Lesson 4,
Timing Your Sleep.
You can understand how inefficient your sleep is just by keeping track of the time you physically get into bed at night and the time you get out of bed in the morning and then make a note of your actual time sleeping.
If you are awake for two hours out of the six hours you're in bed then you need to work on making this time in bed more efficient.
Your sleep log will reveal your efficiency.
There are ways to make your sleep more efficient.
We do this by changing our bedtime to put pressure on the two systems we mentioned before,
Wakefulness and sleep.
Most people think that going to bed earlier will give them more time to sleep but then find it rarely awards us with extra hours of slumber.
The behavioral change you need to employ is to go to bed later.
This works because you are going to your bedroom only when really,
Really tired and and yawning,
Craving sleep.
You need to allow your body and brain to feel the pressure of needing to sleep as opposed to your logical notions of what you perceive as an acceptable schedule.
As a suffering insomniac,
We need to temporarily disrupt your current dysfunctional sleep system.
Therefore,
For one or two weeks,
Please go to bed two hours later than normal,
Even if it is midnight or later.
You will fall asleep faster and sleep deeper due to the increased need to sleep.
At first,
You may wake up at the same time,
6 or 7am,
But you have achieved four or five hours of uninterrupted core sleep.
This is a marked improvement.
So now we can slowly expand this time from five hours to six,
Then six and a half,
And seven,
Then eight hours of quality sleep.
You do it by gradually moving the bedtime slowly closer to your original time.
And you can just extend it both ways at the beginning and at the end.
But remember to combine this with the change in your daily habits as discussed in the next chapter.
It is important to rise at the same time for the entire week without any changes on the weekend.
The weekend sleeping in disrupts your sleep system and the new pattern that you're desiring.
The good news is that napping is allowed before 4pm when you have that afternoon dip and is recommended over consuming more caffeine.
Listen to my power nap meditation to revitalize and listen to your body by resting when it needs it.
Sleep begets sleep.
It will not affect your new evening routine.
Rescheduling in this way will sound crazy at first until you experience the improvement in your mood and energy the next day and break that negative sleep cycle.
It depends on the individual how quickly they adapt to this new schedule and gradually bring the bedtime routine back to what is considered normal for you.
