Sleep habits

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andyville
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Sleep habits

Post by andyville »

Hey guys!

Long time no see. :) I hope everything is well with all of you.

I posted the following thread in a raw food forum earlier today, and thought it might be interesting to get some input from Wai people as well.

Peace!

* * * * * *

I think the influence of good sleep habits on health can not be overrated. Therefore I put together these short questions - I would love if you would care to answer them!

1. How many hours do you typically sleep during the night? At what times do you go to sleep and wake up?

2. What do you think is the optimal length of night sleep for you?

3. What are the main advantages you experience from getting a good sleep, and what are the main disadvantages from not getting enough or maybe too much sleep?

4. Do you take powernaps throughout the day? If so, do you think they enable you to sleep less at night?

5. Do you know about any good sleep resources on the web? Please post links.
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RRM
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Re: Sleep habits

Post by RRM »

andyville wrote:I think the influence of good sleep habits on health can not be overrated.
I wholeheartedly agree.
1. How many hours do you typically sleep during the night? At what times do you go to sleep and wake up?
8 to 9 hours.
I go to sleep at 10 - 11 at night, and wake up at 7 in the morning.
What do you think is the optimal length of night sleep for you?
8 to 9 hours.
3. What are the main advantages you experience from getting a good sleep, and what are the main disadvantages from not getting enough or maybe too much sleep?
As I almost always get enough sleep, Im never ever sick.
The worst illness I have experienced is when I occasionally dont sleep enough for a number of days, which is a stuffed / dripping nose, and coughing, which goes away as soon as i get enough sleep again.

If I dont get enough sleep, my focus, energy, spirit and defense eventually goes down (initially compensated by extra adrenalin during working hours).
If I consistenly dont get enough sleep, I get a cold. If I would still continue, I would get sick.
The more I sleep, the stronger my defense. If I sleep way too much on a certain day, i initially feel drousy and disorientated, but that goes away once im physically active, and my defense is perfect.
4. Do you take powernaps throughout the day? If so, do you think they enable you to sleep less at night?
No, because I always sleep enough at night.
5. Do you know about any good sleep resources on the web? Please post links.
No, I dont.
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Oscar
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Re: Sleep habits

Post by Oscar »

andyville wrote:I think the influence of good sleep habits on health can not be overrated.
I agree too.
andyville wrote:1. How many hours do you typically sleep during the night? At what times do you go to sleep and wake up?
7 to 9 hours. anywhere between 1 and 3am - 8:30am and 11am.
andyville wrote:2. What do you think is the optimal length of night sleep for you?
Depends on condition, activity level, etc. 7-9 hrs I'd say is fine.
andyville wrote:3. What are the main advantages you experience from getting a good sleep, and what are the main disadvantages from not getting enough or maybe too much sleep?
Advantage: perfect health.
Disadvantage: too little for several days or weeks might give me a slight cold, or once I got a heavy cold during one day, and some lingering uneasiness over a few days, but I think I contracted the flu then due to my weakened defense system.
andyville wrote:4. Do you take powernaps throughout the day? If so, do you think they enable you to sleep less at night?
Almost never (I used to do it almost every day before the diet). Only when not getting enough sleep combined with a higher activity level.
andyville wrote:5. Do you know about any good sleep resources on the web? Please post links.
Nope, but what might be interesting to read is this:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/1 ... sic-sleep/
Marty
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sleep

Post by Marty »

I sleep dreamlessly for about 8 hours/night.


If I sleep less but truly 'discard myself' by never thinking of the next day before sleeping; giving up the day somehow fully, too, as I lie down, there are virtually no physical effects of sleeping less. At times I wish to; the body seems to ask it.

I do sleep always with the window open a bit.... and enjoy sleeping outdoors (for camping). I like to see the moon; to be ;dissolved' a bit by something much more than relaxation before going to bed.

A somewhat interesting sleep research-related site is the Argonne National Laboratory's site (in the U.S.), which describes an "anti-jet lag diet" that I used successfully for years. You can google this. I used this diet once to all but cancel jet lag when travelling from the US; Europe and China and Thailand; all in the space of 2 weeks. The flight path was actually US/SE Asia/Europe then back to SE Asia, such that it was totally inefficient; it was like jet lag squared..... It is a good way to explore how the body wakes and what it needs, over time.

The sleep explorations that are most interesting to me though are more philosophical-- about 'forgetting oneself' in sleep; about what true relaxation is. It does not seem to be utterly passive; there is some active component of clarity; of welcoming.
nick
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Re: Sleep habits

Post by nick »

Nope, but what might be interesting to read is this:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/1 ... sic-sleep/
Oscar, what do you make of polyphasic sleep?
I have read that whole blog and I'm totally fascinated by it.
I'm thinking about actually doing it.
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Oscar
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Post by Oscar »

I think it's very interesting from a scientific point of view, but not for practicality, nor do I think it's natural.
Wintran
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Post by Wintran »

Hi all! :)

Thinking I would share some of my experiences on sleep:

My sleeping habits are really quite terrible, in that they are very irregular in when I wake up and number of sleeping hours. Lately, on average I might go to bed at 3-4 am, but I also sleep to around 1 pm.

The problem is not really my late habits but that they are so irregular. Sometimes I go up at 10 am, sometimes I go to bed at 7 am, sometimes I sleep to 4 pm. Sometimes I get too much sleep, sometimes I get no sleep at all.

It's been like this for a couple of years, and I don't think I've ever had sleeping habits that I've been satisfied with for my whole life.

