I’m in the midst of a small sleep experiment on myself.
My tracking is indicating insufficient REM sleep of late.
One of the major limiting factors of REM sleep is a lack of total sleep or basically how long you’re actually sleeping at night. The duration of REM sleep in each sleep cycle increases throughout the night, so if we don’t sleep long enough, we tend to limit the accumulation of REM sleep. While we may consider ourselves getting 7 hours of blissful slumber based on the time in bed, we have to consider things like sleep latency which is how long it takes to go from full wake to the first stage of nonREM sleep.
There’s also periods of waking up that can steal valuable sleep.
On the front end of the night, our sleep cycles favor long periods of deep sleep. This is a key to getting a truly restful and restorative night’s sleep.
I have some things I try to avoid that I know just destroy my deep sleep.
- Large meals late in the evening
- Alcohol before bed
- Late blue light exposure (compute screen mostly)
The large meal thing was very interesting to me as not only does it interrupt my deep sleep but it’s clear that I’m stimulating a great deal of metabolic processes considering my lowest resting heart rate can be 10 beats higher (low 60’s vs low 50’s) after a late big meal.
As long as I stick to my guns and hit my bed time, deep sleep usually looks pretty good.
My total time in bed is a solid 7 hours and a few minutes, so theoretically, I’m in the ballpark for getting enough total sleep. Because of the deficit in REM, however, I wanted to see how things may change.
So far, I’m picking up some more REM sleep, but it’s less than anticipated. I’m tracking via my OURA Ring and now I’ve just added the Fatigue Science Readiband for the last couple of nights as a comparison. I’ll let you know how things progress.
When Things Don’t Go as Planned
Adding sleep on the back end means that my wake time is now a bit later than typical. I’ve added 30 minutes to my wake time, so instead of waking between 4:30 and 5:00 AM, it’s now between 5:00 and 5:30 AM.
Not a big adjustment you say?
I respectfully disagree.
My whole morning just feels off. Kind of like wearing my shoes on the wrong feet.
Everything feels late.
My morning ritual is disturbed and I like my consistency. I’ve also come to love my wake time. Just getting up before 5 AM, feels like a victory (Jocko Willink has a great description of how he feels about getting up before everyone else). I don’t have that feeling right now. I feel like Marcus Aurelius is standing over me shaking his head in disappointment…
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?'” – Marcus Aurelius (as translated by Gregory Hays)
I realize it’s just going to take a little reorganization, a little more discipline, and a mindset adjustment, but it’s uncomfortable.
On the flip side, it may be the best thing for me. Maybe I’ve lost time due to a lack of concentration related to fatigue. Maybe I’ll take my focus up another notch.
I’m sticking to the plan for now.
Learning occurs at the point of struggle. I’m embracing the struggle.
Your comeback starts today.
[By the way, if you go to Chapter 13 in ALL GAIN, NO PAIN, you’ll learn how to determine the perfect amount of sleep for you.]
Get started on your pain-free comeback to the gym today
