Effective techniques to get enough sleep in three hours. Ways to get more done and sleep less

We are all different: according to the chronotype, people are divided into larks, owls and pigeons. The work schedule, as a rule, does not take into account individual biorhythms: traditionally, offices open at 8–9 in the morning. Ordeal for owls, as well as for those who, for some reason, could not fall asleep on time.

The advice is simple: first study your body.

Go to bed as soon as you want. Turn off the alarm and sleep as much as you want.

In order to determine your natural biorhythms and habits, you need a few days off from work. It can be long holidays or at least weekends. In such a "free swimming" a person usually sleeps from 7 to 9 hours - this is the very time during which the body is fully restored.

Determine what sleep rituals you have. Do you watch TV before going to bed? Do you wake up at night to drink water or eat something? You can't change your habits if you don't learn them.

2. Pick your bedtime

Don't try to go to bed as early as possible. This is an indefinite goal that is almost impossible to achieve. Instead, carefully plan your "lights out" time based on what time you need to get up.

Suppose the experiment described in the previous paragraph showed that you need to sleep for 8 hours. And you need to get up at 7:00. Then go to bed at 23:00 or a little earlier.

To get into the routine, try to stick to it on the weekends as well. But sometimes, nevertheless, allow yourself, as an exception, to sleep until dinner or go to bed later.

3. Avoid working in the bedroom

Once you've decided on the amount of time you need to get enough sleep, create your own set of rules to help you relax. It can be dimmed lights, not watching TV an hour before bedtime, and so on.

Keep in mind: work and leisure should not happen in the same place! This is important for the formation right habits associated with sleep. Do not check in bed, do not finish the article or report. Otherwise, you will not be able to fully relax.

The main principle is this: the bed is for sleep and sex.

4. Don't drink alcohol or eat before bed

Everything is simple here: a late dinner is fraught with heartburn, which will definitely not let you sleep peacefully.

As for alcohol, scientists have found that those who use “for relaxation” before going to bed, a glass or a glass of wine, suffer from sleep disturbances in the second half of the night.

The more time between dinner and drinking and sleep, the better.

5. Turn off gadgets 30 minutes before bed

This is advice that we all ignore (I want to read e-book, check social networks and so on). But in vain.

The light that comes from the smartphone imitates the sun.

It signals the brain to stop producing melatonin. This is important hormone, which regulates the circadian rhythm (change of sleep and wake cycles) and signals when it's time to fall asleep and when to wake up.

Disruptions in the circadian rhythm lead not only to bad sleep: they are also fraught with problems with vision, the development of depression and cancer. So better put your gadgets away.

6. Relax for 30-60 minutes

• Read a book or magazine (not electronic, but paper, and not related to work).
• Write down your thoughts. Experts say that journaling before bed can help manage stress and anxiety.
• Follow the rituals that will send a signal that you are getting ready for bed: brush your teeth, wash your face.
• Try . Studies have shown that it promotes psychological well-being.

7. Don't get enough sleep

Experts say that if you wake up ahead of time and decided to take a nap a little more, it will be much more difficult to get up on time. You will most likely fall into a deep sleep.

So it's better to take advantage of the chance that the body has given you and use the early morning for some useful things.

8. Do morning exercises

Physical exercise along with sunlight turn off the production of melatonin and give vigor. A new cycle will begin to prepare your body for sleep.

By the way, exercising in the afternoon will also help you fall asleep in time in the evening, just don't load yourself too late.

CrossFit after 21:00 is definitely contraindicated - replace it with yoga.

In any case, the loads for good night must be selected individually.

9. Don't worry about falling asleep

Of course, easier said than done. There are those who look forward to the night with fear, look at the clock, worry that they will not be able to sleep again tonight. And after sleep doesn't really come, experience negative emotions: fear, anxiety, anger. This can lead to chronic.

10. Practice relaxation

Every time you worry about not falling asleep, your body releases stress hormones. As a result, falling asleep really turns into a problem.

