www.lifehack.org: You may think that not getting enough sleep will just make you incredibly tired and a little irritable, but it goes beyond that. It can lead to health problems such as heart disease, weight gain, diabetes, and memory loss.
Most adults have incredibly busy lives. From trying to raise a family to working a full-time job and everything that happens in between, there just aren’t enough hours in the day.
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Unfortunately, I have been building up my sleep debt for years. Particularly, throughout my first year here at Carnegie Mellon, I realized how much that sleep debt was affecting me. Over the summer, and when I came back to school in the fall, I focused really hard on making sure I got at least 7 hours of sleep a night, because I knew by then that 7 hours is about the minimum my body needs in order to be an attentive and productive student. I’ve stuck pretty well to this for the whole school year thus far, and I have definitely benefited from it. I also do not drink any caffeine, mostly because I know that I am pretty sensitive to it, and because I do not want to mess up my normal sleeping habits by pumping myself with caffeine. I think that is something that a lot of students tend to ignore. It feels good to know that I am on the right track to keeping a healthy sleeping lifestyle.
If sleep debt were a person, I would unfortunately know them all too well. I took an incredibly rigorous course load in high school, and often ended up sleeping only four hours a night. Since coming to college, I (ironically) get more sleep than I did then, and I think it has helped to have majority of my day occurring in different hours. I still do not sleep enough though. I want to change my habits and sleep more, but breaking my habits that cause sleep loss is proving very difficult. I like this article’s suggestion of separating work and sleep; this is something I try to do as often as I can. It helps a lot to keep my dorm room unassociated with the work I do in Purnell because then I have a place where I don’t feel like I need to be working on something instead of taking care of myself. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch on to more of these things.
I’ve racked up so much sleep debt over the years, I haven't been able to get into a circadian rhythm, since I have health problems that run in my family that chances are increased with sleep debt, I really need to be concerned. It's been a goal for a while to have a consistent sleep schedule Improving my sleep, I’ve watched many a youtube video of people talking about how they manage their sleep and are able to get up at 5:00 am to have time before work, I would love to do that in the future. Getting my sleep cycle in place, would help me in so many ways, improve my mood and help me get up in the morning. My mornings are rough and the best way to fix that is the night before. Sleeping in never feels like it is making up my sleep debt because I still feel tired and sometimes even more than if I got less sleep. So I wanted to know if I’ve been chasing a dream this whole time. This article affirmed much of what I already know, but highlight things such as consequences that make me really want to apply what I know.
I have really been trying to get my sleep schedule back on track. I sleep anywhere from 5-7 hours, usually. As of late I have tried to avoid naps so I can get to sleep as soon as I am finished with homework. I have recently begun to attempt limiting my caffeine intake, so I have a good few hours without caffeine before sleep, but sometimes this is complicated as I am a morning person, but I need to be awake and alert during later hours for crew and to finish homework after crew. All of that being said, I am definitely working towards being more mindful of my sleep. I am doing my best to work in between classes, so I can get to bed as soon as possible. Something that has really helped me is doing as much work as possible on the weekends. As much as I used to avoid it, being able to get even just a few assignments complete has been an incredible help to me in taking some pressure to do everything all at once during the week.
I am in deep sleep debt. I am a person who has never quite discovered what my “right” amount of sleep is. I have never been someone who works on a regimented or regular sleep plan on any level I’d like to say I get anywhere from 4-10 hours of sleep a night. And I know that’s a large range but that range is probably still an estimate I still go outside of it from time to time. I know what some of my biggest problems are of course as I have a serious caffeine addiction especially when it comes to soda and then being a real night owl I often push of sleep for stupid things at night not even noticing that I am cutting into my sleep time. The other big issue that I find in my sleep schedule is that I often times need to be “tired” to go to sleep if I am not busy enough in the day or worn out energy wise I will not be able to fall asleep.
I thought this article was very interesting, although a little difficult to make reality. While it is very important to make an effort to rectify your sleep cycle and make sure to get enough sleep every night, it is, in practice, a lot more difficult. I thought the suggestion to keep the place where you work separate from the place where you sleep would be very useful but it can be hard, especially in college, to avoid working exactly where you sleep. I think I, and most of the people I know, have definitely accumulated a significant sleep debt over the years, in high school and in college. I also think that most of the people I know would also really like to repay this debt. I hope that this will become more achievable because I believe that we would all be able to produce work of a much higher quality and just generally be healthier people.
I have a bit of an issue with the methodical methods of this article and preaching about what is considered a healthy sleep schedule in general. I know that personally, for example, I can function normally on a minimum of 6 hours of sleep, I feel more rested when I wake up early to do work, and that I almost always feel groggy after a “power nap.” I also know people who religiously get nine hours of sleep and others who nap every day-- while we all need sleep, the ways in which we use sleep to feel rested can vary greatly. I also think that the little tests and how-to’s at the beginning of the article are not effective ways of tracking sleep patterns, considering almost no one falls asleep immediately after getting in bed. How quickly I fall asleep each night depends on many factors, including some that cannot be foreseen or necessarily understood. I’ve heard lots of research and information about healthy sleeping, but none-- including this article-- have really provided solutions.
I think most of these suggestions are things that most adults know. Get at least 7-8 hours of sleep, don’t drink too much caffeine, exercise, if you are tired it means you should sleep more, try not to look at screens too close to bed. Even some of the less seeming obvious ones, like seperating your sleep space and workspace, are still pretty commonly advised. And that isn’t to say these suggestions don’t work, I believe they do. I know separating my sleep space and work space made a big difference for me. One difference I noticed with this article was the discussion of naps. I haven’t seen other articles discuss that, and I feel torn about what this article is saying. On one hand, I know that napping too late in the day is a bad idea, but on the other hand I find it quite helpful to fit in a nap around 1pm or 2pm if I’m feeling tired. I’ve definitely found myself in what I refer to as “the vicious nap cycle,” where I am too tired to make it through the day so I take a nap but then the nap prevents me from getting enough work done during the day so I stay up late doing work and then need to take a nap the next day. But I find I break this cycle by getting enough work done during the weekend and/or getting enough sleep during the weekend that I don’t need to get as much work done during the day or end up not being tired. To be fair, the article isn’t saying that naps are always bad, and I agree that they are not an ideal solution to chronic sleep deprivation.
If I had to pay back sleep debt with actual currency, I would’ve declared bankruptcy a dozen times by now. I’m almost always choosing to forego some sleep to spend extra hours finishing projects and assignments. I think there are also other factors that play into sleep deprivation that are a little out of our control as well, such as insomnia or anxieties. While I’ve been doing my best to get more sleep per night, I’m still not getting enough to feel well rested. I know that I’m able to function pretty well on a smaller amount of sleep than most people, but even still sometimes I feel the effects that build up. I’m already aware of the changes it’s had on my personality, but I’m concerned about what it may lead to in terms of my health. I’ve been exercising more and doing my best to not take naps when I don’t feel like I need to. Even still, getting good amounts of sleep very regularly in a place that has high demands, lots of work, and some long work hours is a pretty difficult reality. But I hope to continue to improve upon my management skills and create more time for me to get the sleep my body needs.
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