As you may recall, there is a natural “slump” in body temperature during the mid
afternoon. This slump is what makes a lot of people sleepy during the day, and why
so many people feel the need to take an afternoon nap! However, is taking a nap
good for strengthening your sleep system? The answer is yes, and no.
In many siesta countries, taking a regular nap is a normal part of the culture, i.e.:
Spain, Mexico. This has several effects:

As you remember, we sleep through certain sleep stages, and sleep cycles. During
the first sleep cycle, our body enters deep sleep for the longest period of time, it’s at
this point that our body temperature begins to drop really low, our respiration, heart
rate and blood pressure decreases.

If you’ve ever been woken up out of “deep sleep”, you know that it’s almost
impossible to get up. Waking up during or after a major deep sleep phase makes you
feel lethargic, slow, and disoriented i.e.: when you wake up during the night to go to
the bathroom, you stroll in there like a Zombie, and don’t even remember it the next
morning.

It takes about 45 minutes to enter the first deep sleep phase. If you limit your nap to
45 minutes, you will sleep mainly in Stage 2 sleep. Stage 2 sleep also plays a major
role in restoring physical energy, as you look at the previous chart, 50% of sleep is
spent in Stage 2 sleep. This is why you may have heard before that a simple 10
minute nap can totally re-charge you. If you limit a nap to 45 minutes, you will wake
up feeling re-charged, and ready to go.

However, if you take a nap for longer than 1-2 hours, you will most likely enter deep
sleep. Your temperature will begin to drop, and you’ll wake up feeling very sleepy
and disoriented. Also, when you enter deep sleep during the day, you put your body
temperature rhythm out of whack, it may be difficult for you to go to sleep later on in
the night. You’ll have difficulty sleeping deeply at night, which will have negative
consequences for the day ahead, such as poor energy, headaches and nausea.
Most likely resulting in more naps.

As you see, taking long naps is not the way to go as you can enter a cycle of
behavior resulting in poor energy levels and poor quality sleeps. This would affect
your health and your life in big ways. Taking irregular naps is one way that sleeping
disorders develop.

The correct way to take naps is to keep them ultra short. This will prevent deep sleep
and re-charge you physically. Some studies even show that taking short naps can
reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease by as much as 30%.

As part of this book, I would personally recommend that you do take a short nap
during the day, you’ll be surprised at how energized you feel for the rest of the day
when you do take one! Limit the nap to 45 minutes, if you still feel tired after the nap, then shorten the nap time. The amount of time required to enter deep sleep varies
from person to person.

Because everyone experiences the afternoon body temperature slump, we can
assume that nature intended us to have an afternoon nap. Perhaps to keep our
ancestors from the mid-day sun and dangerous predators out for the hunt?

Before actually learning this information, I had this experience a few times, and it
made me wonder how on Earth it happened. I woke up with a sense that I’ve already
been awake, and I felt completely ready to go.

As you recall, we sleep through sleep stages in sleep cycles. Each Cycle ends with a
period of REM sleep. During REM sleep our physiology and brain waves are the
closest to the ones when we’re awake. The longest period of REM sleep is towards
the end of sleep, during which we usually wake up for the final time.

The challenge is, most of us use alarm clocks to “bolt” ourselves out of sleep. Often,
our alarm clocks wake us up in the wrong sleep stage, making it very hard to wake
up. For instance, if a person is in their last sleep cycle towards the end of a night,
and they’re in Stage 3 sleep, if your alarm clock goes blaring off at this point, it might
be very difficult to get up, and feel rested. However, if only the alarm clock went off
30 minutes later, in REM sleep, getting up would be much easier.

Obviously, most of us are limited and don’t really have a choice as to when we have
to set that alarm clock to. We have busy schedules, work places to get to, and traffic
to beat which unfortunately will not adjust to our schedule.

