How to Get Proper Sleep

Proper Sleep

A 'How To' guide by Mood

Like most other teens and apparently a lot of users of EC, I've been having problems with sleep, so I went to my health teacher and got some important information that I didn't know before. Here is my guide for better sleep;

First off let me tell you how lost sleep affects you. Sleep is like money in a bank account, when you sleep you get energy, like working gets you money. When you are awake you burn up that energy performing everyday tasks and whatnot, like buying essentials and utilities. If you don't get enough sleep and stay up way too long you will have a sort of 'sleep debt' similar to spending more money than you had in the bank.

Like a money debt, sleep debts must be repaid in full. Such as getting the normal amount of pay for a normal amount of work at a job won't cover your debt in the bank, sleeping the full amount of hours you need at night won't get rid of the sleep debt, which can affect you over time as it builds up each time you don't get enough sleep. As it builds up, you operate less efficiently, and it won't fix itself.

Make sure to take short naps through out the day whenever your schedule allows you free time. It would be bad to just add that to your sleep time over the weekend or vacation. When you try to make up those sleep debts by altering your sleep schedule, you would go out of balance and eventually you'd end up with the debt once again. Always keep a balanced sleep schedule and make sure your naps are no longer then 20 minutes when it's after noon, or else you will feel groggy and you'll be more intended to stay awake past a good bed time.

Some people think caffeine is a decent alternative to sleep. They're completely wrong. If you are tired in the morning and decide to fix it with a hot mug of coffee, then it wouldn't be so bad as long as you try to fix whatever made you so tired in he first place, such as a proper bed time. It's a bad idea to drink caffeine in the afternoon or evening, it will keep you up past a decent hour and cause havoc on your sleep schedule. Coffee or energy drinks may seem like a quick solution for lack of energy, but once the boost wears off, you are worse off then when you started.

If there is someone in your household who is keeping you up past a decent hour, then kindly ask them to tone it down a bit. If they are being rude about it then it may be best to purchase a cheap blindfold, a set of earplugs, and possibly some herbal tea. Make sure pets, cellphones, and beepers are in another room and out of earshot.

R.E.M sleep is the most important part of sleep. Sure it's where all your wonderful dreams(sometimes nightmares) come from, but it's also very important to brain capacity. R.E.M sleep basically merges reality with unreality, in other words your experiences from your day with you imagination, thus creating dreams. This process develops more strengthened memories, it turns short term memories into long term memories, so it is very important. R.E.M occurs every 90 minutes of sleep, each time it lasts longer and grows stronger as long as sleep remains uninterrupted.
Things to remember:

1. Get at least nine hours of sleep(not eight as most would think)
2. Maintain a regular sleep schedule, even on weekends and vacations.
3. Make up your sleep debt.
4. Naps should be 5-20 minutes long to get some energy and avoid being groggy.
5. No caffeine after noon.
6. Make sure to take precautions so that your sleep remains completely uninterrupted.

Tell me what you guys think of my guide. Took me some time to put information together from the notes I took, but I think I got the point across.

-Mood​

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That's what I thought too, I've actually found out it's well rested when you get 9.25 hours of sleep, but 9 hours is great too. 8 hours would probably be the best most could pull off.

 

Actually, the more I got used to my new sleep schedule, the less of a hassle is was to get out of bed, I actually hopped out of bed during my first few moments of consciousness.