SttB Articles: 30DC Archives

The Complete Archives : 30DC

Looking to radically transform your lifestyle? Try a 30 Day Challenge.

30 Day Challenge : Becoming a Morning Person

Scott Andrew Birdposted by Scott Andrew Bird
Filed in : Articles
Tags : 30DC, biphasic sleep, bodyclock, paleo, routines, sleep

Long-term readers of this site may recall the switch to Biphasic Sleep, which was not only extremely successful; it's a highly recommended routine. Details here.

Whilst I maintained the somewhat uncommon sleep routine, I completely overlooked the process of switching to it in the first place. It was my initial 30 Day Challenge.

In fact, it wasn't until I saw this talk (the video below) by Google's Matt Cutts that I really thought about the power of these challenges to bring about lasting lifestyle changes. Almost immediately I began analysing various aspects of my life to find things that I'd like to change.

This is the first of those.

Why would you want to do this?

Firstly, a bit of background. For as long as I can remember, I've been a night person. I've always been far more productive at midnight than at 10 in the morning.

Consequently, 5 years ago when I made the switch to a Biphasic Sleeping routine, I decided to take my nap in the early evening, and my 'core sleep' a number of hours later - in the early morning.

This worked extremely well, and I followed the same routine - unchanged - for almost 5 years. In fact, the only change during that time was the frequency of adherence.

When I first made the transition, I would have a night of monophasic sleep every month or so; depending on my schedule. Sometimes a biphasic routine just isn't possible, or even desirable (for example, if you're dining with friends during your usual nap time).

This occasional night of monophasic sleep gradually became a couple of nights, then a few; and eventually moved to a week or more. Particularly when travelling, when it was only possible to see/do things at certain times.

For this experiment, I decided to push the monophasic sleep period to an entire month. If successful, I'd return to a biphasic schedule at a slightly earlier time than before. Perhaps something like 4:30pm - 6:00pm for the nap, and 10:00pm - 4:00am for the core sleep.

As for the question of 'why?', there are a couple of reasons. The first is simply that it provides a different set of things to photograph; think of sunrise, frost and early morning light. These are all things that I very rarely see on a late night schedule.

The second - and perhaps more important change - is an anticipated increase in productivity. This is based on anecdotal evidence from those who've made similar changes, notably Steve Pavlina [1] and Leo Babauta [2].

Whilst this increase is perhaps more hoped for than expected, the important point for me is that starting the day earlier isn't likely to reduce productivity at all. Not in the long term, anyway.

How Have I Done This?

First, let me point out I elected to break my own cardinal rule for these challenges (and for many transitions, actually) : to only change one thing at a time. As this one involved a major lifestyle shift, I decided to adjust several things at once.

These were :

Increasing Sunlight in the Morning, Reducing it in the Afternoon

Dr Michael Hastings
Dr Michael Hastings.
This idea stems directly from the Horizon documentary noted below [3], specifically the comments made by Dr Michael Hastings, Prof Debra Skene & Prof Till Roenneberg. The idea is that the amount of light your body receives at different times of day can impact the timing of your body clock.
To speed up your body clock (and spend more time awake in the mornings, less in the late evening), simply increase the amount of light you get in the mornings, and decrease the amount in the afternoon. In the mornings, go out in the sun, switch a bright light on, work outdoors if possible - whatever fits in to your current schedule. In the afternoon, stay in a slightly darkened room, wear sunglasses - again, whatever ties in to your routine.

The point is simply to increase morning light, and decrease afternoon light.

NB : to do the opposite (if you need to spend more time awake in the evenings), just reverse this. Less light in the morning, more in the afternoon and evening.

Taking Vitamin Supplements at Different Times

Although I hadn't seen any information on this, I decided to switch my Vit D supplementation to the mornings for the same reasons as those above. To make things easier, I took my other vitamin supplements at the same time.

Previously they were all taken just after my last large meal, typically around midnight.

Allowing for 8 Hours' Sleep

Although I rarely get anything approaching 8 hours of sleep with a biphasic routine, as I'd switched back to monophasic for this challenge I was typically sleeping around 7.5 hours a night. I allowed myself at least 8 hours per night - giving myself a small buffer zone of at least half an hour, just in case. This usually meant going to bed around 11:30, and waking up a little after 7.

