Sleeping beauty.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
I had really bad sleeping habits in my second semester of A levels last year. Between school, sports, homework, hobbies, family and trying to have a speckle of a social life, the thing that's the easiest to sacrifice was sleep. I used to sleep at 4 to 5 in the morning and wake up at 6 to 7 in the morning. So basically I had maximum around 3 hours of sleep. And that was insane. Trust me, I walked to class like a zombie with my eye bags nearly sagging to the ground (yeah, nearly). Then, I regretted for sleeping late at night but repeated again and again. This caused me to gain weight and my skin condition became worse because of stress, lack of sleep and hormone imbalance BOOOO. :'( Then I realized that not sleeping well and not sleeping enough is not okay at all because there is quite a price to pay. Sleep deprivation significantly affects my health, mood, performance and concentration in class. So, I changed my sleeping habits, I sleep around 10 to 11 every night and wake up at 6 to 7 in the morning for classes, except for exam period but I still make sure I have at least 6 hours of sleep each day.
Why is sleep so important?
Because no matter how hard you study, how much you try to learn, how desperately you want to pass an exam, you have to sleep to let your brain to rest and process all the information that you've gathered. This is why you shouldn't start studying all the chapters one day before your exam (which I always do HAHAHA). Deep sleep helps to maintain your growth and metabolism. Sleep also helps you to maintain a healthy weight. And if that weren't enough, skin makes new cells faster when you're sleeping, and heals blemishes from acne. Lack of sleep has an effect on the way you eat because when you're sleepy you tend to crave sugar and carbohydrates more (that's so scary omg).
What can I do to sleep better?
You need to set your own perfect environment for sleep. For me, a cool and dark room is the ideal environment to sleep. And, there should be no laptops and no food on the bed since it's not an office or a restaurant. Remember never store your phone under your pillow because you'll never get any quality sleep. More important, the radiation from the phone may harm you! If possible, switch off your phone before you go to bed. Make sure you're getting enough exercise because a regular workout can help you to fall asleep at night.
How can I get more sleep?
I think sleep management is really about time management. Try to work out a master schedule for yourself, where you build in some rest time as a reward for completing other tasks. However, I'm aware that schedules are pretty hard to keep up to since there are more interruptions and more events tend to take place when we try to do something, right? :p So usually I'll jot down things that I have to complete by the end of the day, it's more like a to-do-list so that I won't procrastinate that much and so I can have enough of sleep at night.
I can't get enough of sleep because I'm too busy!
Again, it's all about time management. Many people don't get enough of sleep isn't that they're too busy but it's that they have trouble making the most efficient use of their time. You can write down a list of "must dos" and "likes to dos". Set your priorities and figure out how to work the "must dos" into your schedule first.
There may be other ways about getting better sleep and getting more sleep, but above are just some of my preferred methods I want to share. :) It's important to be productive but it's more important to take care of your health. So, that's all for today, thank you for reading! ;)
Good luck and all the best!
See you soon, x.
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