6 replies to this topic

[Nick Diaz]

Hi I'm new here to the forums and have been a long time lurker. I've got quite a bit of knowledge that can benefit these forums so I'll be replying to posts and making new threads as needed.

I have a quick and basic question that I've not been able to find the answer to. I understand that you want to fall asleep and wake up at the same time every night to create an ideal sleep cycle (provided that you're sleeping enough). My question is how much of a variance can I have in my sleep wake times and still be able to achieve this ideal cycle? For example, lets say my goal is to be in bed by 9pm and asleep by 930pm, will falling asleep at 730pm screw up the cycle? 1130pm?

Thank you so much for you time, I'm excited to start contributing here.

[nupi]

Hard to say - there's times when I can freely move around my sleeping time and still get decent sleep and there are times when even strict sleep hygiene does not help me much. I guess you would have to try.

[Spherical Cow]

I imagine that the amount of flexibility would relate to how conditioned one is to a particular sleep-wake cycle. If you have been consistently sleeping and waking at around the same time for a long period, you may better tolerate the occasional change. I.e. Degree of variance varies.

There are probably many other factors aside from the time of sleep onset that would impact on the overall sleep cycle: by affecting the time spent in each stage of sleep. Light levels, meal times, alcohol use etc.

Edited by Spherical Cow, 06 February 2014 - 08:58 PM.

[hippocampus]

I know that I can't sleep much sooner if I wake sooner than usually, i.e.: I'll go to sleep at the same time (if I'm not doing anything special), regardless of time of awakening (even if it's 4 hours sooner than usually). If that helps you anyhow.

Edited by hippocampus, 07 February 2014 - 11:23 PM.

[renfr]

To me no more than 1-2h, more than that causes a cortisol disturbance in my system, sometimes it causes high cortisol, other times it causes low cortisol.

[Gerrans]

In my experience, what time we go to bed makes no difference so long as we get up at the same time. In other words, we can impose a pattern on our sleep by setting an alarm for the same time every day. If we go to bed earlier or later than usual, we should still get up at the same time. This may make us more tired some evenings than others, according to when we fell asleep; but at least we will be sticking to a similar schedule. The fatal mistake is to vary the getting up time, or to oversleep, lie in--once that happens, it is hard to get a sleeping pattern on track. The best way is probably to set the alarm back slightly each day until the old getting up time is back again.

Although it might sound as if I am speculating here, I have experimented at length to learn how best to establish a sleep pattern.

[kurdishfella]

In my experience you have too sleep earlier than you can wake up. If you go to sleep 10 minutes later that will eventually add up over weeks. For me personally due to health reasons I can't keep a regular sleep cycle it constantly changes.