So the only way to wake up at the end of a cycle is to do some trial and error testing
with the time we go to sleep at. If you currently wake up feeling horrible, try going to
sleep 20 minutes earlier, or 20 minutes later, 40 minutes earlier, or 40 minutes later
than you usually do. By doing this, you’ll eventually find a “hot spot” for waking up at
the end of your cycle.

Remember though, your sleep cycle never depends on when your alarm clock
wakes you up, only on your body temperature levels. As you apply the other
information in this book, your sleep cycles will change as well, so you may want to
try experimenting with this technique when you get a solid sleep cycle pattern
happening.

Also, “catching up on sleep” is a myth. As you know by now, It’s only during the first
3-4 hours that we experience most of our deep sleep, the rest is comprised mostly of
Stage 2 and REM sleep. If you sleep for 10 hours, this will primarily increase your
REM sleep, which will not be of great benefit to your body.

If you feel the need to re-energize during the weekend, take a 45 minute nap, as
described before! You’ll save tons of time by sleeping less, feel more energized, and
your sleep system will be strengthened by this new behavior - making it easier for
you to sleep deeply.

• Exercise will raise your body temperature rhythm, and make your body
temperature “peak” at a higher level. This will increase your energy levels
throughout the day, you’ll feel more awake, alive, and motivated.
• As your body temperature levels will max out at a higher level, your body
temperature will also drop more easily and deeper. This will allow you to sleep
deeply, without interruptions.
• Regular exercise will prevent your body temperature rhythm from “flat-lining”,
which will allow you to sleep deeply even if you’ve had a stressful day, or
couldn’t exercise on one particular day.
• Exercise delays the body temperature “drop” in the evening, allowing you to stay
awake and alert longer without feeling tired and drowsy.
• Exercise is also a great relief of tension and stress, which as you’ll later on, is a
major cause of sleeping disorders.

If you don’t exercise yet, GET A MOVE ON IT! and start now. The best time to
exercise is in the morning, as this will promote a quick temperature rise. However,
avoid exercise 3 hours prior to going to sleep, as your body temperature will
probably still be on the rise, and you may find falling asleep / sleeping deeply more
difficult.

If you don’t exercise, I’m not suggesting you get up off your butt right now, get a
membership at your local gym and begin a full scale work out program. You can do
that only if you really want to. However, recent study shows that just moderate
exercise during the day has many health benefits. If you can’t motivate yourself to
start exercising regularly, you could find a less intensive physical activity that you still
enjoy, like walking briskly, biking, roller blading, these will still have a substantial
effect at raising your body temperature.

My final point about this would be: What’s the Point of Trying to Rejuvenate your
Body, and Increasing the Quality of Your Sleep, if You’re Not Going to USE
YOUR BODY?

• In an office lit by fluorescent light bulbs, the light intensity is about 200 - 500
luxes.
• At sun-rise, the light intensity is about 10,000 luxes.
• At noon, on a bright sunny day, the light intensity is about 100,000 luxes!

Consider how for most of our evolution we spent most of our time outside, in these
high intensity light environments, and how now we spend so much time in low light
intensity environments. Spending the day indoors is the equivalent for our eyes
as spending the day in complete darkness!

Because our eyes rarely get exposed to “real light”, our eyes can’t really tell the
difference between night and day. Also, consider the fact that most of us aren’t even
exposed to real “darkness” anymore as most of us are exposed to other sources of
light during the night (street lamps, TV screens, Computers). The result is, our eyes
can’t tell the difference between night and day, and our body temperature rhythm
flat-lines. As a result, we get poorer sleep, and can’t stay awake and alert for very
long.

There are many miscalculations about how much light actually enters our eyes. A
recent study by Doctor Daniel F. Kripke, of the University of California, shows that
most of the time when people measure light intensity in certain areas, they take the
measurements wrong, by pointing the measurement devices straight at the source!
For instance, during a sunny day at noon, the sun provides us with 100,000 luxes of
light. However, most of us don’t look DIRECTLY at the sun! Obviously, this
wouldn’t be a “bright” idea. The Sun can be damaging to our eyes in high intensity
amounts.

