Retrain body to be happy with less sleep?
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2008-05-20 9:22 AM |
Extreme Veteran 514 Perkasie, PA | Subject: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? Is it possible to train your body to be "okay" with less sleep? (Function well and be satisfied.) Say 1 hour per night less. Or do certain people need a certain amount of sleep and that's just how they are wired? I ask because I am recovering from a knee injury and finally able to get back to a full training routine -- but our schedule has changed a bit (now get up at 5:15 am) and I added two activities this year -- whole foods cooking (takes quite a bit of time) and 2-3 yoga classes per week (90 min). I'm at: Train less or sleep less, and I want to train MORE! ;-) |
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2008-05-20 9:23 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Not a Coach 11473 Media, PA | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? |
2008-05-20 9:27 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Master 2021 Alpharetta, GA | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? IMO people are wired differently. Thus, the amount of sleep that you require could be completely different from what I require. However, the body needs sleep to rebuild muscles that are broken down during training. So, if you are training more, and sleeping less that will catch up to you at some point. Perhaps not today, nor next week, but at some point. Perhaps it will cause you to plateau. Also IMO, if you are recovering from a knee injury, then you definitely need the rest/recovery time for it to completely heal. |
2008-05-20 9:30 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Veteran 383 The ATL | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? If you can rest, rest. I need more sleep, that's the way I'm wired. I need 8 hours to feel really good but I had a child, so that doesn't happen anymore. I usually get 7. I'm still tired. After having my child and having her wake up every 2-3 hours as a newborn I realized that sleep deprivation is truly a form of torture. I did not deal well with it and think I kind of lost my marbles for a while |
2008-05-20 9:38 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Expert 3974 MA | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? I've been competing in various sports for my whole adult life with sleep apnea... nothing I've ever tried has all that much of an effect on the apnea, including CPAP. It has affected my work more than athletic performance, I think, but the body can learn to function on less or even really poor sleep. It's not optimal, and I have days where I get out of bed with a straight Jack Daniels hangover despite not having touched the stuff, but life goes on the way you choose to make it. |
2008-05-20 9:42 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Veteran 255 Atlanta, GA | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? I don't have a scientific answer to your question. I *think* it's possible..mainly because I think most anything is possible if you really want something. That said, I would never want to give up sleep. heh. Love it. Need it. I am one of those people who just have to have the full 8 hours (or more) in order to function...and be nice. |
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2008-05-20 9:56 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Expert 3974 MA | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? I think it's much easier to get used to less sleep if you have a reason to be doing it. Getting up a couple hours earlier to train isn't so bad because you're doing something you want to be doing and you're not trying to get the sleep. That's a lot different from someone lying in bed, awake and staring at the ceiling, for hours. Those are the nights where your mind starts wandering, playing all sorts of tricks in the dark, and you get to review the memories of all the crappy things that have happened over the course of your life. Those nights pile up as psychological exhaustion, which on top of the physical fatigue, is where real sleep deprivation is a problem. For the OP, so long as they want to be up and training and enjoy it, I don't think this person will have a problem at all past a week or two of adjustment. |
2008-05-20 9:57 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Extreme Veteran 514 Perkasie, PA | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? Go to bed earlier. I love that! To get 8 hrs, I would have to go to bed at 9:15. I was hoping to find a way to reprogram to need less sleep. Maybe I will have to settle for fitting more of my workouts in before I go to work. I know that recover/rest is an important part of training and improving; I was just hoping to find a way to fit more hours in the day... All of you computer/science geniuses out there -- this is the thing to invent -- Download the amount of REM sleep you need each night without actually sleeping... Edited by cmbcwb3 2008-05-20 10:02 AM |
2008-05-20 10:13 AM in reply to: #1413343 |
Master 1472 | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? cmbcwb3 - 2008-05-20 7:57 AM Go to bed earlier. I love that! To get 8 hrs, I would have to go to bed at 9:15. I was hoping to find a way to reprogram to need less sleep. Maybe I will have to settle for fitting more of my workouts in before I go to work. I know that recover/rest is an important part of training and improving; I was just hoping to find a way to fit more hours in the day... All of you computer/science geniuses out there -- this is the thing to invent -- Download the amount of REM sleep you need each night without actually sleeping... I am in bed everynight by 9:00 PM. Some mornings I am up as early as 3:30 AM to get to the pool. |
2008-05-20 10:25 AM in reply to: #1413343 |
