Your Sleep Schedule

Setting up a regular sleep schedule, and sticking to it, is very important when you're trying to achieve better sleep.

If your bedtime flucutates wildly (9.30pm one night; 12:30am the next; 2am on weekends, and so on), your 'biological clock' is suffering, and your body never knows when it's supposed to be in sleep mode!

Setting a regular sleep schedule helps your body and brain get used to falling asleep at a fixed time each day, and this type of conditioning is a vital part of your movement towards a better nights' sleep.

Why do I need a sleep schedule?

To help even more, you can use dimmer switches or table lamps as your light source in the 2 hours leading up to your bedtime, and be sure to sleep in a darkened room. Use heavy drapes/curtains or blinds on your windows, or buy a good sleep mask to help with this.

Then in the morning, be sure to get a good dose of bright light as soon as possible after awakening. Natural light, particularly bright sunlight, is best, but any bright light source will help.

An added bonus is that being exposed to bright light at the same time each morning, will help to 'set' your internal clock to make you feel sleepy at the same time every night.

How do I choose a regular bedtime?

In an ideal world you would be able to adjust your life to fit around this solid block of time. 'Morning People' would be able to get up at 6am and go to bed at 10pm, and the 'Night Owls' would be able to fall into bed at 2 am and sleep unitl 10 in the morning.

Yes, in an ideal world, but sadly we don't live there! For the vast majority of us, the demands, deadlines and restrictions of our daily lives require that we get our sleep within more a rigid timeframe.

To set up your own personal sleep schedule, you'll need to pay close attention to your daily routine and commitments. Do you have to be at work by 9:00am every day? Have to get the kids to school by 8:15? Do you take night-classes that don't end until 9pm every other day? You get the picture.

If you're a 'Morning Person', you probably start to lose steam around 5 or 6pm, so going to bed earlier won't mean you're fighting against your natural bio-rhythms. If you need to get up at 6:30am, work backwards to calculate your bedtime, allowing for 8 hours of sleep. That means you need to be in bed by 10:30pm every night.

Many people stay up late or sleep in on weekends, but avoid this if you really want to sleep better on a regular basis. Keep your sleep schedule consistent 7 days a week. The occasional late night won't totally destroy all your hard work, but they should definitely be the exception and not the rule.

On the other hand, 'Night Owls' may be just getting their second wind by 10pm. If you're one of these and you have flexible work hours, use them to your advantage. If you work from home, or don't have 'set-in-stone' morning commitments (a 2 year old perhaps?), you may benefit from a later bedtime and rising time.

But it's still important to keep within reasonable limits, say, going to bed at midnight and getting up at 8am. Even 'Night Owls' can't take on the natural rhythms of life and win!

Stick with it!

If you're persistent and patient, you'll soon find that your brain 'knows' 10pm is bedtime, and your body begins to feel sleepy as that hour approaches. You'll be ready to fall asleep naturally, and your quality of sleep will be much improved.

That leads to your brain and body being ready to wake up at the expected time and it will be much easier to actually get out of bed. You'll feel rested, refreshed and ready to take on the world.... so, what are you waiting for? Get started on your own Sleep Schedule right away!

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