However, Dr. Kripke states that the light that enters our eyes really depends in the
direction that we’re looking at. By measuring light intensity in the directions that most
people look at during the day Dr. Kripke says that most of us get an average of 5,000
to 10,000 luxes of light during the day.

He also says that the same misconceptions come into play when measuring light
intensity indoors. Many people think we get an average of 200 to 500 luxes indoors,
however, these light intensity measurements are often taken by pointing the
measurement instruments right at the light source! And obviously, most of us don’t
walk through a super market looking straight at the ceiling. Dr. Kripke says that most
of us experience only about 1 to 5 luxes of light when we’re indoors!

So what’s the solution? Well, I could hammer this further into your mind by providing
you with more information about light, and the effects of light deprivation, but I think
the best solution to this is just to GET MORE SUNLIGHT! Go out there, and get as
much of it as possible.

If you’re working at home and you’re doing some thinking, go outside into your yard
and think there instead.

If you work in an office, move your desk near a window.

Plan more activities outdoors

Open the drapes or shades immediately upon awakening.
Avoid sunglasses in the morning and evening. (More on sunglasses below)
Now, let’s discuss other strategies for increasing your light exposure…
The Effects of Sunglasses

Sunglasses can block from 20% to 90% of sunlight entering our eyes! Many people
who I’ve consulted have received a huge boost of better sleep and energy
throughout the day simply from wearing their sunglasses less often, or eliminating
the use of sunglasses completely.

Naturally, sunlight can be damaging to our eyes in certain circumstances. Natural
sunlight is composed of many different types of light, including UV (Ultra Violet) light
which can be very harmful. Over exposure to UV light is a leading cause of skin
cancer and cataract (break down of the lenses in our eyes).

However, most people who wear sunglasses wear them when they don’t even need
to. UV radiation depends on the time of day; it’s highest in the noon hours. Usually,
the higher the sun is in the sky, the higher the UV radiation. UV radiation is lowest
during sunrise and sunset. Also, the closer you live to the equator, the higher the UV
radiation you’re exposed to on a daily level.

Try to minimize your use of sunglasses, and use your common sense as to when
they may be appropriate. If you currently wear sunglasses all day, you are
minimizing the amount of sunlight entering your eyes, which is affecting your body
temperature rhythm.

Artificial Bright Light

If you currently work in an office where light is limited, getting light during the day
may be challenging for you. If you feel really drowsy and tired during the first hours
of work in the office, chances are your body temperature isn’t rising fast enough,
most likely because you haven’t been exposed to enough light, or haven’t had
enough activity!

If you work in an office, or at home, a good idea is to get a “bright light box.” Bright
light boxes are machines that artificially produce light at high intensities, from 5,000
luxes to up to 10,000 luxes. They’re a bit pricy, but a great investment if you or your
employer values your energy level while you’re at work. If you work in a place where
your employer depends on your ability to function properly and with full energy, you
could give them this book and convince them to invest in a few of them.

They range from $150 to $300 in price, here’s a company I would personally
recommend to order these from. Click here to learn more now. (They even offer a mini
hand-held bright-light generator that you can take with you virtually anywhere.)
Bright light therapy also has a connection with our emotions and daytime mood; it
has known to cure depression and other mental disorders. Lack of light in the winter
is one of the main causes of winter depression, and why people generally sleep longer in the winter
Again! I could go on forever about how important light is in our lives, but let’s move
on.

Okay, now that you the basics of the mechanics of sleep. Let’s talk about how you
can use this new knowledge to sleep less, have more powerful sleep, and have more
energy in your life. I have given you the previous “scientific” information here
because I wanted you to have a knowledge base with the “right” information. Too
often in life we try to achieve something but with the wrong information! I have a
belief in life that there are 3 fundamental steps to achieving anything, whether it is
getting quality sleep, achieving a financial goal, a personal goal, or anything else,
these 3 steps are…

Step 1) Get the right information
Step 2) Make the right plan
Step 3) Take ACTION!

