What time should you get up in the morning: chronotypes and REM sleep techniques

The physiology of sleep is the same for everyone, but some people easily wake up early in the morning, while for others, early awakening becomes real torture. To create all the conditions for healthy sleep, it is important to understand what time you need to get up in the morning and why it is so difficult to train yourself to wake up at the “right” time.

There are generally accepted norms that say that you need to wake up between 6 and 8 am. But larks and owls will not agree with this. Each chronotype has its own limits on the optimal time to wake up. They are determined by the biological clock, which depends on many factors: lifestyle, genetics and type of employment.

What time should you wake up?

There is a widespread belief that the best time to get up in the morning is summer dawn, 5-6 am. Also, many will agree that you need to wake up only when the body wants it. An even better option would be an individual schedule taking into account sleep phases, chronotype, health status and lifestyle. Rest is needed to restore the body's strength; accordingly, this physiological need loses its significance if a person forces himself to wake up at a certain time.

Advice
You can use a useful sleep calculator; it calculates the correct time to wake up, taking into account the stages of sleep, duration and time of falling asleep. But the “smart” device does not take into account the genetic need for sleep, which affects the result.

For some people, 4 hours is enough to get enough sleep and feel good, while others need more than 10 hours. This also depends on age: newborns need at least 12 hours a day for normal development, children and adolescents sleep less, the body is full of strength and recovers quickly. In an adult, the sleep schedule is maximally adjusted, and about 8 hours are required; in older people, rest is reduced to 5-6 hours.

To choose the optimal time to wake up, you need to calculate the duration of each sleep phase. The time gained will correspond to healthy sleep, and this will be enough to feel good in the morning. Now all that remains is to train your body to fall asleep at a certain time in order to wake up at the desired morning hours.

Experts' opinion

It is good for health to sleep in the dark - these are the most favorable hours for resting the central nervous system and recuperating. The best time to get up is after a full, long sleep. The exact hours are not critical. From a physiological point of view, it is optimal to wake up 1-2 hours after sunrise. The forced deficit of night sleep must be compensated for by daytime sleep, otherwise there is a risk of developing chronic fatigue and somatic diseases.

The bedroom needs to be equipped with maximum comfort, getting rid of everything that could interfere with rest. Rest - if possible, on a normal bed, without using folding structures in the form of armchairs, couches or sofas.

Determination of chronotype

There are three human chronotypes: larks, owls and pigeons. This is determined by the nature of daily activity. Chronotype explains the alternation of activity at night and during the day.

Based on your chronotype, it is easy to determine what time you need to get up and when to go to bed correctly.

Larks. They wake up easily in the morning, increased physical and mental activity is observed in the first half of the day with a characteristic decline in the afternoon. They go to bed very early, which surprises owls.
Owls. They wake up late on their own, after 10 am. Activity occurs in the evening and at night. They go to bed late, when larks have already gone through several stages of slow-wave sleep.
Pigeons. This is an intermediate type, the "pigeon man" may periodically exhibit characteristics of an owl and a lark.

Advice
Larks tend to wake up at 5-7, owls at 10-12, pigeons at 7-9 in the morning.

Which is better - sooner or later?

The proverb “He who gets up early, God gives him” encourages us to get up early. It is believed that when you wake up early in the morning, you:

you live longer;
you can take care of yourself;
you will receive a powerful charge of energy;
there will be more positive emotions;
you will have time to do everything in a day;
you can handle difficult things.

It is important that the hours for sleep are fully used to restore energy and strength. But if you like to get up at dawn, then you need to go to bed early. The table will show you when to go to bed in the evening to wake up refreshed.

Sleep phases

The next important step in determining the best time to wake up is the phases and how they affect a person’s well-being at different times of awakening. The main division occurs into slow and fast sleep. Slow has four subphases with different durations.

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Stages of slow-wave sleep:

The first phase lasts 15 minutes and is known as napping.
The second phase lasts 25 minutes, the work of internal organs slows down.
The third and fourth phases last about 40 minutes and are the main part of healthy sleep.

In the fast phase, the body is completely relaxed, but brain activity begins. Dreams seen during this phase are well remembered. The heart rate increases and the eyeballs move actively. The fast phase takes up approximately 20% of the total rest time.

Sleep begins with the 1st phase of slow-wave sleep and reaches the 4th, which takes about 2 hours. This is a complete cycle that must be repeated at least 4 times. It follows from this that you need to get up in the morning 8 hours after entering the first phase. If a person is used to going to bed between 11-12 pm, you need to get up at 7-8 o'clock.

