Sleep a little, but right? - How to reduce sleep time - guidelines.

You need to sleep at least eight hours - we have learned this axiom by heart. This is being talked about from all sides and advised to stick to this magic number. But personally, such recommendations always seemed a little strange to me. I love strong coffee, best of all I fall asleep late at night and wake up cheerful not at seven, but at ten in the morning. I sincerely tried to stick to a strict schedule, sleep for eight hours and get up early. But as a result, she felt like a somnambulist and suffered unbearably.

It became clear to me that the eight-hour rule does not work for everyone. Seven hours is enough for me to sleep and feel great.

The vast majority of studies and articles insist on eight hours of sleep. But perhaps this figure is the influence of the development of civilization, and not biology. For example, if you study the sleep data of those who lived in the pre-industrial era, it turns out that the average sleep duration is 5.7–7.1 hours per day.

Researchers are still trying to figure out how much time we need to spend on sleep. But it is quite clear that it is better not to sleep than to sleep for a long time.

Better less is better

Professor Franco Cappuccio analyzed 16 sleep studies involving more than 1 million people. As a result, he found out: those who sleep for a long time die earlier than those who are always sleep deprived.

However, one cannot fully rely on this conclusion. After all, it is quite difficult to track the effect of sleep on a person. Diseases and problems hidden from the eyes of doctors make themselves known. For example, long sleep is associated with, and short sleep is associated with stress. But when Professor Shawn Youngstedt, realizing the shortcomings of experiments with large groups, conducted his own study with 14 volunteers, he got the same results as Cappuccio.

Apparently, long-term sleep in the long term has the same effect on a person as an inactive lifestyle.

Of course, someone will live happily ever after despite spending 12 hours at a desk. And someone needs a lot and often to train and engage in physical labor. To each his own.

If you're between 18 and 64 years old, you likely need between 6 and 11 hours of sleep. But even these recommendations based on scientific research should be secondary to you. Margaret Thatcher ran the country, and some teenagers won't remember their names unless they sleep for 10 hours straight.

How much sleep do I need?

The sleep cycle consists of five stages: four stages of non-REM sleep and REM sleep. We rapidly move through the first stage, stay briefly in the second while the binaural beats slow down, move into the third and fourth stages of slow waves, and finally reach the fifth stage - REM sleep.

This cycle is said to repeat every 90 minutes. But, apparently, its duration can vary from 70 to 120 minutes. Just like with the amount of sleep you need every day, the length of this cycle is unique and different for everyone.

But we know for sure that we need 4-5 such cycles to get enough sleep. Due to their varying duration, it is difficult to predict exactly when you will be, say, between the fourth and fifth cycles and when the ideal time for awakening will come.

But even that's not all: throughout the night, the duration of the cycles changes. It rises in the middle of the night and falls in the morning.

So what do you do with this knowledge?

Don't believe statements like "You need N hours of sleep a night." Unless it's a recommendation from the specialist who just did your EEG.
Get the minimal tech that will track your sleep cycles and wake you up at the perfect time in the morning.

Technology is the only true way to track, control and understand your sleep cycles. But before you learn how to do it, you need to figure out why it is needed at all.

Listen to inner rhythms

Modern technology is one of the main reasons why we stop feeling our own. Gadgets, electronics, street lights, and all other objects that emit light disrupt our circadian rhythms and synchronization with dusk and dawn.

Circadian rhythms are controlled by a group of cells that stimulate the body's response to light signals. They send a message to the brain and cause the body to wake up, raise the temperature, produce the necessary hormones (like cortisol) and reduce the production of unnecessary ones (like melatonin).

The problem is that we also react to artificial lighting. When you look at a bright smartphone screen at night, your body receives a signal: wake up and shine!

It's not just technology that's to blame, of course. Other factors, such as noise, hormones, exercise, stimulants, also have a similar effect and disrupt circadian rhythms.

But there is also good news. For over 6 million years, our ancestors learned to fall asleep at sunset. This means that in order to restore disturbed circadian rhythms, we need very little effort. You just need to avoid annoying factors. Electric lighting, for example, or light from a monitor.

Take care of it. Do not do sports before bed, stop drinking coffee at night. Buy good earplugs and an eye mask. Finally turn your bedroom into a place to relax, namely - for a deep, restful sleep.

