This past October I was fortunate enough to go on a nice, lengthy vacation to Istanbul (not Constantinople)… and it looks like vacation is good for my sleep.
What Was I Doing Differently?
- I kept a consistent bed/rise schedule that matched my sleep needs. Since I was traveling by myself, I had greater flexibility overall and could decide that 12 midnight was a good bedtime and that 10am a good rise time.
- I was active. Instead of spending 8 hrs behind a desk, I spent 5-7 hours per day walking around the city and museums. Although I have no record of it, I have a hunch that all the additional exercise helped a little in the sleep department.
- I decreased my alcohol and caffeine consumption. Instead of the drink with dinner and the 1-2 cups of coffee (133-266 mg caffeine) during the day, I had water and 4-8oz of tea (23-53mg caffeine).
- I started working off a serious (and constant) sleep debt. While on vacation, I managed to get well over 8 hours of sleep every night (and if I had my Zeo, I bet my ZQ would have averaged about 100). Even though I hit my age targets for Deep (83 minutes), REM (1.6hrs), and overall ZQ (86) while I’m not on vacation, I’m still carrying a heavy load of sleep debt (just like most people). In The Promise of Sleep, Stanford sleep scientist William Dement says that for every two hours awake, you should have 1 hour of sleep. Seven hours a night isn’t going to cut it unless I live on 21 hour days. Moreover, a paper published by Dement notes that it may take as many as 30 consecutive nights to work off a consistent sleep debt. With the 8+ hours of sleep for 10 nights, I was not only hitting that sleep/wake ratio but working off all that extra sleep debt.
- I put sleep first. Since I did not have to be anywhere at a set time every day, I could wake up when I wanted to. When I was tired, I went to bed or took a nap. And while I often had the afternoon caffeine pick me up, it was a much smaller serving than normal and I did not use it in order to mask how tired and unfocused I was.
Back to Reality
I’d like to say that all this has made me a better sleeper but my post-vacation Zeo records say otherwise. However, what I can say is that this time on vacation, in conjunction with consistent Zeo use, has allowed me to see just how different my sleep can be when I make lifestyle and environment changes. Perhaps it’s time to pull some of those vacation habits into the everyday.
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Andi (Avg ZQ = 81) is the company administrator at Zeo. She is the glue that holds us all together and ensures that we get our jobs done. She needs another vacation 
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I wish I could get 8+ hours of sleep every night, like you did on vacation. I’ve been trying to get up and be a little more physical at work. A few times a day I will get up to do some stretches and sometimes going for a nice long walk on my lunch break. If it helps my sleep, then all the better.
Hey Melanie, thanks for the comment. By far, the best way I’ve found to get 8+ hours a night is to make time for it. At home I really try to follow my “light’s out by midnight” policy and this means starting to wind down my day at 10:30pm. I am also a fan of the “power down hour” and find that it not only helps me tie up loose ends, but gets me in the right mindset for sleep. You can read more about the Power Down Hour here at our Sleep Info Center: http://bit.ly/47lODb. Feel free to let me know if this helps!
As long as it is quiet I tend to get more sleep in hotels because there aren’t the options to get up and eat (one of my sins) or whatever. Somehow my mind knows this while I am asleep.