Should I stay up all night to fix my sleeping schedule?
Hi everyone. I'm in my first year of college, and I have had a HORRIBLE sleeping pattern throughout it. During summer I would go to sleep every inght at 4am, and wake up at around 2pm. This pattern remained throughout college, but instead I would go toe bed at 3am, and wake up at 630 am. I have managed to move my sleeping time to 130 am. But even after that, i am always tired. ALWAYS. I sleep during uni. I go home, do my work, get As on that, but whenever i do tests i do horrible. I usually dont get alot of sleep during weekends because i just like to have fun at those. I have had enough of being tired all the freaking time. Exams are coming up, and sleep is vital to do well. I have been getting about 12 hours of sleep on everyday during this weekend. I want to get my sleeping schedule back on track, where I go to sleep at 10 and wake up at 630. Should I stay up all night to do this? I do not have alot of work to do tomorow. Its 5 Am right now, and I have been unable to fall asleep because I fell asleep at 3am last night and woke up at 3pm. If I go to sleep now, i get 130 hours of sleep, but I WILL feel tired. If i dont go to sleep, i wont feel tired, but i will feel like crap. So I ask you, yahooers, wether or not i should just stay up all night, finish this stupid essay that I am almost done with, go to two classes, then go home and play skyrim, listen to heavy dubstep, and just go to sleep at 10pm??? (BTW if I do that, will I screw up my body for the rest of my life? As in, will my life be any shorter? This might be a stupid question, but I have anxiety :S)
If I stayed up until 4 am and sleep until 10 am will I be okay?
It depends on if it is a stable routin or if it happens only once.If we consider a simple, one happenstance, I believe it won’t bring bigger consequences to your future life. I had many situtions in my life, when I didn’t sleep through the whole night at all. The consequences? I felt like a zombie and nearly screamed when I saw my relfection in the mirror - yes, the dark circles where that huge. Next night I slept totally normaly - I went to bed early and woke up early, sleeping 8–9 hours. I felt so much better and went back to my normal sleeping schedule.You are asking about a situation, where your sleep lasts 6 hours - it is not that bad. Acutally, it is an absoulte minimum to sleep - yes, it is very little, but still, it is the needed minimum.You may feel a little bit dizzy and sleepy through the day, you can also have some problems with focusing and qucikly respodning. Your brain will start working normaly after the next night, if you spend it accordingly. The next sleep should last 8 hours - don’t try to oversleep the lack of hours from the previous night, it doesn’t work like that - and also keep in mind to go to bead early and stay up after 8 hours.Despite of what I wrote, ther would by some changes if you decided not to sleep longer than 24 hours and so on.
I don't get sleep before 7am and then I sleep till 2pm. How do I sleep on time and wake up in the morning?
I've been going through a similar problem throughout my entire Christmas school break, where I fell asleep at 2:30 AM and woke up at 13 AM, but wanted to fall asleep at midnight and wake up at 10 AM. Although it's not as bad, I still wasn't satisfied (until I started going to school again, of course).First off, during night time, you need to stay away from all technology screens, whether they're TVs, computers, mobile phones or anything of that nature. It has been proven that the use of technology for a long time before going to bed can suppress the body's normal release of melatonin (a hormone that, when released, tells the body that it's night time, helping you fall asleep) and delay sleep for a maximum of one hour.Other things you shouldn't do before sleeping in order to make you fall asleep faster are consume caffeine (through coffee, coca-cola or energy drinks, and sometimes even decaffeinated coffee) or nicotine (through cigarettes or e-cigarettes), eat a lot, so your digestive system doesn't work while the rest of your body stays awake, or drink alcohol, since it could make you drowsy and keep you from entering the REM stage during sleep.One of the most effective things you can do to fall asleep faster is reading. You can read a book, a newspaper, a magazine, or maybe even an encyclopedia. As long as you're not reading from a tablet or laptop screen you'll be fine. It helps you because it takes your mind off any personal thoughts or distractions that won't let you sleep.Other important tasks that can help you sleep are take a hot bath (you can shower instead but it won't be as effective) one or two hours before going to bed, since the increase of your body's temperature can help put you in a deep sleep when it drops, put yourself in a dimly lit room before you go to sleep so your body can start releasing melatonin, when you do go to bed, turn off any and all lights in your room and in case your feet are cold when you're in bed, put on some socks.In case you want to speed up the fixing of your sleeping schedule and don't care about being sleepy during the day you can set an alarm for really early and wake up immediately when it ticks/plays.
Should I study till late at night, or sleep early and wake up early to study instead?
You should do both - with a focus on getting up earlier.To cut a long story short, our willpower (and ability to focus) is a finite resource - which degrades throughout the day.When you’re tired late at night, the quality of your study drops. However, we do also form memories in our sleep. [1] A perfect way to utilise study time at night is for light revision of topics that you’re already familiar with - something that will be easy and comfortable for you to do, but which would also benefit you to remember better.Spaced repetition [2] style flash cards are the simplest and most efficient way to get some light but super effective studying at nightMornings are where we’re freshest and most ready to take in new information (specifically, 2–4 hours after you wake up) - so use them to tackle your hardest (or scariest) subject. This is when your mind will be clearest and your ability to focus at peak levels.Taking down the task you were dreading most will also give you a huge confidence boost to ride on the rest of the day, and make working on the rest of your topics seem much easier!Just to wrap things up - I’ll also mention afternoons. As the sort of balancing point between the freshness of the morning and required relaxation of the evening - an afternoon is typically best spent revising material more thoroughly than you would at night. Ideally, this would be in the form of past exam papers.Revising something that does require effort - but that you’re already familiar with - is a far easier task to get to work on during the afternoon: when you’ve still got enough thinking power, but not quite enough to start taking on those scary exam topics that you wish would just somehow go away.Footnotes[1] Sleep and memory[2] Spaced repetition
Is waking up at 9am considered sleeping in?
No....sleeping in is an action based on deliberate motive. If you have to be awake at a certain time for a certain reason, then sleeping longer than that time is the deliberate action. So if your job requires you to be to work by 12noon and you sleep until 9am then no you are not sleeping in. Your standard awake hours as compared to your standard sleep hours are your own normal. Its different for each person. My schedule (as yours) predicts my normal awake/sleep hours. I hope that made sense.
I do not feel sleepy until 3AM and can't get up before 12PM. What should I do to change my sleep cycle?
You could have Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder. Your best bet is to try and reset your circadian rhythm every day. First, to get your desired bedtime, go to bed 2 hours later on successive nights until you're at the desired time. Say, 10 PM. If you're currently going to bed at 3 AM, that will take 10 days to achieve. Once at 10 PM, do the following to stay there:1) take 0.5 mg of melatonin 4-5 hours before bedtime. More is not better. At bedtime is worse. 2) get up a 6 AM every day. Your body will want to fall asleep again 16 hours later (or 10 PM). 3) in the morning, use a blue light for 45 minutes while getting ready. This (and #1) help to reset your circadian clock. In the evening, avoid bright lights - which means no computer or phone use after 9 PM (at the latest), as staring at a screen is essentially staring straight into a light source.Some drugs can be helpful if you have trouble with sleepiness during the day - namely, Modafinil. This drug takes away the "sleepy feeling" but is not a stimulant. You will have to adjust your caffeine intake according to how it affects you. Best is none. Otherwise, none after 5 PM (or earlier, depending on how it affects your sleep onset).