Watch your sleep

Finding a sleep monitoring gadget is easy. The market is filled with similar devices for almost any budget.

Or you can not buy a new device, but install a good sleep tracking application. We liked the Sleep Cycle program. It uses your smartphone's accelerometer and microphone to monitor your sleep, movements and breathing.

Of course, you can try other applications or gadgets. The main thing you need to do is understand exactly how you sleep and how long your sleep cycles last.

Abstract advice in the spirit of "sleep more" and "get enough sleep" has no basis. After all, no one knows exactly how much time you need to recover. Only you know how your body works.

Sleep is an integral part of the life of any person, his natural need and a condition for his productive activity. However, in today's dynamic world, there is less and less time for sleep, and sleep problems, including insomnia, are among the most common at the moment. Is there a way to sleep less and get more sleep?

I. General information

According to the scientific definition, sleep is a natural physiological state characterized by a reduced response to the outside world, inherent in mammals, birds, fish and some other animals, including insects. In a dream the level of anabolic processes increases and catabolism decreases, that is, at this time the body restores its strength. Also, Sleep is a special state of consciousness of humans and animals, which includes a number of stages that naturally repeat themselves during the night (with a normal daily schedule). The appearance of these stages is due to the activity of various brain structures.

At the moment, science knows such sleep functions, How:

Rest of the body
Processing and storage of information (sleep (especially slow sleep) facilitates the consolidation of the studied material, REM sleep implements subconscious models of expected events)
Adaptation of the body to changes in light (day-night)
Immunity restoration, including by activating T-lymphocytes that fight colds and viral diseases

Despite popular belief about the need for eight hours of sleep, The average duration of a person's sleep usually depends on numerous factors.: ranging from age, gender, lifestyle, nutrition and degree of fatigue, to external factors (general noise level, location, etc.). In the general case, in case of sleep disorders, its duration can range from a few seconds to several days, which leaves open the question of how to sleep less and get enough sleep.

Despite numerous studies of the mechanism of sleep and dreams, many questions regarding sleep still remain open. That is why there are many alternative theories of sleep Keywords: visceral theory, pre-Freudian concept of dreams, bimodal sleep model, theory of lucid dreams and many others.

II. Human biological rhythms

monophasic sleep, familiar to most people (sleep at night for about 6-8 hours), is historically determined. In ancient times, during the absence of electricity, wakefulness at night was complicated by the lack of lighting or its complex technical organization. Also, the human body at the biological level reacts to changes in lighting through the production of hormones.

A few key points of the 24-hour cycle:
6:00 a.m. - cortisol levels rise to wake up your body
7:00 - Melatonin production stops
9:00 - peak production of sex hormone
10:00 - the peak of mental activity
14:30 - the best level of coordination of movements
15:30 - best reaction time
17:00 - better work of the cardiovascular system and muscle elasticity
19:00 - Highest blood pressure and highest body temperature
21:00 - melatonin begins to be produced to prepare the body for sleep
22:00 - The digestive system calms down as the body prepares for sleep
2:00 - deepest sleep
4:00 - lowest body temperature

III. polyphasic sleep

However, there is an alternative to the standard sleep model − polyphasic sleep. This is a sleep pattern in which sleep time, unlike single-phase or biphasic sleep, is divided into several periods during the day. It is noteworthy that polyphasic sleep has been widely used by some prominent people, and there are several reliable sources to confirm this.

Basic sleep modes:

Monophasic (habitual) - 1 time at night 7-10 hours
Biphasic - 1 time at night 5-7 hours and then 1 time 20 minutes during the day
Everyman (ordinary person mode) - 1 time at night for 1.5-3 hours and then 3 times for 20 minutes during the day
Dymaxion - 4 times for 30 minutes every 5.5 hours
Uberman (superhuman mode) - 6 times for 20 minutes every 3 hours 40 minutes
Tesla (in honor of Nikola Tesla, who allegedly used it) - 2 hours at night and 20 minutes during the day

However, the very first documented switch to polyphasic sleep was made by Buckminster Fuller. Fuller experimented with sleep in the mid-1900s and developed a regimen called “Dymaxion” (Fuller gave the same name to his trademark, which combined several inventions). In the October 11, 1942 edition of Time Magazine there was a short article on this method. According to her, the author followed this schedule for two years, but then he had to stop this activity because "his schedule conflicted with the schedule of his companions, who insisted on sleeping like normal people." The doctors who examined him concluded that he was healthy.