Setting the Alarm as a Backup, Slightly Earlier Each Week

Alarm Buttons
Alarm Buttons. Photo by mnapoleon.
As a second line of defence - just in case the half hour buffer was not quite enough - I set an alarm to go off about 10 mins afterward. This time gradually came down week per week : just after 8 (the alarm isn't all that accurate, it's within about 10 mins), just before 8, about quarter to, about 7:30. I moved my bedtimes forward slightly to line up with these changes.

NB : this half hour buffer proved to be useful, at least at the beginning. Gradually my sleep time came down (by a minute or two each day), and now I regularly wake before the alarm goes off.


Improving Sleep Hygiene

When I initially changed over to a biphasic routine, I didn't pay a great deal of attention to sleep hygiene (removing distractions, light sources etc). This time around I eliminated objects, light sources, sound and activities - as much as possible - from the area in which I sleep.

It's now quite a dark, simple room; and falling asleep within minutes is almost inevitable.

Watching Podcasts, Movies etc Earlier in the Day

This lines up with the sleep hygiene improvements. Wherever possible, I now watch podcasts, movies etc slightly earlier in the day. Preferably not whilst sitting in bed, using a laptop (which was the norm previously).

Greatly Reducing Coffee Consumption

5c Coffee
5c Coffee. Photo by Mykl Roventine.
Although I wasn't entirely sure that this was related to being a morning/evening person, I felt that this would be a good opportunity to make the transition. After all, it does have an impact on how alert you feel at various times (up for a few hours, followed by a slight - or severe, if you drink a lot in a short period - crash).

How much? Over time, I gradually reduced it from 8-10 cups per day to 1 cup per day. I've been on that quantity for more than a year now.


For this experiment (and it's a permanent change) I cut this back to 1 cup per week; replacing the other cups with green tea. Accordingly, I never missed the 'hot drink on a cold day' feeling. And the once per week thing ensured that occasionally when I found myself in a cafe or with friends who always drank coffee, I could still enjoy one.

All-in-all, it was much easier than I expected it to be. Nice and painless.

Eating Large Meals Earlier

As I mentioned above, prior to this change I usually ate a large meal a couple of hours before sleeping, which usually equated to somewhere around midnight. One of the things I noticed immediately was that by starting the day earlier, I was hungry a lot earlier. I switched to having a large breakfast almost immediately.

And yes, that replaced the meal at midnight. I eat a lot, but not quite that much.

Changing Workout Times

As with the 'timing of large meals' change above, this was one that just felt right, and began a couple of days into the experiment.

I still have the 'light session in the morning, heavy session in the evening' routine, I've just brought both workouts forward a bit. A few hours.

»» Continue reading »».

Biphasic Sleep : 30 Day Summary

Scott Andrew Birdposted by Scott Andrew Bird
Filed in : featured
Tags : 30DC, biphasic sleep, bodyclock, nap, recovery, sleep

Thanks to everyone who's come here after reading the BBC article, greatly appreciated. If you're currently experimenting with Biphasic Sleeping yourself, or have any questions, feel free to add a comment below. Cheers.

Nap in the Sun
Nap in the Sun.
This was a very rewarding experiment in a couple of ways. Firstly, it clearly demonstrated just how effective the '30 day' approach is (there are a lot of life changes you can make if you tell yourself it's only for a month - and by then you may not wish to change back); secondly it threw quite a bit of light on the notion of biphasic sleeping. Here are a few things I discovered during that time.

The 90 minute sleep cycle

I've gone from a skeptic to a true believer on this one. The idea that in quality sleep the cycles are around 1.5 hours in length not only seems plausible, but highly likely. Think back to the last really good night's sleep you had (woke up feeling refreshed, ready to take on the day) chances are it was a multiple of 1.5 hours (4.5, 6, 7.5 and 9 hours are all quite common). By forcing myself to adapt to multiples of this, I had more feelings of 'that was a good night's sleep' than usual.

Adaptation period

It took around a week to adapt to the new structure, which was/is:
  1. a 90 nap starting around 19:00 (this time varies slightly according to how tired I feel on the day)
  2. a longer sleep of 4.5 hours starting around 02:00

In total that's 6 hours per day, or 42 hours per week (giving me a 14 hour bonus on a typical 7 x 8 hour week).

