I did it! Or did I really manage to overthrow my inner night owl?

I absolutely love to sleep! Yet I regularly get too little rest. I’m hoping to change that for a week by getting at least eight hours of sleep each night. Let’s get into this week’s instalment of «I did it!»

Now, I’m quite limited in my methods. Throughout the week, I have to get up by 7 a.m. at the latest, so my only option is to go to bed earlier. And that’s precisely where the challenge lies. I’m a night owl. I love long evenings – especially the balmy summer kind. Going to bed early will test my self-control. And it might be futile, anyways. Sleep research shows it’s only possible to shift your own, inner sleep rhythm to a limited extent.

Be that as it may, my goal is to get to at least eight hours of sleep. A tad more would also be alright. But sleeping too long isn’t helpful either. To reach my goal, I need to be asleep by 11 p.m. at the latest. So, I’m off to bed between 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. this week. That leaves me some time to fall into a slumber; After all, I don’t fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow.

Sleep, here I come!

It’s Monday evening – the start of my experiment. After a packed weekend, getting up today wasn’t exactly easy. Excellent, I think to myself. That should make falling asleep in the evening that much easier. Not only do I like to sleep, but I also typically sleep quite well. Once I’ve actually fallen asleep, that is. That’s the part I tend to struggle with. But when I’m in the land of dreams, I stay there. I very rarely wake up at night, usually only jolting awake at my alarm clock.

My natural sleep rhythm: late chronotype

All of this is a clear sign that I’m living in the face of my natural sleeping rhythm. Given the freedom, my sleep automatically shifts further back. You can identify your natural sleeping pattern by the way you sleep when you don’t have to adapt to social restrictions – for example, during a vacation. For me, I tend to sleep for around 9 hours then, roughly from 1 a.m. to 10 a.m. I’m clearly the late chronotype – a night owl. You can learn more about chronotypes in this interview with a chronobiologist. In a bid to get to sleep earlier, I’m swapping out my usual screen for a book.

Nights 1 to 3: it’s working!

I’m only semi-confident that my attempt to squeeze my chronotype into the corset of everyday life will prove successful. But I still want to try it out, if only for a lack of alternative ways to get enough sleep.
On the first evening, still tired from the weekend, I dutifully go to bed shortly after ten. I read for twenty minutes or so and fall asleep relatively quickly, probably around 10:45 p.m. The next morning, it’s still the alarm clock and not my brain that wakes me, but getting up is easier than usual. Fuelled by a sleep deficit, my alarm clock usually rips me out of my dreams, leading me to struggle quite a bit with getting out of bed. If you can relate, these tips on how to make getting up easier might help you.

In the coming days, I don’t need them so much for once. I have a much easier time getting up than usual, even on days two and three of my experiment. However, on the third evening I already get a small taste of what’s to come. On Wednesday night, my get-to-bed-early discipline wears off a bit. At 10 p.m., I’m not particularly tired. Still, I find my way to bed by about 10:30 p.m. But then I read until shortly after 11 p.m. Getting up the next morning still goes smoothly. In order to get my eight hours of sleep, I make an exception and set my alarm clock back by half an hour.

Night 4: I’m not tired

What I just got a preview of on Night 3 really puts my experiment to the test on Night 4. I’m not tired. Now, I could think, «Great news, that means I’m getting enough sleep!» The problem? Stupidly enough, what was to come is exactly what science had predicted: my sleep rhythm would shift right back to my late chronotype. And unfortunately, that’s precisely what I can’t allow if I want to function in society.

Despite being up and alert, I go to bed again around 10:30 p.m., read until 11 p.m. and then lie wide awake. They say not to look at the clock when you can’t fall asleep or if you wake up at night so as not to increase the pressure to fall asleep (again). But, for the sake of the experiment, I sneak a peek eventually. It’s 11:40 p.m. and I’m anything but tired. The torture continues for quite a while longer until I finally fall asleep, probably around 12:15 a.m. The next morning, jolted awake as usual by the unpleasant beeping of my alarm clock, I’m nevertheless rested and get up with relative ease.

Night 5: everyone gets to stay up late but me

The next evening, it takes a lot of strength to force myself into bed at 10 p.m. Not only do I have to end a cosy summer evening early, I’m also worried about lying awake forever again. And rightly so, as it soon turns out. I just can’t get to sleep. I feel transported back to my childhood – that irrepressible feeling of injustice when the adults were still sitting together cheerfully and I had to go to bed, only to lie there, tossing and turning, bored and grumpy. That’s exactly how I feel now. What a waste of my life, lying around here so pointlessly. It’s an ordeal that only ends around 12:30 a.m. In other words, it was absolutely not worth it to end my nice Friday evening early.

The weekend: sleeping works

Fortunately, I can make up for the missing hours of sleep the next morning. It’s Saturday – no work, no alarm clock. I sleep past 10:00 a.m. and feel some sense of relief. I’m tired (pun intended) of not being able to sleep at night. I certainly won’t be spending my Saturday night restlessly tossing and turning in bed again. It doesn’t matter, anyways; I can sleep in again on Sunday. Or rather, I will, even though my son was quite indignant that he had to entertain himself this morning.
I have plans in the evening and live out my night-owl nature to its fullest, getting to bed around 2:30 a.m.
The next morning, I wake up around 11 a.m. And once again, I’m faced with the fundamental dilemma of late chronotype individuals: my natural sleep-wake rhythm simply doesn’t fit my lifestyle or societal norms. Just thinking about the coming evening gives me a bad feeling. Tomorrow, the alarm clock will again ring mercilessly at 7 a.m., so I should be asleep by 11 p.m. at the latest.

Sunday evening: pulling out all the stops again

At the end of the week, I again give it my all to somehow make myself tired by the evening. I go for a long bike ride and play football with the kids to let off steam. In the evening, I only eat something light so that my stomach doesn’t go into overdrive just as I’m about to fall asleep. And when I put down my book around 10:30 p.m., I do a round of meditation. And yet, awake I lie. And lie. And lie. And as I lie there, unable to find sleep, I reflect on this week – during which I was mainly preoccupied with not being able to sleep.

Conclusion: I can’t compete with my night-owl sleeping schedule

I really should flat-out admit that my attempt failed. Sure, I did manage to get roughly eight hours of sleep most nights. But that’s partly because I cheated a bit by pushing back my wake-up time and because the weekend came just in time. If my experimental week wasn’t officially over, I’d probably abandon it now anyways. Why? Because this week has clearly shown me that I can’t fight my innate sleep rhythm. After the short start-up phase, the hours I spent going to bed earlier than usual were just unpleasantly wasted time. Of course, I’m sure I got more rest than if I’d kept my typical habit of wandering towards bed around midnight. At the same time, I didn’t gain all that much extra sleep in the end. Not to mention, lying around in bed and not being able to fall asleep is truly torturous if you ask me. Alternating between a work week and weekend schedule allows me to catch up on sleep on the weekend, but it ultimately constantly messes up my rhythm.

In the future, I’ll try to find a middle ground and go to bed at least a little earlier to give myself the time to read. Spending half an hour with a book was my favourite part of the whole week. I normally hardly find the time to read – and I think it’s a better way to wind down in the evening than sitting in front of a TV screen.

Healthy habits put to a personal test

In my «I did it!» series, I regularly test healthy habits for a week. I’ve already tried my hand at daily meditation, drinking enough water and a smartphone detox. Most recently, I tried a week of daily training for a healthy back.