over, I knew I can’t recall anything but .. male and maybe a co-worker? (Lou?). Anyways it seems without me knowing (but seemed OK with it?) he and like 10 kids tried to sleep in my room. However they had nightmares so he had them in the kitchen, and commented on it. I looked around my room other then the fact no lights would come on it was fine, so I grabbed my laptop and wandered back out logging on AIM, can’t recalled the convo but someone was on I was talking to. Spent some time talking to the kids then went back to bed, and went to ’sleep’ and had.. haunting type nightmares. Freaky things, ghosts and such where involved. I ‘woke up’ out of that to WTF, then I SWEAR I heard someone yell my name, but not in the wanting me but a panicked yell, or worried, and woke me up for real, but no one was home, so I was a bit more freaked out.”

Thoughts?

This list of tips are focused on coping with stress, specifically from your job.  By better managing stress many of us experience better, more productive sleep.  For those of you at your wits end, try these 4 tips from the Daily Mind, and read tips 5-7 here:

1. Tie up loose ends at work
One of the simplest things you can do to ensure you get to sleep is make sure you have tied up as many loose ends as possible at work. Sometimes this might involve staying back at work for an extra hour but it will be worth it if that hour allows us to get to sleep on time.

The loose ends could be an unfinished report, paperwork or even just sorting out your upcoming deadlines. Try to get as much done as you can.

2. Look at the stressed thoughts
One of the most powerful techniques you can use to stop stressing about work is to look at the nature of the thoughts themselves. This is an ancient Buddhist meditation.

As you are laying in your bed you will notice that thoughts come up in an endless torrent. You worry about this, stress about that and it never ends. Gently shift your focus away from the subject of the thought and look at the actual thought itself. Every time a thought comes up take a look at it. Where is it? Where does it come from? Where does it go?

After a few minutes you will see that thoughts really aren’t that powerful. This technique will also help you slow down the torrent.

3. Use logical arguments
My father is a very logical man. When I was 16 I was playing in a soccer team that had won every game of the season. To win the championship cup we had to win the grand final and the night before the game I was a mess. I was thinking about my position and whether I was ready and i just couldn’t get to sleep! It drove me mad.

At about 1am I trounced out into the kitchen stressed that I was going to be tired the next day for the game. My father was in there finishing off some work and he asked me what I was doing up. I complained that I couldn’t sleep because I was stressing about the game and this is what he told me:

“There’s no point in worrying about the game now. You can’t do any more preparation than you’ve already done. Whether you win or lose will depend on how hard you play on the day. Worrying will impact on that so you need to relax.”

He was right. Worrying was not going to help me prepare anymore.

The same goes for work.

Laying in bed thinking about your job is not going to get anything done. It will not help you solve any problem. Thinking about things over and over only raises more questions, it never helps you find the solution.

Another logical argument that has brought me a lot of deep sleep:

“If the problem can be solved, why worry? If the problem cannot be solved, worrying will be of no use.” - Shantideva

Sometimes we need to tell ourselves that worrying will not solve anything - now is the time for sleep.

4. Look at the space between the stress
Another meditation technique that can help you get to sleep is to look at the space between each stressful thought.

Thoughts are a lot like waves on the ocean. One will arise and then dissolve and before the next one can come up there has to be some space or calm. Try to gently look for it. To do this you need to become like an impartial observer or a spy. Quietly shift your attention to the thought and look for the space between the death of one thought and the birth of the next. This can bring a deep calm.

Continue

The primary reason we created this blog was to hear feedback from consumers and SleepSmart customers.  I want to take some time out to ask your personal opinion about SleepSmart, whether you’re an existing customer or a consumer looking to purchase a sleep aid.

Does SleepSmart provide all the ingredients you would prefer to see in a natural sleep enhancing supplement?

Is the price point ($20 for a 30 day supply) reasonable?   Is that relatively expensive or inexpensive compared to other sleep aids you have used?

What would you like to see from Somnatural Labs in terms of modifying the existing product, SleepSmart, and introducing new products to make your life easier and your nights more restful?

I’d appreciate any comments our readers have about these questions, and in general, whether it be about the blog, the site, the package design, etc.

Thank you for reading and come back soon!

This week’s insomnia story comes from Wendy Carlyle, and has something to do with colon cleansing…

“I was just about to get in the car and drive up to Walgreens and buy some sleep aid when it started raining, and I mean raining, so I decided to stay in the house. I don’t want to be walking around a drugstore at 2 in the morning anyway.

So I stayed in bed and watched TV until all hours. I didn’t mind the Letterman and Craig Ferguson shows, but after that, it all goes downhill. There was a cop show and then some science fiction show and then another cop show and then the infomercials started.

How in the world can someone find enough stuff to write about colon cleansing to take an entire 30 minutes? And how many people set their TV or make a point to wake up and watch a show at 3:30 in the morning to learn about the benefits of a Colon Cleanse treatment?”

Read the rest here.