Chronotherapy part 2

SirLouen said:

The question: I'm I going to switch my sleeping habits permanently to be more of a morning lark? Or I'm "doomed" to be a night owl forever?

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If nothing else, time will change it. I've been a night owl, when i was younger. A serious one at it. I usually went to bed, when other people started to wake up for work and the sun was already up.

Now i'm not a night owl anymore. I have an offline gig occasionally, when i need to wake up early. In that case i go to sleep early, 9-10 pm and i don't have any issues waking up, when needed, almost always before the alarm rings. If i don't need to wake up early, i go to bed around midnight, i have the same amount of 7-8 hours of sleep, which means, i wake up later. I switch between these two patterns and it doesn't require more than a few days to fully adapt and keep at it. Then in the summer, we usually go to a couple music festivals, when i switch back to my night owl self. 1-2 days and i'm fully adapted to the pattern.

I'm not sure exactly what this chronotherapy is, sounds like a load of bollocks to me and no-one would know anything about it or use it, if it weren't for the internet. Switching to a different sleeping pattern daily, doesn't sound like the wisest thing to do. I fail to see, how this could help. If you're fucking the pattern up daily, then how are you supposed to get used to one? I mean, why would you need to be this radical? It's really easy. If you want to be awake at a certain period of the day and you know the amount of sleep you require per day, calculate the time, when you need to go to bed and determine the time, you want to wake up. You try to go to bed at the calculated hour, eventually you'll be able to get closer to that hour day by day. You set an alarm, in case, if you can't wake up on your own. The amount of sleep you require per day is constant. If you start waking up early, you'll have no issue to go to bed early. After that it's a self-supporting process. When you see, that you're going back to your old habits. Don't. lol

Day 2+: Similarly to yesterday, I went to bed like 20min late, and today It has been really harsh to wake up at 7am although I was able it took me like 15min+ to get out of the bed.
The great moment of waking just before the alarm ringed has completely disappeared. Today I was a glimpse away of snoozing the alarm for an extra hour (more considering that today is Sunday).
The fact that I'm not being hygienic enough and preparing to go to bed like 10 minutes before 11pm maybe doesn't help.

I'm starting to believe that despite the CT is like a good motivator to bring things back (I have to remember that 10 days ago I was waking up at 9am and sometimes at 10am, having to work for long hours until night to stay productive). Now at least I'm waking up much earlier after the CT procedure, but not with the exact results as I always expect: waking up without any hassle. Maybe I'm too naive to expect this may occur one day, instead of just accepting that this is my nature (not waking up early).

Day 3+: to make things worse yesterday had to finish some affairs in the last minute and ended on bed at 12.20am which made waking up today at 7am very much more difficult than previous days. This morning, as expected, very sleepy, and I hope that at least, today I can manage to bed before 11pm. As I said, 80% of the CT is maintaining and respecting the habit, something that I mostly fail to do.

Day 4+: Yesterday I committed a little bit more to the schedule and went at 11.15pm, so although waking at 7.00am was really harsh and was about to go sleep again for one extra hour, I gathered enough will to move forward and get out of the bed.

This is what I kind of hate: this struggle that puts me in the edge between going back to sleep or getting up. Awake and writing here in the computer, everything seems easy, but in the bed, half-unconscious, is a matter of a glimpse to fail.

Day 5+: Similar to yesterday: commited to an earlier schedule (11.20pm, still needing to improve my rigor in that sense), and today has not been as harsh as previous days. Also have to notice that yersterday was a big day in terms of work produced (11 hours non stop!), which make up for some other days that I could barely put 5-6 hours in the whole day. This is especially interesting for some of us (freelancers), that have to self-evaluate our own time.

Day 6+: I continue on a streak like last 2 days. Everything very similar. The only thing that is a little bit weird, is that I "need" to stay like 15 min on bed, just checking a little bit my notifications on the mobile just to "recover" the conscience. The fact is that I have never woke before alarm rang so far, therefore everytime it rangs im completely asleep and it takes a while for me to be ready to go out of the bed. May I be prepared at some point to go out of the bed straight away when the alarm rings?

Day 7+: Had a really bad night and I thought that I will have a really though time waking up. But interestingly enough, I woke up on time, but still stayed like 20min on bed, which is not ideal. Apart from this, things go fine. Also went to bed like 30 minutes late (11.30pm) which is not helpful. I think this is going to be the pattern forever. Don't ask me why, but for some reason I'm so stupid having for leaving some important last things that cannot wait for next day in the last minutes before going to bed...