There are a few things to be aware of with the length of this adaptation period. The first is to watch your caffeine intake. Now, I'm certainly not going to be hypocritical enough to suggest that you give it away altogether (I'm enjoying a cup of coffee whilst writing this); however I would suggest that having three double espressos 30 minutes before a nap is a bit much. Use your judgement.

The second is sugar intake. As with coffee, use your common sense. A bit of maltodextrin in a shake certainly isn't going to kill you, but try to stay away from the jam doughnuts.

The third consideration - perhaps related to the previous two - is the stress factor. If you come home from work every day fired up about something-or-other, don't take your nap immediately afterward. The best routine (for me) seems to be work -> workout -> eat -> sleep. There's nothing like throwing a bit of iron around to help alleviate stress.

Impact on strength training

It has to be said that I seem to favour the frequent, short workout approach - a few sets of rack pulls there, a few sets of floor presses there. Rare is the day which doesn't include some form of strength training.

My routine was like this prior to the start of biphasic sleeping, and doesn't seem to have been affected at all by it. I was fortunate enough to avoid serious injury throughout the period of the test, and there doesn't appear to have been any impact on recovery. DOMS still rears its ugly head occasionally. The thought of an ice bath still feels me with dread.

Productivity

There are two major considerations here. The first is that the periods just prior to and just following sleep are always less productive. Think for a minute of all of the projects you've completed 2 minutes after waking up, or when you're about to attain 'qwertyface' (passing out through tiredness at the computer). These periods vary from person to person and day to day, but around 15-20 minutes seems pretty typical.

Biphasic sleeping doubles the number of these periods. This means that instead of 30-40 unproductive minutes per day you now have 60-80. However, you've gained - for an 8-hour-per-day sleeper - 2 hours per day. An extra hour of productive time per day? I'll take that more than happily.

The second consideration is the quality of that productive time. This is where it becomes difficult to state just how much more productive I feel than a month ago (although the quantity of articles written for this and other sites is probably a good indicator); particularly as I've been intentionally monitoring my productivity for a few weeks now. That monitoring in itself provides a productivity boost (nobody wants to write down '30 minutes just surfing the internet, reading emails and generally slacking off').

More refreshing

Together with the productivity change in the difficult-to-measure department is the improvement in the refreshing quality of sleep. Aside from a few days (with a known cause of poor sleep) and the adaptation period - which was always expected - I've had more 'leap out of bed, ready to face the day' mornings than usual. As irritatingly happy as that may sound (particularly if you're reading this over your morning cup of coffee), it makes a tremendous difference in the way the day's problems are faced and resolved.

Dreams

I was pleasantly surprised that a 90 minute cycle included the deep sleep and dream recall that occasionally accompanies a 7.5 hour night. This dream recall didn't really begin until I was past the adaptation phase, and was able to wake up naturally just before the alarm went off.

If you're not used to remembering your dreams, this may not seem like much of a benefit; however the dream recall is usually associated with feeling refreshed, which is an obvious benefit for everyone.

»» Continue reading »».

30 Days of Biphasic Sleep

Scott Andrew Birdposted by Scott Andrew Bird
Filed in : Articles
Tags : sleep

NappingI've been interested in sleep for some time now, and the other day's articles on biphasic sleep - particularly the Glen Rhodes model - have convinced me to give it a go. A 30 day trial seems a reasonable length (read Steve Pavlina's article 30 days to success if you need further persuading) and the first of those days (or nights) is today.


The plan is a simple one : a 90-minute nap in the evening followed by a 3-hour sleep a few hours later. This worked out especially well tonight as the Italian Grand Prix (I'll watch anything involving fast cars) starts at 23:10 Sydney time, which gave me a chance to squeeze in a nap beforehand.

Initial thoughts (I'm writing this shortly after the first nap, with a luxurious 3 hours of sleep to look forward to) :

I expect there'll be a few days - at least - of adaptation, and the nap demonstrated that beautifully. Trying to sleep when you're not tired is rather like trying to relax; it isn't something you can force. Although lying comfortably in a darkened room, with the soothing sound of light rain to accompany me (and after more than 6 years in drought here, it's soothing indeed), I was permanently aware of 'trying to sleep'. I managed to survive 45 minutes of light sleep before returning to the world.

Fortunately I'd managed to elude the slightly groggy state that often accompanies waking from a deep slumber. I suspect I'd feel about the same after sitting in a dark room listening to relaxing music for 45 minutes.

»» Continue reading »».