To give you a personal example of how step #1 is so important:

I go to the gym about 3 days per week, and every single time I’m there, I see the
same people relentlessly working out their abs on the ab cruncher machines. And
these people are doing about 10 - 20 sets of 100 to 200 repetitions of ab crunches
and sit ups, for up to 3 hours! Every time I go past them I laugh a little, and I also feel
a bit sorry for them, because they’re wasting their time.

The reason why they’re doing all the sit ups is because they’re desperately trying to
get a 6 pack of abs on their stomach.

I have a 6 pack myself, but is it because I trained hard for 2 years to get it? No,
actually it took me only about 7 weeks. I learned that the only way for your abs to
become visible is to decrease your body fat percentage below a certain point, about
7% for men and 12% for women. This is only achieved by following a specific diet
and working out ALL the muscles of your body, not just one. This way you’re working
out every single muscle, and your body fat decreases all over your body, instead of
following the “spot reducing” method, where you work out only one part of your body
and expect the muscles to become visible through all your fat. This is the only way to
get a 6 pack of abs.

That information took me 3 minutes to learn! 3 Minutes of powerful information
prevented me from wasting my time for months, or perhaps years without getting the
result I wanted.

So this is what I meant by “getting the right information” in life. Often people have the
right MOTIVATION to do something, but they have the wrong INFORMATION. A lot
of people want to have more time and energy in their lives, but they don’t have the
right information on how to go about getting that result! This is why I have chosen to
write this book for you, and teach you about the mechanics of sleep first.

In this section we’ll talk about all the methods and understandings you must have to
optimize your sleep clock for optimum sleep performance. Afterwards we’ll talk about sleeping problems and finally how to tie all this information together to create your
own sleep optimization plan and reduce your sleeping time. After finishing this book
and filling out your Personal Evaluation Plan, you may feel compelled to explore a
more fun part of sleep: Dreams, in the other book that came in the downloadable
package.

Remember, your main goals are to:

1) Increase the quality of your sleep.
2) Increase the level of energy you have every day.
3) Decrease your sleeping time by as much as you can. (We’ll explore this in detail in
a later section.)

Getting enough Sunshine

I cannot over emphasize how important this is! As explained earlier, the amount
of natural sunlight that enters your eyes has a drastic effect on your temperature
body rhythm.

• When we’re exposed to high intensity light, our body temperature increases, and
melatonin levels rapidly decrease.

• Exposure to natural sunlight also delays the temperature drop. This allows you
to stay awake and alert for longer periods of time.

• Lack of sunlight results in higher melatonin levels, this leads to lower body
temperature levels, feeling very sleepy, and tired through out the day.
Lack of sunlight will create a flat-line effect in your body temperature, because it will
not get a chance to rise high enough, your body temperature won’t fall low enough
during the night either. If your body temperature is flat-lined, this could cause major
sleeping problems, and it will be very difficult for you to sleep deeply for long periods
of time. A lot of people who complain about “poor sleep” usually don’t get enough
sunlight.

Consider how for the most part of our evolution we were always outside during the
day, it seemed that nature intended us to be this way, then suddenly over the past
100 years we drastically changed our exposure to natural sunlight. Most of us hardly
get any sun today at all! We drive to work in a car, we wear sunglasses, we work in
offices, what kind of effect do you think this has on our sleep clock?

Then something strange happened. The son asked, “Dad, aren’t you aware of the great
recession that is coming our way?” The father replied, “No, but tell me about it.” The son
said, “The international situation is terrible. The domestic is even worse. We should be
prepared for the coming bad time.” The man thought that since his son had been to
college, read the papers, and listened to the radio, he ought to know and his advice
should not be taken lightly. So the next day, the father cut down his order for the meat
and buns, took down the sign and was no longer enthusiastic. Very soon, fewer and
fewer people bothered to stop at his hot dog stand. And his sales started coming down
rapidly. The father said to his son, “Son, you were right. We are in the middle of a
recession. I am glad you warned me ahead of time.”

