Wake Up Feeling Refreshed Using This Sleep Hack

by Dr. Tamer Issa- Doctor of Physical Therapy

You should all know how important a good night's sleep is for attaining your health and weight-loss goals. I have a sleep hack for you that you have to try!  I learned this about 3 years ago... it's been life-changing.

Do you ever wonder why some mornings you can wake up fairly easily and refreshed (like on a Saturday morning when you haven't set your alarm) and on other mornings you feel dead to the world and can barely get out of bed when your alarm goes off?

It may have nothing to do with how many hours of sleep you got and most likely related to the sleep cycle and whether you are trying to wake up in the middle of one or in-between two.

You see, our natural sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes. During this time our brain moves through 5 stages. We transition from dozing off to light sleep to deeper stages of sleep. Then the cycle repeats again.

So it has been shown that the easiest time to wake feeling refreshed is in between 2 cycles. If you try to wake up when you are in a deep sleep stage, you are likely to feel very tired and disoriented.

So the best thing to do is to time your sleep cycles so that you are ensured to wake up at the end of a cycle and before the next cycle.

This is also why hitting snooze never feels good... because you are repeatedly starting your sleep cycle over and over again.

It is recommended that you aim for 5-6 cycles of sleep stages, which would be equivalent to 7.5-9 hrs of sleep.

HERE ARE 2 EXAMPLES OF HOW THIS WORKS IN EVERYDAY LIFE...

Example 1:

It's Sunday night and you would like to wake up at 6:00 AM. (to start your healthy morning routine... I hope).

Based on the 90-minute sleep cycle, it would be best for you to be asleep by 9:00 PM (9 hrs- 6 cycles), 10:30 PM (7.5 hrs- 5 cycles), or 12:00 PM (6 hrs- 4 cycles).

It takes the average person 15 minutes to fall asleep so keep that in mind when heading to bed.

Example 2:

It's Friday night and you don't need to get up at any particular time on Saturday morning. You're in bed, feeling tired and ready to get to sleep at 10:45 PM figuring you will be asleep by 11:00 PM. You decide to set your alarm for the next morning.

Based on the sleep cycles it would be best to set your alarm  for 8:00 AM (9 hrs- 6 cycles), 6:30 AM (7.5 hrs- 5 cycles, or 5:00 AM (6 hrs- 4 cycles).

I am telling you from many nights of personal experience... this works!

Use this sleep calculator to help figure it out.

Give it a try tonight! 

Sweet dreams