Napoleon Bonaparte slept very little. He went to bed between 10 and 12 pm and got up at 2 am to work. Around 5 am, the emperor went to take a nap for a couple more hours. Napoleon believed that only seriously ill people or fools could spend a lot of time in bed.

Maybe we should follow his example? I don't recommend it.

Correct sleep pattern

If you want to do great things, rest for about 8 hours a day. Otherwise, it is very likely that you will nod off at every turn. Professor A. Borbeli in the famous popular science book “Secrets of Sleep” says:

The most common people are those who sleep 8-9 hours; the second largest group is those who sleep 7-8 hours. Only a tiny percentage of the population consists of those who sleep less than 4 or more than 10 hours.

It is necessary not only to fit into the norm, but also to take into account individual biorhythms. “Larks” fall asleep early and get up early, “night owls” wake up late, but remain “in the ranks” until late at night, “pigeons” do not demonstrate predominant activity in the morning or night hours.

You can determine your own chronotype either by eye (you know your habits) or with the help of special psychological tests. The Horn-Ostberg test is considered classic. It is easy to find on psychology portals.

Best time to wake up in the morning

For early risers, it is completely natural to get up at 6-7 am. They wake up easily and are almost immediately able to work productively.

The optimal moment of rise for “pigeons” is 8-9 hours. “Pigeons” often go to university or to work with their eyelids sticking together. It’s even harder for the Owls.

What time does a late bird's body wake up? At 10-11. This is terribly inconvenient: try to find a job that you are supposed to start at noon! To quickly recover after the alarm rings, night owls are forced to resort to various tricks. Someone is being saved contrast shower, someone - strong tea or black coffee.

The numbers I mentioned are, of course, relative. Getting out from under the blanket in late autumn or winter is always more difficult than in summer.

Doctor biological sciences M.F. Borisenkov writes in the article “Time zones from the point of view of chronobiology” (“Chemistry and Life”, No. 1, 2013) that “ sunrise time still serves as the main timing signal for the human circadian system.”

The same idea is expressed by V.M. Kovalzon and V.B. Dorokhov, scientists from the Institute of Ecology and Evolution. A.N. Severtsov and the Institute of Higher nervous activity and neurophysiology (“The wake-sleep cycle and human biorhythms under various modes of alternating light and dark periods of the day” (proceedings of the conference “Health and Education in the 21st Century”, 2013):

Waking up after sunrise is a necessary physiological element wellness person during the day and normal functioning all systems of the body.

Even people with an early chronotype ideally need to wake up after dawn - by the crowing of roosters. The fact that the work schedule of most organizations remains the same throughout the entire calendar year does not interest nature.

When should you go to bed?

The answer to the question “What time should bainki be packed?” again largely depends on the chronotype. It is convenient for “larks” to fall asleep at 21-22 hours, “pigeons” - at 11, “owls” - at two o’clock in the morning.

For night owls, the last peak of activity occurs between 23:00 and 1:00. At night they manage to do a lot. When they don't have to set an alarm for 6 am, they can easily allow themselves to stay up all night. If an early rise is inevitable, they inevitably have to go to bed at least at twelve.

In this case, the following measures help to facilitate the process of falling asleep:

• turning off the computer 40 minutes before bedtime;
• warm bath with soothing essential oils;
• thorough ventilation of the room.

It’s good if the “owl” manages to deny himself excess food intake. You should not eat less than 2 hours before bedtime.

A thoughtful diet is the most important component correct mode the day I'm talking about.

What are the dangers of lack of sleep?

Stories about people who barely sleep and remain healthy are rarely true.

For example, in the practice of Scottish sleep specialist Ian Oswald there was such a case. A scientist learned about a man who allegedly lost the need to sleep after a car accident and did not close his eyes for 10 years.

The man was invited to the laboratory. On the first day he slept only 20 minutes. The living phenomenon remained awake for a couple more days, but on the fourth day he snored loudly and slept sweetly until he was woken up. This man faked severe insomnia to get compensation from the insurance company.

