I did make use of that nifty search button up there but couldn’t find an answer.
Is there an ideal bedtime? To maximize hormone production.
Here’s a cool picture.
I read somewhere (I think in that lameass Natural Cures book) that the ideal time to fall asleep is around 10:30 and wakeup 7:00. It also said that you shouldn’t wakeup with an alarm, i guess it fucks the waking process up.
I also remember Poliquin saying that your room shouldn’t have any electronics in it and it should be dark like a cave.
I would also say 10:30 to 11:00, 11:30 being the latest. I think there have been studies somewhere showing that the quality of sleep goes down after midnight.
During this summer I’ve been able to crash out at 11:30/12PM and wake up around 8:30/9AM fully refreshed without an alarm. Feels great (except for right now, when my insomnia rarely kicks in) 
That is a sweet picture.
I hate ‘optimal’. There is no ‘optimal’. Life changes. Getting 8 hours of rest each night increases my productivity. For me, that’s 11pm to 7am, when my alarm goes off. It works. It works well.
I like in bed around 10. Sleep at 11(I have to watch The real world and I Love Money!) Wake up at 745.
[quote]Alex-P wrote:
I have to watch The real world and I Love Money! [/quote]
You poor bastard.
[quote]Otep wrote:
That is a sweet picture.
I hate ‘optimal’. There is no ‘optimal’. Life changes. Getting 8 hours of rest each night increases my productivity. For me, that’s 11pm to 7am, when my alarm goes off. It works. It works well.[/quote]
Yeah I’m not over analyzing, just wondering if staying up until 2am and sleeping till 12am is hindering my progress in any way. It’s the summer so I’m free to sleep in.
anything over 8 and i feel like this. if i dont use an alarm i get about 10
Sleep is sleep. Get plenty of it but don’t over do it.
8 hours per night is fine. I don;t think it matters much how you go about getting your 8 hours.
Agreed. I don’t see how the position of the planet would matter in when you goto sleep. As long as your get your 8 you will be OK.
[quote]njrusmc wrote:
Agreed. I don’t see how the position of the planet would matter in when you goto sleep. As long as your get your 8 you will be OK. [/quote]
Not as simple. Certain hormone production kicks in at a certain time. Your naturual sleep cycle is tied to when its sunset/sunrise in your time-zone.
Getting 8 hours of sleep from noon to 8pm is not the same as sleeping from 11pm to 7am. I dont wanna open my psychology book but you also only get to fall into level 5 sleep(deepest) only during the night.
Without opening the book, explain to me your last sentence. If I am in a dark room, what difference will it make? Enlighten us.
I dont remember off the head so ill have to open the book, lol.
First of all there are Circadian rhythms, 24hr biological cycles found in humans and many other species. they affect your blood pressure/hormonal secretion/blood temperature/other physical effects + mental stuff like alertness/memory/cognitive performance.
Basically C.R’s “tell” your body when its best to sleep. Sorry theres like 10 pages worth of stuff here. If you want something in particular i can quote, theres alot of stuff from GH production at night, to melatonin affecting C.R’s etc.
Also I thought it was a common knowledge that sleeping at irregular times(even when getting 8 hours of sleep) is ummm… bad for you ? lol. Ie long-term nightshift workers usually suffer even tho they sleep during the day.
One thing Joe Defranco brought up in his last Q&A was that if a UFC fighter is starting his fights at 10:00 PM, he needs to have his body ready to do that. If you are usually getting ready for bed at the time you have to fight that might cause some problems. He said Chuck Liddell would train late, go to sleep late, and wake up late.
Yes, I understand the cycles. My argument is that the position of the Earth’s face relative to the sun is irrelevant. If your 24 cycle is offset by 12 hours, I cannot imagine your body NOT being able to adapt. That is, after all, what we were designed to do.
I would appreciate it if you could dig a little deeper and try to quote something along the lines of “It is best to enter sleep at sunset and arise at sunrise. Any other regimen is inferior because of reasons A, B, and C”. That would shut me up 
[quote]njrusmc wrote:
Yes, I understand the cycles. My argument is that the position of the Earth’s face relative to the sun is irrelevant. If your 24 cycle is offset by 12 hours, I cannot imagine your body NOT being able to adapt. That is, after all, what we were designed to do.
[/quote]
Ofcourse your body adapts, but it adapts by “seeing” when its sunlight and when its a nitetime. Ie the C.R of north americans is different then C.R of japanese. But if somebody moved from japan to US his body would adapt over time US C.R. so to speak.
A good chance its a consequence of an evolutionary process. I mean millions of generations we generally sleep when sun is down and work when sun is up. Hence biologically( physically/cognitively)our body is “primed” for work during the day and designed to sleep at night.
ill quote sum stuff:
People generally fall asleep as their body temperature begins to drop and awaken as it begins to ascend once again(Kumar, 2004).
Investigators have concluded that circadian rhythms can leave individuals physiologically primed to fall asleep most easily at a particular time of day… each individual may have an “ideal” time for going to bed. This ideal bedtime may also promote better quality sleep during the night, which is interesting in light of evidence that sleep QUALITY may be MORE STRONGLY correlated with health and well-being than the sheer quantity of sleep(Pilcher, Ginter, & Sadowsky, 1997).
To study biological clocks, researchers have monitored physiological processes while subjects are cut off from exposure to the cycle of day and night and all external time cues. These studies have demonstrated that circadian rhythms generally persist eve when external time cues are elimnated. … Daily exposure to light readjusts people’s biological clocks.
…
Ignoring Circadian Rhythms:
Quality of your sleep suffers…
Book goes on about jet lag and working shifts, ie sleeping outside of your C.R, which include fatique, irritability etc.
Well it could be that somehow naturally your perfect sleep time in your CR cycle is like 2am-10am, when you feel like you had top sleep and feel great next day, altho I never go to bed at say 10-11pm so I cant really say whenever Id feel as better or same, even tho I generally feel ok after crashing close to 3am.
Very good. That is sufficient “proof”. I’ll buy that for what its worth.
.
[quote]Drivethruhero wrote:
I dont remember off the head so ill have to open the book, lol.
First of all there are Circadian rhythms, 24hr biological cycles found in humans and many other species. they affect your blood pressure/hormonal secretion/blood temperature/other physical effects + mental stuff like alertness/memory/cognitive performance.
Basically C.R’s “tell” your body when its best to sleep. Sorry theres like 10 pages worth of stuff here. If you want something in particular i can quote, theres alot of stuff from GH production at night, to melatonin affecting C.R’s etc.
Also I thought it was a common knowledge that sleeping at irregular times(even when getting 8 hours of sleep) is ummm… bad for you ? lol. Ie long-term nightshift workers usually suffer even tho they sleep during the day.[/quote]
you can alter your circadian rhythm over time. If you tried altering your bedtime from 10 pm, to noon over night, you’d feel like shit. Things like light are called ‘zeitgeibers’ (spelling) which literally means ‘time keepers’ and they effect hormonal release that effects sleep cycles. But if you can manage to alter your bed time over a period of time slowly, and do it in a dark room you should be fine.
fun fact: everyone’s circadian rhythm is different. Most aren’t EXACTLY 24 hours. The most common is around 23.5 hours.