How to Reset Your Sleep Schedule, Seriously

One thing which I think would help many programmers reset their sleep schedule is to remove routine use of caffeine.<p>For me it was only giving up caffeine that made me realise how powerful a stimulant it actually is. If you're in a daily routine in which you're routinely and regularly drinking caffeine throughout the day then it's almost certain that it is impacting your sleep cycle. If you're drinking caffeine in the evening and still sleeping at night you're probably exhausted or at least over tired.<p>I'd recommend to anyone cutting it out for 2 - 3 weeks just to understand it and allow you to better work out how you want to use that effect. For me that means first thing in the morning and as needed (I have a 15 month old daughter - that can be fairly often) but never in the evening and rarely in the afternoon.<p>Certainly if you wanted to reboot your sleep schedule I think stopping it would be significant. If nothing else then for a heavy coffee drinker the added tiredness caused by removing the additional stimulation would help you sleep earlier.<p>More on the impact of caffeine on sleep and sleep in general in Counting Sheep by Paul Martin (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Counting-Sheep-Science-Pleasures-Dreams/dp/0312327447/ref=tmm_pap_title_0" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Counting-Sheep-Science-Pleasures-Dream...</a>). It's a bit long and in places but it's worth reading despite that if you're interesting in understanding sleep.

I conducted an experiment. I slept as much as I wanted and whenever I wanted. Sometimes I slept for 10 minutes and at other time for as much as 14 hours. I just let my body sleep without limitations whenever I felt sleepy - no exceptions.<p>After about 3 to 4 days of doing this my sleep schedule settled on its own accord. On most days, I now sleep at around midnight and sometimes perhaps in the afternoon for a bit. Some days I don't sleep at all because I don't feel sleepy but that corrects in a few days to become normal again.<p>For me this is remarkable, I used to be an extreme example of a night owl.

It is certainly true that going camping will reset your sleeping schedule. Last year, my sleep schedule was to start sleeping at 8AM, and wake at 4PM; after a few days of camping, it had shifted all the way to sleeping at 8PM (sunrise).<p>The only problem with this is that camping isn't something that you can just go out and do, especially if you have any sort of obligation (work, school).<p>I recently "reset" my sleep schedule from sleeping at 4am to sleeping at 12am. It wasn't really that hard, and I didn't use anything tricky or uncomfortable, like starving myself beforehand. All you really have to do is climb into bed two hours before you went sleeping the previous night, and start reading. I find that reading puts you in a much more relaxed state, and after an hour or so, I don't drift off to sleep so much as it hits me like a train. :) You can knock back your sleep schedule almost an hour a day through this strategy.<p>The other advantage of this is that you get to do a lot of reading.

I notice that the author used to be sleeping 6-7 hours (going to bed at 3 or 4 am and waking up at 10), but after camping, is sleeping 9 hours (going to bed at 11pm and waking up at 8).<p>That seems like a bigger deal than shifting the schedule. I imagine it's much easier to feel rested in the morning if you're getting 2+ hours of sleep more than you used to.

I think what helped him reset his sleep schedule is :<p>- Exercise<p>- The lack of artificial light<p>You don't have to go camping to have that.

Try sleeping in a room above an open-air street market. The roosters will raise a ruckus starting at 4am during the summer -- an alarm clock that you <i>can't turn off</i>.

I've camped in my back yard at times for this exact reason. Yes people find that odd, but there's no better alarm clock than the sun baking you in your tent.<p>When camping in good weather I always feel refreshed upon waking up.

I stopped reading when he says "go camping" and "it's fun" because I frikin hate camping. Does that make me a weirdo?

With respect to sunlight hours, wouldn't this technique depend a lot on timing (e.g. winter vs. summer) and latitude? I mean, it wouldn't seem to be of much use in say northern Alaska during the summer where daylight nears 24 hours or in winter where you're in the dark much of the time.

No hack will help in the long-term:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome</a><p>Look on the positive side: by sleeping from 4-5am to 9-10am, you have both day and night! While "normal" people have only day and evening.

Please, for the sake of non-Americans (non-Californians?) use the following regular expression on your titles.<p>s/", Seriously"//

I actually just did this!<p>I just got back from a long weekend camping. We hiked 8+ miles Saturday and Sunday, and I was so tired last night I went to bed at 8PM (no joke). Thursday night, I went to bed at 1AM.<p>More generally, I've found that exercise helps a lot with moving my schedule earlier, just because I'm tired. If you're out camping, you tend to be active all day (there aren't many non-active activities in the woods), which helps a lot.

My sleep schedule usually becomes "normal" on vacation. I'm not much of a hiker but being outside 80% of the day seems to do the trick for sure. But I don't go to that from getting up at merely 10AM (which I'd consider normal myself) I just got up at 6PM ;-)

Interesting. I recall a good discuss here a little while ago that involved, primarily, a morning walk as being invaluable for shifting from night to day. Similarly, it espoused the importance of sunlight on your body's natural sleep rhythm.

I have a great way of dealing with this that's simple, fun, and requires very little lead time: get drunk.<p>I head out around 10PM and drink beer or whisky repeatedly until I'm completely intoxicated. By 2AM or so all I want to do is go to sleep.

The hardest part of resetting my sleep schedule is actually <i>sticking</i> to it ... I almost always end up staying up later and later and before I know it it's a total mess again.

What if I want to reset my schedule to something unnatural?

That doesn't really work in winter though.<p>Or it might just be me who object to sleeping outside in subzero weather.

This works even better if you don't build a campfire.