Sleeping In Cycles To Feel More Awake

There are a lot of people who tend to feel that they are tired no matter what time of morning they wake up or how much sleep they get; people who encounter this often assume that the key is for them to get more sleep, but actually, it is much better to understand how sleep works than to simply get more sleep, as understanding how sleep works will enable you to sleep “correctly,” and this will give you much more energy than you would get from any other method – even from adding extra sleep.

When you sleep, your body and mind work in a 90-minute cycle; you have probably heard the term “REM sleep” – and maybe you even know that this means “rapid eye movement” – but this does not necessarily mean you know how to use this information to your advantage.

For most people, the first 65 minutes of your sleep cycle are taken up with normal, non-REM sleep, followed by about 20 minutes of REM sleep – and it is during this time that you dream, and that your body and mind are both able to get their deepest rest.

Of course, this leaves five remaining minutes before it totals 90 minutes, and these five minutes constitute the time during which your body and mind are in limbo – the time during which they are gearing up for the next set of sleep, and during which you are most likely to wake up to small noises or disturbances.

When you are woken up (or when you wake up) while in this “in-between” phase, you will feel a whole lot more rested and far more ready to start your day, which means that the best way to ensure that you feel rested when you get up in the morning is to time your “wake up” so that it comes at the end of one of these 90 minute cycles.

In order to feel more awake, don’t just add more sleep; try to schedule your sleep so that you will wake up during this limbo period, and you will feel much more ready to get out of bed and start your day.