Good morning, everyone! Happy Friday!
The lights of the previous night and the lights of the early morning are one in the same for me and many of you. Sleep is quite the luxury when you're swamped by homework, stress, and ideas. My typical bedtime is around 12:30 AM, and my usual wake-up time is 6:10 AM. By any health standard, I'm sorely depriving myself of sleep. I know I can change this, yet I don't. Why? First of all, I'm a night person - you won't see me waiting for any sunrises in the near future. I may not think any more clearly at night, but I can manage better in the quiet darkness and with an already warmed-up brain (which makes it easier to just pump out homework). I also don't want to waste the time sleeping. I have a lot of stuff I'd like to do along with what I have to do, so finding time for my own priorities usually means losing sleep. This most likely leads to more stress, which in turn means less sleep.
In one of my classes I find it particularly hard to keep my eyes open and my head up. The room is so warm, and that warmth combined with having just eaten lunch makes for a very tired me. My teacher discussed this trend with my mom at conferences, and informed her of the numerous studies taken that document a teenager's need for sleep. Incidentally, this amount totals up to more than an infant. The point? We're all screwing ourselves over. Or perhaps the system is. We're not really left the time for sleep. Extra-curriculars are often considered mandatory to get into a good college, and are generally a good thing to do. They are healthy in many different aspects, depending on the activity. These activities push homework (and therefore sleep) later and later. Perhaps this system should be rethought so that we can all perform at peak capacity for everything we do. Or maybe I'm just really tired and have a need to ramble. Only reading this mess of words will tell.
(I had a good comment before but it was deleted before posting when my internet reset)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, extracurricular activities vary in the amount of time they consume, and the musical that you and several other dipcans are in is possibly THE most time consuming schedule ever. But nobody ever died from getting only 63% of the sleep they need per night for just a month. You can hack it. We can manage it. Think of how much long and drawn-out pain in college we are taking upon ourselves now.
Sam, I'm going to have to play the 'What doesn't kill you makes you INVINCIBLE!' card. If you can do it now, you can do it if you need to in real life.
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