My sleep experiment and what you can learn from it.

This is excellent. I also enjoyed your post about the science behind sleep and sleeping better.

Your experiments show that by measuring something we can manage it better:

Merely seeing trends gave me more insight than you might expect into some bad habits.

What was happening? My weekend schedule was very different than my workweek schedule and this meant a lot less sleep on Sunday night.

As if I really needed something to make Monday mornings worse.

Studies show how you start the day affects the entire day and research on daylight savings time and jet lag shows sleep inconsistency hurts performance a lot more than you might expect.

I also like that BEING MINDFUL that you were experimenting MADE YOU BETTER:

Some of you may be wondering about the Hawthorne effect*. (Knowing a study is being performed makes people change their behavior.)

Actually, I was counting on it. After all, my goal is to improve, not to publish research.

I’ve posted research before that reminders are one of the most powerful things you can do to promote improvement. Sure enough, knowing this little app was watching gamed me into behaving better.

Findings from the excellent book Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep:

• Exercise during the day.
• Create a cold sleeping environment.
• Avoid light before bed.
• Avoid alcohol and caffeine at night.

Read more: http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/09/how-can-you-sleep-like-a-baby/