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Harness You Natural Sleep Cycle for Increased Productivity

By | Jennifer Chonillo

If you’ve ever felt like there just aren’t enough hours in the day but you’ve tried to wake up earlier and go to sleep later to no avail, it is just that you’ve been doing it wrong. There are ways that you can sleep less for increased productivity they just require you to make some changes to your sleep routine.

There are four stages of sleep and while it’s important to get all four stages when you try to wake up without harnessing your natural sleep cycle you often wake up in the middle of stage three or four sleep and will find yourself feeling tired or groggy.

To better understand these stages of sleep you need to understand the four stages.

Stage 1 Sleep

Lasting approximately seven minutes, this stage of sleep prepares the mind and body for the entire sleep cycle. Often when people wake up during this stage it doesn’t even feel like you’ve been asleep.

Stage 2 Sleep

The second stage of sleep lasts approximately 20 minutes and is where you spend 50 percent of your sleep cycle. During this phase, your body temperature drops and you become less aware of your surroundings. This is the phase you get to when you take a short nap.

Stage 3 Sleep

This stage of sleep is where your body begins to relax its muscles and you have your deepest sleep. Your blood pressure drops during this stage and it acts as a transitional period between light and deep sleep. You do not want to try to awaken yourself during this period.

Stage 4 Sleep

Also known as REM sleep, this is the stage of sleep where your brain becomes the most active and you have your dreams. This stage of sleep can feel like it lasts the longest, as we often think we’ve dreamt the whole night, but only take up about 20 percent of your total sleep time. This is also a bad time to wake up if you want to feel rested.

The way to ensure that you wake up without feeling groggy when you want to sleep less for increased productivity is to allow yourself to not only fall asleep naturally but to wake up naturally as well. This will allow you to wake up when you have come out of sleep stages three and four.

Once you’ve harnessed your natural sleep cycle, there are a few more things that you can do to help yourself sleep better for increased productivity. You can find more information about how to in this infographic by SleePare.

 

 

 

 

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