How to Sleep Less, and Have More Energy Than You Ever Had Before

Everyone of us have only 24 hrs a day and most of us spends a third of that in bed. Most of us also wished we could shortened our sleep and do more things. This book hopes to help readers achieve the following: 1) Reduce your sleeping time, 2) Increase the quality of your sleep, 3) Gain more energy than you ever had before, 4) Eliminate all feelings of drowsiness / inability to concentrate during the day & 5) Reduce your daily stress levels. According to studies, one does not necessary need 8 hours of sleep everyday to function at his/her best during the day as long as he/she has good quality sleep.

The 1st chapter talks mainly on the 5 stages of sleep.
1st stage - This happens when you are day dreaming, dozing off or zoning off. This is when our body relaxes and the heart beats gets slower. It is something like the "doorway" to your sleep.
2nd stage - There is a sudden burst of brain activity and we are very awake. Some scientist felt that this is the stage where the brain attempts to "turn itself off".
3&4th stages - As we enter these deep sleep stages, our heart beat, blood pressure are the lowest of the day. Our blood dilate and most of the blood from our organs travels to our muscles to nourish and repair them.
5th stage - also called the Rapid Eye Movement(REM) stage. Our brain waves increased rapidly at this stage. This is usually when we dream.

We have sleep cycles every time we sleep. A normal sleep cycle is something like
1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, REM, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2 REM 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, REM, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2 REM......
Each cycle is about 60-100min. Stages 3-5 are the most important as lack of these stages will result in lack of concentration, drowsiness and other day time difficulties.

All of us have a body temperature that goes up and down through the day. As your body temperature goes down, you will feel sleepy. This forms your body clock.

Melatonin is a hormone that is responsible for putting you to sleep and restoring physical energy while we sleep. It is released when we are exposed to darkness. It is thus to get as much sunlight as possible.

There is a hugh chapter written for these 2 issues but in a nutshell, if you can control your body temperature and the amount of Melatonin released, you can sleep less but still have more energy than before. The author suggested to get as much sunlight once you wake up, go for some exercise to bring your body temperature up, do not sleep more during weekends to "catch up" with loss sleep during the weekdays, having regular rise and sleep time, reduce caffeine, nicotine and alcohol, drink lots of water, not have meals prior to sleep, having good sleeping posture(on back or on side) and reduce stress.

A whole chapter is dedicated to how to fall to sleep for those who have difficulties. Relaxation methods are briefed. Mainly to slow down your thoughts. One of them is to get of bed and do something till you feel some drowsiness. Taking a warm bath can help but it must be taken about 60 minutes prior to sleep. A cool and dark room will also help. Sleeping pills are only a short term solution but will not cure the problem.

At the end, there is a evaluation to help the reader to know their sleep cycles and how to improve their lifestyle so as to achieve more energy during their wake time. I feel that this short ebook(70pages) is an easy read and though I have not tried the methods taught, i think most of them should work.