What is the moral of the story?

1. Many times we confuse intelligence with good judgment.
2. A person may have high intelligence but poor judgment.
3. Choose your advisers carefully and use your judgment.
4. A person can and will be successful with or without formal education if they have the 5
Cs:
¨ character
¨ commitment
¨ conviction
¨ courtesy
¨ courage
5. The tragedy is that there are many walking encyclopedias who are living failures.
Intelligence is quickness to leam. Ability is the skill to apply what is learned. Competence
is the ability and the desire to apply what is learned. Desire is the attitude that makes a
skillful person competent. Many skillful people are incompetent. Ability without the right
attitude is wasted.

The first duty of a university is to teach wisdom, not trade; character, not technicalities.
Page 18 of 175
–Winston Churchill

Educated

Whom, then, do I call educated?
First, those who manage well the circumstances which they encounter day by day; and
those who can judge situations appropriately as they arise and rarely miss the suitable
course of action.

Next, those who are honorable in their dealings with all men, bearing easily what is
unpleasant or offensive in others, and being as reasonable with their associates as is
humanly possible.

Furthermore, those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not unduly
overcome by their misfortunes, bearing up under them bravely and in a manner worthy of
our common nature.

Most important of all, those who are not spoiled by their successes, who do not desert
their true selves, but hold their ground steadfastly as wise and sober-minded men,
rejoicing no more in the good things that have come to them through chance than in
those which through their own nature and intelligence are theirs since birth.
Those who have a character which is in accord, not with one of these things, but with all
of them these are educated–possessed of all the virtues.
–Socrates (47~399 B.C.)

In a nutshell, educated persons are those who can choose wisely and courageously
under any circumstances. If they have the ability to choose between wisdom and
foolishness, between good and bad, between virtuousness and vulgarities, regardless of
the academic degrees they have, then they are educated.

An expert is someone who knows all the answers if you ask the right questions.
What is a Broad-Based Education?

Some animals in a forest decided to start a school. The students included a bird, a
squirrel, a fish, a dog , a rabbit & a mentally retarded eel. A board was formed and it was
decided that flying, tree climbing, swimming, and burrowing would be part of the
curriculum in order to give a broad-based education. All animals were required to take all
subjects.

The bird was excellent at flying and was getting A’s but when it came to burrowing, it kept
breaking its beak and wings and started failing. Pretty soon, it started making C’s in flying
and of course in tree climbing and swimming it was getting F’s. The squirrel was great at
tree climbing and was getting A’s, but was failing in swimming. The fish was the best
swimmer but couldn’t get out of the water and got F’s in everything else. The dog didn’t
join the school, stopped paying taxes and kept fighting with the administration to include
barking as part of the curriculum. The rabbit got A’s in burrowing but tree climbing was a
real problem. It kept falling and landing on its head, suffered brain damage, and soon
couldn’t even burrow properly and got C’s in that too.

The mentally retarded eel, who did everything half as well became the valedictorian of
the class. The board was happy because everybody was getting a broad-based
education.

What a broad-based education really means is that the stude

I go to the gym about 3 days per week, and every single time I’m there, I see the
same people relentlessly working out their abs on the ab cruncher machines. And
these people are doing about 10 - 20 sets of 100 to 200 repetitions of ab crunches
and sit ups, for up to 3 hours! Every time I go past them I laugh a little, and I also feel
a bit sorry for them, because they’re wasting their time.

The reason why they’re doing all the sit ups is because they’re desperately trying to
get a 6 pack of abs on their stomach.

