Good morning!
1 day until US Shipping! The Online Shopping Cart will be activated Thursday at 9am EST. I will be providing a link from OSG and Glo Bakery websites at 9am sharp.
It’s funny because this week I have been swamped with Canadian orders!

I guess the Canadians want to beat the US rush! Smart thinking! ;)
Be sure to check out the Shopping Cart + Shipping FAQ for the answers to all of your pressing questions!
- Please take special note of item 15 on the FAQ page. Keep in mind that quantities on the shopping cart will be limited to start off with. I am going to make available the amount of bars that I can make in a 2 week period. I want to ensure that I maintain excellent customer service which is why I have decided to control how many orders I will be getting all at once. Please don’t despair if you do not get an order in on Thursday! I will be updating the quantities on the shopping cart as I bake new batches.
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How Do You Sleep?
Speaking of losing sleep, I thought it would be timely to do a post on The Sleep Cycle from my book The Owner’s Manual For The Brain.
First, here are a few fun facts about sleep:
- The average person gets 7.5 hours sleep
- Infants get on average 14 hours sleep
- Seniors get on average 6 hours sleep
- Before the invention of electric lights, humans slept for 9 hours on average
- When all cues to time of day are removed (pitch black), humans sleep about 10.3 hours
How do you measure up to these stats?
Personally, when I don’t have my alarm set, I naturally wake up after 8-9 hours of sleep.
The Sleep Cycle is KEY!
- However, it is not the length of sleep that we get that causes us to be refreshed. It is actually the amount of complete sleep-wake cycles that we get!
Each sleep cycle has 5 phases:

The average cycle is 1 hour and 30 minutes, however cycle length can vary from 60-120 mins. depending on the person.
If we truly were to sleep without any disturbances and no alarm clocks, we would always wake up on a multiple of 90 minutes. For example after: 4.5 hours, 6 hours, or 9 hours of sleep.
E.g., 5 complete sleep cycles = 90 mins + 90 mins. + 90 mins. + 90 mins + 90 mins = 7.5 hours of sleep.
Non-REM sleep lasts about 70 minutes per cycle, while REM sleep lasts about 20 minutes per cycle. REM sleep is when we DREAM!
Here is the kicker:
A person who only gets 4 cycles of undisturbed sleep (6 hours) will actually be much more rested than a person who has slept for 8-10 hours but who has not been allowed to complete any one cycle because of being awakened before it was completed.
This is why many top sleep doctors advise people not to sleep with pets in the bed, because often pets disturb your sleep several times during the night and you feel very tired the next day and not know why.
I wish Eric and I could follow this advice! ;) Sketchie happily sleeps at Eric’s feet every single night and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Want to wake up easier? Don’t wake up in REM sleep!
The time between our REM sleep (stage 5) and Stage 2 is called the Twilight Zone (Stage 1). The Twilight Zone is the brief period in between each 90 min. sleep cycle. If you are in Stage 1 of sleep, it is very easy to wake up. You will find that any light stimulus will wake you from a light noise to the sun rising.
Waking up in the second half of your sleep cycle (especially during REM sleep) is often very difficult. Many people report not being able to wake up.
Get this: When we are in REM sleep, our motor output system from the brain is completely shut down (this is why we dream that we are running but we don’t actually run) and also explains why we feel so lifeless when we wake up during REM sleep! Now of course, the motor output system doesn’t always turn off, and we see this especially with sleepwalkers. That is another topic though!
This morning, I woke up in the middle of a dream (REM sleep) and I felt like I was hit by a truck when my alarm went off (even though I had technically the proper ‘length’ of sleep!). I couldn’t wake up for a good hour and walked around like a zombie.
However, if you wake up in the beginning stages of sleep (especially the Twilight Zone), you will find that you wake up easier and feel so refreshed when you get up. I often wonder why some mornings it is so easy to wake up and others it is a battle. This explains a lot!
So fun things to try out:
- Keep a Sleep Journal.
Record the beginning and waking times for each natural sleep episode that is uninterrupted by an alarm or other disturbance. Find the common multiple. For example, if your recorded sleep periods were 400, 500, 400, 200, and 700 minutes, you would conclude that your personal sleep cycle typically lasts 100 minutes, or 1.6 hours. If you don’t want to keep a journal, just assume it is 90 minutes in length.
2. Plan your waking accordingly
For example, if my cycle is 90 minutes and I fall asleep at midnight every night, I should plan to wake at any of the following times: 6am, 7:30am, or 9am. All three of these times are multiples of 90 minutes. I would technically be waking up after a full sleep cycle, ideally. If I got up at 8:30am, I would be getting up in the later stages of sleep and would probably find it more difficult to wake up. Apparently there are devices that you can buy to simplify the process.
This morning, I naturally woke up in the Twilight Zone. I felt awake and ready to get up, but since it was earlier than I needed to get up I allowed myself to fall back to sleep for another 45 minutes. Well, when I woke up 45 minutes later it was almost impossible to wake up (I woke up in the middle of a dream). That’ll teach me! ;)
3. Visualize Waking Up
In an interesting study published in Sleep in 1997, participants were asked to visualize their time of waking on an imaginary clock face. Results found that those who visualized what time they had to get up were naturally able to wake up at the desired time without any alarm (this is SO me!). The key techniques: Get the same amount of sleep nightly, visualize the time you want to wake up, and use a back up (a clock set 10 minutes later than your desired time).
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What are you sleep-wake patterns like? Do you think you get enough undisturbed sleep?

