#sleep science

Sleep deprivation increases your risk for a myriad of serious illnesses like heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes, and stroke.

And that's just to name a few.

Some of the most important cellular work we do all day happens while we're sleeping. When we don't get enough quality sleep and rest, our cells literally can't effectively repair themselves.

It literally damages every system in our bodies.

Capitalism lies.

i was wondering how i could fix my sleep schedule? i’ve had a bad habit of going to bed around 4:00 or 4:30 am currently and i want to fix it before i start having classes

i believe my phone is one of my major problems when it comes to my sleep but it’s hard to let it go

what should i do to make sure i have a healthy sleep schedule?

Oh there's a lot of different things you can try!

First though I have to specify that it depends heavily on where your circadian rhythms naturally fall. Everyone is different and some people are legitimately wired to be more nocturnal. If your circadian rhythms don't align with an earlier bedtime, it is going to be tricky.

We cannot change our circadian rhythms, but there are some things you can do to compensate

But first let's talk about ways to adjust your bedtime in general. These will be much more useful if the issue something more like "revenge bedtime to procrastination" or other psychologically motivated bed time delaying mechanisms.

Go in increments, don't try to jerk your schedule by several hours all at once. If you're going to bed at 430am now, I would try to go to bed no later than 4am for a week. When you're successfully getting to bed by 4am for 7 consecutive days try to move it back to 3:30, again trying until you can get 7 consecutive days at the new time and so on, taking 30min steps back like that until you reach your goal bedtime.

It may also be useful to set a "winding down alarm" so if you know you want to be in bed by 4am, you might set alarms for 3 and 330am to remind you to disengage from your activity and start getting ready for bed.

You can also do these incremental steps from the other direction. Setting your alarm for 30 minutes earlier in the morning for a week the same way. Some folks will have an easier time adjusting their bedtime by changing their wake time first.

Things you can do in the winding down period before bed to help shift your brain into relax and sleep mode:

Adjust the temperature of the room if possible. Turn on fans or open a window or whatever you have access to. Whatever temperature you find most relaxing, try to get your room closer to that temperature in the hour before bed.

Reduce lights and screen time. Switch to soft light instead of harsh light. If you can transition from screen activities to something like a book or drawing/coloring book or something like for 30-60min before bed this may help.

If putting all screens away before bed isn't feasible use a program like f.lux to change the color of the light from your screen to make it less stimulating before bed.

Use a screentime control app on the apps you feel are creating the biggest problem so that you can still use your phone for some wind down activities, but you're removed from the more problematic apps.

Consider eating about 3 hours before bed. Eating too long or too soon before bed can make sleep difficult. You don't want your food to be settling but you also don't want to be hungry. If you eat dinner much earlier in the night, consider having a little snack a couple hours later so that your body isn't starting to look for more energy during the window you're trying to fall asleep.

Cut off caffeine 4-8 hours before bed. Everyone has a different sensitivity to caffeine so this may or may not be a factor for you, but it's just something to bring your awareness to, especially if you do tend to drink caffeinated drinks at night.

If it turns out that your circadian rhythms are naturally wired to sleep later the things above may still help to some extent, but disrupting your natural rhythms is fighting against your body, and that's usually not going to be easy.

If you're doing all the things above and nothing is really working, or even if it is working you're just still feeling tired or getting poor quality sleep, this may suggest that the issue is your natural circadian rhythms or potentially a medical sleep disorder, not your bedtime routine.

If you suspect a sleep disorder please see a doctor, it's unlikely anything will significantly help if there's an issue that needs treatment.

If you suspect your natural circadian rhythms may trend later some things to consider:

Take naps. If you're not getting enough sleep at night try to prioritize taking a nap sometime throughout the day. It's not ideal, but it can do a lot to mitigate the effects of sleep deprivation.

As voted on on Wednesday, I'll be covering the basics of the circadian rhythm! When I say basics, I mean the basics, this isn't a deep dive by any means and really just scratches the surface of it. Feel free to add anything on or go and research more yourself if you find it interesting. I might do a deep dive once I get more knowledgable on the subject, but for now, this is it!

[My writing will be in blue for ease of recognising what is my writing and what is quoted. Quoted things will have their links attached.]

Dictionary definition: Circadian rhythm (sir-KAY-dee-un RIH-thum). The natural cycle of physical, mental, and behavior changes that the body goes through in a 24-hour cycle.

