I don’t need a lot of sleep. On average 5 or 6 hours a night are enough for me to feel rested and awake when I wake up in the morning. There are big advantages to this, as I have a couple of hours a day more than the average person in this world.
I’m a night owl
Well…actually I don’t really know if that’s true. The average time that I hit the bed is around 2 a.m. and that points in the direction of the night owl family, right? Having those extra hours is very valuable to me, but lately I’ve been wondering if they need to be in the wee small hours of the night?
I feel that my sleeping pattern has developed over time, and I’m not sure if I really am a night owl, or that it has become a habit to work at night. And there frankly is only one way to find out…the hard way.
The challenge
So I’ve decided to commit myself to finding out the answer: is it a habit, or is it part of my physiology? So as soon as I get back from holidays end of July, I’m going to start to gradually change my sleeping pattern.
I’m aiming at going to bed between 10 and 11 pm, and waking up between 4 and 5 am. This is going to be a process of gradual change, so I’ll be starting in small steps of 30 minutes every week or two weeks or so, depending on the ease of the transition to the new time.
Why on earth would you put yourself through this?
Well it’s not just an experiment. Being an early bird fits the natural rhythm of my family better. My wife needs 8 to 9 hours of sleep on average, and she hits the bed between 10 and 11 pm. My 9 month old son needs 10 to 12 hours of sleep, and wakes up between 6 and 7 am. So if you put these in a chart and add my time (2 am to 8 am) to it, you can see that this is not an optimal pattern for the family as a whole. I’m missing out on family time, because I’m still in a semi-comatose state early in the morning.
So shifting my sleep to earlier in the night gives me a lot of benefits, without losing my current benefits. It gives me more family time in the morning, more family time in the when going to bed and still have those extra hours in the morning. But that’s still all just the theory…
Resources on sleeping
I’m not the only blogger struggling with the sleep issue, and I have compiled a list of resources I have been reading:
- How to Become an Early Riser @ Steve Pavlina
- How to Become an Early Riser II @ Steve Pavlina
- How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off @ Steve Pavlina
- How I Became an Early Riser @ Zen Habits
- 10 Benefits of Rising Early @ Zen Habits
- Want to wake up earlier? Remember DIPS @ Scott H Young
- How to be a Highly Productive Night Owl @ Pick the Brain
- 10 Benefits of Staying up Late @ Joey Dehnert’s
Like I said before, I’m going to start this by the end of July. I’ll post short daily posts on what my experiences with rising early are. I never thought this could be, but…I’m looking forward to this!
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You can be an Original too!
jdehnert
Mon 2007.07.02
good luck with that, i am a big time night owl, can’t seem to ever get up early. if you can do it i applaud you if you can’t let’s exchange screen names so we can talk to someone else that is still up.
gtdfrk
Mon 2007.07.02
I’ve successfully “trained” myself to get up between 5 and 6 am every morning. I usually hit the sack between 11 and 12 pm. When I was a bit younger (and didn’t have a family of my own) it tended to be the other way around: go to sleep around 2 or 3 am and get up around 10 am or later. I’m not sure what triggered the change, simply making a choice and sticking to it I guess
It was indeed inspiring to read about other bloggers doing the same thing. So, good luck to you!
Lodewijkvdb
Tue 2007.07.03
Thanks for the encouragement guys!
Gtdfrk, becoming a father certainly has to do with motivating me to change…my son already is an early bird