Good afternoon. I hope you're feeling as well rested as I am -- it's now day 8 of the Sleep Challenge I'm doing along with Glamour's Cindi Leive. So how is my "sleep-hab" -- that's sleep rehab! -- going?
In a word: progress! As of my last sleep challenge post at four days in, I'd yet to reach my goal of eight hours of sleep a night. Well, I am pleased to announce that for the last two nights I've gotten the full eight. That might not sound like a big deal, but it's a lot harder than it sounds (if you don't believe me -- jump in and take the challenge with us).
Not only that, I woke up without an alarm -- which was, in itself, a bit alarming. When I woke up, I looked around anxiously to see what was wrong, wondering what had woken me up, since there was no alarm buzzing. It actually took me a minute or two to realize that the reason why I was wide-awake was because... I didn't need to sleep anymore. Imagine that.
It's well known, of course, that regular exercise helps you sleep better, but what I was shocked to discover is that it's a two-way street: regular sleep also helps you exercise better.
As I hit the machines as part of my morning exercise routine, I couldn't believe it -- I was lifting heavier weights, punching the treadmill button to go faster and giving it a higher incline than normal. If someone who knows my usual approach saw me during these recent workouts, I'd probably be asked to submit to mandatory drug testing. But the only performance-enhancing stimulant I was on was a couple of eight-hour hits of sleep (aka, the new eight-ball).
Our sleep consultant, Dr. Michael Breus, has shown how getting more sleep can actually help you lose weight more effectively than exercise, but I've been finding the two are wonderfully compatible.
And my energy lasted throughout the day. I have a group of friends whom I hike with and it's our tradition that whoever is feeling the most energized that day has to talk on the way up the hill. Let's just say I'm pretty well-known as a consistent downhill talker. But on my last hike I was talking on the way up -- mostly haranguing my hiking partners to get more sleep, of course.
I also took a cue from my sleep challenge mate Cindi. In her last missive, Cindi wrote that it helps her to plan a set bedtime and treat it like an appointment -- with the same importance that we give all our other appointments (work, dinner, medical visits, etc). She calculates what time she needs to be up, counts back 7.5 hours (that's her goal) and whatever time that is becomes her appointment with sleep. If you have Type A tendencies (guilty!), it's a brilliant way to use your compulsion more productively.
And to help you keep your appointment, Cindi also mentioned Dr. Breus's fantastic suggestion to set an alarm to go off -- in your bedroom -- when it's time to go to bed. As she wrote, "you'll be forced to enter your bedroom to turn the damn thing off -- which at least gets you into the right room at the right time."
I also want to take a moment to welcome my wonderful compatriot and friend Nia Vardalos to the sleep challenge. In a post this weekend, Nia said she was inspired by the challenge and decided to join in. "I've always wanted to sleep with you both and figured this is my chance," she wrote. A sleep orgy! Let's do it.
But, as Nia shows, it's not easy. She made a classic rookie mistake -- and fell prey to one of my worst temptations: getting on the computer or Blackberry in bed, just to, you know, check what's going on. (In her case, it was Twitter.) An hour later, or two in Nia's case, you're not only still awake, but you're Really Awake. At least when she was going through the motions like a zombie the next morning, she was reading the Huffington Post. But Nia, while we welcome the clicks, we'd rather have well-rested readers -- and so, I'm sure, would our advertisers!
So make an appointment with sleep, and don't let yourself wiggle out of it. Or tell me when you need to be asleep and I'll tweet you to stop tweeting.
Over the last eight days, there have been hundreds of great comments to our sleep posts, -- and I'd love to respond to a few of them. It's clear from the response that our sleep challenge has touched a tired nerve.
flow555 writes:
Thanks for giving light to this very important issue.
I have spent time in both worlds -- the sleep deprived one-- and the one with good "sleep hygiene."After my near-melt down as an overwrought, stressed-out, time-starved working mom -- I had no choice -- if I wanted to restore my health and balance -- I had to get more sleep. (And change jobs, relationship, eating habits, commuting time, and end negative self-talk -- but
that's another story).Really this is about becoming a more conscious person. As I have been on my own healing journey, I can see how cheating myself out of proper sleep -- led to all sorts of problems-- clarity and peace being just a couple of the sacrifices I did not even know I was making."
That's a great point: sleep is at the core of the health-and-balance battle. If it's not going well, not much else will either.
texgal7 writes:
My husband can drink coffee all day long, have a cup before bed, and then immediately go to sleep and sleep soundly for as long as he wants. He thinks it runs in his family.
To that I'd say: I'm jealous! But even if it's true, as Cindi wrote last week: "Even those people who believe they can drink an espresso after dinner and be just fine aren't getting the quality sleep they would without the java." So if you're sleeping well with coffee, you could be sleeping great without it.
dragonfur writes:
I wish my lack of sleep was as simple (ha ha) as a lack of sleepiness. It is instead, a lack of time. I get through with my day's chores around 10:30 or 11:00 pm, and my day starts again at 4:00 am. If I take time to get on my computer, well, that cuts into those 5 hours.