In 2006, American blogger Steve Pavlina lived in polyphasic sleep for 5 ½ months ( Uberman), posting detailed reports on the progress of his experiment on his blog. His writings are by far the most comprehensive guide to transitioning to polyphasic sleep. In the process of adjusting to polyphasic sleep, Steve identifies the stages of physiological and psychological adaptation. After spending a few weeks on adaptation, Steve reports the complete disappearance of negative side effects (drowsiness, physical ailments, etc.). Having adapted to the polyphasic regime, the author conducts (and describes in detail) a series of experiments (stretching phases, skipping one of the phases, studying the effect of coffee on the body of a sleeping person in polyphasic, etc.). After 5 ½ months of polyphasic sleep, Steve returns to monophasic, explaining his decision as being out of sync with the monophasic world around him.

There is also a special form of daytime sleep - siesta. This is an afternoon nap, which is a common tradition in some countries, especially with a hot climate (Spain, Greece). Dr. Eduardo Estiville confidently states: “For children under 5 years old, this is simply necessary, and for adults, daytime sleep is recommended, but in any case, it should be short. No more than 30 minutes." The problem is that in most countries with a common siesta, the lunch break is much higher than this limit. This proves that a siesta of no more than 30 minutes (longer can reset the natural biological clock and cause insomnia at night) improves health in general and blood circulation in particular, and also prevents depression, increased pressure and stress. In addition, it improves memory and the learning process, helps prolong working capacity and makes the body stay awake until late in the evening, despite the accumulated fatigue.

For those who decide to start practicing polyphasic sleep, there are various sites and applications that explain in an accessible way how to sleep less and get more sleep. One of them is SmartSleep, which helps to control sleep patterns.

IV. Sleep and art

The theme of sleep appears very often in art. Several films where sleep is the lei motif of the entire film:

Driver
somnia
Awakening (TV series)
babadook
dreams
Escape from sleep
Jacob's ladder

He led the most correct life. He slept.(L.N. Tolstoy)

At various times, scientists and just brave experimenters have been looking for different ways to reduce the number of hours spent on sleep, without compromising the physical and mental state.

To reduce the duration of sleep, it is enough to make sure that even a dream that lasts less than 8 hours brings rest and restores strength. And recommendations on how to do this have been known for a long time.

Compliance with sleep and wakefulness

No matter how trite it sounds, but getting used to falling asleep and waking up at the same time, the body manages much less sleep, and the person feels more rested. It is necessary to follow the regime, regardless of whether you need to go to work, or turned out, the person is on vacation or visiting, and this is sometimes the most difficult. After all, the temptation to “sleep off” is so great! And as a result, the well-established daily rhythm is lost and such a dream does not bring the desired additional.

Go to bed earlier and wake up earlier

Nighttime sleep should be between 22:00 pm and 6:00 am. Moreover, it is advisable to go to bed exactly before midnight, then without problems it will be possible to get up not only at 6, but even at 4 in the morning and feel rested at the same time. But such a regime rarely suits the majority of people who have come out of primary school age. They call the time before midnight “childish” and stubbornly refuse to go to bed with the program “Good night, kids!”, And they pay for it far from being kind. Following this regimen, it is possible for the body to reduce the amount of sleep by 1-3 hours!

Sleep is a time of relaxation and rest. Many dream to prolong this pleasure as long as possible. At the same time, in the world of the latest technologies, being in a constant rush, humanity is thinking about how to sleep less and get enough sleep. And here is the answer.

Studying the stages of sleep and understanding them will help answer all the necessary questions. It is known that there are 5 stages of sleep that make up a person's nightly rest. Having taken up simple mathematical calculations, we draw the following conclusions:

the duration of one phase of sleep is on average 100 minutes;
real relaxation occurs only in the 3rd and 4th phases of sleep;
after a three-hour sleep, the 4th phase begins, which is actually the desired result;
then everything happens again, and the phases begin to repeat, but do not reach the 4th stage.

From all these calculations, we can conclude that a short sleep that lasts about 4.5-5 hours is ideal for those who want to sleep less without harm to health.