Progressive relaxation, invented by the American neurologist Edmund Jacobson, will help you get out of this circle. These are exercises with alternating relaxation and tension of individual muscle groups.

Checked: this is one of effective ways combat chronic insomnia.

11. Think positive

In many cases, people who think they suffer from insomnia tend to exaggerate the problem. They believe that they slept less than they actually did. If you try to switch to the positive, the scale of the disaster will decrease significantly.

In order to do this, you need to work on yourself: learn to meditate and relax, create favorable conditions for sleep: for example, sleep in a cool, quiet and dark room.

12. If you can't sleep, get up.

Don't lie in bed for hours hoping to fall asleep. If you can't do it within 20 minutes, get out of bed and do something. But don't turn on your computer, phone, or TV, which can exacerbate the problem.

Experts believe that this rule helps break vicious circle when the bed is associated with negative emotions.

13. Don't force yourself to sleep

You don't have to try to fall asleep. Just create everything the necessary conditions(turn off the lights, turn on soft music, open the window, etc.) and relax.

Don't think about whether you can fall asleep or not.

The absence of worry and anxious thoughts works magically.

« Sometimes you just need to sleep between lunch and dinner. You undress and get into bed. That's exactly what I always do. Don't think you'll get less done if you sleep during the day. This is the opinion of idiots without imagination. You will do even more. You will have two days in one. Well, by at least, one and a half. When the war started, I had to sleep during the day because it was the only way handle my responsibilities» Sir Winston Churchill

Sleep for beginners

Sleep, as we might know from encyclopedias if we read them, is a state of rest inherent in humans and animals, which is characterized by a reduced response to the world and minimum level brain activity(that is, even more reduced and even more minimal than usual).

Without sleep, a person becomes useless faster than without food. A chronically sleep-deprived person runs the risk of acquiring cardiovascular disease, diabetes and weakened brain function in a matter of weeks. The Englishman Tony Wright, who set the world record for continuous wakefulness (11 days and 11 nights), looked after this event, to put it mildly, unimportant and then was treated for a long time. But even three or four days without sleep can be enough to get serious problems with health.

Why does everyone on this planet sleep - both animals and even plants? (Yes, yes, plants also have a period of night rest.) A 100% correct answer to this question does not yet exist, but there are a lot of hypotheses, one crazier than the other.

The evolutionists seem to have come closest to the truth by viewing living organisms as a machine for the survival of genes. In their concept, sleep is a temporary partial shutdown of the self-management function of this machine for, roughly speaking, preventive work.

In a dream, wounds heal faster, in a dream we recover, in a dream we process and rethink in some completely inhuman way the information learned during the day, in a dream we accumulate energy. It may seem to us that in a dream we lose control over ourselves, but in fact it is at this time that our body is in charge of its real owner. Or, more precisely, the hosts are our genes, which once built us according to their taste and understanding, obeying the strict requirements of evolution.

It hurts to think about it, but what can you do.

Sleepy little animals

Most animals sleep several times a day. And even those of them who are forced to function only in light or only in dark time days, still periodically take a nap even during their activity. Ravens, let's say, are strictly sleeping from dusk to dawn, and during the day they like to snore for half an hour, putting their head under their wings. And hedgehogs awake at night always go to the side between their nightly hunts.

Any well-fed, played enough, calm animal will willingly sleep, albeit not for long, and in the active phase.

An exception here are highly organized collective animals such as bees or people, whose biorhythms are forced to take into account the needs not only own body but also the needs of the team. Maybe, given body suffers from it, but society as a whole benefits.

Man, before the invention of electricity, was useless at night, because his eyes are extremely mediocre in terms of the ability to see in the dark. Therefore, during the day he could not waste time on too frequent siesta, because, like any collective animal, he always had a lot to do. This raccoon can eat dumpster pizza and go to sleep with a sense of accomplishment. And man had to plow, dig, chop, fight and build pyramids. In a word, the transition to unceasing daytime wakefulness at a certain stage of development was practically inevitable for us. The folklores of all the peoples of the world (advanced enough to invent a plow) are teeming with proverbs and sayings about how cool it is to get up before dawn and go to bed after dark, saturating your life with various labors.