Sometimes people talk about being awake for weeks because they really have sleep disorders. They are unable to sleep deeply. However, even inadequate sleep gives the body a chance to regain its strength in the slightest degree.

One-time severe lack of sleep leads to a very obvious deterioration in well-being. In 1896, scientists from the University of Iowa Patrick and Gilbert published a report on the effects of 90 hours of sleep deprivation in three healthy young volunteers. Already on the second night, one of the subjects began to experience disturbances in perception, including hallucinations. It seemed to him that the floor was covered with a sticky moving substance, and colored specks were flying in the air. Participants in the experiment were bothered by a burning sensation in the eyes, tremors, and impaired coordination of movements. Fortunately, all these horrors disappeared without a trace after a night of normal sleep.

Constant lack of sleepmuch more dangerous. Its consequences such as lethargy and Bad mood(see) - mere flowers.

V.M. Kovalzon and V.B. Dorokhov - I have already mentioned their article about the wakefulness-sleep cycle - warn:

Chronically poor quality and/or insufficient sleep increases daytime sleepiness and gradually leads to a wide range of changes in all neural and neuroendocrine functions, including increased level stress hormones, cognitive and metabolic disorders, decreased immunity, increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

A.V. Shurlygina in the book “Fundamentals of chronobiology and chronomedicine in tables and diagrams” (2001) lists typical consequences desynchronosis in people working shifts. The list includes gastrointestinal disorders, violations menstrual cycle, high probability get injured.

On behalf of myself, as a woman and an author, I will add that due to lack of sleep you can gain weight. It was very difficult for me (follow the link - an article about the problems of people with overweight), when I lived in a hostel and slept without any regime. Lack of sleep leads to very peculiar hormonal changes: a significant decrease in the level of leptin, which reduces the feeling of hunger, and an increase in the concentration of ghrelin in the blood, which increases appetite.

Is it harmful to sleep a lot?

The American Cancer Society conducted a large-scale study in 1958-1960 called Cancer Prevention Study II. More than a million people aged 30 and over took part in it. They filled out a questionnaire about sleep duration and quality. Years later it turned out that best performance survival was demonstrated by people who slept 7 hours a day. Those participants who slept less than 6 hours died much more often. This is easy to understand: they were probably overworked.

Good morning or experience using a smart alarm clock

• GTD

A pleasant sleep, morning, the alarm ringing... I think each of us has encountered the fact that waking up can be different. There are days when you get up, do everything on autopilot, your head is empty, and in your soul there is hatred for the entire Universe and humanity. On such days there are the most difficult morning hours: work doesn’t go at all in the morning, my head is empty, I don’t want to talk to anyone, or even see anyone. And there are completely different days. These days you get up easily, your brain immediately starts working, things get going right from the very morning.

By nature, I am a typical night owl and, like many night owls, the morning for me is, let’s say, not a very pleasant time of day. One day, after another difficult awakening, I, sitting at work and scrolling through the Internet with a cup of coffee in my hand, trying to come to my senses, thought: “Maybe I’ll stop suffering already? Maybe it's time to do something? I figured that when I wake up in a zombie state, I lose a couple of hours of time to get into the mood for work (I deliberately arrived at work an hour earlier so that I would be more or less in shape by the beginning of the working day), plus my mood in the morning affects on how my day is going. So I began to look for a solution to the problem of my difficult awakening.

So let's get started. I think many have heard about sleep phases. In short, during the night there is a change in phases of rapid and slow sleep. It's easiest to wake up during REM sleep. During REM sleep, we move, which is what different “smart” alarm clocks respond to.

Having received the package with the alarm clock, I opened the box. Inside was the alarm clock itself, two terry bracelets different sizes on the wrist, a motion sensor, a USB cable and a power supply. The alarm clock is powered by batteries inside and needs to be recharged about once every three weeks. Appearance The alarm clock can be seen in the photo.

