This has been a popular topic with most of my clients recently. You know that feeling when your alarm goes off and it feels like you can’t get up? Hello snooze! But the times where there is no alarm set and your body wakes you up naturally, you feel refreshed, even if you didn’t get as much sleep. Why is that?! SLEEP CYCLES. In the graphic below, you will see the basics of a full sleep cycle. Each of these stages are significant for our well-being. If you want to read deeper into this, I highly recommend this article from Cleveland Clinic.
There are apps that can track your sleep based on your patterns and heartrate changes. I have personal experience with using an Apple Watch and the app called Sleep Watch which has free and paid features. I really like the free features that track how restful or disturbed my sleep was. It absolutely matches up with how I feel throughout the day, or even how alert I feel when waking up.
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If you want to stop waking up so tired and feel more refreshed, the answer isn’t always more sleep, it’s having full sleep cycles. You can calculate the times of your sleep cycles using Start Sleeping website. It really makes a difference! There are additional resources and advice on this site as well.
Really interested in this topic and want more? I got you!
Are you like me and would rather have a visual or video? You got it! I love the way they explain it all in this video.
Aside from having proper sleep cycles, consider what you are doing before bed. We will save this topic for another day, but transitioning from evening activities (i.e. working out, dinner, watching T.V., putting the kids to bed, etc.) to bedtime can be a really important step. Stay tuned for more on that soon!