Sleep

[RMO]

Anyway, sleep. We all sleep, its a major part of being human. If we don't sleep, insomnia, everything goes to shit, but if we sleep over 8 or 9 hours we start to feel like shit. Our parents drill the idea that 8-10 hrs is healthy sleep and thats all you need to remember. There are actually better ways but to better explain those ways, I need to explain internal clocks and sleep cycles.

You sleep in cycles. You start at one point, go to another, and come back to the origin, and thats a cycle. There are 5 parts of this cycle

1. REM
2. Stage I
3. Stage II
4. Stage III
5. Stage IV

The most benefits from sleeping, and dreaming, occur between stage III and stage 4. The brain drops from awareness to stage I down to stage IV in the first hour of sleep. At the second hour REM sleep kicks in and you drop down into a cycle to stage IV. Each stage is about 90 min and as illustrated by fig.1 the more stages you go through the less stage IV and stage III sleep you get.

fig.1 d.pr/8hRt

Thats why if you sleep longer than 4-6 hours you feel like shit, and when you only sleep 4-6 hours you are a lot better in the morning.

The internal clock, the part of your body which instinctively gives you your internal time, that is actually the generalized temperature of your body at that moment. Everyone says your body is 98.1 degrees farhient, well it actually fluctuates between 70 and 100 degrees depending on the time of day. As shown in fig.2 your internal temp drops at night, rises in the morning, and takes a slight dip in mid afternoon.

fig. 2
cl.ly/2D2v3o1v2i0X1o0d3P1f

Your energy is also directly impacted by your internal body temperature. Also your body loses energy when there is no sunlight because a chemical in your head is released when you dont see sun to make you sleepy.


I could go on all day on how sleep, dreaming, and how long you sleep but im just going to give you a list of tips to follow.

- sleep between 4-6 hours
- drink lots of water
- get lots of sunlight
- exercise in the morning, before you eat so no cramps
- take a mid afternoon nap
- eat good food
- dont wear sunglasses
- have the same rising time and sleeping time ( even on the weekend)
- no nicotine, caffeine and alcohol
- sleep on your back
- try to be less stressed, meditate if you have to.

just do all of that and in a few weeks your sleeping and energy will change radically.

[perceverance]

nice post but i thought 9 and a half hours of sleep is what's recommended lol

[RMO]

by whom? most of the info is from doctors who study sleep, all of this was primarily developed for insomnia prevention. But it can be retrofitted to sleep less and have more energy without drugs, i.e. caffeine.

[Traxx]

You do know that the deeper stages of sleep are meant for cleaning the body of toxins, regulating body temperature and hormones, and anything else dealing with resting your body, but not so much about the mind, right?

Here's a better graph of what the mind does at night:


REM is the only time our mind actually dreams. In REM, the mind stores the information it processed and combines different images of thought into a dream (when not lucid). It relaxes the parts of the brain that deal with emotion and cognitive actions, thus decreasing stress. You go through 4 REM periods, or 4 dreams, along with an extra "day dream" when you wake up; explaining why one might have different, unconnected pieces of the dreams they had that night when waking up in the morning. These periods are so spread out, that you have to sleep 8 hours to go through every process. If you sleep only 6 hours, you only go through 3 of the REM periods, thus having less emotional and cognitive relaxation. Yea, your body and physical brain will continue on; however, your hormones will be unbalanced and over time you will start feeling stressed.

If one sleeps for 10 hours, that means that their body's natural cycle of sleep is interrupted. In a full, uninterrupted sleeping cycle, they would wake up 8 hours after they fall asleep every night. So if one were to go to bed late and wake up early, the cycle would be interrupted. The feeling of wakefulness you get when constantly waking up after 6 hours is your body trying to adapt to the new times. But if you notice, you HAVE to take that afternoon nap and you will be more tired as the day wears on.

Also, about the afternoon nap: If one were to take a nap, they should not sleep more than 20 minutes, or else the body will start its sleeping process. You do not want to enter this until your actual time that you go to bed at night. This would also interrupt the body's natural cycle.

