Sleep cyles: the trick to waking up energized?

Alarm clock by congerdesign

To be able to have a nice, productive day, it helps tremendously to feel rested and full of energy. If you are anything like me, you have these days where you wake up because of your alarm, and you feel super-tired. Those mornings, I feel like my eyelids are glued shut, and there's something heavy on me and I have to drag myself out of bed. All I want to do is turn off the alarm and continue sleeping. (Yes, this morning was one of those.) Time to learn more about sleep cycles!


Sleep cycles: the theory

Image from www.sleepcycle.com

So, what causes this? Sleep cycles. We don't always sleep at the same "depth": we go from our waking state to a light sleep, on to a deep sleep (the one we need to actually replenish our energy), and back again. This is one sleep cycle, and on average it lasts about 90 minutes. If you are woken up during your deep sleep, you will feel groggy, so we should aim to wake during our light sleep. How do we do that?



Sleep calculator
This is quite rudimentary, but if you don't want to bother too much with more in-depth solutions, it is worth a try. On www.sleepcalculator.com, you can enter the desired wake-up time, and it will calculate for you when you should go to bed. Or you can tell the site that you plan to go to bed now, and it will advise you on when to set your alarm.The only remark I have here is that not everyone's sleep cycle is the same. If yours is shorter or longer, or if you take more or less time to fall asleep, the results will probably not be ideal. But you can give it a shot!

Apps to the rescue!
If you are looking for a more robust solution, you can try out specialized apps. I haven't tried any of them personally yet, but these seem to be some of the most popular ones:

• Sleep as Android (Android only, 2 week free trial, then 0,50€, in-app purchases)
• SleepBot (Android & iOS, free)
• Sleep Better - by Runtastic (Android & iOS, free with in-app purchases)
• Sleep Cycle (0,99€ on Android, free on iOS, both with in-app purchases)
• Sleep Time - by Azumio (free on Android, 1,99€ on iOS, both with in-app purchases)

There are even more similar apps around, but these should get you started. They all work by the same principle: you have to put your phone on or near your bed, and the app tracks your sleep through motion sensors and/or the microphone. Based upon that data, it calculates how deeply you sleep, and it can wake you up when you are sleeping lightly.


I'm going to try one of these apps soon, but I still need to decide which one. :) Do you track your sleep? Any experience with apps, wearables, or anything else related to sleep cycles? Let me know!