Appearance. Alarm bracelet and sensor that is inserted into the bracelet

All settings are made using two buttons and a wheel, which are located on one of the corners of the device. Somewhat unusual, like the design itself, but oh well. The motion sensor is inserted into the bracelet and placed on the weak hand during sleep (the left hand for a right-handed person and vice versa). During sleep, when we sleep, the sensor transmits movement data to the alarm clock. Using software that can be downloaded from the official website, you can download your sleep history from the alarm clock in the form of diagrams that show when a person falls asleep, when he tossed and turned in his sleep, and the time of awakening. In my opinion, this information does not have much value.


An example of a diagram that can be downloaded from an alarm clock. The gray box is sleep, the green box is the 30-minute window to wake up.

Next, putting the bracelet on your hand, set the alarm clock to the extreme moment of awakening. The alarm clock has a time reserve of 30 minutes, that is, if you set the wake-up time at 7 am, then it will wake you up between 6:30 and 7:00 with a pleasant melody (selected from several installed ones), by selecting best moment for awakening in this interval. You may ask, what if this moment does not fall within the 30-minute window? In this case, the alarm clock will wake you up at the last moment (the one you set the day before) with a sharp signal. You can turn off the alarm by pressing the button on the alarm clock or the button on the bracelet.

Let's move on. This alarm clock has a sleep function. Before bed, you can turn on some soothing noise to help you fall asleep. It is also selected from those available in the device. I usually choose crickets or the sound of the sea. When you fall asleep, the melody turns off.

Does the bracelet get in the way on your hand? No. At first it was somewhat unusual to feel something on my wrist, but after a couple of days I got used to it. The bracelet is quite soft and pleasant to the touch.

Now as for the sensations. I am writing this review after six months of using the device, so I can say that the effect of self-hypnosis is unlikely to occur. The first two weeks of using the alarm clock was dull and often woke me up at an emergency moment. This is normal, because... The instructions say that at first it adapts to a specific person. Then the number of “emergency” wake-ups was reduced to 1-2 per month.

After six months of use, I can say that the alarm clock really works. The feeling of waking up can be compared to swimming underwater. Before this alarm clock, when the signal often pulled me out of the depths of sleep, it took me a long time to come to my senses, collect my thoughts, and my mood in the morning was terrible. It was very difficult to force myself to work and communicate with people. It was as if I suddenly floated up from the bottom of the pool, and then it took me a long time to come to my senses.

Now it's easier to get up. The feeling is that at the moment of awakening I am almost on the surface of the pool, I slightly raise my head, inhale the air and go out onto the shore. I often remember a dream I had. The feeling is as if you have stepped from the reality of a dream into ours and continue to move. The brain almost always works immediately after waking up, but the body sometimes resists and asks for “five more minutes” of sleep. Now to enter working condition 20-30 minutes is enough for me, after which I can work normally. Remember those moments when you woke up easily and you will understand what I am talking about.

Conclusion:
The alarm clock really works. After starting to use it regularly, it became easier to get up, it takes significantly less time to get yourself into working condition and start the day. An alarm clock does not solve sleep problems and will not help you sleep less than your body needs, so you still need to follow a sleep schedule. Everyone makes their own choice whether or not to use such devices, but it seems to me that it is worth using them, since our morning greatly influences the next day, and by getting up refreshed, you can do much more.

Are you familiar with the constant setting of the alarm clock when your sleep-deprived body is not at all ready for a vigorous rise? It turns out that the harsh morning wars between your sense of duty and the desire to get a little more sleep are bad for your well-being, making you sleepier and sluggish, but there are several ways to end this battle.

Besides constantly being late, there are at least two reasons why you should wean yourself off permanent transfers alarm clock

1. You're depriving yourself of normality, deep sleep . Five to ten minutes after waking up, your body will not have time to fall into deep sleep, so by setting your alarm early, you are simply depriving yourself of ten minutes good sleep when the body recovers and relaxes.

2. You are wasting your willpower on unnecessary activities.. In his book Willpower: Rediscovering greatest power human psychologist Roy Baumeister suggested that every person has a certain amount of willpower.

If you accept his hypothesis, it turns out that by wasting your willpower on getting out of bed, you will be more weak-willed during the day, but to prove your point, quit bad habits or making some other volitional effort may be much more important than fighting with yourself in bed, balancing on the edge of sleep.

