I have had a similar "cornerstone habit" for several years now, with the same underlying assumption: if I can get this one thing right, the rest of my goals and habits will fall into place much more easily.

However, I've formulated the habit slightly differently:

Turn off all devices by 830pm

I have an alarm on my phone that goes off at 820p to let me know all devices need to be powered off in 10 minutes. That means no phone, no computer, no TV, no iPad, etc. The only exception is my Kindle.

What I've personally found is that if I don't have any devices to distract me, 90% of the time I'll start to get sleepy before too long. This makes going to bed at 9p or 930p so much easier. This is especially true after my body has adjusted to a week or two of going to bed early and getting up early. I do occasionally get stuck in a book and stay up late reading, but it's pretty rare, and I don't usually have that stupid addiction feeling I get with Hacker News or Reddit where I'm not even enjoying myself anymore but I just can't seem to put the phone down and go to bed, even though it's 12:30am and I wanted to wake up early.

Previously, when my goal was to get up by a certain time or to get a certain amount of sleep, I was in a constant war between two versions of myself: the one that wanted to stay up late and the one who wanted to get up early, get more sleep, etc. Shifting to just turning off devices at a certain time in the evening has proven to be a lot easier to conform to and still get the same end result.

Where did this "8 hours" figure come from? I find it funny that people want to get this mysterious 8 hours of sleep while here I'm wanting to sleep less (I routinely get 9-10 hours or even more every night despite drinking coffee 2-3 times).

It's about getting 5 REM-NREM cycles of sleep. [1][2] The exact time varies from person to person and situation to situation, but roughly speaking the cycle takes 90 minutes and 5 * 90 min = 7.5 hours. Add some minutes lying in bed but not yet asleep, and you've got the 8 hours.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_cycle

[2] http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/science/what/sle...

The book Why We Sleep mentions some experiments comparing the difference between 8 and 7 hours per night. I haven't looked into the actual studies, but the book suggests that 8 hours of sleep opportunity is the ideal for most people.

Yes I think this 8 hour figure actually causes more people to lose sleep more than anything else.

I got fired recently - always thought I was an natural early riser, would wake up at 6 on Sundays... but I'm sleeping two extra hours now that I don't use an alarm any day.

I’m sorry to hear that.

In a similar vein, 18 months ago I came out of an 11 year relationship. It took me a while after that to realise that my sleep cycle was not actually mine. Naturally, I’m a morning person but had been forcing myself to be a night owl to fit with my partner’s rhythm.

These unexpected but dramatic changes in our lives always lead to self-reflection and growth - if we let them.

I hope 2019 goes well for you!

Wowwww I relate so much to this. Every time I end a relationship with a “night owl” i get to rediscover that, like, “holy shit I’m actually a morning person, I was just compromising my sleep preferences for the old in-out!”

Morning sex between morning ppl >>>> evening sex between ppl with mismatched circadian rhythmzzz

Last few weeks my schedule has been sleeping 3 hours after my 9-5, then staying up until 3am, and sleeping the other 5 hours then.

Breaking up the days like that makes it easier for me to reset at night which means I go to the 24-hr coworking space more often than usual (4 or 5 times a week lately). This year I'm focusing more on smaller, niche, SaaS type projects to build a business, rather than some big startup idea that has no real plan for monetization.

This was my goal for the last seven months (since I read that book) and recently I decided to not use an alarm clock to wake up and instead be more careful of when I go to bed. I now sleep around 8h/night (so nearly 9h in bed) and i feel still energetic in the afternoons and evenings unlike when I was forcing myself to wake up early.