If you want to train yourself to sleep less, you need to carefully analyze the activity of the whole day and part of the night; pay attention to the stages of your sleep to determine how your body lives; take all measures to feel good throughout the day. To do this, you need to eat right and exercise, even if you have only 15 minutes of free time.

Time to sleep

To understand what hours it is better to sleep, you should pay attention to your own sense of internal time, which, like no one else, will tell you when it is better for you to rest. If your work schedule does not allow you to rest during the day, tune in to the fact that you need a productive night's sleep.

Favorite activity instead of sleep

If you decide to reduce your sleep time, then you must be 100% sure that you will find an activity to fill your free time. Otherwise, there is simply no need to reduce sleep. Scientists have long advised scheduling your sleep the same way you schedule your time. To do this, start a "sleep diary", in which you will record hours of activity and sleep attacks, during which it is impossible to do anything with yourself.

Not many people set themselves the goal of cutting back on sleep. Sometimes circumstances force us to do this. Whether you're faced with the choice of holding on to your best job or falling asleep on the go, look to medications to help keep your body in top shape when you need it.

These drugs often include CNS stimulants, which reduce the feeling of fatigue, improve mood, and also increase performance. It is worth taking such drugs only on the recommendation of a doctor in case of the most extreme need.

Do not focus on energy, they greatly affect the functioning of the heart. If you want to sleep little and get enough sleep, stick to a strict regimen, namely:

fall asleep and wake up at the same time;
do exercises in the morning;
when it is difficult to wake up, open the curtains and let the sunlight enter the room;
drink plenty of fluids in order to fill the body with the necessary elements;
do not drink alcohol, nicotine, coffee, and also a lot of dark chocolate.

By following these tips, you will be able to sleep little and get enough sleep without harm to your health.

1) Sleep less with the Leonardo da Vinci method.
Leonardo da Vinci's recipe for a minimum of sleep: 15 minutes of sleep, then 4 hours of work, then again short-term sleep. And so day after day, year after year. At the same time, he slept well.

Unfortunately, this method does not take into account not only the maintenance period of the body, but also the duration of deep and non-REM sleep. So you can forget about the harmlessness of the method, at least in terms of the accumulation of toxins in the body.

2) Sleep reduction mode "Dymaxion".
One Bucky Fuller began to sleep for thirty minutes 4 times a day every six hours, which amounted to only two hours of sleep. At the same time, he said that he had never felt more energetic. Doctors examined Bucky after two years of such a cycle and declared him completely healthy.

This experimenter also did not continue to sleep according to his system, returning to normal life at the request of his wife and business partners.

As you can see, we have increased the duration of one stage of sleep right up to half an hour. This is twice as much as according to the Leonardo method - but this is already more like the truth, since in half an hour you can somehow fit both fast and slow phases of sleep. No one talks about a full maintenance cycle - but, nevertheless, the minimum is already being observed.
Read the article about.

3) The recipe for a minimum of sleep from Salvador Dali.
They say that in order to sleep less, the artist put a metal tray on the floor next to him, and between the thumb and forefinger of the hand hanging over the tray, he clamped the spoon. As soon as he dozed off, the spoon fell on the tray with a clang and woke him up. The state, intermediate between wakefulness and sleep, refreshed Dali, and he returned to work furiously.

This method was known to the ancient Greeks and Macedonians. So, descriptions have been preserved of how Alexander the Great was taught not to sleep for a long time in the same way - he sat in front of a copper basin and held a large stone in his hand. When he began to fall asleep, the stone fell out of his hand, rattled against a copper basin, and the young conqueror woke up.

4) Sleep mode "Siesta".
This dream is practiced by many high school students and students (you probably know it too). The technique is very simple: 5-6 hours of sleep and one nap during the day for 90-20 minutes, respectively. These 5-6 hours can fit a multiple of most people's repair sleep cycles, so this option is by far the healthiest of all.

Moreover, in this case, a siesta is a good option to reduce the duration of sleep by one repair cycle. That is, 2 repair cycles of 2.5-3 hours each fit into 5-6 hours of the main cycle (just average values). So a siesta is a good option for a gradual transition to greater productivity.

How to sleep less and get more done.

Human sleep is divided into phases. The most important for us are the third and fourth, which fall on the first 2-3 hours of sleep.

