Everyone knows that sleep is important. Not all know how important, or why it’s even more important for learning an instrument. So today I’m gone share with you WHY your sleep is important to learn a new instrument.
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How much do you sleep?
Basics first: Do you feel well rested when you wake up? If not, sleep longer. The recommendation is to sleep between 7 and 8 hours. How much time do you need to do that? I got an eye-opener when I bought the Oura-ring which measures my sleep. It tells me two numbers for amount of rest: “Time in bed” and “Sleep time”. Earlier I looked at my watch when I entered my bed, and when I was waking up in the morning, if that was 7 or 8 hours I was satisfied. But my Oura ring can tell me that I’ve been in bed for 8 hours, but only had efficient sleep for 7 hours.
Now I measure my sleep-time with my ring instead of looking at the watch. If I don’t use the Oura-ring, I just add 30 minutes of sleep. If I want 8 hours, I’ll make sure to give myself 8,5 hours in bed. The ring also measures how long it takes to fall asleep. It should take about 15 minutes. If you fall asleep within 5 or even 10 minutes, you should sleep more – or better.
If you’ve exercised, you need more sleep! 1 hour extra for each hour of exercise, with 10 hours efficient sleep as an upper limit. More than that are rarely beneficial. If you have practiced your instrument a lot that day, you should add some extra sleep too, because it can be pretty exhausting for your brain.
Why sleep is important
If you’re learning an instrument, sleep is really important because if you are well rested, you’ll feel more motivated, and you’ll have a much better focus. You’ll more easily manage to play what you are playing and learn more efficiently. In addition your brain is working on what you’ve learned an process your playing within your mind while sleeping. You’ve probably experienced that you practice something difficult, you are going to bed, and the next day it’s much easier to play. That’s because your brain has worked on it throughout the night. So enough sleep, and good enough sleep quality is important!
The Oura Ring
I’m not an affiliate, and do not get any royalties or other benefits for talking about it, I just want to share my experience. The ring can measure my heart-beat, my restfulness, my body temperature, how long it takes before I’m falling asleep, my respiratory frequency, my sleep phases (deep sleep, light sleep and REM-sleep), how long I’ve slept, something called Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and more. The ring is small and good looking, and the battery last for one week. It can track your activity, but I only use it at night for sleep tracking. The app is very good, and by tapping at each statistic, you can read a short description to learn more. The app tells you everything you need to know, and gives you recommendations. Using this data you can improve your sleep quality.
Sleep quality
It’s easier to improve your sleep quality if you have an Oura ring to track the sleep. Try different things, and see if the statistics improves. But even without the ring, you should try to improve it, because the sleep quality is just as important as the length of your sleep. Here are some tips for how you can improve your sleep quality:
Bedtime
Go to bed and wake up at the exact same time every day. Even in the weekend you should aim for this, but I know it’s attempting to stay up later, and sometimes we have activities that don’t allow us to go to bed early. Some even want to have some time late in the evening with their spouse after the kids are tucked in.
If you go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, you are likely to wake up at that time even when you have exercised and want to sleep longer. Because of that it can be an idea to go to bed earlier at those days.
Heavy meals
Never eat heavy meals before going to bed. If you have to eat something, avoid food like bread, leftovers from dinner, cereal etc. Take a smoothie, a glass of juice, or something easy to digest, without a lot of fiber. It’s not dangerous to go to bed hungry. If you eat before going to bed, your body will use a tremendous amount of energy digesting the food, instead of getting the rest you need. If you have an Oura ring, try to eat before bed one day, and go to bed without eating the next day and see the difference. You’ll have higher heart rate and not as good sleep the first half of the night. The same thing will happen if you’ve been drinking alcohol in the evening. You’ll not be as rested in the morning.
Screens
Avoid screens before going to bed. Screens emits blue light that decrease your production of melatonin which your body use to make you tired and helps you fall asleep more easily. At your phone you should activate “Night shift” and adjust the blue color to a very low level. Set it to be automatically activated a couple of hours before you’re going to bed, and until you normally wake up in the morning. Your screen will look more yellow, but it will help you fall asleep. On iPhone it’s Settings –> Screen and brightness –> Night shift.
For your television you should avoid it, or you can buy blue blocking glasses. These glasses blocks out the blue light from the screen to allow your body to produce melatonin. One thing you can do is to do your instrumental practice right before going to bed, to keep your eyes away from the blue light. Not possible for all, but for me it’s possible even with others in the house, because I just practice at an electric piano with my headphones on. Then I can go to bed and my brain can start working further on my practice when I’m falling asleep.
Activity
Don’t exercise or have a high level of activity right before going to bed. Take your time to wind down, either by practicing your instrument, read a book, do some creative work, or even watch Netflix (with blue light blocking glasses, or at your iPad with Night Shift turned on).
Breathing
I fall asleep easier if I take some slow and deep breath when I’m in bed, closing my eyes. It slows down my heart rate and makes me more relaxed. It helps even more if I focus on my breathing, because by doing that I avoid that my brain think about a lot of other stuff that keeps me awake.
That’s it for today! Make sure to implement all this. This tips are very valuable and will increase your sleep quality a lot!
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