I like the other points you put in your post, but 8 hours is essential for sleep, since that is natural for the body. Honestly, I also felt good when constantly sleeping about 6 hours every night, but after taking a psychology class which drilled the 8 hour mark, I tried it for myself and I noticed that I felt better all day, almost had no need to take a nap, stayed calmer when gaming, and basically just made better decisions overall during the day.

EDIT:
I remember reading an ebook about this debate... I think it was called the Power Sleep Package. (link: hotfile.com/dl/53624047/3b886bb/slpless.rar.html) It also said that 6 hours is basically what you need. And that would be true for an adult of the age of 25 or older. But we as teenagers or early twenties, need better sleep to process the daily information of memories and solidify what we learned. This is especially so for people in this forum who are trying to change their identities and learn more about different things than the average teenager. We need more sleep to accommodate for how much we learn throughout the day and the emotional toll we take from changing so much.

[RMO]

this is also true, who loves a balanced argument and has two thumbs.

this guy

well other than increasing your sleep amount from 4-6 to 6-8 you should do all my tips anyway.

[slyman]

"- exercise in the morning, before you eat so no cramps"

Come on man, please don't tell me you actually do this. As an athlete, if you workout/compete without food your performance will drastically suffer. I'm sad that I have to reference this simple fact but: FOOD = ENERGY. Without energy you can't have a good workout, and your time will be wasted.

"- sleep between 4-6 hours"

Or get 8-10 a night and feel great. Either way, I guess. In my experience, its pretty much human nature to feel better after getting 8-10 hours sleep compared to 4-6. Also, consuming tons of calories 3-4 hr's before games or workouts, followed by a solid carb/protein snack 45 mins to 1 hr before gives me great energy to perform.

My method: Sleep 8-10. Absolutely crush food, then crush in the gym, which carries over to the field. You will feel healthy, energized, and insert another positive adjective here.

Don't mean to hate on this prodigy, but there's no way that not eating before working out or sleeping 4-6 hours compared to 8-10 is better. Sorry.

[Traxx]

Yeah haha I wasn't meanin to hate, I was just arguing the time of sleep and adding on to what you put there Prodigy.

Nov 24, 2010 10:58:12 GMT -5 slyman said:

"- exercise in the morning, before you eat so no cramps"

Come on man, please don't tell me you actually do this. As an athlete, if you workout/compete without food your performance will drastically suffer. I'm sad that I have to reference this simple fact but: FOOD = ENERGY. Without energy you can't have a good workout, and your time will be wasted.

It all really depends on what you're trying to do. If you want to do alot of cardio, you'd want to eat a little bit before going out to work out, maybe 30 min before. You could eat a protein bar or drink a carnation instant breakfast. But if you want to burn calories quick, not eating can really help but you'll feel like complete and utter shit.

[RMO]

no big deal, more perspectives, more information, the better.

I fucking cramp up if I eat before I workout. I eat right after, and I';m always drinking water. But if i have any food in my belly before working out I'm fucked, especially for cardio. If you dont cramp, more power to you. If im competing eat a good 45 min before I'm doing anything. Im not even thinking that you shouldnt eat when you exercise, just not immediately before you do.

[Eastcoast]

Nov 23, 2010 19:09:41 GMT -5 RMO said:

- no alcohol

I think heres the major flaw in this whole thing

[RMO]

Rofl

[perceverance]

eat an hour and a half before you work out and you wont get any cramps guaranteed.

[DanZy]

In terms of eating and exercise it all depends on your goals. If you want to put on mass you eat a ton of healthy kilojoules before and after to keep your body's energy levels topped up but if you want to get cut and have definition you have to let your body use its fatstores as energy. To do you should have a low kilojoule protein rich food/bar whatever 30min before training and the same within 45min after training

[slyman]

Yeah I agree with not eating RIGHT before you workout, but I have a carb drink about 1 hr to 45 mins before. I drink at large nutrition's results an hr before...has carbs, creatine, beta-alanine, and HMB. lotta bang for a little buck. its gotten rave reviews, and in my mind the best thing to have prior to workouts. afterwards ill just drink a protein shake, any kind really, sometimes ill just buy a muscle milk at a convenience store afterwards...just gotta get the protetin in somehow.

[Johnny Bravo]

I'm just curious what your credentials are Prog. Can I see your ID please?

[RMO]

haha