How I normalized my sleep patterns in a month and started going to bed before 10pm every day

personal PR-manager, founder of the boutique PR-agency “KNOW”

For three years now, I’ve been going to bed before 10pm. And here’s why.

How I got myself used to it

The lifestyle change is due to the fact that, first of all, my husband is a lark. He has always gotten up at 5:00 in the morning. When we started living together, I had to adjust my schedule to match his rhythms. If I used to wake up at nine or ten in the morning, now it was easier for me to go to bed early with my husband and get up at eight in the morning.

Second, with the arrival of our son in June 2022, we started going to bed even earlier. The baby has been waking up at five in the morning since his earliest days, so by eight in the evening we are tired and excited to get ready for bed. We put the child to bed between 7:30 and 8:30 pm. An hour and a half to two hours later, I fall asleep.

What this has led to

I feel that my peak wakefulness has now shifted to the morning. I used to have trouble falling asleep because I used to go to evening workouts: I practiced volleyball for two hours a day three or four times a week. I practiced until nine o’clock in the evening, and then it was hard to fall asleep on the rush of emotions.

In addition, there was a boost of strength and energy to solve unfinished tasks at work. Bedtime was shifting. However, this was false productivity because the body uses more resources to maintain energy in the evening.

When we shifted our daily routine to an earlier rise time, we began to manage to do a certain number of important tasks between five and nine in the morning. Sometimes we even manage to get one more hour of sleep.

Accordingly, the day turns out to be more productive, interesting and full. And by 13:00 I feel significant progress on my work tasks. In addition, I feel better because it is easier to fall asleep.

Many moms with young children complain about not getting enough sleep. But despite such an early rise, I almost always get enough sleep and feel good.

Doctor’s opinion

Candidate of Medical Sciences, doctor of integrative, preventive and conventional medicine, nutriciologist

It is not for nothing that children wake up and go to bed early. These are our natural biorhythms to which the body is adapted.

Human biorhythms are patterns of physiological activity that change cyclically throughout the day. These patterns are controlled by hormones, and they can affect mood, energy, and alertness.

Hormones such as cortisol and melatonin play an important role in regulating our body clock. Levels of the former are highest in the morning and gradually decrease throughout the day. This hormone helps us wake up and become alert. On the other hand, melatonin levels are highest at night and helps us fall asleep.

Other hormones such as serotonin, testosterone and growth hormone also play a role in our biorhythms. They fluctuate throughout the day, helping us feel energized, relaxed and alert throughout the day.

By shifting our lives to nighttime, we seriously interfere with hormone production, not to mention bile production (which peaks at 11-12 at night) or immune cell production. Therefore, it is important not only to get enough sleep (about seven to eight hours), but also to sleep at the time that is set aside for it (after sunset).