Aug 4, 2009

PSA: How to reset your sleep cycle

I am a horrible, horrible sleeper. Not because the quality of the sleep is lacking, but because my body has a horrible clock for these sorts of things. I get it erratically, at different points of the day, for differing amounts. Much like the XKCD strip, I seriously considered just telling people I lived in different time zones.

But science, good 'ol science, seems to have found a way to reset your body clock: stop eating. For about 12-16 hours prior to when you want your body wake up, don't eat. So if I want to set my "morning" to be, say 5 PM, I stop eating at 1-5 AM and try to wake up at 5 PM. When you wake up and your body is nice and hungry, eat a really good, healthy breakfast. Your body receives the food and thinks "WHY THE HELL ISN'T THIS BACON?". I mean, "it's morning".

More details and science-y stuff can be found here:
http://www.wisebread.com/how-to-naturally-reset-your-sleep-cycle-overnight

This is one of those odd things that, while I haven't empirically verified for myself, passes the "smell test". While my sleep clock may be unreliable (read: broken), my stomach is fucking military precision on when it tells me to eat. Even more impressive, it sounds like Sgt. Hartman from Full Metal Jacket when it's trying to tell me it's hungry. I don't dare cross my stomach for fear that it'll make me choke myself.

But possibly, if I can trick it to anchoring around a new "morning" by timing my breakfast, my stomach should continue to do an excellent job in telling me when lunch, dinner and "time for bed" is. I'mma give it go!

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