I will keep this for one week more, to leave the 2 week follow up registry.

Day 8+: Yesterday again deviated significantly (45min late) and similarly, got up from bed 45 minutes late also. So far in the last 4 days it seems that this has been a constant... maybe if I do the effort to go more consistently I may get up on time? It's also very harsh to get up on Saturday that soon (7am), but the plan is to make this a routine regardless of everything, for long enough to harden a future habit.

SirLouen said:

Day 8+: Yesterday again deviated significantly (45min late) and similarly, got up from bed 45 minutes late also. So far in the last 4 days it seems that this has been a constant... maybe if I do the effort to go more consistently I may get up on time? It's also very harsh to get up on Saturday that soon (7am), but the plan is to make this a routine regardless of everything, for long enough to harden a future habit.

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Going to bed 30 minutes or an hour later than planned, shouldn't be an issue, you'll still wake up roughly the same time. I wouldn't call 45 minutes a significant deviation, falling to sleep doesn't happen like clockwork either. It's normal to go to sleep at different time between certain limits. If you don't have anything urgent to do, which needs to be done and can only be done at 7 am (when you're still sleeping) and not at 8 am (when you are awake), there's no point in stressing over 45 minutes. And it's not a rule either, that if you go to sleep 45 minutes later, you'll sleep 45 minutes longer. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.

Consistency is key for sure, because you need the same amount of sleep daily. If you want to wake up around the same time every day on your own, you need to go to bed around the same time. It's obvious. 30 minutes or an hour plus or minus shouldn't make too much of a difference though, just make sure that it's not multiple hours, because that can fuck your routine up, especially if it's going on for multiple days in a row.

From the looks of it, you managed to adopt a rather natural sleeping pattern (going to bed around 11 pm, waking up around 7 am). Keep at it and don't stress over an hour plus or minus occasionally.

HoNeYBiRD said:

Keep at it and don't stress over an hour plus or minus occasionally.

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I think that the only thing that stresses me is the issue of a low will on moving out of the bed.
Feel that is (for some reason), something beyond my control, because semi-unconsciously I've been snoozing and going back to sleep.
This is why I try to move it forward to some other motivational level other than the fact of doing it.

Change in schedule really does help. Good luck!

Day 10+: Forgot to follow up yesterday, but nothing special either. Today it has been a little bit more weird: I went to bed just 30 min late, but today I had no willing to get out of bed until 8am (1 hour in bed, pure laziness). But I have to admit that I was pretty awake from 6.55am, so It was not too harsh to get awake at 7am when the alarm rang. Obviously at this point my motivation on work is not super-high (but I don't mind), I'm still accomplishing the 40-50 hours of pure work per week, which I think is more than appropriate at this moment of my life, but my purpose with this is to have more time for other things, instead of just focusing all day on work

Day 11+: Yesterday I went to bed straight 1 hour late, and today I got up 1 hour late also, although I woke at 7am.
The good thing of all this is that technically if I'm wake is just a matter of a slightly extra will to go out. Not as bad as that semi-conscious state of mind that drew me again to sleep.
And I don't think that there is any sleep trick that can help me with this. So essentially I have to work now in some sort of motivation to move out of the bed asap.

Day 12+: TL;TR. 1 hour late both going bed and going out of bed.
The symmetry is still there although it doesn't make any sense from a logical perspective. I don't make any effort to have this symmetry exist. In fact, my mind wants to push out asap.
I will be reporting for 2 days more. After this I may only do a 2 week followup for several months. Just to keep log of progression.

Day 13+: Went to bed at 23.15pm, got out of bed at 7.15. No jokes. This looks spook AF

Day 16+: This is the last follow up for a couple of weeks. In the past 3 days I've been performing good. Going to bed in ranges from 11.20 to 11.40 which is not idea, but getting out of bed from 7.15 to 7.30. There is no doubt of certain correlation. The earlier I go to bed, the easier it seems to me to get up as soon as the alarm clock rings.

So in conclusion after all this 2-week experiment + Chronotherapy week is that the method WORKS although it's relatively harsh, but more importantly is to keep a healthy habit afterwards, and try to reinforce it. The most important bit is to go bed early (before the target time if possible). I think this is the key point to make this happen. But I'm sure that if one day for any reason I go to bed at 1am or 2am, all the habit will start to tear apart (unless I'm able to keep this up for 1 or 2 months straight away).

I will try to report in 2 or 3 weeks from now, to follow up.