Relationship between well-being and the awakening phase

Waking up without an alarm clock is accompanied by vigor, the person feels completely rested. Such a dream can be considered complete. The amount of time a person sleeps, provided he feels well in the morning, is considered the individual norm. Awakening occurs in the initial slow phase, when the body is ready to be awake, but has not yet entered the fast phase. If you are forced to wake up in the slow-wave sleep phase, you will feel tired, and the body will take a long time to restore muscle activity.

Advice
Waking up during the REM stage of sleep, you may notice a headache and slight fogginess, but colorful dreams will be remembered better.

There is a theory that people who are constantly woken up by alarm clocks during the slow-wave sleep phase are prone to various neuropsychiatric disorders. Using knowledge about the duration of each phase, you can reduce the rest time and wake up at a certain moment - at the stage when the body is ready for this.

Disadvantages of technology

At first glance, everything is calculated quite simply. But in practice, this requires:

persuade someone to agree to long-term monitoring of your sleep;
be sure that all readings are recorded accurately;
choose a time for observation when the sleeper does not know about it (otherwise it will affect the results);
know for sure that the quality of sleep during observation was not affected by the physical or mental state of the subject.

In fact, one cannot rely one hundred percent on the reliability of such results either. Fortunately, scientists are seriously concerned about this problem and have found an effective solution. This is how one of the most fashionable and useful gadgets was born - the “smart alarm clock”.

How to get enough sleep in 15 minutes

There are several ways to get enough sleep in a short time. Similar techniques have been practiced for a long time; many famous artists and writers who had to work for a long time practiced short sleep of 20 minutes several times a day or 4 hours 2-3 times a day. This helped to quickly restore strength and begin a new stage of work with “fresh” thoughts. It is difficult to judge whether this affected health, because many other factors must be taken into account.

Important!
The proposed methods can negatively affect health; it is recommended to resort to them rarely, when there is really a need.

How to get enough sleep quickly and wake up at a given time?

Rest for 15 minutes. This is the invention of Leonardo Da Vinci, who is one of those creative people who managed to get enough sleep in a short time. He rested for 15 minutes every 4 hours. The essence of this method is simple, but not everyone can master it. For many, it is difficult to force yourself to fall asleep, and this only works when you are very tired. This method is harmful to health, because the minimum time for one phase is at least 1.5 hours. The Da Vinci method completely deprives some important phases for the body, which threatens a decrease in protective forces, the appearance of chronic diseases and mental disorders.
Rest for 20 minutes. Involves falling asleep in a certain position. You need to lie on your stomach, turn your head to the left, bend one leg and press it to your stomach, put your hand straight along the body. This method is complemented by a cup of coffee immediately before bed. Caffeine kicks in after 20 minutes and acts as a natural alarm clock. Those who practice such sleep believe in its positive effect on the cardiovascular system.
Soldier's method. The alarm clock is set for 30 minutes, after waking up it is reset for another half an hour, this is repeated 4 times. People who try this method note a boost of energy within 6-7 hours.

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To wake up at the right time, it is important to organize your sleep correctly. You should rest in a ventilated room; before going to bed, it is recommended to take a warm shower and have dinner 3-4 hours before bedtime. It is important that the sun's rays do not enter the room; blinds or curtains should provide good protection from street lighting. A person will quickly fall asleep and wake up at the right time if there are no extraneous sounds and the eyes are not irritated by bright light.

Advice
When, for certain reasons, you have to rest in a lighted room, the Mschistota.ru resource recommends using a sleep mask; it will create additional conditions for quickly falling asleep and quality rest.

Reviews and price

Most people who have used this device are very satisfied. The only downside of a smart alarm clock is that it can make you wake up even half an hour before the set time. But, since the brain is in an active phase, this is not critical - the person still feels great. So the unexpectedly appeared time can be usefully spent on yourself.

The cost of smartwatches can vary greatly depending on the manufacturer. For Chinese gadgets, it is relatively low - simple models can be bought for 20-30 dollars. But the quantity and accuracy of reading indicators are corresponding.

A high-quality smart alarm clock costs between 100-150 dollars, the price of exclusive models can go over 200. So the choice of this gadget is a matter of personal taste and financial capabilities.

Author: Anna Alexandrova

"Smart alarm clock"

There are “smart alarm clocks” that know what time you need to get up. They are able to determine the sleep phase by movements, heart rate and other indicators. "Smart alarm clock" has an error, but anyone can try it. This device is very sensitive, and its results can be affected by accidental awakening at night, extraneous sounds from the street, or a barking dog. It is possible that a smart alarm clock will not go off at the most appropriate time, but if a person sleeps peacefully and all the characteristic signs of each phase are present, the device can be a good helper.