And, of course, winding up the day before the state of non-standing, humanity has learned to sleep soundly and soundly at night.

The postman always sleeps twice

Nevertheless, there were daredevils who challenged the foundations of the universe. Reading the biographies of great people, we now and then stumble upon the names of those who turned their regime into something unimaginable from the generally accepted point of view. Napoleon, Peter the Great, Goethe and other glorious men managed to restore their strength in four hours. The creator of the incandescent lamp, Thomas Edison, fit in only two or three hours. Leonardo da Vinci went further than others: he did not sleep at all at night, replacing this tedious process with short naps lasting 15–20 minutes. Surely the maestro called his sleep system some beautiful Italian word, but scientists are boring people. Because of them, this type of recreation entered into scientific literature called polyphasic sleep.

Strictly speaking, polyphasic sleep is not an invention of some limited group of people. Researchers dug deep into the European literature XVIII century, historical documents, personal records and other waste paper and found a bunch of references to the fact that people then slept not for many hours in a row, but with breaks. For example, it was considered normal to go to bed early, then wake up in the middle of the night, read, pray, make heirs with your wife, and lie down again until morning. There is also a hypothesis that the nightly "wake break" among Europeans is associated with the extremely unsuccessful design of their fireplaces. Most of the heat went outside, and people had to get up in the middle of the night to add firewood. Be that as it may, the development of technology has gradually brought human sleep to its present form.

Electricity made it possible to stay up late or get up after dark. Heating appliances eliminated the need to jump out of bed and keep the fire going. Broadband Internet access and did put healthy sleep to the brink of extinction. Around the same time, self-development fans, life hackers and other urban lunatics became preoccupied with the problem of personal effectiveness.

Years of practice and experimentation (and then, as a result, treatment) made it possible to identify several of the most “working” techniques of polyphasic sleep:

Is this way of life really more natural for our species, as various studies show?

We decided not to guess and just try out the idea of ​​polyphasic sleep on our author. Let's give him a word.

Sleep Tester's Notes

The easy way to stop sleeping

Waking up at five in the morning was surprisingly easy. I took a survival kit in the morning (laptop, phone, notepad, unwashed cups) and sneaked into the kitchen. In principle, it was possible not to try to be quieter: to wake healthy person at such a time, maybe only the shot of the Aurora or the voice of Grigory Leps. Breakfast was the first problem. It was not clear when to eat - immediately after waking up, or as usual (half a minute before leaving the house, muttering "I'm late, I'm late"). Just in case, I had breakfast twice.

It's laptop time. By tradition, having sent a couple of work letters, it was useful to check social networks. There was an eerie silence. The authorities were not scolded. Breakfasts are not Instagrammed. The cats didn't like it. The only thing missing to complete the picture was a digital tumbleweed that swept across the screen. Finally figured out the mail and checked again. Nothing changed.

Decided to clean up my computer. I cleaned the Downloads folder (if Hercules performed his feats in our time, instead of the Augean stables, he would have been offered exactly this). Deleted games that were outdated without waiting for the first launch. Renamed "New folder", "New folder (2)" and so on according to their contents. The clock was 5:30. morning time dragged on maddeningly slowly.

But my cat was completely delighted. Usually, to get my attention at this time of day, he had to meow, scratch at the door and walk on my face. And here the owner was sitting, ready to feed, water, stroke and generally worship the sacred animal in every possible way.

Waking up so early, you feel like the hero of a movie about interstellar flights, who came out of suspended animation before the rest of the crew spaceship. In order to somehow bring the awakening of everyone else (and, obviously, the appearance of the Alien), I decided to do exercises. The body, which had not known the charms of the warm-up since the beginning of the 2000s, creaked in surprise. When the exercises that I remembered from school physical education lessons stopped causing pain, I felt like I switched to new level cheerfulness. Usually you feel like this at a corporate party, when you have already been rude to your boss and have fun, not hoping to return to the office.

