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Have you heard about the 90-Minute Sleep Cycle before?

Recently, I realized that some days when I wake up, I find myself feeling alert and able to step out of my cozy bed. But on the other days, I can only manage to tap snooze on my alarm before my alarm tone gets too crazy.

So, I decided to find out the reason behind this.

And to my surprise, I came upon this interesting 90-minute wake-up rule. As you must've probably learnt this in school, every night, your brain moves through several sleep cycles. At the start comes the light sleep mode, then the deep sleep mode followed by the dream cycle, and then again back to the start- light sleep.

This entire process takes about 90 minutes. So, you will feel the most alert and refreshed if you wake up at the end of the cycle as opposed to the start or the middle of it. Why? Because that’s where you’re closest to your normal waking state.

What I did next was fixing a time when I wanted to wake up, say 7 a.m. I google up few tools and found this amazing sleep cycle calculator which I am now using. I then counted back in 90-minute blocks and figured out that I had to get to sleep by 11:30 p.m. or 10 p.m.

And voila, I now wake up without snoozing my alarm a hundred times.

Have you ever tried experimenting with this method before?

Love,
Siddhita ❤️

  1. 3

    Also make sure you sleep with the windows curtains open so that the natural sunlight will gently wake you up

    1. 2

      This + the moment you wake up in the morning, don't go back to sleep even for 10 minutes.

      I've been working without an alarm clock for the last 2 years. I still have it in place in case I don't wake up but it has rarely gone off.

      The problem with sleep trackers is that you need to have them close to you on your bed which I hate. I try to keep my phone away from my bed. If the alarm goes off, it's a good motivator to get out of bed.

      Plus, privacy.

  2. 1

    I highly recommend getting a WHOOP. It'll give you all sorts of charts and graphs analyzing your sleep, including:

    • time you want to bed + time you got out of bed
    • time you went to sleep + time you woke up
    • sleep efficiency % (time asleep ÷ time in bed)
    • number of times you woke up during the night, and exactly when they happened
    • how many minutes you spent in light sleep vs deep sleep vs REM
    • a graph of your heart rate while you were in bed
    • etc.

    It also asks you questions when you wake up, e.g. "Did you sleep in your own bed?" "Did you eat a late dinner?" "Did you have allergies?" etc.

    It's pretty easy to look at this data daily, and correlate it with your energy levels, and find out patterns that lead to you either feeling tired or feeling sleepy during the day.

  3. 1

    That's interesting, thanks for sharing!

  4. 1

    This comment was deleted a year ago.

  5. 2

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

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