[lora]

My wake up time is around 5:30. On a “good” night it takes me an hour to initiate sleep and I wake up several times in the night. On a good night (one that is followed by feeling well the next day) I seem to sleep around 7 hours. I usually go to bed at around 9:30 but decided to stretch that to 10 in an effort to increase sleep efficiency. Wrong. I was sleepy at 9 but by 10 the sleepiness had passed, and I ended up having a worse night’s sleep than when it took an hour to go to sleep and an hour to go back to sleep. Feeling horrible this morning. I hear the message, have a sleep window but don’t go to bed until sleepy. What if you’re sleepy before your sleep window begins?

[Martin Reed]

Hello Lora and welcome to the forum and thanks for the great question!

Ultimately, if you want consistent sleep, then it’s important to observe a consistent sleep window. It’s also important to recognize that it takes time to adjust to a sleep window and that it’s completely normal for sleep to get worse in the short-term as you adapt to the new window.

As long as you are consistent and committed (you don’t go to bed before the start of your sleep window and you make no attempt to sleep once your sleep window ends) you will start to feel sleepy and your sleep will improve. It’s important to give yourself enough time to get these results, though — and not to give up prematurely!

You are looking to make long term improvements to your sleep, and that might involve a bit of short term sacrifice and struggle — but you will notice improvements if you stay committed.

You might find this video helpful: “What to do when you feel sleepy early in the evening but don’t feel sleepy when it’s time for bed“.

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[Author]

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