Is An Out-Of-Sync The Reason You Can't Sleep? (Find The Eight Episode #5)

Do you have this problem?

On weekdays, you struggle to wake up. You’re groggy and exhausted in the morning and, during the day, you struggle to keep yourself awake.  

Then, once the evening and bedtime roles around, you get a wave of energy and can't sleep. Yet again.  

Today, we’re going to talk about the body clock and how a body clock that is out of sync with when you want to be sleeping can be setting you up for lots of problems including something called social jet lag.

Then, we’ll talk about how you can get your body clock onto a time that works better for you.

THE BODY CLOCK

Let’s talk about the body clock.

The easiest way to understand this concept of a body clock is to think of what happens with travel.  

If you travel to a new time zone, the body clock operates on the old time before there’s a chance to adjust to the new time and you often experience jet lag.

Before adjusting to the new time, the body clock is out of sync and it’s common to have difficulties falling asleep, waking up, and feeling alert at the right times.

THE BODY CLOCK AND TEENS 

As a teen, you’re already set up for an out-of-sync clock because your body clock tends to run later.

It’s normal for the clock to run about 2 hours later when you get into the teen years—and this later schedule clashes with when you have to wake up for school.

And then other things that can push the timing of the clock even later.  

Right now, your clock may not want to sleep until 1AM, 3AM or even later and may not want to wake up until 10AM, noon, or even later.  

This is a problem if you need to wake up for for 7AM or 8AM.

Take a moment to think about what time zone your body clock is in right now.

It’s not uncommon to have a clock operating in a timezone that is 3, 4, 5, or 6 hours later than the actual timezone you are living in.

If your clock is running late, this may be a powerful reason you’re struggling to sleep at the right time and struggling to wake up.

Even if you can wake up, it’s common to be groggy and unable learn well in the morning and even into the early afternoon because you clock still thinks it should be sleeping.  

It really is very unfair.

But, the good news you do have control over shifting your clock to a time that works better for you.

There was a study in which they took a group of teens with very delayed body clocks camping and, within a week, their body clock issues resolved.

How come?

SETTING THE CLOCK

Just like if you were to travel, the timing of the body clock can shift in response to the information it receives from your behaviours and from environmental cues.

The two most powerful cues or time-setters for the clock is the time you wake up and when you receive light vs. dark signals.

Today we’re going to talk about how the timing of sleep sets the clock and, in 6 Tips to Hack Light to Sleep Better, we’re going to talk about how light and dark set the clock. 

THE TIMING OF SLEEP AS A TIME-SETTER FOR THE CLOCK

When you sleep in, you clock gets the message to shift later.

This is why falling asleep on a Sunday nights can be especially hard because. If you’ve slept in over the course of the weekend, your clock has likely shifted later on the weekend. 

Now, to be fair, it’s really understandable that you sleep later when you have the chance.

You’re probably trying to catch up on sleep. Plus, you finally have the freedom to stay up later and sleep in AND all your friends are probably also doing this too.

Unfortunately, the downside is that sleeping in causes the clock to shift even later and this sets you up to become even more sleep deprived during the week.

A really vicious cycle ensues in which more and more sleep deprivation builds during the weekdays because the clock shifts later and later, resulting in even more need to sleep in and nap when you can, fuelling even more difficulties falling asleep.

WHAT IS SOCIAL JET LAG?

And there’s even more to this story of the body clock.

Because the wake-up time is such a powerful time-setter for the clock, the constant bouncing around of the wake-up times sends very confusing signals to the body clock and can lead to a constant state of jet lag that you may not even be aware of.

This jet lag is called social jet lag because it has to do with behaviours and not travel.

If you wake up on weekdays at 7am and sleep until around noon on weekends, this is a five hour difference. You can compare this to taking a flight somewhere 5 time zones behind where you live every single weekend.

I’m in Toronto, Canada (EST) which is on the same time as NYC so will often compare taking flights to Hawaii and back every weekend. 

Normally, when you travel, you can expect your clock to shift at a rate of one hour per day, meaning that it would take at least 5 days to shift onto Hawaii-time from Toronto-time.  

But in this situation, because the wake up time is going back and forth within the week, your body clock doesn’t have the time to fully adjust and this can result in a chronic state of jet lag.

