In an effort to wake one’s sleepy spirits, I like to write about sleep and the need to improve our daily hygiene and knowledge about sleep.

Bottle Nose Dolphin...

Did you know that marine mammals stay awake for over a month?  Meanwhile, here is a fun article about the dolphin’s sleeping habits:  Dolphins keep an Eye Out while sleeping

What are your sleeping habits?

Here are a few sleep tips that I like to promulgate, following on my Sleep Research and ongoing interest on the topic.

Before going to bed:

• enjoy a light dinner (try the German approach of a big breakfast, a medium lunch and a light dinner)
• don’t drink alcohol
• no screens (no television, iphone or computer…)
• don’t do sports (they wake the cardiac system which takes a while to settle back down)
• create some relaxing ceremonies (rituals before hitting the sack)

Otherwise, sleep scientists generally say it’s useful to go to bed earlier than later at night (the best hours of sleep and recovery are the first hours of sleep).  Another interesting phenomenon is that our internal biological clock is based on 24.9 hours (on average) rather than the moon guided 24 hours, which means that we would generally find it easier to go sleep one hour later than one hour earlier each night in the absence of external stimuli.  Nonetheless, it is better to go bed at the same time to instil a good habit in the body… Chances are that we will wake with outside stimulus (daylight, etc.) or by our internal clock (especially if we have a habit of waking up at a certain hour).  If you like this topic, you can read more on “why do we sleep?” here.