I have a 6 pack myself, but is it because I trained hard for 2 years to get it? No,
actually it took me only about 7 weeks. I learned that the only way for your abs to
become visible is to decrease your body fat percentage below a certain point, about
7% for men and 12% for women. This is only achieved by following a specific diet
and working out ALL the muscles of your body, not just one. This way you’re working
out every single muscle, and your body fat decreases all over your body, instead of
following the “spot reducing” method, where you work out only one part of your body
and expect the muscles to become visible through all your fat. This is the only way to
get a 6 pack of abs.

That information took me 3 minutes to learn! 3 Minutes of powerful information
prevented me from wasting my time for months, or perhaps years without getting the
result I wanted.

So this is what I meant by “getting the right information” in life. Often people have the
right MOTIVATION to do something, but they have the wrong INFORMATION. A lot
of people want to have more time and energy in their lives, but they don’t have the
right information on how to go about getting that result! This is why I have chosen to
write this book for you, and teach you about the mechanics of sleep first.
In this section we’ll talk about all the methods and understandings you must have to
optimize your sleep clock for optimum sleep performance. Afterwards we’ll talk about

sleeping problems and finally how to tie all this information together to create your
own sleep optimization plan and reduce your sleeping time. After finishing this book
and filling out your Personal Evaluation Plan, you may feel compelled to explore a
more fun part of sleep: Dreams, in the other book that came in the downloadable
package.

Remember, your main goals are to:

1) Increase the quality of your sleep.
2) Increase the level of energy you have every day.
3) Decrease your sleeping time by as much as you can. (We’ll explore this in detail in
a later section.)
Getting enough Sunshine
I cannot over emphasize how important this is! As explained earlier, the amount
of natural sunlight that enters your eyes has a drastic effect on your temperature
body rhythm.
•
When we’re exposed to high intensity light, our body temperature increases, and
melatonin levels rapidly decrease.
•
Exposure to natural sunlight also delays the temperature drop. This allows you
to stay awake and alert for longer periods of time.
•
Lack of sunlight results in higher melatonin levels, this leads to lower body
temperature levels, feeling very sleepy, and tired through out the day.
Lack of sunlight will create a flat-line effect in your body temperature, because it will
not get a chance to rise high enough, your body temperature won’t fall low enough
during the night either. If your body temperature is flat-lined, this could cause major
sleeping problems, and it will be very difficult for you to sleep deeply for long periods
of time. A lot of people who complain about “poor sleep” usually don’t get enough
sunlight.
Consider how for the most part of our evolution we were always outside during the
day, it seemed that nature intended us to be this way, then suddenly over the past
100 years we drastically changed our exposure to natural sunlight. Most of us hardly
get any sun today at all! We drive to work in a car, we wear sunglasses, we work in
offices, what kind of effect do you think this has on our sleep clock?

That could possibly be it! But there’s actually a system inside of us that uses light
and darkness to control certain sleep hormone levels Melatonin is a hormone synthesized in the pineal gland and, to a lesser extent, in the retina. Melatonin is responsible for putting you to sleep and restoring physical energy while we sleep. If your melatonin levels are high, you will experience feelings
of drowsiness, loss of energy, etc.

Melatonin is released when we’re exposed to darkness. The instant sunlight stops
entering our eyes, our melatonin hormone level begins to rise. Your melatonin levels
are EXTREMELY dependant on the amount of natural sunlight that enters your eyes
during the day!

Higher exposure to sunlight delays the body temperature drop, and lets you stay
awake and alert longer. Poor exposure to sunlight will promote a quick temperature
drop and make you feel sleepy, tired, and out of balance. You will most likely
experience the pressure to sleep very early in the day, or the pressure to sleep will
be very minimal which might cause insomnia and poor quality sleep.
Because melatonin is released when we’re exposed to darkness, it is also
sometimes called the vampire hormone.
We’ll explore exactly how important sunlight is in a later part of this book. However
it’s important to understand that getting proper sunlight isn’t an “optional” part of this
program, it’s a MUST, as it is the main way our body adjusts our body temperature
rhythm.

