Thank you for being here. Today Today I’m going to convince you to change the way you spend over a third of your life. I am, of course, referring to the me you spend asleep. Sleeping is an automated process, it’s true, but the decisions we make about when, where, and how we we sleep have the potenal to dramacally change the me that we spend awake. The strategy strategy I want you to t ry is based on the knowledge of 9 minute sleep cycles. So, !rst I’d I’d like to brie"y e#plain the science behind 9 minute sleep cycles. $%er that I’ll tell you how you can change your sleep schedule to re"ect this knowledge, and !nally I’ll give you some informaon I believe will compel you to implement this important change in your life. So, the science. What IS a sleep cycle?
Simply put, a sleep c ycle is the amount of me it takes for our body to move through the !ve stages of sleep. $ccording to the &enter for $pplied &ognive Studies’ website' these cycles add up to () minutes of normal, non*+- sleep, minutes of +- or /deep0 sleep, followed by a !nal !ve minutes of non* +- sleep. If we were to sleep without an alarm set, we would !nd that we /naturally0 wake up at the end of a cycle. 1e may have slept for 2 hours, 3.) hours, or 9 hours 4 but the moment when the body /eases0 out of deep sleep is always a%er 9 minutes. Those mornings when you wake up feeling groggy and disoriented are very o%en the result of interrupng a sleep cycle, parcularly during those crical moments of +- sleep. &onversely, &onversely, waking up 5ust 2 minutes earlier at the end of a cycle could have le% you feeling refreshed and ready for your day. In other words, the 6 hour sleep /goal0 is arbitrary and outdated. The science shows that sleeping 7.) or 9 hours instead is much healthier and leaves us feeling more producve during our day. So that’s what science has to say on the subject, but how can you actually use that informaon?
8ne advocate of this sleeping /style0 named len +hodes shared his method in his arcle' / The power of the sleep cycle0. cycle0. The !rst thing he recommends is measuring the e#actly length of your sleep cycle. $s he put it /9 minutes is a good average, but for some people it is di:erent. -ine has actually changed in the last few years from 9 to about 7)0. 7)0. The easiest way to measure your sleep cycle is to sleep without an alarm, making a note of how long it takes you to wake up on your own. The key to making a sleep*cycle centric schedule work, len says, is dividing it into two daily segments. This doesn’t mean you’ll sleep for two long*periods of me every 3 hours, but instead that, at some point in the a%ernoon, you should try to !t in a nap that lasts the length of one cycle. ;or e#ample, he sleeps for 3.) hours each night, and another 9 minutes in the a%ernoon. ven if you don’t want to pursue a /twice0 a day schedule, you should sll try to schedule your nightly sleep session with the knowledge that increments of 9 minutes will leave you feeling the most refreshed. If you’re sll not convinced, consider this:
;irstly, ;irstly, ut there is much to gain. Sleeping in two phases, or /polyphasic sleeping0 is not a new concept. In fact, according to the ?aonal Sleep ;oundaon’s website, some of the most producve people in history were advocates of this method. 1inston &hurchhill, Thomas @e:erson, @e:erson, and ?apolean were all polyphasic sleepers. It is likely also true that
polyphasic sleeping is more /natural0, as 6)A of mammalian species are polyphasic. 1e all know it takes some e:ort to adapt to a new sleeping paBern, but the potenal bene!ts are worth the e:ort. >y increasing the Cuality of your sleep, you decrease the necessary Cuanty of it. ven if you’re only adding 2 minutes to your waking life, that me adds up Cuickly. So even if sleep is an autonomous process, choosin the circumstances in which we sleep is crucially important.
?ow that you know the science behind sleep cycles, how to use that knowledge, and the potenal bene!ts of doing so 4 I trust that you’ll make the right choice and use this informaon to change the way you sleep. Dou owe it to yourself to try it, for the sake of your health and to try and take back some of the countless hours you may have lost by sleeping ineEciently. Sleep smarter, not longer. Thank you.
