How Well Do You Sleep?

I think that more people need to read this article to understand that this is important.

During a school week, I usually get around seven to eight hours of sleep. It is very hard for me to get up at five in the morning because it is still pitch black outside. "Clinicians have long known that there is a strong link between sleep, sunlight and mood." (Friedman, 1) I usually roll out of bed, race to my alarm, and turn it off so I do not wake anybody else up. On the weekends, I stay up late because I know that the alarm isn't going to wake me up. I go to bed around one in the morning, then I wake up around nine. It is easier to wake up when the sun is out and smiling. Luckily I do sleep through the night most of the time. Sometimes, I'll wake up around 3:30 unexpectedly, but its always around 3:30 to 4:00, which is very odd. I think that I sleep pretty good for being in high school.

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"How well do you sleep?"(Gilpin, 1) During the school week I usually get about five to seven hours of sleep a night. But on weekends I get about twelve to fourteen hours of sleep if no one bothers me or wakes me up. When I sleep I move around, I sometimes end up on the opposite side of the bed because I get up and walk into the kitchen to get water then get back in bed, or I would roll of the bed like sack of potatoes. Then when I arrive to class in the morning my mind is like a barren wasteland.

During the week days, I usually wake up around 5:30-5:45 from my alarm, lightly sleep in for about 5 more minutes, then scroll through my phone before i'm fully able to drag myself out of bed. When i wake up on weekdays, it is way harder for me to wake up due to my room being as dark as the night prior. "Clinicians have long known that there is a strong link between sleep, sunlight and mood." (Giplin,1) I've noticed that when I wake up to a dim-lit room, I am more positive about the day ahead of me and I can start my day quicker. When i wake up to a dark room, or I'm forced to be woken up due to my alarm, I am in an insatiable mood, and i have a more negative outlook on the day ahead. Even if I had less sleep when i wake up to light, i feel better rested than getting more sleep in a dark room.

I don't have a normal sleep schedule. Usually I stay up late because of studying for a test, doing chores, or just playing a Spanish vocab game to study. I'm lucky if I get about 7-hours of sleep. The average time I go to bed is around 12:00 am. It’s usually inconspicuous that I sleep for about 4-hours my parents can’t see it but I can feel it. It’s like trying to go to school in the middle of the night but the sun is out its really barren during the school days. But I really "... needed the right doses of sleep and sun light at the right time." (Gilpin,1) I should stick with my original sleep time of 10:30 pm. but I’m the kind of person who hates leaving any work undone. Due to that that makes me feel a little sick. How much do you sleep? Will you change your schedule?

Personally if I don't get to sleep before eleven at night and if I sleep in past eight in the morning I feel like I'm in a fog. When I went to Hawaii for two months when I was 12-years old, It was hard for me to adjust to the time change. "Jet lag makes everyone miserable"(Giplin, 1) It was even worse when I was going home because I had school in two days and Hawaii is three hours behind Arizona. When It was the night before school I was I couldn't fall asleep, I was trying to stay asleep until later but I could not , It was even harder to stay awake at the end of school. That was a gruff day.

Most times it hard for me to sleep, but I feel like when there is a certain amount of light, I fall asleep faster. I like sleeping because it's a nice refuge for my brain and mind. I always wake up around 6-7 am on my own, but then I'll fall asleep again, if I don't get up. "Do you wake up naturally, without an alarm?" (Gilpin, pg1) On weekdays I use alarms because it's a big cycle of wake up for ten minutes, fall asleep for an hour, then wake up for another ten minutes just to fall asleep right after. I sleep like a deadman though, i can sleep through anything.

"How well do you sleep? Do you fall asleep easily and stay asleep until the morning?"(Gilpin, 1)I never get enough sleep because I have a really messed up sleep schedule, so i go to sleep at 3:30 in the morning. I have stayed up till 3:30 since I was 7-years-old. My parents try to make me fall asleep at night, but I never sleep, it is very gruff for my parents because the want me to sleep but I do not because I cant. When my parents force me to sleep I cant, I stay awake as long as I can, but my parents take everything away from me at night so I go to sleep for as long as I can. How long do you sleep for?

Personally, I don’t sleep very well because of stress and other disorders. I do not fall asleep easily, and I do not always stay asleep until the morning. I usually need an alarm. Even with an alarm, I have a hard time getting up.
My usually sleep patterns are quite weird from my point of view. With the disorders I have, I don’t sleep very well. I need an anti-depressant that would be able to help me sleep at night. I usually wake up early in the morning around 2-3am some nights. It can be very hard for me to fall asleep at night, tossing and turning for a good 30 minutes. When I wake up, I have the same issue. I try eating light snacks and drinking milk before going to bed, but it doesn’t have a very big impact on me. I eat light snacks because full meals before going to bed is known to keep you up.
I have had a couple of therapists and counselors diagnose me with depression, anxiety, and ADD. I have been on prescriptions for these disorders before. Eventually I noticed some of them did not have the same affect after a while. Clinicians supposedly have known that there’s a strong link between sleep, sunlight, and mood. The article, on this topic, talks about impending depression, and people with bipolar disorder manic. I agree with this completely. Sometimes isolating yourself, and staying away from the sunlight is noticeably depressing. I have heard multiple times this can cause depression.

Anna, you may want to read "How Can You Adjust Your Chronotype?" at the Center for Environmental Therapeutics (cet.org). The president of that non-profit organization and his colleagues, pioneers in understanding the "inner clock," developed the quiz you took at The New York Times. The article is available at https://www.cet.org/how-to-adjust-your-chronotype.

"Sleep Smarter at Any Age: A Free App and Three Tips" has links to material on Sleep Phase Advance, and Sleep Phase Delay, which people use to adjust their inner clocks. That article is at https://www.cet.org/sleep-smarter-age-free-app-three-tips.

Good luck!

Elizabeth Saenger, PhD, Director of Education, CET

I liked the quiz, because the results pretty much reflect what kind of sleeper I am IRL. I hate to admit that I am an evening person because most of the activities in the world are designed for the morning persons, and this is sad. I read various articles on whether I should try to change my circadian clock or not to improve the quality of my daytime performance, but not many of them could give the answers I was seeking (although here I got some useful tips for that https://www.vitatalalay.com/night-or-morning-person/ ) Answering the question of the article, I think I would try the therapy if my sleeping rhythm interfered with the quality of my daily activities, work or mood and it affected other people as well.