Tips For Figuring Out How Much Sleep You Need

A lot of people spend time trying to find out how much sleep is "recommended," but while this seems like a question that would have a simple answer, they end up finding different answers every different place they look; if you have ever conducted this search on your own, you may have encountered this same obstacle - and the reason why so many different sources tell you so many different things when it comes to how much sleep you are supposed to get is because the answer to this question is different for each different individual.

When it comes to getting the right amount of sleep for you, the first thing you should realize is that each person sleeps in "sleep cycles" that typically last anywhere from an hour and twenty minutes to an hour and forty minutes; when you wake up in the middle of your sleep cycle after, say, nine hours of sleep, you will actually be more tired than if you woke up at the end of your sleep cycle on six hours of sleep! There are lots of different ways to find out what your personal sleep cycle is, but the best way of all is to simply go to sleep without setting an alarm; pay attention to what time you fall asleep, and pay attention to what time you wake up, and you should be able to determine exactly what your body's sleep cycle is!

After you have figured out what your sleep cycle is, you should toy around with different amounts of sleep, as you may find that your body actually functions better on less sleep than you might think you need; if, for instance, your sleep cycle is an hour and thirty minutes, try different amounts of sleep that are multiples of this (such as four and a half hours of sleep, or six hours of sleep, or nine hours of sleep), and see which one leaves you feeling the most wide awake!

And when you are attempting to figure out how much sleep your body requires, the best way to do this is to simply wake up at the same time every day; once you train your body to consistently wake up at the same time each day, it will also begin to get tired at the time you need to go to bed - which will leave you feeling wide awake when the new day begins!