It turns out that Intermittent, painful sleep in the morning only brings you harm - you don’t get enough sleep and deprive yourself of willpower. If you decide to give up alarm clock translations, a few tips will help you do this.

Wake up on time

Human sleep can be divided into two phases - fast, during which we dream, and slow, when the body completely relaxes and rests. If you wake up in REM sleep, you wake up easily, feeling alert and fresh, whereas waking up in slow phase fraught with fatigue and alarm clocks.

To understand which sleep phase to wake up in, you can use a free iPad app - Smart Alarm Clock HD Free: Sleep Phases. This app uses an algorithm to calculate your sleep phase and biorhythms, so you can wake up when your brain is working ( REM sleep) and feel fresh and rested.

Start new morning habits

You can link your new morning habits to a specific signal - this will help develop conditioned reflex, which will save you from setting the alarm clock. For example, you decide to do exercises in the morning and you need to choose a signal that in the future will mean for you the start of morning exercises. Let's say you set your favorite happy melody on your alarm clock.

At first, you will have to try to get up on your own, since the habit has not yet been developed, but you can help yourself in every possible way, for example, moving the alarm clock two meters away so that you have to get out of bed to turn it off. Next to it you can put things in which you will do exercises, which will remind you of your plans.

After a month of constantly waking up to the same melody, you will develop a habit, and the rise without doubts and hesitations is guaranteed. As soon as your joyful morning music starts playing, you get up and put on your gym clothes before you even realize how much you don’t want to get up.

Better sleep well

If you went to bed late and didn't get enough sleep, it's better to set your alarm for half an hour or an hour instead of every 10 minutes. Short periods of falling asleep and waking up will not give you anything, and there is nothing good in pretending to wake up; it’s better to sleep peacefully longer.

Give yourself a reward

You can define something pleasant for yourself, some incentive to get up in the morning.

For example, you can buy most interesting book and read it only in the morning or allow yourself to attend social media only in the morning. Then you will have a real incentive to get up without setting the alarm, because every useless 10 minutes of sleep is 10 minutes of your morning pleasure lost.

Make it more difficult

If you just can't quit this habit voluntarily, just buy yourself an alarm clock that you can set to just one wake-up time and never change it.

There are also alarm clock applications in which to change the time or turn it off you need to solve a mathematical example, and the more repetitions, the more difficult the task.

Of course, if you go to bed well after midnight and then try to get up at six in the morning, and this is your regular routine, neither method will be very effective, but it's still worth a try.

A light and pleasant morning awakening is a sign of true health.It has long been known that the morning sets the tone for the whole day; people noticed this in the sayings: “from morning to evening.” The way you set your internal clock and frame your mind determines your entire day. Alas, many experience every morning negative emotions, stress and struggle with themselves. Surprisingly, if you direct at least part of this energy not to violence against yourself, but to self-organization, then the morning will become your favorite time of the day. And it's easier than you think. Moreover, you will learn that the usual alarm clock is more dangerous than it seems.

Negative effects of an alarm clock.

1. Disturbance of circadian rhythms.

2. Increased stress and worsening mood.

Chronic stress associated with sudden, regular awakening also affects healthy people, provoking the development of various chronic diseases and reducing human performance. Of course, such a violent awakening always spoils the mood.

3. Increases the risk of death.

Any stress increases the level of norepinephrine in the body - the hormone of fear and aggression, which makes the heart beat noticeably faster than in a state of mental peace. With relatively mild stress, the fear hormone in the body increases by 2.5 - 4 times, and with sudden noise - by 15-20 times. The results of such overload are increased heart rate, sharp increase blood pressure, shortness of breath, headache(the rush of blood into the brain causes rupture of the thin head vessels). There is a risk of cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest, and cerebral hemorrhage.

4. Shouldn't you use the snooze function?

A special button on an alarm clock that repeats the signal after a set time can do more harm than good. Typically, your body begins to prepare for waking up an hour before. Body temperature rises, sleep becomes less deep; Hormones like dopamine and cortisol begin to be released to give you the energy you need.

