How to sleep less AND have more energy

Woke up to the predictable news of England's demise Down Under, another defeat to go 3-0 down with 2 to play means the Ashes have returned to Australia after being loaned to England for a mere 15 months. Poor performances and team selection meant the writing was on the wall from the beginning and at least we can all enjoy Christmas and New Year without worrying about the cricket!

Having kept this blog for three months now, one thing I've constantly moaned about is how tired I am. It's surprising I've maintained the blog for so long, considering how tired I get. Having to get up at 7am and getting to sleep late means that I'm tired most of the time, and by the time Thursday/Friday comes round I'm absolutely shattered. I came across an e-book awhile ago with the above title and having finally been awake enough to read it last week, I thought I'd attempt to summarise (70 pages worth) it in order to understand it and perhaps help others.

It's actually quite informative, a mixture of useful information and pop science used to backup the information which, with some additional background research by myself, is fairly accurate. First things first, it's not about the quantity of sleep, but the quality, sometimes good quality sleep means less hours not more. To obtain good quality sleep we need to understand the science of sleep.

Whilst awake our brain is active and alert, producing high brain wave activity. The opposite is true when we're asleep, with low brain wave activity. The change from high to low brain wave activity occurs in 5 stages as we fall asleep. Stage 1 occurs all the time, anytime when we're feeling drowsy or dozing off, we're entering stage 1 of sleep. You're probably experiencing it now as you read the blog, or perhaps when you reach the end of the blog. During this stage we experience slightly lower brain wave activity, our heart rate and respiration rate drops and our minds enter a state of relaxation which feels gooooooooooood. Stage 1 is the 'doorway' to sleep.

Stage 2 occurs when our brain experiences sleep spindles and K complexes which are sharp bursts of brain activities; an unusual phenomenon which some scientists feel is the brains attempt to turn itself off. During this time we may appear asleep but are instantly awakeable, without realising that we're falling asleep. Stages 3 & 4 are deep sleep, when our brain activity reaches its lowest point, delta waves and we are truly asleep. Our blood pressure, heart rate and respiration rate reach their lowest point and our blood vessels dilate to provide nourishment to our muscles.

Stage 5 is R.E.M. sleep, when our eyes move rapidly in all directions and is the phase when we experience dreams. During this phase, conversely, our brain wave activity increases and are identical to the activity we exhibit when we're wide awake. This perhaps explains why often our dreams seem so vivid and real, it's because our brain activity is similar to when we're awake.

Having explained the 5 stages of sleep, when we sleep, it occurs in cycles; we don't progress to stage 5 and remain there for the rest of the night, but progress to the stages continuously. That means we reach stage 5 and then go back to stage 2 after a certain time period and start again. When we sleep during the night, initially stages 3 & 4 take up a lot of time with a short stage 5 period. As the night progress, stages 3 & 4 shorten and stage 5 lengthens. Therefore the first few hours of sleep are taken up by deep sleep and as the time draws nearer to wake up, we spend longer periods in stage 5.

Deep sleep is arguably the most important phase of sleep and without it we experience many daytime impairments such as headaches, nausea, drowsiness and trouble concentrating, (pretty much me everyday). Therefore our body naturally tries to get as much deep sleep as possible, it is the stage least likely to be missed and hence our periods of deep sleep are longest in the beginning. When we experience irregular sleep, other stages of sleep are sacrificed to ensure we get adequate deep sleep.

Having explained the stages of sleep, one other factor remains before understanding how to obtain quality sleep and that is the sleep clock. The sleep clock controls how you sleep, how deep you sleep, when you sleep and how awake you feel during the day. It is outside stresses that we place on ourselves that throw our sleep clock off course which causes all the problems with energy and lack of sleep.

The sleep clock consists of a number of variables which tell the body when to feel tired and when to feel awake. It also controls how deep you sleep and how long you sleep. The most important part of the sleep clock is our body temperature rhythm (or circadian rhythm). Our body temperature rises and drops as the day progresses, the difference in body temperature is about 2 degrees Celsius. As the body temperature rises we feel more awake and as it drops we feel more lethargic and tired, a big cue to enter stage 1 sleep.

During any given day we experience a mid-afternoon temperature drop, which usually manifests in us feeling tired during the afternoon at some point and wanting to go to sleep which is normally impossible. Generally, our body temperature begins to rise in the early morning, drops in the afternoon and then rises again in the early evening, reaching its peak and often the time when we are most alert. Afterwards, body temperature drops and reaches its lowest point around 4am. If our body temperature is too flat throughout the day then we'll have difficulty in experiencing deep sleep.

It is because of our body temperature that we feel tired around the same time every day and how some people manage to wake up at the same time every day as the body temperature rises in the morning. The body temperature cycle is what causes jet lag. If we travel through several time zones, our body temperature is still following the pattern it did before which is why we feel tired and awake at the wrong times. This often takes time to adjust and hence the lag. Optimising our body temperature will ensure we get proper sleep and hence good energy levels whilst we're awake.

