Sleep is For the Lucky: Things You Can and Can’t Do to Fix Your Sleep Schedule

It’s late. You’re staying up to finish your assignment, and are going to lose sleep. Believe it or not, you might not actually be the one at fault for destroying your sleep schedule. Let me ask you this: Did you have a single assignment that you put off until midnight, or are you dealing with loads of collective homework that creates such a workload, you can’t manage all of it in a decent way? Now picture this: You’re in bed, and you can’t seem to fall asleep, so you play video games until 2AM. It can’t be your fault, you couldn’t sleep, right? Actually, one could argue that you could have just got up and stretched, read a book, and went right back into bed. If these scenarios interest you, read on to learn what you can and can’t do to fix your sleep schedule. 

CAN’T: SOCIETY

In the long term, maybe it wasn’t a good idea making school and homework last so long that kids, teens, and college students can’t schedule in the sleep they need without sacrificing the personal life and hobbies they need to stay mentally healthy (and let’s be honest, to stay not-depressed). While you often can’t change society fast enough to get you out of that horrible cycle of choosing what to sacrifice for your schedule, you can promote alternatives that help you and others you know get the rest (and reclamation of your personal lives and mental health) that should honestly be acknowledged as a basic human right. Homeschooling, optimized college class schedules, and work-from-home jobs are already considered the future, so why not invest in them to help your sleep today? 

CAN: BETTER BEDTIME DIET
While “eat dessert first” might not be a good meal plan for everybody, did you really have to have dessert at 10:00PM when your bedtime is at 11:00PM? Why not plan your food intake in a way that doesn't give you a burst of energy when you’re supposed to be sleeping, and possibly eat more sleep-assisting foods closer to bedtime. If you’re feeling awake when you go to bed, and you ate something that would make you feel awake, that is something you can fix.

CAN’T: BETTER BEDTIME LIVING SITUATION

If you live with family or someone who is noisy, and they tell you “Sorry, not everyone goes to bed at this time…”, is that really your fault? How would they feel if you were making noise around their bedtime? Is whatever they’re doing really so important that it can’t be moved in their schedule so that you can peacefully go to sleep? While you can certainly change your living situation in most cases, you can’t (for the most part) change people, and while you should try to rectify the situation, you shouldn’t blame yourself for their actions affecting your sleep.  

CAN: LIVESTREAMS AND LATE-NIGHT EVENTS 

Okay, so it’s a rare occasion. It’s going to be really fun, and you can just catch the first bit of whatever late-night event has piqued your interest, then go to bed. That’s still a problem though if you have to stay up past 1:00AM for the event to even start! While certain things might be worth losing a little sleep for, you should consider that you’re making a choice that impacts you in a big way. Maybe restrict yourself to a limited amount of events, or only stay up for something that you can’t watch a recording of later (or is actually that rare to witness). Remember, you need sleep as a human being to function, so think about what you’re sacrificing and try to figure it out.  You’ll wake up a happier and healthier human being!