The techniques that I will talk about were invented by the scientist Alexander Vein. Their essence is to achieve maximum stay in the fourth phase of sleep.

Before moving on to practice, you should know the following:

Before using the first technique, you must not sleep for 1-2 days. Then you will have to sleep at a strictly defined time, otherwise your efficiency will tend to zero.

During the experiment, you should have at least three hours of rest per day. Take a walk in the park, have a cup of tea with someone, spend time with your family, meditate. No physical or mental stress.

Method 1.
First, you need to understand when your sleep is most effective. To do this, select a few days free from urgent matters (for example, weekends).

On the first day, you should go to bed at your usual time. You wake up, do your business, but at exactly 12 o'clock at night, go to the study.

Listen to your feelings. Soon you will notice that you do not always want to sleep, but with a certain frequency. We will discover it.

Rate the desire to sleep on a three-point scale:

1 - I want to sleep;
2 - really want to sleep;
3 - unbearably want to sleep.

Record such bouts of sleep in a notebook or phone.

At 24:00 the next day (that is, in a day), the experiment can be considered completed. Now you can lie down, get a good night's sleep, and start analyzing everything the next morning.

Review your entries. Of all the sleep attacks, choose the longest, and from them - the two most severe. You should get two time periods when you were just knocked out.

This could happen to you at different times, but usually people experience the first strong and prolonged desire to sleep between one in the morning and six in the morning, and the second in the afternoon. For example, if you have an overwhelming desire to sleep at 4 o'clock and at 16 o'clock, then your sleep schedule will be as follows.

At four in the morning, go to bed and set the alarm so that it rings in 2–2.5 hours. During this time, you will stay in the fourth phase of sleep for as long as those who sleep 8-10 hours a day, and fully rest. At 13 o'clock, sleep for another hour.

As a result, you will sleep 3–3.5 hours a day, but you will stay in the fourth phase of sleep even more than the average person for an eight-hour rest.

The key here is accuracy. If you fall asleep not at 4:00, but at 4:15, then you will not get enough sleep or even hear the alarm clock. Although it is possible that these 15 minutes will help you find your optimal time to fall asleep. Listen to your body.

- What can I do to sleep well?

1) Regular sleep schedule.
You should get up at the same time every day. If on weekdays you need to get up at 6 am, then on weekends you need to do the same. At least approximately. Not at six, so at seven - half past seven for sure. Here the reason is simple. The body “gets used” to getting up at the same time + sleeping at the same time. Do not forget what is described in the general theory about the time of awakening.
IMPORTANT! You need to wake up in REM sleep. How will you find it? Just reset the alarm clock back and forth for 10-20-30 minutes during the week. And you will definitely find a time when it is VERY easy for you to get up.

2) Charging in the morning.
Serious exercise that will make you sweat (don't forget to shower after). Charging seriously increases body temperature, and hence the performance of the body and the brain, if it is part of your body.

3) Need more light.
Yes, you need a lot of strong, bright light. Preferably a real sunny, if not possible, bright (of course, not blinding) light in the workplace. Melatonin is destroyed in the light, you want to sleep less. If you are not working in the brightest conditions, go for lunch somewhere outside.

4) Requires physical activity throughout the day.
If you have the opportunity to jog after work (or during), go to the gym or pool. It is necessary to do this in order to keep the body temperature high enough, then the body will be active and the brain fresh. Find out !

5)To drink a lot of water.
The body needs a lot of water. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but at least a couple of liters a day only for the normal functioning of the kidneys and liver. When the body has enough of everything, during sleep it can relax enough. We are talking about WATER, not any liquid.

6)Do not consume: alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, energy drinks.
The above liquid substances have a very negative effect on your sleep system. The body cannot relax during sleep, and if you sit hard on the last two, then the body will no longer be able to gather itself without them.

7) If you feel sleepy at lunchtime, sleep ... 20 minutes. Maximum 30.
In the afternoon it is quite possible to take a nap, if it is unbearable. The key is to wake up BEFORE your body enters deep sleep. In the phase of REM sleep, which you should focus on in this case, the body also has a good rest and relaxes. By the way, it tends to fall asleep after dinner, at this time most people experience a slight drop in body temperature. Do not forget, most importantly, set the alarm for 25-30 minutes. If you have a closed office at work and an hour lunch break, half of it can be used for sleep.