That's right, this week I want to touch briefly on the Sleep Hacking experiment I've been working on.
So here is the situation I want to build in your mind:
We all know that we sleep a large portion of our life, I think the most common quoted percentage I hear is about 1/3. 33.3% of the day is about 8 hours a day average, which leaving the rest of the day to other activities. Now that means during the waking hours we must do all things not rest related right? Well that's a psychological discussion for another time, I want to focus on getting more time in the day for activities!
The sleep equation in life is pretty simple, sleeping less trades time for more waking hours... more waking hours translates into more opportunity, in a simple example. There is a point of dimenishing returns though. You cannot go without sleep at all, your body will eventually tire and sleep. Not only that, but your body will nearly require more energy to recouperate from the exhaustion. There are many published case studies and experiments where experimenters attempt to obtain the minimum amount of sleep required to sustain normal everyday life. Some of these are comical others are more interesting.
My experiment builds on my many years of experience in the field of sleeping. According to my estimations I've slept about 87016 hours in my lifetime as of the writing of this. That's a lot of hours. Malcolm Gladwell states in one of his books, Tipping Point (awesome book), that it takes about 10,000 hours to become an expert in any endeavor... With that logic, I'm confident I have mastered sleep.
A full nights sleep, as we have been shown by science, is actually a series sleep cycles. These cycles from my experience are generally 3 hours in length. Also, the easiest times for me to get out of bed fall on the end of a full sleep cycle... 3 hours, 6 hours, 9 hours...of sleep. If I get 7 hours of sleep, I am actually waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle and I find it very hard to wake. The same is true for 8 hours of sleep.
So 6 hours of sleep is my target each day. I can operate very well with this amount of sleep without feeling exhausted. If I can achive this average of sleep for the next 14 years I will add about 10,000 hours of waking hours for more opportunity. The bigger picture, I see, shows those extra hours could be used to develop a system to generate income while you sleep freeing more waking hours for more activities aside from income generation. I have been using the word "snowball" to describe the feedback loop described.
So that the stage, here is the experiment:
I have used an alarmclock my whole life and now I'm using a timer (Timely for Android). I don't know why this has never occured to me in the past. Are we such creatures of habit that we require daily alarm at the same time each day? Or are we more dynamic, able to sleep the necessary hours and wake after the cycles are complete? I realize that many of us are programmed by the environment we live in, but I'm on a mission to find out if it must be this way!
Are you sleeping a consistent amount of sleep each night? Or are you finding you sleep when you get tired? Or do you go to sleep at a certain time each night? Do you sleep when you can?
Stay Thoughtful! FFAP
I have so much to say about this, but honestly I think my opinion keeps changing.
ReplyDeleteI used to be a fan of the 6 or 3 hours a night schedule. Now I crave 9-10 hours, but recent weeks its been more like 6-8.
So what's the deal?
For me ideally I want so much sleep as humanly possible, which flies in the face of this fantastic article... I know. Why? Well after years of doing the strict 'sleep-cycle' technique - basically an attempt to maximize awake time - I found that I'm typically less effective with that awake time. My priorities usually get really screwed up. I make more mistakes. I don't seem to learn as well. And all around I just don't feel super great.
While on the flipside! 9-10 hours usually puts me in an optimal state of mind for effectiveness. My energy on a daily basis is more dependable and all-in-all I become a machine of ultimate power and relevance - Nothing can stop me - physically or mentally... Truely... an Uberman ;-)
So why aren't I doing that now? Its really discipline. Optimal sleep actually can take a lot of 'work'. Choosing to go to sleep to say an audio program in pitch blackness right after the camomile tea and a cold shower... plus a few supplements or just whatever else I've found or read that helps... It just gets boring.
Sometimes I wanna watch anime before I sleep, or be up all night playing Planetside 2.
Ultimately I think it all comes down to knowledge, balance, and harmony. If you have the skills and tools to get AMAZING sleep. You are allowed to be dynamic with your sleep schedule. But I think its important to be aware how you perform after different sleep routines. So you know how to focus yourself when you really need that extra effectiveness for the next day - whether that's 3 sleep cycles or just 2 - based on what you want/need.
My biggest struggle is being effective out of routine (this is more than just about sleep for me) - just today I wondered if I would benefit from a morning drive routine EVERYDAY in which I want to be more effective. Say on days where I want to work - but I don't necessarily need to be up in the morning for anything.
I figured on days like this... I could drive out to the beach, just to drive out to the beach. Something about training my body to want to get into a routine so that I can sleep, get up, and feel fulfilled and awesome before my day even starts. I think I'll try that this week.
Stay thoughtful,
- Bret
"ultimate power and *reverence"
Delete(neither word actually makes any sense - I know)
Yeah, my opinion about sleep has changed over the years too. Ironically I wrote down an observation this morning which echos what you were mentioning about routine. It's really not enough to just 'get out of bed', you may need a reason to get out of bed. A drive to the beach sounds like an awesome start to the day!
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