insydemymind

Everyone knows how important sleep is, it is like plugging your phone in at night to recharge except the bed is the charger. Never in my life have I been great at getting sleep, especially recently. With everything I have going on right now I decided the thing I had to give up to make more time in my day is sleep. On average I sleep for about 5-7 hours per night, some nights less, and once a week I try to sleep for about 12 hours. Wish I could say this works for me but my work schedule is all over the place and I have homework plus life on top of that. The lack of sleep and the inconsistent sleep has really taken a toll on me and my health, although I’ve noticed these negative changes, I still haven’t been able to make proper steps to fix the issue. In my psychology class right now we have to set a goal for ourselves. Of course I picked the thing that I want to fix every day of my life, sleep. If it was as easy as just going to bed earlier I would have done that, but then I would be failing classes and breaking content creation contracts. My current schedule looks something like this: work Sun, Mon, Th, Fri 1-9:30pm with the occasional stay until 10:30pm or 9-5 thrown in. I am also an avid gym goer which I do on my days off, and I create content for a personal channel (@insydemymind) which includes ads sometimes. On my days off I am always scheduling things; there is rarely a day where I have zero commitments. The cycle will go like this: wake up around 9/10am after going to bed between midnight and 2am, my quality of sleep is never the best so I toss and turn all night until my alarm goes off and I hit snooze a bunch of times because I wanted to wake up 4 hours before work but my alarm went off only 5 hours after I went to bed, then I wake up 2 hours before my shift and scramble all morning while in a sleepy daze because I went in and out of sleep for 2 hours while every 9 minutes my alarm went off. Before work barely anything will get done because after an hour of having coffee and such it’s time to get ready and go to work. After an eight hour closing shift I am exhausted from being a shift supervisor at a high volume Starbucks. When I get home around 10pm I have to do 2-3 hours of homework that I didn’t get done before work, and unfortunately I didn’t have time to create content which sucks. Well now it is past midnight and I’ve had enough caffeine to stay awake all night to complete my homework but I can’t wind down for bed yet. I’ll give myself some phone time while the sleeping meds kick in, now it is just before 2am and I can finally fall asleep just to repeat the cycle the next day.

Breaking this cycle has been a goal of mine for about a year. This time I have more incentive to do it, that being for homework. Over the next few weeks of this course I will log when I woke up/ hit snooze/ actually go out of bed, and when I got into bed at night.

Sleep Log

1/21-22: got into bed around 1:40am, woke up multiple times at night, first alarm at 7am, got out of bed at 9am

1/22-23: very late night for me unfortunately, I got into bed a little after 2:30am, slept great until 9am when I woke up suddenly and then scrolled on my phone for 45 minutes thinking I would get up earlier than expected, but I decided to sleep a little more and hit snooze on my 10am alarm until I got out of bed at 11am.

1/23-24: Weird night, I was outside for about 3 hours in Minnesota while it was -20 degrees, once I got back home it took me about 3 hours to warm up and I was exhausted from the day. I took a nap around 8pm then hung out with some coworkers for a couple hours for someone’s birthday and when I got home a little after midnight I could not fall asleep even though I was tired all day. I did eventually around 3:30am but when my 7am alarm went off I turned it off and slept until 11am, then I laid in bed until noon.

1/24-25: Went to bed around midnight, woke up at 7, snoozed my alarm a few times but got up at 7:30am, I call that a win!

1/25-26: Didn’t get home from the gym until midnight and I still had to shower/ stretch so got into bed around 12:50am, first alarm went off at 8am, I stopped that one until another alarm went off at 9:45am and I got up to that one. Some broken sleep but I feel decently well rested.

1/26-27: I was up until 2:15am finishing up packing since I move the next day, and I woke up at 8am to start moving ASAP, I had a lot of energy when I woke up though because of anxiety about moving.

1/27-28: I was moving and unpacking the new place all day so even though I got up at 8am, I didn’t go to bed until 3am yikes, and unfortunately had a work meeting the next day so I was up at 7:30am.

1/28-29: Went to sleep around 1:40am and first alarm went off at 9am but I stopped that after a couple snoozes and decided to get up at my 10am alarm. I would call this 8 hours!! I purposely didn’t make any plans until noon because I wanted to sleep in since it’s my birthday!

1/29-30: After a long day of birthday things I started to get tired at midnight which is when my friends left, I took some melatonin and fell sleep before 1am, my morning alarm went off at 9 but I snoozed that and got up around 9:45am.

1/30-31: Went to bed around 3am and woke up at 10:30am but I kept snoozing my 9am alarm so very broken sleep after that.

1/31-2/1: Celebrated my birthday in downtown Minneapolis, ended up going to a rave thing that ended at sunrise, but I left around 3:30am because I was so tired, went to bed around 4:30am but woke up at 10am with lots of energy for some reason.

2/1-2: I went to bed around 2am and had my first alarm go off at 10 which I stopped and went back to sleep until my 11am alarm. I feel great this morning!

2/2-3: Went to bed at 2am, first alarm went off at 9:30am and I stopped that, then I got up at 10:30am.

2/3-4: Went to bed around 1am and woke up at 10am.

2/4-5: Went to bed around 11:30pm and woke up at 5am for work at 7am.

2/5-6: went to bed at… Woke up at 6:30am for work at 9am.

2/6-7: Had a rave that went until after 2am and we got pizza after so I went to bed around 4:30am, woke up at 7:30am to say by to my friends, went back to sleep around 8am and woke up again at 11am.

2/7-8: Went to bed around 1am and woke up at 9am.

2/8-9: Fell asleep around 1am, alarm went off at 8:30am and I snoozed it for almost an hour until I got up.

2/9-10: Went to bed at 12:30ish am and woke up at 9am.

2/10-11: Went to bed around 2am and woke up at 10am.

2/11-12: Went to bed just before 2am and woke up at 10am.

2/12-13: Went to bed at midnight and woke up at 5am for work

2/13-14: Went to bed at 2am, woke up at 8:30am.

2/14-15: Went to bed at 3:45am, woke up at 8:30am.

2/15-16: Went to bed at midnight, woke up at 9:30am.

2/16-17: Went to bed at midnight and woke up at 10am.

Summary: Unfortunately I did not meet my goal of getting 8 hours of sleep per night 6 days a week. I did anticipate this happening and although I wanted it so badly, I knew it was unlikely. Hopefully after graduation when I don’t have homework this can improve.