Not a Coach 11473 Media, PA | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? cmbcwb3 - 2008-05-20 10:57 AM Go to bed earlier. I love that! To get 8 hrs, I would have to go to bed at 9:15. I was hoping to find a way to reprogram to need less sleep. Maybe I will have to settle for fitting more of my workouts in before I go to work. I know that recover/rest is an important part of training and improving; I was just hoping to find a way to fit more hours in the day... All of you computer/science geniuses out there -- this is the thing to invent -- Download the amount of REM sleep you need each night without actually sleeping... I go to bed ~9pm almost every day. You don't 'reprogram'. You simply become chronically sleep-deprived. Not a good way to live in my opinion. |
2008-05-20 10:29 AM in reply to: #1413343 |
Champion 10668 Tacoma, Washington | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? "To get 8 hrs, I would have to go to bed at 9:15." Whaaaa! You're sounding like my kids. I'm in bed by 8:30 if I can, just so I can get up at 4:20. Yes, people are wired differently. For several years, I did just what you're wanting to do (though I wasn't training much at the time). I wasn't getting up any earlier, I was just getting to bed (much) later. I was averaging 4-5 hours a night all week. Yeah, I could function "okay". But what I found out after a couple years is that I just mentally did handle things well at all. I was "fuzzy" a lot, didn't think things through as quickly as I used to, etc. A lot of people were just telling me that it was because I was getting older. After getting out of that situation, it took me a year to get back on track. But now I find that I'm mentally back where I was in my early 30's, before I got into the lack-of-sleep pattern. So, more training + less sleep = burnout, injury, less mental acuity, etc... |
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2008-05-20 10:30 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Veteran 399 | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? Have you heard of Polyphasic sleep? It has a lot of variations but basically it consists of short naps throughout your day. The end result being that you sleep about 4-hours in a 24-hour period. Some people have claimed to successfully operate this way but the biggest problem is that you're sleeping at odd hours - your next nap might come right in the middle of meeting, etx. I couldn't find the latest evolution of this, but it was called something like the "everyman sleep" if you want to search. You can read about polyphasic sleep here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep |
2008-05-20 10:38 AM in reply to: #1413449 |
Cycling Guru 15134 Fulton, MD | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? Sleep is one of the first things that triathletes try to do without in the effort to get 25+ hours of stuff into a 24 hour day. Recipe for disaster, burnout and fatigue in my opinion. I'd recommend like others have that you find the time to get to bed earlier, or take naps during the day if at all possible. Rest is just as, if not more, important for your training adaptations to take hold and for you to recover. |
2008-05-20 11:10 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Master 1249 Atlanta, GA | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? Just wondering how some people can get to bed at 9pm? I don't even get home from work till 7:15-:30...and that is only on my off day. Throw in cooking dinner/eating/cleaning up, brief household duties(bills, load of laundry, etc) packing gym bag, make lunch it's 10-10:30 before I know it. The other 3-4 nights I train, it's just plain ugly. Really, it just boils down to me being jealous of you 9:00 bedtime people! Edited by CourtneyM 2008-05-20 11:11 AM |
2008-05-20 11:21 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Expert 3974 MA | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? I think I could adjust my schedule to get into bed at 9pm but it wouldn't do me any good. I don't sleep until 11:30pm at the earliest no matter what. I've had times in the past where I'd work a 40 hour shift, go to bed at 7pm, and stare at the ceiling until midnight. |
2008-05-20 11:22 AM in reply to: #1413603 |
Champion 6539 South Jersey | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? Sleep is important and should be made priority. If you're seriously training, I would consider sleep to be more important than yoga. I'm another one that's in bed by very early on in the 9 o'clock hour (even on weekends if possible). I will cut a session short or have my coach change it, if it's something that will force me to run late, thus backing up everything else and getting me to bed late. I think you can get used to functioning on less sleep, but your body will be healthier and recognize more benefits of sleep if you sleep more/enough. |
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2008-05-20 11:43 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Champion 6285 Beautiful Sonoma County | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? I can't do without sleep for very long. I used to have get up at 5 to catch a bus to work, and after a year of being able to stay up until 11 or so, my body gave out and I started falling asleep around 9:30 no matter where I was (dinner table, couch, computer). I'm curious why cooking with whole foods is taking up so much of your time. We've been eating whole foods for years, and dinners don't seem to take much more time than they used to. I pre-cook lots of stuff. If I'm cooking 2 sweet potatoes for dinner, I might as well cook 4 or 6, and keep the rest in the fridge to re-heat. In fact, instead of cooking them whole, I now cut them into cubes and roast a whole bunch to keep. Same with oatmeal, brown rice, sauces, soups, etc. And the slow cooker is your friend! As is your freezer! I always make a double batch of whatever I'm cooking, and immediately put half of it in a container with a note (date and what it is) and stick it in the freezer for the nights I need something that can be microwaved. To save even more time, if I can anticipate when I'll be having left-overs, I'll take it out of the freezer the night before so it can start to defrost in the fridge.
OK... so that wasn't the actual question, but that's my two cents. You have to just think outside the confines of your existing schedule. Can you workout over your lunch?