Activity Level

The amount of movement and cardiovascular exercise you get during the night has a
huge impact on your body temperature rhythm. Any movement or exercise promotes
a quick rise in temperature which can be very beneficial to the sleep system.
Exercise creates a higher “peak” point of body temperature during the day, which will
increase your energy levels far beyond anything else. Exercise delays the body

temperature drop at the end of the day, allowing you to stay awake and alert longer.
Finally, exercise will make the drop of body temperature at the end of the day more
drastic and allow your body temperature to stay lower for a longer amount of time;
this will promote much deeper sleep.

Prior Wakefulness

Obviously the amount of time you’re awake has a direct effect on all three factors
above. Your activity levels contribute a lot to your temperature variations. Also, the
longer you’re awake obviously means you get more potential for sunlight entry into
your eyes, which has a direct effect on your melatonin level.

If you’re currently sleeping 8 or 9 hours and you feel tired during the day this could
actually be a sign that you need LESS sleep. You’re sleeping to much and you need
to increase your prior wakefulness to create deeper sleep and a more balanced body
temperature rhythm.

The four factors up above control how long you sleep, and how deep your
sleep is. To summarize, the factors that affect your sleep the most.

1) The body temperature rhythm.
2) Natural sunlight entering your eyes, as it has a direct effect on your melatonin
levels.
Understanding how the body temperature rhythm affects your sleep is the key to
optimizing your sleep. The body temperature rhythm is really what makes the sleep
clock a… “Clock”.

Usually, your body temperature follows the same pattern regardless of when you go
to sleep. For instance, if you routinely get up at 8 am every day, this means your
body temperature begins to rise at 8 am. If you feel drowsy for the next 3 hours, this
means your body temperature is slowly rising during this time, and hasn’t reached it’s
peak point. For most people the optimum peak point of body temperature is at
around 6 PM to 7 PM, this is when we are naturally most active and have the most
energy. Study the previous graph if you still aren’t clear about how the body
temperature rhythm flows.

If all of a sudden you revert to waking up at 6 AM instead of 8 AM, this doesn’t mean
that your body temperature will begin to rise at 6 AM, it will remain low and begin to
rise at 8 AM like it usually did, and possibly making you feel drowsy for 5 hours
instead of 3. Unless you expose yourself to high-intensity light, as we’ll explore soon.
This is why it is so hard to force yourself to wake up early, and why the popular belief
persists that waking up earlier than usual is painful!

This natural “clock” is also why some people do not need an alarm clock to wake up
at PRECISELY the same time every day. This isn’t a mysterious psychic force they
have; their body temperature simply rises at precisely the same time everyday.
In the next section we’ll examine all the details of optimizing your sleep clock.

Section Summary

Take this short quiz to better learn and remember what you’ve just read

1. What best describes deep sleep?
a. Super high brain waves, twitching muscles and rapid eye movement.
b. A type of human hibernation, we can use deep sleep to sleep past really cold
times.
c. Low brain waves, respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure. Dilated blood
vessels to allow blood to the muscles.
2. What is the sleep clock?
a. A system inside your body that counts the time until your inevitable death.
b. A system that measures blood pressure to determine when it’s time to sleep and
when it’s time to be awake and alert.
c. A system that measures light intensity and body temperature to determine when to
sleep, and how physically recharging your sleep is.
3. We sleep during the night because…
a. We’re all vampires except we’re not aware of it because we enter a different state
of consciousness while we’re out partying with Dracula.
b. It just seems like a good idea to sleep at night so we all do it.
c. Melatonin is produced during the day which prevents us from sleeping.
d. Melatonin is produced when we’re exposed to darkness, which causes us to feel
sleepy and our brain waves to lower.
4. Our immune system turns on to fight diseases in what sleep stage?
a. Stage 1
b. Deep Sleep (stage 3 & 4)
c. REM sleep
d. When we’re sleep walking or snoring.