And in addition to the sleep and daytime alertness problems, there are lot of other things that happen when you are jet lagged.  

When jet lagged, you are definitely not operating at your best.

It’s hard to concentrate and be productive.

You can feel really off physically with stomach upset, headaches, and even flu-like symptoms.  

And you can also experience things like depressed mood, anxiety, and more mood swings as your body is adjusting to the new time zone.

If you’re experiencing any of these things and you have a really irregular wake-up time, it’s possible that these things will get better or even go away altogether if you are able to be on a more consistent schedule.

Of course, there are many other things can result in these types of symptoms, but at the very least, even if jet lag is not the main cause, it certainly is not helping.

Take a moment to think about your wake-up times.

Compare when you have to wake up for something like school versus when you wake up on weekends, other days when you don’t have things scheduled, as well as days you’ve slept poorly the night before so you sleep in to catch up on sleep.

If the difference is more than 2 hours, then you may be experiencing social jet lag and it’s hard to know how much it is affecting you until you are on a more regular schedule.

WHAT CAN I DO TO LIMIT SOCIAL JET LAG AND A CLOCK THAT IS OUT-OF-SYNC?  

The first key way of doing this is to limit how late you sleep in as much as possible.

If you can wake up at the same time every day, then go for it. For most teens, though, this is not sustainable. Instead, it may be better to reduce the harm of sleeping late.

For example, instead of sleeping in until 1PM or 2PM, choose an initial cutoff time of 11AM or noon on the weekends.

Write it down on a post-it and stick it somewhere obvious so you remember and set an alarm on repeat for the weekends.

The easiest way to ensure that you actually wake up is to schedule something fun with someone else so that you’re held accountable.

This is trickier during the pandemic but ideas include having a standing date with a parent or friend to watch a movie or a TV series, to make brunch, or to go for a walk or do a workout together

You can sign up for a scheduled class like a regular Saturday morning yoga class.

Or you can try virtual live accountability sessions by searching #studywithme on YouTube or, if you’re over 17, scheduling free sessions on focusmate.com.

The key is that you have to plan what you’re going to do ahead of time, otherwise it’s just too tempting to press snooze on Saturday morning when you are groggy.

Scheduling is especially critical in the early days when your clock might be running particularly late and you haven’t had the chance to get into the habit of waking up earlier.  

For other tips on how to make it easier to wake-up, check out 6 Tips to Make Waking Up Less Painful. 

Finally, in order to wake up at a more consistent time, you have to be able to get to sleep earlier.

If you’re really sleep deprived, it’s too difficult to avoid sleeping late.  

This may mean using some of the strategies that we talked about in 7 Tips How to Curb Bedtime Procrastination plus all the other episodes in which we cover strategies for insomnia.

ACTION: 

Choose a realistic cut-off time to wake up on weekends. It doesn’t matter if it’s noon or 11AM at this point. Start with what is doable for you right now.  

As you start to get into the habit of waking up by this latest cutoff on the weekends, you can slowly start to advance is so that there is less difference between your wake-up times.

Ultimately, if you can aim for a difference of no more than 1 or 2 hours, this will save you a lot of problems—like not being able to get to sleep on time and all of the jet lag symptoms we discussed.

If you need help acting on the recommendations in this episode, there is a cheatsheet can be found here.

SUMMARY:

If you want to avoid having a body clock that is out of sync so that you can sleep better and feel better during the day, taking back some of the control over the timing of your clock is crucial.

One of the most crucial steps is to wake up at a more consistent time.

To do this, pick a realistic cut-off time, schedule fun activities with someone who will hold you accountable, and do what you can to address the source of the problem—sleep deprivation.

In this article, we talked about how the timing of when you wake up impacts the timing of the clock. There is another major piece of the puzzle that we didn’t have time for today and that is how light impacts the timing of your clock.

So check out 6 Tips To Hack Light To Sleep Better. In this article, we’re going to talk about light, the body clock, and how to get light working for and not against you.

NEXT EPISODE:

6 Tips To Hack Light To Sleep Better

LINKS:  

• #studywithme on YouTube

• Accountability sessions if you are 17 or older: focusmate.com

• 6 Tips to Make the Morning Less Painful

• 7 Tips To Curb Bedtime Procrastination