The ideal sleep rhythm

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

Table of contents

1. How important is regular sleep
2. The perfect sleep rhythm
3. sleep rhythm disturbances
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 fixed sleep rhythm and regular sleep times are important prerequisites for a restful night and significantly promote our sleep. If you go to bed and get up at similar times over the long term, it is easier to fall asleep and prevent sleep disorders. Regular sleep times correspond to our natural circadian rhythm and ensure that the body functions healthily. The famous internal clock is based on the natural daily routine and, among other things, ensures that we get tired in the evening, fall asleep and wake up again in the morning by regulating the hormones cortisol and melatonin.

What time we go to bed in the evening 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. For many people, this means that at least during the week there are regular sleeping times. The individual perfect sleeping time and the circumstances under which we really sleep well differ from person to person and basically depend 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 as best as possible, 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 or what type of sleeper am I?

Are you more of a short or long sleepers? The recommended amount of sleep for adults is usually 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. In order to choose your sleep times sensibly and get enough sleep every night, it is crucial to know how much sleep you need. Basically, 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 sleep (fall asleep) and wake up. It is therefore advisable to adjust your sleep time to a time when we are naturally tired and to set your alarm clock in the morning to a time when we wake up and become active anyway. If you are an early riser, you should go to bed earlier and make the most of your morning performance by starting the day early, while late risers (owls) should make the most of their energy in the evening and sleep a little longer in the morning.Because social, social or professional duties often force them to get up early, the owl type often suffers from tiredness or sleep disorders, as he has difficulty falling asleep early in the evening and has to forego 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 structure. 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., you should regularly go to bed by 11 p.m. at the latest.

3. Sleep rhythm disturbances

Minor irregularities, such as a short night or sleeping in at the weekend, only affect our sleep rhythm in the short term and have little to no effect on the quality of sleep. It is important that we get enough sleep on a regular basis and give in to the natural pressure to sleep, because tiredness is an important signal from the body that the body and mind need to sleep and recover.

Time changes, long-distance travel or shift work can, however, have an intensive or permanent influence on the sleep rhythm and have a negative impact on sleep, our performance and our health. If the internal clock gets out of sync, we quickly suffer from difficulty falling asleep, problems sleeping through the night and states of overtiredness, which not only make us unfocused, irritable or listless, but also harm our health in the long term. The body needs some time to get used to the new circumstances and to reorient itself. So how can we react when we are forced to adjust our own sleep rhythm?

time change

The time change and the change between summer and winter time throw the internal clock out of balance. When the clocks go back or forward, the body has to slowly get used to and adjust, which is a strain for many people and can lead to tiredness, sleep disorders, concentration problems and depressive moods.

It's that time again now: On the night from Saturday to Sunday, the clocks are turned back from 3 a.m. to 2 a.m. so that it gets light earlier in the morning and darker more quickly in the evening! And although we gain an entire hour at night and can therefore sleep "longer", the change to winter time also has a mini jet lag effect on our bodies.

Tip 1: Adjust step by step
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 to gradually go to bed a quarter of an hour later in the days before the change so that your body can slowly adjust and doesn't have to make up for it by a whole hour from one day to the next.

Tip 2: soak up the daylight
Daylight is the external pacemaker of our internal clock. Therefore, try to consume a lot of daylight on the day of the change to support the body's adjustment. In addition, daylight also functions as a natural alarm clock, which you should use on the day of the change to get 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 gets your circulation going and has a beneficial effect on your metabolism, hormone production and other important body functions. This way you can increase your natural sleep pressure in the evening and support falling asleep and sleeping through the night.

long-distance travel & jet lag

The famous jet lag occurs when we travel through different time zones within a few hours and find ourselves at a completely different time of day when we arrive. Our body then initially follows its usual sleep rhythm and needs some time to adjust. As a result of jet lag, we often find it difficult to fall asleep in the evening or wake up particularly early in the morning and suffer from extreme tiredness, 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 the body is programmed for sleep, and then have to sleep when the body and mind are ready to be awake. This creates a permanent discrepancy between the internal and external clock, the negative effects of which are not primarily caused by the changed sleeping and waking times, but by the frequent changes.

You can find helpful tips on how to ensure 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 the sleep rhythm and have a negative impact on sleep, our performance and our health.

Best regards and see you soon!