Straightening Out My Sleep Patterns And Meditation

[Num7]

I've been thinking about working on my sleep patterns for a while now, but never had the balls to do it. Hopefully, posting my progress on the forum will motivate me.

Why do I want to improve my sleeping patterns? Here's why:

• I go to bed at about 1AM every night.
• I get up at 7AM every morning and work all day.
• Most of the time I don't sleep until 2AM, which makes about 4-5 hours of sleep per night.
• Every morning, I feel like shit because I didn't sleep enough.
• During the weekend, I sleep for 12-14 hours per night and get up around 1PM. Talk about a wrecked up sleeping pattern.

I've been doing this for the last 6-9 months. I don't want to do that anymore. What I'm going to do are the following things, starting on Sunday September 11th, Monday the 12th being Day One:

• I'm going to head to bed at 11PM.
• I will meditate for 15 minutes once I get in bed. Basically, from 11:00 to 11:15.
• I'm going to make sure I don't eat any weird food before going to bed, by the way.

I'm going to log how I feel in this topic everyday. But wait, I'm not done yet. Once my sleep patterns are back to normal, I'm going to continue messing around with meditation and hopefully get to achieve vivid dreaming more often (and perhaps more?). This sleep pattern project will then turn into a meditation experiment after a few weeks. I may consider trying the I-Doser at some point, but that's for another topic.

So, I meditated 2 nights ago for about 5 minutes before heading to bed at around Midnight. I never ever meditated before, all I did was concentrate big time on my breathing. After 5 minutes I felt relaxed and great. 15 minutes later I was asleep, something usually impossible for me.

I look forward to read your comments and ideas on the matter, perhaps there's something I didn't think about. I'll start posting my daily updates on Monday night, about Night One.

--Numenorean7

 

[Num7]

Night 001
September 11th - September 12th

I came back home a bit later than usual on Sunday, but I was able to get in bed at 11:05 and meditated for about 7 minutes. I was really tired but my brain kept working at a very high rate. Needless to say, my meditation quality wasn't very good, but it helped me out to get in bed: about 25 minutes later I was sleeping. I usually need about an hour and more to have my brain slow down enough to sleep, so I assume that although my meditation quality wasn't great, it helped a lot.

I woke up naturally at 5AM, but fell asleep again until 7AM. I felt pretty good at 7AM, better than usual, but not great. I didn't expect to notice a drastic change on the first day, everything is normal.

 

[Num7]

Night 002
September 12th - September 13th

On night 002, I went to the movie theater and watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Right after, around 10PM, a guy I work with called me for some job emergency I had to work on for about 10 minutes. I ate pop corn at the movie theater and drank a 7up bottle, which is basically a bottle of sugar, water and more sugar.

Once in bed, I was totally unable to meditate, my mind was overstimulated from that movie, food and job call. I "meditated" for like 4 minutes and gave up because I felt I wasn't going anywhere.

I went to bed at 11:05 and didn't sleep until about an hour later, which is what usually happens. I didn't sleep too good and woke up again at 5AM, then slept until 7AM. I didn't feel really good at 7AM this time, I stayed in bed until about 8AM: I work at 8:30AM, great!

Average, I didn't feel too good today, I didn't have a lot of energy. Good thing I didn't have to work this afternoon, I had a nap.

I caught a cold.

 

[Num7]

Night 003
September 13th - September 14th

As I caught a cold yesterday, I didn't feel really good when going to bed at 11PM last night. I meditated for about 5 minutes and then tried to sleep. I got to sleep around midnight, until I woke up 7AM. I felt like shit this morning, thanks to this cold, but I have a decent amount of energy since 10AM.

It's harder to sleep well when you can't breathe freely.

That makes me think that since I will likely feel like right now for the next 5 days because of that cold, It won't prevent me from getting used to my new sleep pattern. Once I'm healthy again, I'm going to feel great and energized.

 

[Num7]

Night 004
September 14th - September 15th

There is not much to say about last night. I felt really tired and messed up when going to bed at 11:15 but I didn't get to sleep until midnight. I woke up many times between midnight and 3AM, thanks to that cold I caught 2 days ago. I didn't meditate, that may explain why it took me a while to fall asleep.

Although I didn't sleep that well and felt like shit this morning, I still had more energy after a little while than on most other days after a 4 hours night.

I look forward to next week once I recover from the cold I suffer from right now.

 

[Num7]

Night 005 - 006
September 16th - September 17th - September 18th

I regressed a bit this weekend. I went to bed at around midnight on both Friday and Saturday, and woke up at noon on Saturday, then 10AM on Sunday. But, I almost completely recovered from my cold and I feel much better right now. I expect to be almost back to normal tomorrow, and completely by Wednesday.

That night from Friday to Saturday, I slept for about 12 hours, I felt much better after that. I didn't have any problem getting to sleep Saturday night though. I wasn't in a mood to meditate, obviously.

 

[Num7]

Night 007
September 18th - September 19th

Almost back to normal. I went to bed at 11:30 (bad boy!) and meditated for about 5 minutes. That truly was some poor quality meditation, I'm sure it didn't change anything, I couldn't keep my concentration focused on anything anyways. I fell asleep after about 30 minutes and I slept until my alarm clock decided to ring, at 7:00AM this morning. I didn't feel great, but it was acceptable if you consider I'm recovering from a cold.

I'm surprised I was able to get in bed around 11PM for my last 5 workdays. Obviously, meditation is my current most important weakness. Thanks to that cold I caught, my new sleep pattern didn't go anywhere for this first week. I expect to see some improvement in the next days.

 

[NerdyGilr3]

Don't give up, a good habit develops in 21 days ! The more constant you are, the more regular you will become!

 

[Num7]

Night 008
September 19th - September 20th

I went to bed a bit late yesterday night, because I had to recover data from my crashed computer. I somehow managed to accidentally delete my data partition on my hard drive.

So, I went to bed at around 11:45, and fell asleep at most 20 minutes later. I meditated for a few minutes in my bed and it helped me a bit to calm down. I assume that's why I fell asleep that fast. I slept the whole night without any interruption, which is pretty rare.

I didn't feel that great once out of bed, but I had a decent amount of energy once at work. I had an efficient day and didn't feel tired until later tonight. It's getting more normal now. I'm trying to be constant and go to bed at the same time every night. By tomorrow, this cold I caught last week will be completely gone. I'll no longer feel side effects of it.

I didn't talk about my dreams for the last 7 nights. Strangely, I dreamed less than usual. I'll need to work seriously on meditation next week and find out if it will help me having more dreams and more vivid ones.

 

[TimeWizardCosmo]

Don't give up, a good habit develops in 21 days ! The more constant you are, the more regular you will become!

Just like bran muffins!