Sleep most definitely depends on stress and what day of the week it is. As a live-in professional at a major university, there are nights that I have to accept that I won’t get any sleep until 2 or 3 in the morning! However, it does make me appreciate the nights I get really restful, deep sleep! :-)
Oh wow I can imagine…weekends must be noisy and whatnot!
Hey…does Sketchie bother you guys in the night, though? Or does he stay at Eric’s feet all night. Shelli has to sleep right next to me (actually, she likes to “spoon”…weird, eh), but she’s really bad about getting up and moving around. And whenever I get up in the night to potty, she’s on the go after that. I reallyreally don’t want to exile her to another room, though, b/c I absolutely love that she wants to be close to us. Do you deal with that with Sketchie too?
Well, Sketchie used to sleep on my side, but I made him switch over to Eric’s because he was disturbing my sleep so much. Eric says he doesnt bother him though (he is a deep sleeper whereas I am a light sleeper). It works much better this way. I still think that Sketchie wakes him up during the night though…he just doesn’t want to admit it! lol
Wow, this is so interesting! And explains a lot, actually. I remember talking about this in school but we didn’t go very deep into the subject.
I would like to have more undisturbed sleep, that would be nice. Hot flashes…I do know that when I don’t eat a lot of cooked food I don’t have as many!
Great post!
Thank you for the sleep advice. I learned a lot of this during my high school psychology course, but it was a great refresher (hah!).
random question: are you going to the foodbuzz festival? as a vendor? they are having an afternoon of tastings of different products and foods. you should definitely come and showcase your new stuff!
I would love to, but I just don’t have the funds to get there. For me to come from Canada it was be over $1,000 for air and hotel!!!! Too bad, cuz I would LOVE to attend!
*It would be I meant :)
hey everybody lets raise $$$ for angela to come to the US to showcase her new goods! =)hehe
you should couchsurf while you’re there. free board!
couchsurfing.org
it’s amazing. you meet amazing people and save amazing money and learn amazing things.
it’s almost too MUCH amazing <333
Gracias for this, Angela! I have terrrible problems sleeping so I found this really interesting. I almost NEVER dream–and now I wonder if that have something to do with my REM cycle.
I also completely agree with the visualization technique; that actually has worked for me in the past. I think we’ve become really reliant on prescrip. meds as the general response to sleeping problems–but I think that cognitive behavioral therapy is much more effective (especially down the road!).
Have a great Wednesday!
That is really interesting!! I though it had to be something like that because often I feel very tired after 8-9 hours of sleep, know I can understan why!! It happens from time to time that I wake up a little before my alarm goes off and I feel really awake BUT go back to sleep just because I know I can and when the alarm finally goes off I almost can’t get out of my bed!! Ugh… I will definitely sit down and calculate a little and see how it goes!!
Thank you for this post!!! Have a great day!! Hug n.
Thanks for this post — interesting stuff that you forget to actually *think* about!
I think I wake up during a dream everyday during the work week – it is always so hard for me to get up, even though I got an adequate number of hours of sleep. On the weekends, I wake up naturally no problem – and relatively early as well.
I’m such a sleep-walker, sleep-talker. During stressful times I often have night terrors, which is probably scarier for my husband than for me (he usually just turns on the light and I wake up).
Every morning my alarm goes off and I’m dreaming, and of course I feel like I’ve been drugged. This post is so helpful! I’m really going to re-evaluate my sleeping and try to come up with a better schedule. Thanks Angela!
So excited for US shipping! Woohoo! :)
I used to be a TERRIBLE sleeper! I had stress induced insomnia and I would only get a couple of hours of sleep at night. I worked with a yoga instructor on ways to clear my mind and relax and BOOM! I was sleeping like a baby. 4 years later, I still get at least 7 quality hours of sleep every night!
I can sleep anytime, anywhere … I am blessed :)
Sounds like Eric…hahah
Me too! My husband gets so jealous…
i never seem to get enough sleep! this post is great. i need to reread for sure because there is so much info that i want to take in! thanks girl!
I am a horrible sleeper, I toss and turn and never get enough sleep! I wish I was better.
coming from someone how is ALWAYS sleepy, thanks for this post!
Angela, I am really liking your new approach to your blog’s content. Having fewer yet more in depth posts are a treat to read, and I don’t have feel like I need to check multiple times a day. good work!
Thanks Emily :) I think it is working out for me as well. Better content, less rush, more quality. That is my goal.
I still find myself checking for new stuff often, but thats just ’cause I love the blog do much! :)
I definately agree with Quality over Quantity and you’re doing a wonderful job of it!
*so much, not ‘do much’!
What a great post and so fitting since last night I randomly woke up at 3am. I am usually a pretty good 7 hour sleeper but every once and a while I will wake up for no reason in the middle of the night. I hear you on the dog in bed issue. When I visit my parents I sneak their dog, Laverne, into my room so she can sleep with me. She kicks and moves all night but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t see her often so I don’t mind it.
This is SUPER interesting. Must be why it’s soooo difficult to wake up early after only 4 hours of sleep or so! haha. I usually get undisturbed sleep, but for some reason always have 1-2 nights of tossing and turning a week. don’t know why!
too much coffee?? That does it to me (well green tea!)
I got too much undisturbed sleep last night, I turned my alarm off and went back to bed for 3 hours, oh man . . . but I guess my body needed it!