The Number One Sleep Trap You Need To Avoid (Find The Eight Episode #1)

Imagine, you get into bed at midnight so you can get enough sleep. Your mind is really active and you don’t feel anywhere near sleep.

This happens a lot so pretty soon you start to feel frustrated. You toss and turn, trying to find the right position but can’t quite get comfortable or settle to sleep.

Eventually, you start to worry how the next day is going to go if you don’t fall asleep soon. To drown out your thoughts, you eventually pick up your phone and start scrolling or watching Netflix.  

After 2 or 3 hours, you finally pass out and wake up groggy and exhausted the next morning.  

Sound familiar?  

Now, sometimes, the reason you cannot sleep is that there’s stuff keeping you from getting into the sleepy/related zone you need to sleep--a busy mind, stress, Netflix--but, sometimes, the root of the problem is that your body simply wasn’t ready for sleep in the first place.  

HOW DO YOU AVOID SHOWING UP FOR SLEEP TOO EARLY?

How do you know when your body is ready for sleep and how do you avoid this really common trap of showing up too early for sleep? 

There are two simple ways to predict when your body will be ready for sleep—i.e. when there is even the chance that you can sleep:

1. The 14-hour rulw 

2. Figuring out your body’s current timezone. 

STRATEGY #1: THE 14-HOUR RULE  

One of the simplest ways to avoid this trap is to use the 14-hour rule.

Generally, your body needs at least 14 hours to build up enough hunger for sleep (or in the sleep world this is called sleep drive) to be able to fall asleep and have a good night’s sleep.

The simplest way to calculate 14 hours is to add two hours to the time you woke up, then change that time from PM to AM or AM to PM.  

Let’s look at a few examples.  

Let’s say you woke up at 8am. The earliest you would expect sleep that night is 10pm.

Now, it’s a Sunday and so you woke up at 11am. The earliest you would expect sleep that night is 1am. 

Now, imagine you had a string of bad nights so you stayed home from school to catch up on sleep and woke up for the day at 2pm. The earliest you would expect sleep that night is 4am. If you try to sleep that night at midnight, you’re going to be waiting a long time.

Remember that 14 hours is a minimum. You may need 15, 16, or even 17 hours before you’ve built up enough sleep drive or sleep hunger. You may be able to fall asleep earlier than the 14 hour mark—like if you try to take a nap—but you won’t have enough for a solid, full night’s sleep.

Because how quickly you build up sleep drive is also affected by the amount of physical activity that you’ve had that day, if you’re seated or not moving most of the day, you probably need a lot more than 14 hours awake to have built up enough sleep drive.

Naps will also impact when you can expect sleep at nighttime. When you sleep, that build-up of sleep drive is depleted.

Napping is like having a late afternoon snack because you’re so hungry. A snack makes sense in the moment but then ends up ruining your appetite for dinner.  

Similarly, naps make sense when you’re exhausted but then end up costing you nighttime sleep. So, if you’ve napped, you have to tag on even more time to the 14-hour rule.

STRATEGY #2: FIGURE OUT THE CURRENT TIMING OF YOUR BODY CLOCK

The second easy way to avoid showing up too early for sleep is to understand the current timing of your body’s clock. You do not want to try or expect sleep until it is the right time for your body clock to sleep.  

Timing sleep too early for the current timing of the body clock is really common especially during the teen years because the clock naturally likes to run a bit later in this stage of life.

HOW DO YOU FIGURE OUT THE CURRENT TIMING OF YOUR BODY CLOCK?

Ask yourself the following questions:

• When do you spontaneously wake up without an alarm on weekends?

• When do you start to feel less zoned out and more alert on days when you have to wake up early (like school days)?

Is it 10AM? Noon? 3PM?

Now, take this time and go back 9 hours. This is the approximate time your body clock may think it’s time to sleep. 

So your body tends to get more alert at 11am, your body clock might be ready for sleep at 2am.

So your body tends to get more alert at 1pm, your body clock might be ready for sleep at 4am.

For any adults reading this, because your body likely needs a bit less sleep, you may only need to subtract 7 or 8 hours.

THE FORBIDDEN ZONE

It’s also important to know that there is a period of really high alertness right before the clock is ready for sleep. This period is called the forbidden zone and it’s part of the natural rhythm of the body clock’s daily cycle.

If the clock is on a schedule in which sleep is most likely to happen between 10PM and 7am, the forbidden zone may occur between 8PM and 10PM.

But if your clock is delayed and sleep is most likely to happen between 1AM and 10AM, the forbidden zone will occur between 11PM and 1AM--right when you may be trying to sleep. Because it’s essentially impossible that sleep will come during the forbidden zone, this creates a perfect set-up for insomnia.

FIGURING OUT YOUR STARTING LINE FOR SLEEP

Now, how do you put together the 14-hour rule and the timing of the body clock?

Once you figure out these two times, choose the later of the two times as your starting line for sleep on any given day.

This is the earliest time you want to expect or try to sleep an ideally get into your bed to avoid the showing up too early for sleep.

For example, let’s say you woke up at 7AM. Fourteen hours later is 9PM. Your body clock currently wants to sleep at 1AM. Your starting line for sleep is 1AM.

Or, let’s that your body clock wants to sleep at 11PM but you slept until 12PM today because you had a hard time falling asleep the night before. Fourteen hours after 12PM would be 2AM. So, your starting line for sleep is 2AM.

This math may not perfectly predict when you’re going to be ready for sleep and there are some rare exceptions—like if you’re ill, if you have an untreated sleep disorder like sleep apnea, or if you’ve had a string of nights in which you’ve slept very little. But, generally, if you are falling into this trap of trying to sleep when sleep is just not possible, these two quick calculations may save you hours of lying awake in bed.

THE TRAIN ANALOGY

To really hit this idea home, I like to compare this idea of showing up too early for sleep to showing up too early for a train but expecting the train to be there.

First of all, it’s just not possible to catch the train--it hasn’t arrived yet.

While you were waiting, you would likely feel pretty frustrated and impatient. You would likely start to worry about when the train was going to arrive and if you’d make it on time to your destination.

You may take out your phone to stay calm and what else are you going to do? And, you might get so caught up in what you’re doing that you don’t even notice the train when it does arrive.

Had you just shown up for the train at the right time, you could’ve saved yourself all of that time, frustration, and worry.

WHAT IF MY STARTING LINE FOR SLEEP IS TOO LATE?

What happens if you don’t have enough potential for sleep until 3am?

Waiting until your starting line for sleep always going to be the crucial first step—you cannot sleep before this time—BUT obviously this is not a great long-term solution if you have to wake up for school at 7am.

In this situation, you need to move your starting line earlier by building more pressure for sleep at the right time and shifting your clock earlier. More episodes on how to do this to come.

WHAT IF I CAN'T SLEEP ONCE I GET TO MY STARTING LINE FOR SLEEP?

In this situation, there are other things keeping your from getting into the zone for good sleep. I cover these sleep blockers and strategies to address them in this podcast episode and this blog article.

ACTION:

Now, it’s your turn to figure out your starting line for sleep.  

If you want to avoid showing up for sleep when you simply aren’t able to sleep and you want to fall asleep more easily when you do get into bed, take a minute after you finish listening to figure out your starting line for sleep tonight.  

Tonight, try to aim for sleep at this time. Don’t expect sleep before then and try to aim to wind-down for this time.