But no smart alarm clock can calculate the best time to wake up in the morning as accurately as the human brain. The body itself will tell you what time to go to bed and when to wake up; you just need to create the conditions for healthy sleep. And with hard training and desire, any lark can turn into an owl - and vice versa.

What time is best to go to bed?

The best time to sleep is when the hormone melatonin begins to be produced in the body. The thyroid gland releases a substance into the blood from 22:00 in the evening, finishing it by 2:00 in the morning. With the maximum dose of the hormone, it will be easy for a person to fall asleep. Therefore, anyone who goes to bed no later than 11 pm will wake up refreshed. This will be felt by activity during the day, increased efficiency, and lack of fatigue.

But it’s better to prepare yourself for falling asleep. 2 hours before falling asleep, stop watching movies and TV shows. It is useful to engage in quiet activities, it's time to take a walk or do light exercises. Before going to bed, you can drink a glass of warm milk or water. But after eating you can’t go to bed right away. A full stomach will keep you from falling asleep.

But if you are hungry, you can eat salad or yogurt. You should avoid drinking alcohol, coffee, and strong tea. It is also better to give up cigarettes. Only calm music and a boring book will help you fall asleep quickly. The body itself will tell you that it is time to sleep. You can go to bed before 22:00 if you are very tired. This applies to people engaged in heavy physical labor.

About the consequences of lack of sleep

There is an explanation for this phenomenon, and, most importantly, there is an opportunity to correct the situation. All you need to do is simply calculate in which phase of sleep it is better to wake up. This article will tell you how realistic this is.

Sleep as a process still remains a mysterious, inexplicable phenomenon. But scientists unanimously confirm that it is important and necessary for health and normal functioning. Numerous experiments have repeatedly proven this.

Everyone can feel how harmful a lack of a good night's rest can be. Sometimes it is enough to spend just one sleepless night to realize how bad a sleep-deprived person feels.

Sleep gives the body the opportunity to rest and recover. Some people refuse this for various reasons: some need to work night shifts, others are too dependent on the Internet, smartphone or computer games. Periodic lack of sleep is fraught with a number of unpleasant consequences, for example:

dizziness and migraine;
depressed and irritable mood;
drowsiness, lethargy, low work efficiency;
inability to concentrate, decreased mental abilities.

These problems go away as soon as a person gets the opportunity to sleep well. It is important to remember that any lack of sleep negatively affects the body and its activities. Chronic lack of sleep threatens great difficulties. Here are just a few pathologies, the cause or symptom of which is the lack of a normal sleep pattern:

papilledema, glaucoma;
hypertension;
vegetative-vascular dystonia;
diabetes;
obesity;
premature aging.

Attention! Leading a nocturnal lifestyle with a lack of healthy, full-fledged sleep negatively affects the functioning of organs and reduces the production of essential hormones - serotonin and melatonin. A constant lack of rest disrupts the psyche, causes depressive and nervous disorders, and hallucinations. In men, lack of sleep can cause decreased libido and impotence; in women, excess weight and wrinkles appear.

Classification of stages

So, the first thing I came across was the simplest classification, known to us since school. According to it, the stages of sleep are divided into:

fast ;
and slow.

Moreover, each stage has its own “substages”. Yes, fast

sleep is divided into:

emotional;
unemotional.

And slow

on the:

nap;
sleep spindles;
delta sleep;
deep delta sleep.

I don’t see the point in going deeper into each of these points - there is little interesting there (mainly the difference in brain wave activity and all that). Better take a look at this table of differences between the stages that I compiled for you:

Well, now let's determine what happens to us when we fall asleep and how all these stages alternate with each other. Now this is a little more interesting, isn’t it?

Assistant devices

As you can see, not only the slow phase, but also the fast phase is important for normal well-being. Do you want to avoid making mistakes when calculating the optimal amount of sleep? Then use special trackers - programs or fitness bracelets.

They will not only calculate the optimal physical activity, but will also help you decide on the time to wake up. Moreover, some models are able to take into account external and internal factors and, based on them, provide valuable recommendations on how to improve your sleep quality.

Hello, dear blog readers! I don’t know about you, but I have always been interested in the topic of sleep. I’ve heard a lot of all sorts of theories and guesses about it: about slow-wave sleep, and about fast sleep, and about all its various phases. But I’ve never “tested” this myself. I heard, and that's all. But I didn’t have enough brains to dig deeper, I just couldn’t get around to it