Those who wake up early...

[Mr D]

Do you take naps during the day? And does this affect your sleeping patterns for later that night?

Early as in before 6 AM...

[brandi]

I wake up early every day. don't need to be at work till 9 am i get up even earlier onmy day off. i take a 30 minute nap everyday. and am usually ready for bed by 9 pm so i can snuggle in and read some good news. I have never been a night person.
i like to get up when it's fresh and still & quiet.

[Mr D]

Originally Posted by brandi

I wake up early every day. don't need to be at work till 9 am i get up even earlier onmy day off. i take a 30 minute nap everyday. and am usually ready for bed by 9 pm so i can snuggle in and read some good news. I have never been a night person.
i like to get up when it's fresh and still & quiet.

Oh...what time do you wake up at?

I'm looking for those who go to sleep at maybe around 10-11 and get up at around 5-6...I'm more of a night person I guess you can say but it feels so good to be up early.

My goal for this month is to be an early riser so we'll see how that goes.

I made this thread because I know I do tend to take naps during the day if I'm "free." My naps are usually a bit long though (1-3 hours)...but from an educational guess and 30 minute to 1 hour nap should be fine...well maybe 1 hour is a bit long, so about 30 minutes...?

I searched nap on StevePavlina.com and nothing useful came up about napping...future article maybe?

[Bloggeries]

1-3 hours is wayyyyyy tooo long. I've heard the term "napping is for the weak". I wake and I'm up going until I sleep. When I wake again I repeat. If you need to nap I think your running yourself too hard.

Also remember everyone is like a different car, some of us are made of different quality we can rev it high all day for weeks and still operate alright, others I know are always in the shop and others never really floor it. It all depends on you but I'd recommend wake up do your stuff then sleep. If your dead have an early night but don't get in the habit of napping.

My personal $0.02 and nothing more!

[Alchemiss]

I get up at 4:30 A.M. and go to bed around 10. I am definitely a morning person. I can stay up later but I tend to be tired the next day. I generally don't nap but might if I stay up past 11 while still getting up the same time.

[openeyes]

For the past month I've gone to bed around 10-11 and gotten up around 5-6 am. I find it's easier to do this the less separate I am from the environment. When I lack much access to artificial lighting and computers past about 10 pm, that's when I go to bed, and when I have no window shades, I wake up as the sun rises and the birds chirp away.

I don't have to be anywhere in the morning until 9:45 am, and I usually take one or two brief naps throughout the day, about 5 to 20 minutes in duration. Often I feel no need for a nap energy-wise, I simply enjoy the chance to relax for a while after a meal.

When I have easy access to a computer 24/7, I often go to bed sometime between 1 and 5 am, then sleep until at least 9 am, usually with at least one nap still. I'd never experienced being a morning person before, and used to feel most awake around 9 pm and later, but as I've switched to mainly being up when the sun is out I've enjoyed being able to do so much more in the mornings while others are still asleep.

[Jes]

I get up around 4:30, take a 23-minute nap around 12:15, and craaaaash at 8. I really wish I knew how much sleep my body needs, 'cause I'm exhausted by 4PM. I also wake up once or twice in the middle of the night, around midnight and 3AM.

[WanderingOak]

I am up at 4:00AM, and go to bed around 9:00PM during the week. Before non-workdays I usually stay up until 11 or so, and get up when I feel like it, usually between 8-9. I do need to cafinate during the work week, otherwise I can't focus and tend to nod off. I don't drink coffee on the weekends, unless I have a long drive ahead of me.

[The David]

I've heard it's better to break up your sleep.

What is it with 'waking up early', anyway? You get the same amount of sleep either way. Personally, I go to sleep at 4:30 and then wake up at 12.30 PM, because that works best with my job. A 1st shift schedule would be a major step in the wrong direction, but people call it 'personal development'.

[Mr D]

Originally Posted by The David

I've heard it's better to break up your sleep.

What is it with 'waking up early', anyway? You get the same amount of sleep either way. Personally, I go to sleep at 4:30 and then wake up at 12.30 PM, because that works best with my job. A 1st shift schedule would be a major step in the wrong direction, but people call it 'personal development'.

It just feels good to be up early...it makes your day seem much longer. It just depends on the circumstances you're in really...can you afford to go to sleep early? If not, then you have to wake up a little later.

It just all depends.

[bwb]

I wake at 5 A.M., and I was at home yesterday, so I tried napping at 4 P.M.. I was able to fall asleep, and I awoke 90 minutes later when the doorbell rang. I was so disoriented that I thought I'd slept until the next morning. It took me literally 2 minutes to figure out 1) I am awake. 2) It is daytime. 3) The doorbell rang. and 4) How to get out of bed and get dressed.

I did not realize until I had checked the door (whoever rang the bell had long since gone) that it was 5:30 P.M., not A.M.! I had pretty bad sleep inertia following me around for the next 2 or 3 hours.

