#DailyBloggingChallenge (27/50)
Everyone has an ideal chronotype (the state where one’s sleep wake cycle is aligned with one’s biology). The trickiness lies in following this ideal state while tending to other priorities in life.
The best analogy for sleep schedule quality is L-bar metal. This distinct form is hard to mold into shape from a piece of wavey sheet metal. Though once in form it can withstand a lot of external force until the structure has collapsed.
Moving from one sleep schedule to another can be done systematically by slowly flattening out each L arm and then reshaping as desired. Or one can implode the structure creating a havoc mess, slowly trying remold it, but constantly being thrown into an uneven mess.
An interesting example is the jet lag weekend. During the workweek one follows one sleep schedule and as soon as Friday pulls up, one feels like one should treat oneself with longer wake hours and thereby indirectly giving oneself the permission to sleep in. This in return can create jet lag as soon as Monday pulls up and thereby putting the body in a state of stress for the next upcoming days.
A more permissive way to keep the treat behavior is to supplement the waking hours’ tiredness with either power naps or a full sleep cycle. This in return only works if one has the discipline to stop at the set time markers, otherwise one will be in a nice state of dismay.
On a personal example, I typically live on a circadian squared cycle, meaning every 3-4 weeks I naturally switch between a night owl to an early bird and vice versa.
#sleep #circadianrhythm #chronotypes #nightowl #earlybird #jetlag