Emily Ung, Week 9: The Power of Sleep
When asked what my favorite thing to do is, I often say sleep of course! Sleep is my best friend, who I think about all day, every day. Without sleep, how can I rest and rejuvenate? How can I survive?
Nowadays, sleeping less and working more has become so normalized that students and workers will hold all-nighters, where they won’t sleep at all. As someone who experienced this, when working on multiple projects, studying for exams, or just getting home late from classes, I can barely find time to prioritize the most important part of the day. Usually, I end up taking afternoon naps during my free periods or car rides. Yet, I still feel drowsy and unable to concentrate the entire day because I didn’t get enough sleep. I find that if I get less than 7 hours of sleep (which happens almost every weekday), I can’t work properly. I know many of us can relate to the feeling of slowly losing consciousness as we listen to our teachers’ lectures, as our eyes blink less and less until we have finally fallen asleep…
Sleep is extremely important and super powerful. Without it, we can’t function normally or stay healthy. Even taking a short 10-minute power nap can be beneficial to our well-being, both in body and mind. That’s why weekends are my favorite time of the week since we get to sleep in. I do wish that school started later so we could get in some extra snoozing time, but I doubt that’ll happen anytime soon. I know it’s important to sleep early so we can get up on time and not feel tired, but it seems almost impossible with our busy schedules. Hopefully one day, society can value sleep and its powerful impact on our lives. Maybe then, something can be done about this issue of people being drained and exhausted from a lack of sleep. I hope that day comes soon!
I agree and relate to almost everything you said. Sleep is definitely important, and we can't function properly when we're running low on it. I too have an extremely unhealthy sleep schedule. However, I don't think the idea of "starting school later so students have more time to sleep" is necessarily a good idea. If we start school later, we also have to end school later, which will limit the time we have to do extracurriculars (e.g. swimming, tennis) and homework after school. Alternatively, we could also take fewer extracurriculars and AP classes so we have less stress and more time to sleep, but then we'll lose sleep wondering whether our college applications will look good enough.
ReplyDeleteAs always, the solution to this problem is coffee.
(Also, that picture of baby you sleeping in a car seat is absolutely adorable. It seriously made my day.)
I can not understate how much I personally relate to this blog. Sleep is such a quintessential thing for our livelihoods, yet I hopelessly watch as I constantly miss out on it. I have made attempts before to fix it, but something always comes up and throws it into disarray. Once a sleep schedule is broken, it is very difficult to go back. I feel like this is also due to school, which is a major stress factor and wild card that can mess up any attempt at fixing our schedules. Also, your anecdotes on the effects of sleep deprivation are incredibly relatable. I could be in an incredibly fun lecture, but if the temperature is right and I am too stationary, I start to unknowingly pass out. I desperately try to stay awake, only to realize that I am dreaming about trying to stay awake. I even once almost fell out of my chair. I also agree that it is too normalized, as lack of sleep can lead to some really adverse effects. Yet here I am, being the guy who jokes about not having any sleep. But I do want to improve my sleep, and I hope to make drastic improvements within a month.
ReplyDeleteHi Emily! I can relate to the feeling of not being able to work properly when I don't get enough sleep- just like you, whenever I get less than 7 hours of sleep, I can't concentrate on my work and my productivity decreases significantly. It's a never ending cycle, because the less sleep I get, the more unproductive I am, and the less sleep I end up getting. Last year, I had a decently healthy sleep schedule with over 8 hours of sleep each night. This year, however, my sleep schedule has been constantly messed up because of how much busier my schedule has been, and it feels impossible to fix. Waking up on Saturday mornings without an alarm and with a full 9 hours of sleep is definitely the highlight of my every week. Thanks for sharing!
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