![]() Keep your waketime stable seven days a week. If your weekend wake time is later than weekdays, you have social jetlag - and that will silence the inner, early-morning alarm clock you've been developing. on weekdays, that three-hour difference is the equivalent of flying from back and forth from LA to New York every week. Step 4: Keep that waketime stableĬonsistency is key. Morning light can help turn this gene off and begin to reprogram anyone's circadian rhythms. Research shows that dawn-simulating lights can do this as well - especially for people in darker climates. Even if you are genetically wired to be a night owl (e.g., having an aptly-named CLOCK gene mutation) remember that nurture trumps nature here. Take a brisk walk, or sip your coffee by a window that faces the rising sun. Remember: Early morning natural light is far more potent than afternoon light in aligning sleep-wake cycles and shutting down the pineal gland's natural secretion of melatonin. By the end of week three, these two times should ideally be 8.5 hours apart - which allows for 30 stress-free minutes to fall asleep. For example, add back 15 minutes of sleep nightly if you subtracted 30 minutes of nightly sleep in week one. Then, you'll strategically add back half the amount of time nightly that you subtracted in weeks 2 and 3 on either end to land at your target bedtime and wake time. You should notice that the short-term sleep compression begins to make you tired much earlier than normal. By day seven, you may only be sleeping close to five or six hours, so don't drive or operate machinery near the end of this week. For one week, wake up a little earlier - shaving off up to 30 minutes per day. You paradoxically sleep less temporarily to establish a new permanent sleep-wake cycle. One of the most powerful techniques to realign your rhythms is called sleep compression. Trade the TV remote and chips for a book and cup of chamomile tea or a supplement with L-Theanine to help calm the mind. Ditto for eating since you need all bodily rhythms to enter sleep mode. To spring out of bed at 5 a.m., you'll need to start shutting down electronics by 7 or 8 p.m. Invert these hormones by keeping your evening quiet, blue-light free, and peaceful. The stress of watching a car chase and the blue light from your TV increases cortisol and depresses melatonin, respectively. Watching news just before bed is the worst thing you can do to disrupt this 24-hour rhythm. To make sure cortisol surges early in the morning, you must mind the symphony of cortisol and melatonin at night. This morning cortisol spike is called the cortisol awakening response and is key to developing an inner alarm clock. In the morning, melatonin should fall as cortisol rises. At night, melatonin should rise as cortisol falls. Most people recognize the power of melatonin as your nighttime sleep hormone, but many don't understand how it functions synergistically with the stress hormone cortisol. Step 1: Minimize nighttime stress hormones Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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