I would like to get more sleep, but unfortunately, my bosses don't approve of sleeping at my computer! Seems like that's the only place I COULD fit in more sleep. (sigh)
Sorry to hear that, dragonfur. As you show, work demands are the primary cause of sleep deprivation for many. This is especially true during a recession, when people have fewer options. But even given these demands, there are ways to maximize the sleep that your schedule does allow. Here are recommendations from Dr. Breus, Dr. Lipman, and Dr. Hyman. And I hope your schedule can change for the better soon, dragonfur.
catcancook writes:
...I also build dream houses while I am trying to fall asleep. I just start creating a dream house in my head and get so engrossed in the planning and actual building of it that I never remember when I fell asleep. I am extremely visual though and can see everything in detail so, I get really into it.
That has worked for me for decades! I have built so many fantasy homes
and it's fun.
That's a great method, catcancook -- and it doesn't re-inflate the housing bubble! (And I hope you're not upside down on the mortgages of any of those houses in your dreams).
And finally, commenters aguas10 and organicthemepark, suggested that instead of coffee I try yerba mate and green tea respectively.
Will do! I'll report back next time.
Until then, make an appointment with sleep -- and our next installment.
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
Dr. Michael J. Breus: Exercise: The Key to Better Sleep
Lee Schneider: In Praise of Sleeplessness
HuffPost TV: Arianna And Cindi Leive Explain Sleep Challenge 2010 On 'The Joy Behar Show' (VIDEO)
Eventually I decided that sleep and actually being function when I wasn't working was worth more than the extra cash I got for working overnights.
I got a new bed, a Serta with luscious memory foam, thank you NASA haha, quit the job and never looked back. Great sleep and a lot less stress. My happiness was worth more than those extra dollars.
Good luck!
Susanne Diekelmann & Jan Born
Abstract
Sleep has been identified as a state that optimizes the consolidation of newly acquired information in memory, depending on the specific conditions of learning and the timing of sleep. Consolidation during sleep promotes both quantitative and qualitative changes of memory representations. Through specific patterns of neuromodulatory activity and electric field potential oscillations, slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep support system consolidation and synaptic consolidation, respectively. During SWS, slow oscillations, spindles and ripples — at minimum cholinergic activity — coordinate the re-activation and redistribution of hippocampus-dependent memories to neocortical sites, whereas during REM sleep, local increases in plasticity-related immediate-early gene activity — at high cholinergic and theta activity — might favour the subsequent synaptic consolidation of memories in the cortex.
from Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11, 114-126 (February 2010)
Richard Shane, Ph.D.
http://www.sleepeasily.com
On a low dose, it keeps me up much of the night, then I sleep 8+ hours, but then I can't get up in the morning. And then I'm groggy all day (I mean too tired to pop food in the microwave groggy), unless I chug caffeine. My doc says stay on permanent ambien. Nothing else works.
Always slept like a rock before steroids.
Just change do five simple things:
1. Turn off the computer and TV at least an hour before bed to prepare to wind down.
2. Get some exercise either during the day, or perhaps a walk during that one hour before bed.
3..After the TV/computer it off, begin your pre-bed ceremony of herbal tea, or warm milk with cinnamon.
4. Turn your mind to relaxing thoughts, perhaps recounting the things for which you're grateful.
5. If more help is needed, take some natural supplements designed to relax the body, such as these:
http://bit.ly/SleepTime
If you have kids, get them exercised so they're tired, as this study emphasizes:
http://bit.ly/KidsAsleep
Yep.
Jgarma
Well, duh!
I know people who get up at 3 or 4 a.m. to work out and think it's keeping them healthy. An extra two or three hours of shut-eye would do them more good.
And the reason you woke up without an alarm is that your body had had enough sleep. Needing an alarm to wake up is not natural, and if you need one all the time you're definitely not sleeping enough.
I guess my natural adrenaline levels must have be jolted upwards somehow to get me through the day, and it winds up having a beneficial affect at the gym. Or I must have wound up eating something that I didn't realize that gave me a boost of energy.
One thing I can say about this trend is that when I get more that 6.5 or 7 hours of sleep, no matter how much I want to do it at the time, is that I feel physically awful afterwards. Consistently.
Groggy, sometimes headache-y, slow to get moving, and a feeling of not being properly rested.
There is a downside for some for too much sleep. And everyone's threshold is different, and changes with age.
Bravo!
Along with limiting or eliminating caffeine, (and information technology dependency), exercise is the total key to improving sleep. When you are pleasantly tired from physical activity-- rather than burned out or exhausted from too much mental activity, it shifts you into a healthier sleep cycle-- automatically.
As a longstanding health maven, with the same kind of never-ending to-do list so many of us have, I've got a ten minute routine I can do every day on a specialized piece of exercise equipment that packs 40 minutes of exercise into ten. It's so doable. It only took decades of fitness experiments, and research to discover what worked for me, but my recommendation is that when it comes to exercise, do what you love-- otherwise you won't do it.
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