The alarm clock often interrupts the sleep cycle and interrupts the flow of all the processes described above. If you don't have a regular sleep schedule, waking up suddenly like this is especially undesirable. Your body is not quite ready to be awake yet.

Heavy morning sleep inertia provokes you to hit the snooze button on your alarm clock. Your body can resume its sleep cycle and bring you into deeper stages of sleep. Thus, the body will again begin to prepare for awakening - from scratch. This can make your second alarm sound even more tired.

5. Get off on the wrong foot.

It is during these cycles that the most intensive restoration of resources expended during the day occurs. The fifth and final phase is the so-called. rapid eye movement is a unique period when the body has already regained strength and the body returns to the light sleep phase.

During the period of 1, 2 and 5 cycles there is a higher probability that a person will wake up. It is not only easier to wake up the sleeper at this time, but after awakening he will feel relatively alert and rested. If a person is woken up during phases 3 and 4, he will feel worse.

Scientists conducted an interesting study, according to the results of which, if any sound, action or simple alarm clock causes an untimely awakening during the deep sleep cycle, a person not only feels sleep-deprived, but also reacts to stress with an active release of adrenaline.

For the same reason, throughout the day a person is more susceptible to stress, becomes very irritable, finds it difficult to concentrate, his memory deteriorates, cognitive skills and vision suffer.

Over time this can lead to neurological disorders, a significant decrease in the level brain activity, decreased level of intelligence. A person feels overwhelmed, exhausted, depressed, which can lead to the development of depression.

It's easy to wake up.

For many, the morning begins with an alarm clock, but this is far from the most healthy way rise. Alarm clocks have been shown to cause significant stress and can disrupt our internal clocks. The fact is that our sleep consists of separate cycles lasting an hour and a half, and each cycle consists of deep and shallow sleep.

If you wake up in the deep sleep phase, you will be broken and exhausted, as people say, “you will get up on the wrong foot.” To get up easily, it is important to wake up in the light sleep phase. Therefore, plan a sleep duration that is a multiple of an hour and a half or use special devices (fitness bracelets, etc.) that wake you up at the right phase. If you wish, you can use an “internal alarm clock” - the subconscious; for this, before falling asleep, clearly imagine the time of awakening. And you will wake up a few minutes before the appointed time! And use the alarm clock only as insurance, wake up in a natural way, the following simple rules will help you.




The first two rules are the duration and mode of sleep. Main lung secret Awakening means sufficient time of quality sleep (7-8 hours). If you don't sleep enough, you won't be able to wake up easily. And the secret good regime sleep is a constant time for waking up, including weekends. It's simple: you go to bed when you want to sleep, and get up exactly at the same time. Staying up late on the weekend messes up your body clock.

Next two easy rules awakenings are light and temperature. And even if there is no sun outside the window, it’s easy to make a sunrise at home yourself. You can use special light alarm clocks, which gradually increase the illumination at the moment of awakening. And as soon as you wake up, turn on as much light as possible - this will allow you to get up even easier and be energized for the whole day. Correct temperature in the bedroom is also very important, because for good sleep It's good if you sleep cool. And it’s easiest to wake up in the morning when the bedroom is cool enough. This can be organized by opening a window in the kitchen, setting the windows to micro-ventilation mode, or reducing the heating intensity in the apartment at night.

To have a calm morning, create a certain sequence of actions, your personal awakening ritual. Wake up gradually, without jumping out of bed. Sit down, turn on the lights, good music, stretch, enjoy the morning bliss. Think about the wonderful today, because the first minutes of the day are very important, make them as comfortable as possible for yourself. Think about the good things that await you today: maybe it’s an important project, or maybe it’s going to the bathhouse or meeting with friends. Take the example of the cartoon characters Winnie the Pooh: “What are you thinking about in the morning, Piglet? “I think, I imagine, what interesting things awaits me today?”


And in conclusion, I advise you to think every morning about what you wake up for. Ikigai means that which makes you wake up every morning with joy. Think about yourself, about your loved ones, about the most important thing in your life and be grateful for it. And may your every morning be truly good! Be healthy!