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2008-05-20 11:49 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Master 3127 Sunny Southern Cal | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? Sure, you can go with less sleep than your body needs, but there's a price to pay for doing that. And yes, different people require varying amounts of sleep. |
2008-05-20 11:55 AM in reply to: #1413634 |
Elite 2423 | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? chadtower - 2008-05-20 12:21 PM I think I could adjust my schedule to get into bed at 9pm but it wouldn't do me any good. I don't sleep until 11:30pm at the earliest no matter what. I've had times in the past where I'd work a 40 hour shift, go to bed at 7pm, and stare at the ceiling until midnight. You will start going to sleep earlier if you keep getting up early, your body will eventually adjust. |
2008-05-20 11:55 AM in reply to: #1413236 |
Subject: ... This user's post has been ignored. |
2008-05-20 12:28 PM in reply to: #1413776 |
Expert 3974 MA | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? aarondavidson - 2008-05-20 12:55 PM You will start going to sleep earlier if you keep getting up early, your body will eventually adjust. 4 years of it didn't cause the adjustment. I think in some people it just doesn't happen - quite possibly the lower end of the required sleep scale. My body wants to sleep on a pretty specific time schedule and resists any changes to that. |
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2008-05-20 1:46 PM in reply to: #1413449 |
Veteran 281 | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? D_M_S - 2008-05-20 11:30 AM Have you heard of Polyphasic sleep? It has a lot of variations but basically it consists of short naps throughout your day. The end result being that you sleep about 4-hours in a 24-hour period. Some people have claimed to successfully operate this way but the biggest problem is that you're sleeping at odd hours - your next nap might come right in the middle of meeting, etx. I couldn't find the latest evolution of this, but it was called something like the "everyman sleep" if you want to search. You can read about polyphasic sleep here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep Take a look at the current issue of mens health. There is an article written by someone who tried to adjust to this method. I am in the Pharmaceutical industry and have a lot of training in sleep. To put it very simply we all need between 7-8 (some more) hours of sleep a night. Scientists do not quite understand the reason for sleep, but we do know that some very important physiological processes take place during sleep. For example two that are very important are the production of HGH and neuro chemicals such as norepinephrine. I know there are those who will say 'I don't need that much sleep and I am not sleep deprived." There are 5 stages of sleep 1) sleep latency - time it takes to fall asleep 2) sleep - the longest stage but science has not determined any importance to this stage 3 & 4) Delta sleep - known as deep sleep. This is the stage where the body regenerates itself and produces the chemicals we need to function on a daily basis. 5) REM sleep- picture defrag a hard drive, this is what your brain does during REM and this is where we dream, but also it is a stage the body is in paralysis which allows the muscules to rest (this is also important so we do not act out our dreams). Now, back to sleep latency. According to medically accepted research, a healthy (see any number of Study's authored by Dr. Thomas Roth), non-sleep deprived adult should spent 7-15 minutes in Sleep Latency. This means that once your head hits the pillow and you close your eyes, it should take you 7-15 minutes to fall asleep. If you fall asleep quicker then that YOU ARE SLEEP DEPRIVED. If you can put your head down during the day and fall right to sleep, you are sleep deprived. To answer the OP question, you can get used to functioning with less sleep, but your body does not adjust. |
2008-05-20 2:57 PM in reply to: #1413236 |
Veteran 383 The ATL | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? Instead of focusing on getting less sleep, try saving yourself some time. You could prepare a bunch of make-ahead meals on the weekend and then save yourself cooking time during the week. Or you can go to a prepared meals place (dinner afare is an example) where you make a bunch of meals and take them home to cook during the week. LOVE that. Can you squeeze a quick workout in at lunch? Try a shorter yoga class? My mind can't really focus on yoga for 90 minutes, I'm a 60 min kind of gal. I'd nix a yoga class and cut down on the cooking for starters. I always try to get in bed by 9 but it never happens. By the time I get home from work and pick up my daughter it is 6:30. Then she needs to eat and get a bath. We're at 7:30 ish now. Then I need to eat and I'd like to say hi to my husband, laundry, etc etc . Somehow it just does not get done by 9. This is also keeping in mind I don't work nearly as late as I used to because of my little peanut (daughter). |
2008-05-20 3:19 PM in reply to: #1414118 |
Expert 3974 MA | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? snowriderinfl - 2008-05-20 2:46 PM This means that once your head hits the pillow and you close your eyes, it should take you 7-15 minutes to fall asleep. If you fall asleep quicker then that YOU ARE SLEEP DEPRIVED. I can't remember falling asleep in less than a half hour in many years now. Some nights it takes a full hour and there have been nights in the past where I just never fall asleep. |
2008-05-20 3:36 PM in reply to: #1413634 |
Master 2491 | Subject: RE: Retrain body to be happy with less sleep? After getting up at 4:00 five days a week since September, 9 - 9:30 began to feel like a good time to get in bed and fall asleep to the tv. The first month or two were pretty hard. I identified with my son's hamster, who also got up in the middle of the night to spin his wheel. Now, it's become such a routine that it's no worse than waking up at any other schedule, some days fine, others groggy. Prior to making this change, I used to wake up for a bout of insomnia quite regularly. The new schedule has me spending the time in bed I need, while reducing those awful rolling-around-while-my-mind-races hours. Catching some extra zzz's on the weekend is nice, though. Edited by monkeyboy64 2008-05-20 3:51 PM |
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