What time you should go to bed/How to get to sleep/How to get out of bed

You never want to go to sleep at night, and you never want to get out of bed, bit ironic right?

The government recommend you get at least 8 hours sleep a night, so if you go to bed at 11, get up at 7. But this is actually not the case!

There is no magic number to how long you should sleep, often you find when you go to bed at 5 in the morning,  you can easily get out of bed after 6 hours sleep.

2 things affect sleep need

• How much energy you use in the daytime
• How much sleep you've had recently

If you're a builder and lifting concrete blocks all day, you're going to need all the sleep you can get! Also if you've had trouble sleeping lately, your body wants to account for all the sleep you've been missing out on.

Some studies have also shown that sleep deprivation is linked to some factors such as:

• Increased risk of motor incidents
• Increased BMI --> greater risk of obesity
• Increased risk of diabetes
• Decreased reaction times and memory

A useful technique to find out roughly how much sleep you want is to estimate how long you're up for the day, and rate the amount of energy you've put in out of 10, add them.

From 0-5 you don't need sleep.

From 6-10 you can sleep, but probably won't be able to

From 11-15 you could do with some

From 16-20 you are probably quite tired and need a couple more hours than usual

From 22+ you will need a good 10+ hours sleep!

A very rough guidance!

If you are absolutely lost and have no clue, here is a chart which shows what your needs may be near to.

How to get to sleep

• Quiet down before you go to bed, this means no late night work (which most of you do) 
• Take a shower before you go to bed, the drowsiness after you get out will help
• Don't drink tea/coffee, you're just putting caffeine into yourself
• Finish eating 2-3 hours before you go to bed

How to get up in the morning

Most of it is psychological, as you realise that once you're out, you are totally awake!

• Get Sleep Cycle for iPhone, it is seriously the best app ever, it gently wakes you up in your lightest sleep phase which it senses by using the accelerometer on the phone to detect how much you are moving
• Obvious one, set your alarm and put it on the other side of the room
• Get a small cup of water to splash into your face in the morning! (It works, I've tried!)
• Drink loads of water before you go to bed, you'll end up having to get out fast in the morning before you wet yourself
• Get your iPod and suddenly increase the music to full blast in your ears, giving you a nice shock to wake you up
• Roll off your bed when you awake