"Circadian rhythms are the physical, mental, and behavioral changes an organism experiences over a 24-hour cycle. Light and dark have the biggest influence on circadian rhythms, but food intake, stress, physical activity, social environment, and temperature also affect them. Most living things have circadian rhythms, including animals, plants, and microorganisms. In humans, nearly every tissue and organ has its own circadian rhythm, and collectively they are tuned to the daily cycle of day and night.

Circadian rhythms influence important functions in the human body, such as:

Sleep patterns

Hormone release

Appetite and digestion

Temperature" National Institue of General Medical Sciences

Basically, your circadian rhythm is your biological time clock*. Telling your body when to do stuff based on your environmental factors and habits; also called a Zeitgeber (German, literally translating to 'time giver', also translated to 'synchronizer'). A Zeitgeber is anything that resets the bio-time-clock. Most commonly its the sun, but it can really be anything that is consistently reoccuring enough in your scheduele for your body to recognize it as a signal of 24hrs passing. This could be food, excercise, social interactions, etc. Humans are creatures of habit, and our brain reflects that.

*Technically, it's not. I know, sorry. But it is at the same time. The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) is your bio-time-clock; but the SCN is what triggers your circadian rhythm, not just for sleep but for all the other things affected by it; like body temperature, which rises during the day to keep you awake, and drops at night.

My personal favourite experiment / study on the circadian rhythm is the Richardson & Kleitman Mammoth Cave Experiment, 1938.

^^ short video from 1938, subtitles are available.

"Normal sleep--wakefulness cycles operate on a seven day, 24 hour cycle; Kleitman wanted to adjust himself and graduate student Richardson to a six day, 28 hour week."

"Kleitman and Richardson spent 32 days in the cave with a strict schedule of sleeping for 9 hours, working for 10, and 9 hours of leisure time. The absence of light and noise and a constant temperature made for a great experimental environment."

"The goal of their experiment was to determine if humans had an ingrained 24 hour cycle or if we can adjust our circadian rhythm. Measuring changes in body temperature shows a range of 1–2°F change with the highest value in the afternoon and the lowest in the early morning. This curve is not seen in infants, but develops as children adapt to rest-wakefulness cycle of 24 hours."

"It is known that the body temperature curve can be shifted any number of hours, as when a person moves from the United States to China, or it can be completely inverted as when a person regularly stays up at night and sleeps in the day-time [sic]. In either case, however, the duration of the cycle remains unchanged, namely, 24 hours. It is our purpose to find how easy or how difficult it is for a grown up individual to change his body temperature curve from a 24-hour to a 21-hour or 28-hour cycle."

^^ above four (4) paragraphs and video from here

After the experiment concluded, Kleitman wrote and published a study based on their findings called 'Sleep and Wakefulness'.

^^ you can borrow the book for free online, you kind find lots of books / videos / texts / media on here, you just need to sign up <33 (The Internet Archive)

"Nathaniel Kleitman, who died on August 13, 1999 at the age of 104, can be properly described as “the father of modern sleep research”. His claim on this title stems from both his scholarly integration of the work in the field and his own research. His 1939 compendium of prior work on sleep and wakefulness, revised in 1963 (18), includes thoughts on sleep ranging from Aristotle and other ancient thinkers to 20th century pioneers such as Pieron, Hess, Nauta and Kleitman’s contemporaries. The explosive recent growth of the field guarantees that this will be the last such comprehensive, research oriented integration of the literature in sleep research. In the introduction to the 1939 edition, Kleitman apologizes that his reading abilities are “limited to French, German, Italian and Russian” (and English). However, despite this “handicap” he critically integrates 4337 references covering sleep, circadian rhythms, sleep disorders, hibernation and theories of sleep function." - A Tribute to Nathaniel Kleitman

Okay, so not as short as I originally expected, but I could've written more, so yall are lucky I decided to cut it off there. If you have any questions or noticed that I got something wrong, or would ilike to add anything - please feel free!!

I have gotten a lot of what I know of sleep from an amazing amazing book called 'Why We Sleep' - by Matthew Walker. I'm only part way through it but I love it so much, and can definitely see myself buying a copy in the future. Here's a link to his website: https://www.sleepdiplomat.com/ [I only just found his website and omg I didn't know he had a podcast, I know what I'm going to be listening toooo]

Anyway, I hope this has been informative and is a good starter to get you into the science of sleep! I love Hypnos and his realm.. and I hope I can spread further information on him and his domains to others!