The ideal sleep rhythm

A regular sleep schedule promotes healthy sleep and prevents sleep disorders. Time changes, night shifts, or long-distance travel can disrupt your sleep rhythm and throw your body clock off balance. Find your ideal sleep routine now and learn which tips you can use to support a healthy sleep schedule.

Table of contents

1. How important is regular sleep
2. The perfect sleep rhythm
3. Sleep rhythm disorders
1. Time change
2. Long-distance travel
3. shift work
4. Conclusion

1. Regular sleep is so important

Restful sleep is essential for body and mind. A consistent sleep rhythm and regular sleep times are important prerequisites for a restful night and significantly promote our sleep. Going to bed and getting up at similar times over the long term makes it easier to fall asleep and prevents sleep disorders. Regular sleep times correspond to our natural circadian rhythm and ensure healthy body function. Our famous internal clock is oriented towards the natural daily routine and, among other things, regulates the hormones cortisol and melatonin, ensuring that we tire in the evening, fall asleep, and wake up again in the morning.

The time we go to bed at night and what time we get up in the morning also determines the quality of our sleep and is particularly influenced by our job, family life, or our habits. This means that many people have regular sleep times, at least during the week. The individually perfect sleep time and the circumstances under which we really sleep well vary from person to person and depend fundamentally on various factors – including which Sleep and chronotypes we belong to and what social or professional daily structure we follow.

In order to promote sleep in the best possible way, it is important to establish a regular sleep rhythm and adapt it as best as possible to your personal needs.

2. The perfect sleep rhythm

How much sleep do I need and what type of sleeper am I?

Are you more of a Short or long sleepersThe recommended amount of sleep for adults is generally between seven and eight hours per night. While short sleepers can start the day refreshed after just five to seven hours of sleep, long sleepers need eight to nine hours of sleep. To choose your sleep times wisely and get enough sleep each night, it is crucial to know how much sleep you need. The general rule is: If you feel awake and rested in the morning and can concentrate on your work during the day, even if you are sitting for long periods, you have had enough sleep.

When do I sleep best or what chronotype am I?

Our Chronotype determines the best time for us to fall asleep and wake up. Therefore, it's advisable to adjust your bedtime to a time when we naturally feel tired, and to set your alarm clock in the morning for a time when we wake up and become active anyway. For example, if you're an early bird, you should go to bed earlier and maximize your morning performance with an early start, while late risers (owls) should enjoy their evening energy and sleep a little longer in the morning.Because social, social or professional duties often require early morning wake-up, the owl type often suffers from tiredness or Sleep disordersbecause he has difficulty falling asleep early in the evening and has to miss out on important hours of sleep in the morning.

Your ideal sleep time

If you know when and how much you sleep optimally, you can determine a rough sleep period and integrate it firmly into your daily routine. For example, if you As a short sleeper you need about 7 hours of sleep, usually get out of bed quickly in the morning and have to get up at 6 a.m., so you should regularly go to bed by 11 p.m. at the latest.

3. Sleep rhythm disturbances

Minor irregularities, such as a short night's sleep or sleeping in on the weekend, only affect our sleep rhythm in the short term and have little to no impact on sleep quality. It's important that we otherwise get enough sleep regularly and give in to the natural urge to sleep, because tiredness is an important signal from our body that our body and mind need to sleep and recover.

Time changes, long-distance travel or shift work can, however, affect the sleep rhythm intensively or permanently and have a negative impact on sleep, our performance and health. If the internal clock gets out of sync, we quickly suffer from difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep and states of overtiredness, which not only make us unfocused, irritable, or listless, but also harm our health in the long run. The body needs time to adjust to the new circumstances and reorient itself. So how can we respond when we are forced to adjust our sleep rhythm?

Time change

The time change and the transition between summer and winter time throw the body's internal clock out of balance. When the clocks go back or forward, the body must slowly adjust and adapt, which is stressful for many people and can lead to fatigue, especially in the first few days after the change. Sleep disorders, concentration problems and depressive moods.

It's that time of year again: On Saturday night, the clocks go back from 3 a.m. to 2 a.m. so that it gets light earlier in the morning and dark faster in the evening! And although we gain a whole hour of sleep at night and can therefore, in principle, sleep "longer," the transition to winter time also affects our bodies like a mini jet lag.

Tip 1: Adjust gradually
When we switch to winter time, we tend to wake up unusually early in the morning and also get tired earlier in the evening. Therefore, try gradually going to bed a quarter of an hour later in the days leading up to the change so your body can gradually adjust and doesn't have to compensate for a full hour overnight.

Tip 2: Soak up daylight
Daylight is the external cue for our internal clock. Therefore, try to get plenty of daylight on the day of the transition to support your body's adjustment. Daylight also acts as a natural alarm clock, which you should use on the day of the transition to wake up at the new time—even if that means starting the day a little earlier than usual.

Tip 3: Activity and exercise during the day
Sufficient exercise in the fresh air stimulates the circulation and has a beneficial effect on metabolism, hormone production and other important bodily functions.This way you can increase the natural sleep pressure in the evening and support falling asleep and sleeping through the night.

Long-distance travel & jet lag

The famous jet lag It occurs when we travel through different time zones within a few hours and find ourselves at a completely different time of day at our destination. Our body initially follows its usual sleep rhythm and needs some time to adjust. As a result of jet lag, we often have difficulty falling asleep in the evening or wake up particularly early in the morning, and then suffer from extreme fatigue, exhaustion, or mood swings during the day.

The best tips against jet lag can also be found in our sleep magazine.

shift work

Shift workers often work at times when their bodies are programmed for sleep, and then have to sleep when their bodies and minds are ready to be awake. This creates a constant discrepancy between the internal and external clock, the negative effects of which arise not primarily from the altered sleep and wake times, but from the frequent changes.

You can find helpful tips on how to ensure a healthy sleep despite shift changes and night work in this article.

4. Conclusion

• A fixed sleep rhythm and regular sleeping times are important prerequisites for a restful night and promote our sleep.

• Time changes, long-distance travel or shift work, on the other hand, can have an intensive or permanent impact on our sleep rhythm and have a negative impact on our sleep, our performance and our health.

Best wishes and see you soon!