Sleeping Better
Sleeping patterns are a key part in mantaining a positive mind set. Believe it or not, too little or too much sleep can effect your moods. The general avaerage of sleep to feel fully rested and awake is between 7-9 hours. For most people this amount of sleep helps them feel their best. As a college student myself I’m pretty used to seeing people still up and active past midnight. Whether it be to do homework or hang out with friends or even eat that late at night, there are still people up and moving at this time.
But this is not necessarily the best thing. Always take into acoount when you have to be up the next morning. Do you have an 8am class? If you do, and you are someone who normally has trouble getting up in the morning think about going to sleep at an earlier time. For me, I like to think ahead to when I have to get up the next mor ning, if it’s my earlier days, I tend to go to sleep earlier. I personally try to aim for at least 7 hours of sleep. It can be a tad difficult to do so, because some days eaven after I’ve putt my phone down and the lights are off it can take me on occasion an hour or more to even fall asleep.
Not being able to fall alseep then just ends up stressing me out cause then I start calculating how many hours of sleep i’m going to get instead. Rather than turning off my brain, I just end up waking my brain up.
Recently I was having such a hard time falling asleep the night before my earlier classes. I even tried going to sleep earlier but I still just laid in bed unable to sleep. So I decided to try a “sleeping trick” I’ve read about before.
The idea that you shouldn’t look/play on your phone before goig to bed, specifically twenty minutes before going to bed, waht something I decided to try. Along with that though was the technique of reading before bed. Reading exersices the brain, usually after exerciseing people may feel tired. The same goes for the brian. Reading works the brain and studies have actually soon that reading can make you tired.
I combined these two ideas. For a whole week, starting on Sunday night, I set my phone aside 30 minutes before I usually get ready from bed. I grabbed a book I hadn’t read before and read for 30 minutes before going to bed. That night it took me about 30 minutes before falling asleep, but that was sooner than I normally had been asleep. Throughout the night I didn’t wake up or toss and turned as much as I usually did. It was a decent nights sleep.
I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just luck or completely random that I had managed to sleep better. I had to continue to test the method. So every night for an entire week that was exactly what I did. It worked! I fell alseep quicker and I had a better nights rest in general. I was very impressed by this method.
For those who maybe do not like reading or can’t part from their phone, another thing I noticed was on days were I was really busy, I was physically up and moving throughout the day I also sleeped a lot better because my mind and body were completely exhausted by the time I went to bed. Days where I did not move around a lot, maybe I just chilled watching netflix all day, I was not tired when it came time to sleep.
The best thing about getting a goodnight sleep is the fresher feeling you have in the morning. I felt so much more ready for the day, was able to get in gear a lot faster. Even during the day I felt more productive.
If you’ve been feeling off during your days, unproductive, and maybe a tad moody, take a look at your sleep. Do you need to get a better night sleep? Go to bed earlier instead of staying up til 1-2am? Consider looking up different sleeping techniques and find one that works best for you!