When all the joints were kneaded, the dishes were washed and the flowers were watered, the accursed morning finally came. Gathered without haste, left the house and arrived at work on time.

In the office, I realized how different a waking person is from an ordinary one. While my colleagues were drinking tea to pass the time before a smoke break (and there lunch is not far away), I completed all the tasks planned for the day by noon. The rest of the day passed pleasantly. Social media woke up, the streams of delirium rustled, and I bathed in them, not tormented by remorse, unlike my colleagues. I rode home standing up, giving way to old people, women and bad-looking men.

The time for the second sleep session was approaching. I thought that I would not be able to fall asleep a second time. I made this conclusion based on memories from my childhood. Quiet time at kindergarten or the pioneer camp seemed something idiotic, unsuitable for recreation. Only the Spaniards and other inhabitants of the southern countries can sleep at night. Thinking about it, he undressed - and fell asleep, flying up to the bed.

The interval between the second sleep and midnight was also full of accomplishments. There was even enough time to assemble the drawers for the closet. For the past few months, they've been lying in a corner, slowly driving me insane. I even had the idea to take them to the Museum of Impossible Physical Objects, they were so difficult to assemble.

The next three days were mega-productive. I was like the ideal hero of business literature: active, friendly, cheerful. He completed projects on time, greeted accountants and people. As happens in such cases, colleagues slowly began to hate me. I was happy. In my free time, I scoured the site for successful people like me and found more and more arguments in favor of two sleeps a day.

The End of a Vigorous Era

I would have rolled into the abyss of success, if not for the end of the year. At this time, all employees who are not busy cutting snowflakes are forced to write reports. One evening I had to stay in the office. The time allotted for the second phase of sleep flew by unnoticed by compiling fascinating tables and diagrams. Arriving home, I decided not to go to bed: I considered the loss of an hour and a half of sleep insignificant. Fatal mistake. The next morning, the phone sang its invigorating songs in vain. I didn't manage to wake up at five, six, or seven. Something inside me broke. I came out of a coma at a time when the office people were already downloading their honest labor solitaire games on their computers.

Very late, I arrived at the office, sat down in my seat. It didn't work.

All day I looked at the world around me as if from the bottom of a deep well. Sailed through a world of dull colors and muffled sounds. After work, I went to the dentist and fell asleep in the chair. It can happen to anyone: a warm room, a saliva ejector, the lulling sounds of a drill. The doctor included the cost of an anesthetic injection on the check, although I suspect that there was none.

Returned home broken. There was no mention of any Friday night. Friends who had already begun to lose in my person a nice friendly loser, in the end did not get anyone.

I remember, as a child, I laughed at my dad, who came home, sat in front of the TV and fell asleep to some worker-peasant show. On that day, the genes took their toll. Switching to the state Belarusian channel (thank you, useless cable TV!), I switched off. Woke up late Saturday morning. Belarusian brothers showed the same program as the previous evening.

In general, biphasic sleep seems to be a really good way to slow down the frantic pace of life a little, clear out forever unfinished tasks and be efficient at any time of the day. However, as in any other business, here you need to follow the measure and follow the rules.

Think ahead about what you will be doing early morning before the second sleep

Even if it's still dark outside, you can start breakfast

If you allow yourself to drink from time to time, sleep longer these days

Bad news: caffeine is absorbed by the body for a long time

Good news: you can have sex without restrictions!

What the somnologist said

Head of the Department of Sleep Medicine First Moscow State Medical University named after I. M. Sechenov, Mikhail Gurevich Poluektov believes that polyphasic sleep is a generally sound idea.