Also, why is it that we have alarm clocks to tell us when to wake up, but very few
people have alarm clocks to tell them when to go to sleep? I know, it’s kind of a
stupid question, but there’s actually a reason behind it, and you’re about to find out
why.

There is an underlying mechanism, called the sleep clock, which consists of a
number of variables in your body that tell it when to feel tired, and when to feel
awake. It also controls how deep you sleep, and how long you sleep.

Circadian rhythm

The first, and most important part of your sleep clock is your body temperature
rhythm. It’s also known as a circadian rhythm.

Contrary to what most of us are taught in grade 5 science class, our body
temperature doesn’t stay at a constant 98.6º Fahrenheit (37º Celsius). Our body
temperature actually has a specific rhythm to it. It rises and drops as the hours of the
day progress. The difference in body temperature is about 3º Fahrenheit (2º Celsius)
This periodic rise and drop in body temperature tells our mind when to feel tired and
when to feel more awake. As body temperature rises, we tend to feel more awake
and our brain waves are usually higher. As body temperature drops, we tend to feel
more lethargic, tired, and lazy - this is a big cue for our minds to lower brain waves
and enter Stage 1 sleep.

As you look at the graph again, you might notice that there is a slight “drop” of body
temperature during the mid afternoon. This is a usual mid-afternoon body
temperature slump. You may have noticed, at some point in your life, that you
usually feel an urge to sleep or take a nap during the afternoon. This is completely
natural, and sometimes the pressure to sleep during the afternoon is as strong as
the pressure at night! (Although most of us chose a drug of choice, such as caffeine,
to combat this body slump).

Because of the demands our society puts on us, such as work, children, and social
life, most of us can’t sleep at this time. As we’ll explore later on, nature actually
intended for us to have a nap at this time - we’ll talk about the science of naps in
detail.

Generally, body temperature begins to rise in the early morning hours, drops
sometime during the afternoon, then begins to rise until the early hours of the
evening. It’s at this time that we have “peak performance” body temperature, most
people are most active during the early evening hours, this is where body
temperature is the highest. Afterwards, body temperature drops and reaches its
lowest point at around 4 am.

If your body temperature rhythm is too flat (doesn’t rise or drop low enough), or if it’s
messed up in any other way, chances are you will experience sleep difficulties. It will
be difficult for you to sleep deeply. We’ll explore all the causes of that later on in this
e-book.

It’s because of the body temperature rhythm that most of us feel sleepy, at precisely
the same time every night. It’s also why some people can wake up without an alarm
clock at precisely the same time every morning.

Usually, your body temperature rhythm will follow the same pattern regardless of
when you fall asleep. For instance if you’ve been waking up at 7 AM all your life, this
means your body temperature begins to rise at this time. It won’t matter if you fall
asleep at 11 PM, 12 AM, or 1 AM, your body temperature will rise at 7 AM, and you
will feel sleepy at the same time you always did the next day. Unless you take the
proper actions to optimize your body temperature, it will usually return to the same
pattern. This is the main focus of this book.

This is the primary reason why jet lag happens. When you travel really quickly
across several time zones, your body may be in a different time zone, but your
temperature rhythm is still following the pattern it did before!

So if you normally live in Florida, and you take a flight to California; if it’s 8 PM in
California, your body will still think it’s 11 PM, based on your temperature rhythm. As
you see, your temperature rhythm really acts as an internal “clock”.
Your body temperature rhythm can adjust to a new time zone, or a new sleeping
pattern, and this may take from a few days to up to several weeks! This is why
trans-continental jet lag is so severe for some people.
Your body temperature rhythm is perhaps the most important concept to grasp about

your inner sleep clock. It has a huge impact on how you sleep, and how you function
during the day.

So what affects your body temperature rhythm? And how could someone possibly
“damage” their body temperature rhythm?

The second important element of your sleep clock is your melatonin hormone level,
and your exposure to natural sunlight.