Sounder Sleep System

How many hours of sleep do you need to feel alert, awake, and fully rested during the day? Some people say seven, some say eight, some say nine. You probably know how many hours you need, but how much time should you set aside for bedtime? What time should you go to bed? My thinking is that, if at all possible, you should try to allow an extra 45 minutes to cover the time it takes to fall asleep, any awakenings that may occur during the night, and a gentle, unhurried awakening. For example, if you need eight hours, allow yourself eight hours, plus 45 minutes. It's a more graceful, pleasurable way to sleep.

Sleeping on a tight schedule puts a lot of pressure on you to fall asleep and stay asleep. That feeling of being hurried, of trying to get the maximum amount of sleep in the minimum amount of time, increases arousal and makes your sleep shallower and more fragmented. If, on any given night, you can allow more time for sleep you'll be more relaxed, and as a result you'll sleep better! 

How did you sleep last night? What is your experience of sleep? Please let us know!

We tend to view sleep as a medical or scientific phenomenon to be observed, tested, quantified, and of course, medicated. I think we need to focus more on the internal experience of sleep: what kinds of feelings and experiences come up during the course of the night, and how can we respond to them most effectively to enhance the depth and restfulness of our sleep?

Few of us enjoy awakening during the night. We want our sleep to be deep and continuous. As a result, when we do awaken during the night, we feel frustrated, angry, or afraid. And frustration, anger, and fear are highly stimulating emotions. They are so stimulating that they wake you up even more, and make it hard to get back to sleep!

But the fact is, nighttime awakenings are perfectly normal and natural parts of the sleep process. All of us wake up several times during the night, though we may not be aware of it. Next time you awaken during the night, instead of getting frustrated, angry, or afraid, say to yourself, "This brief awakening is perfectly normal. I will remain calm, reschedule any troubling thoughts or feelings until morning, and allow my mind and body to drift back into that sleepy, dreamy state that leads me to sleep." 

What is your experience of sleep? How did you sleep last night? Let us know!

Sleep Musings #2: How long does it take to get the sleep you need?

How many hours of sleep do you need to feel alert, awake, and fully rested during the day? Some people say seven, some say eight, some say nine. You probably know how many hours you need, but how much time should you set aside for bedtime? What time should you go to bed? My thinking is that, if at all possible, you should try to allow an extra 45 minutes to cover the time it takes to fall asleep, any awakenings that may occur during the night, and a gentle, unhurried awakening. If you need eight hours, allow yourself eight hours, plus 45 minutes. It a more graceful, pleasurable way to sleep.

Sleeping on a tight schedule puts a lot of pressure on you to fall asleep and stay asleep. That feeling of being pressured/pressurized increases arousal and detracts from the quality of your sleep. On any given night, if you can allow more time for sleep you'll be more relaxed, and you'll sleep better! 

How did you sleep last night? What is your experience of sleep?

CuerpoMente, Barcelona, Agosto 2014. Entrevista por Gerard Irlandés. [Se puede cliquear sobre la imágen para agrandarlo...]

Taller de Michael Krugman, Barcelona, 21-23 Noviembre. [Información y formulario de inscripción]

If you have difficulty falling asleep at bedtime or staying asleep through the night, you don't have to reach for the sleeping pills. There are numerous simple solutions available to you, many of which rely on resources that are right at your fingertips. And one of your greatest resources for deeper, more restful sleep is...your mind!

Thoughts and feelings, memories and expectations: How you use your mind while you're lying in bed, waiting for sleep to come, can have a tremendous impact on the depth and restfulness of your sleep.  all these things can make or break your good night's sleep. For practical solutions, keep reading...

Here's an example: What do you think about at bedtime, while you're lying in bed, waiting for sleep to come? Do you lie there in bed, reviewing the previous day's events or anticipating what might happen on the day to come? Do you mull over all the challenges in your life, searching your mind for solutions? Do you entertain thoughts of worry, anger, frustration or fear? If so, you're doing yourself a great disservice. That way of using your mind can actively prevent you from falling asleep. Troubling thoughts cause you to secrete stress hormones like cortisol and ACTH, which are far more stimulating than any cup of coffee!