Another part of the sleep clock which is important is our exposure to natural sunlight. Exposure to high levels of sunlight delays the temperature drop, letting us stay awake and alert for longer. Poor exposure to sunlight promotes quick temperature drops and makes us feel sleepy and tired. Constant poor exposure contributes to a flat temperature level throughout the day meaning difficulty in getting to sleep and entering deep sleep. Exposure to sunlight is the main way our body adjusts our temperature rhythm.

One more contributory factor to our sleep clock is exercise. Exercise increases our body temperature, creating a higher 'peak' point of body temperature. Exercise not only delays the body temperature drop at the end of the day, thus allowing us to stay awake and alert for longer, but also make the temperature drop at the end of the day more drastic, promoting much deeper sleep. Hence it is useful to exercise in the early evening, it will give a push to stay awake and then help to get to sleep as the temperature drops.

Therefore, our quality of sleep is determined by our sleep clock which is related to our body temperature rhythm. This depends on a) the exposure of sunlight we experience each day and b) the level of exercise we undertake. To get better sleep we need more exposure to sunlight and more exercise, rather obvious if you think about it! Exposure to sunlight is quite difficult to achieve, especially in the UK and especially in the winter months, so my best option is exercise. However, I seem to be stuck in a vicious circle, I don't get enough sleep, therefore I feel tired throughout the day and by the time I get home in the evening I'm feeling too tired to do anything. Now, armed with all the information I've explained above, what can I do to change the situation?

Optimising the sleep cycle is key. Waking up at the right stage in the sleep cycle is vital. Sometimes I've woken up feeling wide awake and refreshed, but the majority of the time I wake up feeling tired and lethargic which takes ages to wear off. This is because most of the time my alarm at 7am is interrupting my sleep cycle at an inappropriate stage. Therefore my sleep cycle has to be adjusted to ensure that at 7am I am in stage 5 and my brain is already active in the R.E.M. stage and when I wake up I'll feel less tired.

In order to achieve that, I have to ensure my body temperature rhythm is in sync with the sleep cycle, my body temperature must be dropping when I get to sleep. For this to happen, first I have to get out of what is likely a flat temperature rhythm and then I need to ensure that the drop occurs at the right time in the night. Getting out of the flat rhythm seems to be possible by exercise and exposure to sunlight. Exposure to sunlight is difficult unless I invest in an artificial sunlight generator, therefore exercise is the main option.

Once my body temperature rhythm is in sync with my sleep cycle, it's a case of trial and error. At the moment waking up at 7am is simply painful. Therefore I'll have to sleep slightly earlier or later and try to find the ideal sleeping time to ensure that by 7am I am in the R.E.M. stage which would mean waking up would become much easier.

However, there is one major downside to perfecting the sleep cycle and that is the weekend. Like most people the weekend provides me with the opportunity of having a lie in. This will only serve to throw my sleep cycle off course making it harder to re-establish on Sunday night. There is a way around this, by knowing my sleep cycle I can have a lie in as long as I work out how long I need to stay asleep for the an additional stage 5 and make sure I wake up then. That way my sleep cycle will stay intact and I can sleep for longer.

After all this you maybe extremely confused, in that case just remember the 5th stage of sleep is the best stage to wake up from, is is important to achieve awareness of when that stage occurs in the morning and that can be adjusted once we establish a body temperature rhythm and ensure that we have an appropriate temperature drop at a particular time in the evening to guarantee we get to sleep and start the cycle. Once that is achieved it is simply a case of trial and error: 20mins earlier or later, 40mins earlier or later to work out when best to sleep and thus wake up during stage 5 of sleep. Simple! I should delete the rest, this paragraph seems to explain it the best!

One last part before I finish, power-naps. These are both beneficial and harmful depending on how long they are. Coming back to the stages of sleep, stages 1 & 2 are the precursors to deep sleep. Therefore having a power-nap is only beneficial if it involves the first two stages of sleep. If they are too long, then we move into deep sleep which makes waking up more difficult and can often have us feeling worse than before. However, a 30-45min nap is ideal, ensuring we get some rest and prevents us moving into stages 3 & 4 so that when we wake up we feel refreshed. Again a bit of trial and error is involved to find our specific cut off point before we enter deep sleep and once achieved can be a powerful tool to energise us during the day.

So there you have it, my complicated summary of how to sleep less and have more energy. Hope some of it makes sense, if anything it's helped me understand a rather long book on the subject and know I can try to engage on the suggestions to see if it makes a difference. I could go into more detail, but I think I need a power-nap to energise, although I don't have the time!

Take care all,
Thoughts just flow, when do they have to make sense?