What good sleep is all about! Mutti said it when she was at school. But it's not about how much we sleep …
Have you already sipped liters of coffee today and still not awake? It wasn't that late yesterday, you got enough sleep and it should be possible to keep your eyes open and your head on your shoulders instead of your desk. And yet the concentration is in the basement, together with your buddy efficiency.
It's not just about how long you sleep
Even though you consistently sleep your seven or eight hours, do you feel drained and tired? We know why!
The reason for this is not the length of sleep. Whether we feel well rested depends more on our sleep rhythm, as a study by the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has found. Accordingly, we should always fall asleep and get up at the same time as possible.
Regular sleep times make you more productive
This was proven above all by the grades of the students who examined the scientists for this experiment. Those among them with a regular sleep rhythm got the better grades, those with the irregular sleep got the worse. Conversely, this naturally means that the more regular we sleep, the more successful we are, because our performance remains consistently high.
"Our results show that even time to sleep and get up are just as important as the length of sleep," says Andrew J. K. Phillips, one of the study's authors.
Our internal clock is completely confused
You can actually imagine. If I go to sleep at 9 p.m. and the next day at 11 p.m. and on the weekend maybe stay up until two or three at night, I create complete chaos when it comes to my internal timing. This is particularly problematic because it messes up the release of the sleep hormone melatonin, which in turn makes us tired and controls our day-night rhythm. So jet lag in bed.
Ergo: If we want to start the day fresh, relaxed and full of power in the morning, we should ideally always go to bed at the same time. It doesn't matter whether it's at 9 p.m. or 1 a.m. Well, you should of course also keep an eye on the length of sleep – four hours are definitely not enough. Well then good night!