Of course we all know that we can't choose what to think about. A mind, especially a worried mind, has away of addressing itself to our most troubling thoughts, especially once we've flicked off the light. (A dear friend says: "Treat your mind like a bad neighborhood. Never go there at night!") How can we temporarily suppress those disturbing thoughts that keep us awake? What is to be done?

In my work as a sleep coach and educator, I've encountered this problem many times over the years. One of my favorite solutions is "the verb technique." Get yourself one of those books designed to help you learn the verb forms of a foreign language. I like "Barron's 501 Verbs"; of course you can get it in any language that appeals to you. (You can find verb lists online, too. Just be sure to print them out so you don't have to read from a computer or other device. Exposure to the light from the screen can keep you awake!)  On each page, there's one verb with all of its forms: past, present, future, subjunctive, etc. Just before you get into bed, commit one verb to memory, as much as you can do happily. Then, as you're waiting for sleep to come, say the verb in your mind over and over again. (It's best not to move your lips and tongue, since that tends to have a stimulating effect.)

 The "regular" verbs are the easiest, so start with one of those unless you're already well along in your study of the language. If you're a rank beginner, you can just start with a few forms of the verb: for example, present, past, future. Later, you can tackle all the tenses of each verb, and you can attempt more "irregular" verbs that require more acute memory. Don't push yourself too hard, but don't go too easy, either. You want to give your brain's memory circuits a modest workout. As a result, the thinking parts of the brain will go offline, so you won't keep yourself awake with all those troubling thoughts. 

If, after falling asleep in this way, you should wake up again, don't be discouraged. Just repeat the same technique, with the same verb, all over again. You might do that several times over the course of a night; there's no harm in that. You'll find that with regular practice, you can return to sleep very easily and peacefully, no matter how many brief awakenings you may have. You can achieve very restful sleep despite some brief awakenings like that! Just keep working those verbs!

The beauty of this technique is two-fold. First, I've found that it works like a charm for many people, enabling them to banish overstimulating thoughts and fall asleep with ease. Second, it's a very effective way to improve your language skills.

Who knows? You might take your next vacation in a country that speaks "your" bedtime language! Okay, that's benefit number three.

The Sounder Sleep System is a complete system of gentle mind-body techniques that you can use to reprogram your brain for deep, more restful sleep. More....

REST ASSURED is our downloadable audio self-help kit for anyone who seeks deeper, more restful sleep. More...

Lack of sleep can make you sick. For those who suffer from chronic insomnia -- some 15 percent of older adults in the United States -- sleep loss can increase the risk for cardiovascular disease, hypertension, weight gain, type 2 diabetes, and even lead to an earlier death.

"It is inevitable. The muscles weaken. Hearing and vision fade. We get wrinkled and stooped. We can’t run, or even walk, as fast as we used to. We have aches and pains in parts of our bodies we never even noticed before. We get old.

"It sounds miserable, but apparently it is not. A large Gallup poll has found that by almost any measure, people get happier as they get older, and researchers are not sure why...."

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Later this week, the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science will publish a paper that describes how stimulating the primary motor cortex can help people learn to perform a challenging task involving fine muscle control.

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The new paper involves an approach...called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In this case, electrodes attached to the person's head run a current directly through the brain; the location of the electrodes can target the current to specific areas of the brain. At the cellular level, these currents are extremely weak, but they're thought to reduce the voltage barrier needed for a nerve to fire, essentially enhancing normal activity. Depending on the area of the brain targeted and whether that's closer to the anode or cathode, tDCS has been observed inducing a variety of effects.

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Strokes and many other types of brain damage often force their victims to relearn basic motor skills, from speech to walking. Given that tDCS is noninvasive and may help speed to recovery of these patients, I'd expect to see tests of its efficacy in the near future.

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Spanish bullfighter Cayetano Rivera (top) and his assistant watch as a bull does a somersault after getting its horns stuck in the sand during a bullfight at the Malagueta bullring in Malaga, southern Spain August 22, 2008. REUTERS/Jon Nazca