A little while ago, I wrote a post about sleep architecture.

After having read through it again myself, I was left wondering... okay, that's great, but how does knowing about sleep architecture help me sleep?

Let's see if we can get an answer to that one.                                                                      

Waking Up

I know it can be frustrating to wake up during the night and think "I'm exhausted; I have to work tomorrow; why am I waking up at 3am?" The catch-22 is that this same frustration keeps the mind going and the body awake, which can lead to lousy sleep and a lousy day. Let's take a look at that those feelings of frustration.  

When you think in terms of sleep cycles, it's actually not unusual to wake up a few times during the night.  Sometimes, it's perfectly natural.  Try reminding yourself of this the next time you're awake; it might help you mitigate some of that frustration and actually help you fall back asleep faster.

Going to Bed

Knowing more about your sleep cycles may also help you find the right time to go to bed. Most of us have to be awake by a certain time of the morning, whether it's to get to work, get the kids going to school, or for the retired folks, to go fishing. This often leaves bedtime as the only part of your schedule that can change. Here's how you can use your sleep architecture to pick the right bedtime:

1. Figure out how long your sleep cycles are. You can get a rough estimate by looking at your sleep graphs, or you can actually make an average sleep graph. Turns out my sleep cycles are about 105 minutes long each. Want more help with calculating your sleep cycles? I posted a how to on our forum.
2. Figure out how long you want to sleep. Take four of five sleep cycles (or maybe more) until you get to about as much sleep as you think you need at night. In my case, 105 minutes x 4 cycles = 420 minutes = 7 hours and 105 minutes x 5 cycles = 525 min = 8 hours 45 minutes.
3. Figure out your best bedtimes. Then count back from your rise time (I get up at 7am, so 7am - 7 hours = about midnight and 7am - 8 hours 45minutes = 10:15 pm).
4. Pick the bedtime that best fits your lifestyle and sleep cycles. If I want to wake up feeling good at 7am, going to bed between about 11:30pm and midnight (giving me time to fall asleep)  or between 10 - 10:15pm will give me my best bet, based on my sleep cycles.

So for me, if I get either 7 hours, or not quite 9 hours of sleep, I usually wake up feeling as though I got a good night's rest. Interestingly enough, this figure is pretty on par to what the NSF recommends for adults each night.  The real trick is just getting myself to stick to a good schedule.

What we want to know is:  Are you willing to give it a try?

We hope so.

At any rate, let us know how it goes.