Polyphasic sleep is a completely natural thing. Just look at babies, cats or freelancers. They sleep several times a day and feel great. In addition, multiple sleep can be very useful for people whose work is associated with the "wrong" mode: the military, pilots, rescuers. The correct distribution of periods of sleep and wakefulness helps them to stay alert at the right moments, think soberly and protect ordinary citizens. Or, at the very least, rescue.

For people whose activities are not related to everyday exploits, polyphasic sleep is also not prohibited. You just need to remember that the transition to a new regime is associated with serious stress on the body. To avoid unpleasant consequences it is possible thanks to iron discipline (going to bed and getting up every day at the same time), proper nutrition and sports. Or you need to be absolutely obsessed with your work, like the same Leonardo da Vinci, Edison and Peter I. As for your experiment, the mistake was not getting enough rest at night. Still, 5 hours of sleep is not enough for a beginner. At first, you need at least 6-7 hours.

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Any of us would gladly agree to increase the day by a couple of hours in order to have time to do not only all the things, but also to get enough sleep.

website knows about 6 secret techniques sleep that will free up to 22 hours a day. If you decide to change your sleep pattern, then be sure to check with your doctor especially if your activity requires extra care. At the end of the article a bonus is waiting for you to help you wake up right time and stay upbeat.

Sleep of our ancestors - 6 hours

(until the 20th century)

Sleep Formula: once for 4 hours + once for 2 hours = 6 hours

Our ancestors slept in two different phases, with a period of wakefulness separating the two phases. The time of wakefulness between two segments of sleep was considered special and even sacred - people were engaged in spiritual practices, reflections, used the time for reading. If you want to try polyphasic sleep but don't know where to start, this is the method we recommend. This is the most comfortable option for most people, which can be supplemented with 30 minutes of sleep to adapt.

"Dymaxion" - 2 hours

(Richard Buckminster Fuller)

Sleep Formula: 4 x 30 minutes every 6 hours = 2 hours

Bucky Fuller came up with the most efficient technique sleep, the essence of which is to sleep for 30 minutes 4 times a day every six hours. Bucky claimed he had never felt more energetic. Doctors examined the famous architect and inventor after two years of such sleep and declared him completely healthy. This is the most extreme sleep cycle.

"Superman" - 2 hours

(Salvador Dali)

Sleep Formula: 6 x 20 minutes every 4 hours = 2 hours

"Superman" It is considered an effective and comfortable sleep technique for many. People feel energized and feel healthy, however, there is a significant drawback: you can’t break the regimen and miss at least one dream, otherwise you will feel sleepy and tired. Such a dream is one of the creative secrets of Leonardo da Vinci and Salvador Dali. Dali practiced such a dream by placing a metal tray near the bed, and holding a spoon in his hands. When the spoon fell, the artist woke up with a crash: this is how he found new ideas that gave him an intermediate state between sleep and wakefulness.

"Siesta" - 6.5 hours

(Winston Churchill)

Sleep Formula: 1 time at night for 5 hours + 1 time during the day for 1.5 hours = 6.5 hours

One of the greatest Britons in history, Winston Churchill, adhered to just such a daily routine: he went to bed at 3 am and woke up at 8 am, and slept for about an hour after dinner. “You must sleep between lunch and dinner, and no half measures, never! Take off your clothes and get into bed. This is what I always do. Don't think that you will do less work because you are sleeping during the day. On the contrary, you will be able to do more, because you get two days in one - well, at least one and a half.

Tesla - 2 hours 20 minutes

(Nikola Tesla)

Sleep Formula: 1 time at night for 2 hours + 1 time during the day for 20 minutes = 2 hours 20 minutes

Renowned physicist and inventor who made a significant contribution to the study alternating current, slept only 2-3 hours a day. He could work all night long, but most often he used just such a sleep technique, which got its name in honor of the brilliant scientist.