All in all it causes me a lot of suffering, because I often feel drowsy and foggy, and I dislike getting so little sunlight. It affects my training because I train often and quite hard and the body has a harder time repairing itself, and it affects my hunger because I don't feel like eating when I haven't slept. The worst periods I might get sick, and lately I've been sticking with a cold for a couple of weeks and it's just gotten worse again because I haven't been able to take care of myself. I also get depressed over it because I really would like to change it but keeps failing.

So, I don't recommend irregular sleeping habits at all, and I recommend early waking hours to get the most sunlight (but not too early ;)). Still, there are many other aspects to this that I haven't mentioned, and which are really the cause to my problems, and they make things so much easier said than done. :? For me, it's not really a physiological problem but a psychological one, related to society, my social life and my younger years. It's a problem that's causing me a lot of struggle, though some find it hard to understand.
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RRM
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Post by RRM »

Please tell me, why dont you change your sleeping habits? What keeps you from doing so?
You need to create a sleeping plan and stick to that, even if you cant sleep; simply stick to the routine. Eventually, your psyche will adjust to the routine.
avo
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Post by avo »

Actually, I'm similar in that I am pretty erratic when it comes to sleep. My main reason fot staying up late is to be able to injest more food/energy. IE sip more juice, because I made 2L, but only finished 1L (over the entire day, which is not enough). So I stay up, drink a few more cups over time, eat my raw fish/eggs, then hit the sack at 3am. But I have to get up for school at 7am. :(
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RRM
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Post by RRM »

Shouldnt you better try to ingest more energy during the day?
Whenever you can take a sip of juice, cant you take 2 instead?
If you dont sleep enough, your body can never fully recover.
Sleeping enough should be your first priority; its an essential condition for good health.
Wintran
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Post by Wintran »

RRM wrote:Please tell me, why dont you change your sleeping habits? What keeps you from doing so?
You need to create a sleeping plan and stick to that, even if you cant sleep; simply stick to the routine. Eventually, your psyche will adjust to the routine.
Hi RRM!

It's a good question, and I don't even know the full answer myself. That's why this post became quite long.

I really don't have any problems falling asleep when I actually try to sleep. The problem is to allow myself to leave the computer and actually go to sleep during the times I truly want to sleep.

Some reasons for staying up late are obvious: I have close friends that also stay up late, and that I sometimes talk to during night (over MSN, phone etc), though I should be able to keep contact with them during the day if I choose to. I also get more creative and my brain seems to be more focused during the night and when I'm tired. Still, I believe I could be the same even if I moved my sleep four hours earlier, and kept it regular. However, I admit there's a certain calmness over the night that's hard to come by during other hours, but I think (hope) I could manage without that as well. These are some obvious habits that keep me up, but I believe these could be changed if I wanted to strong enough, and I actually believe that I do want it strong enough.

Now, there are some more complex psychological reasons that I'm just beginning to understand, and that I believe can be traced back to my youth.

For me, night has at times been an obvious escape from tomorrow - the longer I stay up, the longer before I have to get up. When I was in school I used this reasoning extensively, staying up late playing computer games because I didn't want to go to school the next day. The more I did like this, the harder it became, because I was always extremely tired in the morning (it really hurt to get up) so it became even harder to go to sleep because I knew I had suffering to expect.

Another aspect of school, maybe that which somehow caused the above, was school's tendency to occupy so much of my time. The only time of day I was really able to feel free and in control of my life was during the night, as I had no expectations on me except my own need to sleep, which apparently wasn't strong enough.

Though I believe it to be partly true, I cannot say that school is the only culprit in this drama. It is surely also habits passed on to me by my parents in various ways - my father, for example, always had late sleeping habits - and also other aspects of my life where I've felt lack of control, that my body has been trying to solve on its own.

Society also plays its role, as people with late sleeping habits are often looked down on as having strange problems, causing them to feel even more guilty over their situation, making it harder for them to admit it and really change.

In the end, I have some kind of inherent fear or dislike of allowing myself to go to sleep. Not really the sleeping itself, but the choice of going to bed. Unconscious reflexes tell me I will lose something, maybe time, if I go to sleep, though my mind knows the opposite and that staying up will only hurt me.

Well, we'll see where I end up. I've had some successful attempts lately, and some positive additions in my everyday life, and I just recently got rid of a source that's been causing a lot of stress. I've also been thinking more about it as a problem, and tried to understand why it is the way it is, so at least I'm going in the right direction.
Hannes
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Post by avo »

I hear you, especially about the computer thing. Once I'm on it, I like to stay on it.

RRM, I suppose if it is ok to take bigger sips, more often, then I will. I wasn't sure if this would be a bad thing. But I suppose that would be better than the alternative; not injesting enough.

Oh, also, I have started eating those avo/tomato/oil salads. I usually eat it all at once. Then it's about 1.5-2 hours later that I start with the OJ again. Is this bad?
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Post by RRM »

Wintran, may it be that you dont like your current day job, in as much as you didnt like to go to school?
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Post by RRM »

avo wrote:I suppose if it is ok to take bigger sips, more often, then I will. I wasn't sure if this would be a bad thing. But I suppose that would be better than the alternative; not injesting enough.
Exactly. If you need the energy, its never bad / too much, as its replenishing that what got lost. Its much better to replenish it immediately then much later, at night, as then you already have used muscle protein for energy, which keeps you thin. Keeping your blood glucose level up is what is essential for maintaining / growing muscles.
Oh, also, I have started eating those avo/tomato/oil salads. I usually eat it all at once. Then it's about 1.5-2 hours later that I start with the OJ again. Is this bad?
No, its perfectly okay. Its relatively less sugar and more fat and the sugars are time-released as they are from whole fruits. With juices you need to consume smaller and more frequent meals as the sugars are taken up in the blood much faster.
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Post by avo »

Thanks RRM, I will try to stick to that. I'll go make some OJ now...
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