Couldn’t sleep. Claudia had to get up at 7:30 to start her new 60% job at 9:00. We’ve been going to bed between 4:00 and 7:00 in the morning these holidays. Claudia was nervous. She went to bed arround 1:00. I promised to be with her if could not fall asleep. At 1:30 I went to bed as well. At 2:30 I got up again. No use. At 3:30 I went to bed again. At 4:30 I got up again. Still no use. I decided to stay awake... See 2005-01-04 Wikis for the result.
I used to think that we had a natural 25h cycle. On Google, I found different results:
“Accepting the near-24-hour period means that all the ideas about daily human rhythms that we take for granted must be rethought,” Czeisler says. For example, biological clock lore states that we drift to a later wake-up hour on weekends because we fail to reset the 25-hour cycle each morning as we go to work.
“We’re not drifting,” Czeisler insists. “We’re pushing ourselves to a later time with our exposure to electric lights from sunset to bedtime. That resets our biological clocks.”
The resetting, which leads to difficulty in awakening on Monday, can, in many cases, be “cured” by going to bed earlier on weekends. Awakening too early often can be avoided by going to bed later. ¹
Strange facts about sleep:
Anything less than five minutes to fall asleep at night means you’re sleep deprived. The ideal is between 10 and 15 minutes, meaning you’re still tired enough to sleep deeply, but not so exhausted you feel sleepy by day. ²
Finding your sleeping pattern:
There is a little-publicized formula that acts as a perfect cure for people who experience continual or seasonal problems with sleep entrainment. This formula is free running sleep!
Free running sleep is a sleep that comes naturally at the time when it is internally triggered by the combination of your homeostatic and circadian components. In other words, free running sleep occurs when you go to sleep only then when you are truly sleepy (independent of the relationship of this moment to the actual time of day).
[...] if you would like to try free running sleep, you could hopefully do it on vacation. You may need a vacation that lasts longer than two weeks before you understand your circadian cycle. Even if you cannot afford free running sleep in non-vacation setting, trying it once will greatly increase your knowledge about natural sleep cycles and your own cycle in particular. ³
Same text, no alarm clock! Indeed, I avoid the alarm clock as much as possible and only use it once a month or even less – for important appointments with clients.
Few upwardly mobile people in the modern rat-race society can live without an alarm clock. Increasingly, time becomes the most precious commodity in society where achievement is often associated with speed and perfect time-management. However, alarm clocks introduce two harmful side effects: stress and sleep deprivation. ⁴
Best of all in that article:
Sex before sleep is highly recommended! Sex works as a powerful hypnotic. If you practice sex without procreative intentions, positive influence of sex on sleep may be your number one excuse for sticking faithfully to your conjugal duties. Here is also a recommendation to stick with a single partner. Longevity studies show that healthy stable monogamous sex life is one of powerful life expectancy determinants. On the other hand, sex with your new great love is likely to disrupt sleep. Apart from a healthy dose of endorphins, it will also raise your catecholamines that may fragment sleep cycles. For the same reasons, promiscuous sex may also not play the expected hypnotic role.