Later that night, I consulted the book "Take a Nap! Change Your Life" (by Dr. Sara Mednick) and discovered that based on my waking time, I'd napped at the time I was most likely to get deep, slow-wave sleep, and being awakened from SWS leads to sleep inertia. It is, however, a commonly-held myth that napping and being awakened from slow-wave sleep is worse than no sleep at all. And indeed, after I recovered from the sleep inertia, I was awake and alert until 2 A.M., at which point I went to sleep and awoke at 5 A.M. like normal.

Today I made an attempt to nap at 1 P.M., which according to Mednick's book should be about the time I'd get my "ideal nap". I was, unfortunately, unable to sleep on the uncomfortable "napping couch" at work. I think I'll try again tomorrow with my Themarest pad on the floor instead.

[september]

Originally Posted by bwb

I wake at 5 A.M., and I was at home yesterday, so I tried napping at 4 P.M.. I was able to fall asleep, and I awoke 90 minutes later when the doorbell rang. I was so disoriented that I thought I'd slept until the next morning. It took me literally 2 minutes to figure out 1) I am awake. 2) It is daytime. 3) The doorbell rang. and 4) How to get out of bed and get dressed.

I have had that same feeling after napping! That weird confusion, it feels so bizarre. Like you're not fully conscious.

[Mr D]

Originally Posted by september

I have had that same feeling after napping! That weird confusion, it feels so bizarre. Like you're not fully conscious.

Yeah I've had that feeling too...it's insane...it's funny because you think it's the next day but you're relieved it's not.

[jjclark]

haha I've had that feeling a few times.

didn't Da Vinci sleep for 15 minutes every 2 hours or something?

[brandi]

generally i get up at 5:30-6 am.
most saturdays i take my motorcycle out so i get up about 4 and leave the house by 5.

[bwb]

Originally Posted by jjclark

didn't Da Vinci sleep for 15 minutes every 2 hours or something?

It's been reported that he followed what is referred to today as the "Uberman Sleep Cycle", 20 minutes every 4 hours. This is the same sleep schedule that Steve tried out back in 2005, and he wrote extensively on it (search for "polyphasic sleep" in his blog posts). There is a small community of polyphasic sleepers and interested parties that discuss Uberman and other polyphasic sleep cycles on the Polyphasic Sleep Google Group. Dr. Mednick (author of the napping book I mentioned earlier) is trying to get funding for a study on polyphasic sleep to take place this autumn.

-Brian

[Lieveke]

Lately,
because of my new job,
i have to get up at 5.30, to get the early train.
And in the beginning went to bed very early, say 9-10 pm.
The problem was that i was really tired the next day. Felt drained,
thinking damnit, i can never do this for the next two months.
I really love the evenings, reading books, studying, going out with friends.
And i thought i had to give all that up.

But after a week or two of feeling tired. Getting to bed even earlier. I got an invitation to go to a party,
go to a late movie the day after,
and a drink with someone from work.

So i thought: What the heck, i'm allready tired,
i'll sleep it off during the weekend.
And then the most amazing thing happened.
I was way more lively and awake after the short nights.
For the first time in weeks i was feeling fresh and awake.

Now i go to sleep at 23.30.
Wake up at 5.30, and there are no problems,

i think sometimes the problem is that you try to sleep to much to compensate,
but it just backfires.
When my body is tired. And i really feel drained i go to bed a little earlier,
but otherwise, i just go to bed whenever i want to.
Listen to your body
and don't just go for the 7-8 hours sleep.

O and i really don't need napping during the day.
I feel it just makes me feel drowsy.

Hope to have helped

Lieveke

[bleachjt]

I like to get up at 4am. My work start at 7am and my bus leaves at 6.20am. I tried getting up at 3am for 2 weeks but I felt too tired during the evenings. So now I go to bed around 10pm and get up at 4am and I feel good and awake during the day.

I'm a person who used to sleep the day away, a typical B-person. So I do feel very tired when I get up at 4am, but I really enjoy the extra time to myself. I don't like stress so I need a couple of hours in the morning before I have to go somewhere.

[Old Soul]

I am an early bird....... I always have been, but to be honest I love the dawn
i look forward to each and every day... so i don't want to miss it

Ocassionally I take a literal cat nap, 10 mins crash in a chair..then I am up and running again, and it never effects my sleep at night, I hit the pillow and sleep like a baby

[Peter S C]

These days I rarely have a nap during the day. There is just too much I want to do with my time.

[JackB74]

I find that a quick 15 minute catnap during the afternoon can reenergize me during the rest of the day and the night

[ConcentratedMind]

For me, if I take a nap - it's pretty long so I end up staying up most of the night. I prefer to wear myself out evenly so that I'm tired by the time I sleep so there's no chance of insomnia.

[Susie]

I'm not an early-riser by any means, left to my own devices I stay up until 3am (or later!) and get up around 11. It doesn't help that I work in the evenings.

BUT

I'm finishing up that work and am going to stay in the USA for the rest of the summer, which is a 6 hour time difference from here. So my 11am is 5am there. I will instantly be an early riser upon arrival! It's my plan to try to keep the 5am wake-up time for the entire two months, which for me would be a shocking achievement because it's so alien to my existence. But I'm going to give it a try.