Philistine cycle - 2.5 hours

Sleep Formula: 1 time at night for 1.5 hours + 3 times during the day for 20 minutes = 2.5 hours

Scientists study the sleep patterns of infants, the elderly and many animals. Elephants, for example, use a fairly well-known sleep pattern known as "Everyman". ordinary person), and sleep an average of two hours a night - at night for an hour, and then about four times for 15 minutes. Short sleep should occur at regular intervals. Such a schedule considered the most flexible, to him easier to adapt. In addition, in such a scheme, one can skip nap without harm to health.

Bonus: What time do you need to go to bed to wake up refreshed at the right time

If you are not ready for experiments with sleep, but you really want to wake up easily, then you can calculate the period of time when the body will be in the REM sleep phase. It is at this time that it is easiest to wake up.

You have been taught since childhood that the body needs 8 hours to sleep. And for some, this is not enough. As a result, you risk oversleeping most life. We offer alternative according to the Leonardo da Vinci method. He slept only 2 hours a day while maintaining full functionality. How did he manage to do it?

polyphasic sleep

It's all about the so-called polyphasic sleep. Its essence lies in the fact that normal sleep is broken into small parts and a person instead of one long sleep sleeps in short intervals. Professional physicians distinguish 5 different modes of such sleep, which vary depending on individual features body, resulting in a reduction in total sleep time up to 2 – 5 hours, depending on the person's choice:

Dymaxion: Sleep every 6 hours for 30 minutes.Total time sleep - 2 hours a day.

Uberman: Sleep every 4 hours for 20 minutes. Total sleep time2 hours a day.

Everyman: Sleep at night lasting 1.5 hours and 20 minutes 3 times a day.The total sleep time is 2 hours 10 minutes.

Tesla: Sleep at night lasting 2 hours and once 20 minutes in the middle of the day.The total sleep time is 2 hours 20 minutes.

Siesta: Sleep at night 4 hours and 1 hour in the middle of the day.The total sleep time is 5 hours.

God 'mode

Which of the above sleep modes is right for you can only be known by trying them. all in turn. We recommend trying to enter the mode of each of them for at least a month so that the body is fully accustomed to new sensations. After that, you will start fall asleep in seconds and wake up without an alarm.

This state of the body is called "God 'mode". In practice, your performance will increase exponentially. And the work that mere mortals takes a month, will be done by you in a day. This is the secret of so many successful people. And not only da Vinci used this. With the help of polyphasic sleep, such great dictators like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Margaret Thatcher and many others.

We want to warn you: this method is not recommended to be used regularly, but in special cases, when it is really necessary. AT Everyday life try to still find time and properly organize your regimen in accordance with general medical recommendations.

If the situation is such that no more than 4 hours are allotted for sleep, use this time effectively.

1. Open the bedroom window for ventilation. If it's summer, turn on the air conditioner. The room where you will sleep should be fresh and cool.

While the bedroom is ventilating, wash your feet warm water or take a foot bath. The heat will locally expand the vessels, which will cause the outflow of blood from the head to the legs. So it will be easier for you to relax your head, let go of working thoughts, calm down.

2. Get into bed. Despite its simplicity, this item is very important: in conditions of lack of time to sleep, you should not try to sleep on shifted chairs or a leather sofa. If possible, spread the bed, settle in, take cover (you remember - the room should be cool) and proceed to the next step.

Relax as much as possible - body and head. Mentally "scan" your entire body. If in any place you find tightness and tension, put your left hand there (for left-handers - the right one). It is believed that right-handers right hand is a source of energy, and the left is its receiver, for left-handers, respectively, on the contrary. Keep your hand on the "problem" place until you feel warm. Then remove your hand and look for the next point of tightness.

After relaxing the body, turn your mind's eye to the legs to transfer the flow of energy from the head to the limbs.

Now slightly stretch the spine: stretch your head to the head of the bed, and legs - in the opposite direction. Feel how your height seems to have increased.

Make a deliberate yawn. Most likely, by an effort of will, you will only start to yawn, and finish already naturally. The body very easily succumbs to such a "provocation" by yawning and will start preparing for sleep.

Next, it is important to wake up properly.