You know those days were everything feels like it’s falling apart? Or when you literally just want to go to bed? In my time at college, I’ve realized that the best thing to do in that situation… is to do it. Go to bed. Whether it’s for a short time or for the night, just go ahead and sleep.
Whenever I feel stressed and overwhelmed at the end of the day, I’ve learned to finish up what I can, get to bed as soon as possible and wake up in the morning with enough time to finish off what else needs to be done. While this may seem counterproductive, I wake up feeling much better because my mind and attitude reset in the waves of sleep.
(Source: College Humor)
Some people I know can pull all-nighters, sometimes without even noticing that the time has passed. This definitely isn’t true for me; I wouldn’t be able to function the next day at all. Sleep is extremely important for physical, emotional and academic health. Sleep gives your body time to recover from the day’s events and also to prepare for upcoming events. A website run by Harvard, Healthy Sleep, states that not only is it more difficult to process information on less sleep, but it’s also more difficult to retain and remember information studied.
So how do you do it? How do you sleep well to create a mind ready for a long day of classes, assignments and essays followed by practices and meetings? Two apps that I’ve found extremely helpful are Sleep Cycle and Power Nap for the iPhone.
(Source: iTunes App Store)
Sleep Cycle lets you select what time you’d like to wake up in the morning. Then, you just leave the phone on the bed next to you. Throughout the night, it tracks your movements to study your REM cycles in sleep. Then, in the morning, the alarm will sound at the optimal time during your cycle for you to wake up feeling most rested. It won’t let you sleep past the time you set however, because it will wake you up anywhere from thirty minutes before to at that time, depending on your sleep cycle. You also have the option to review how you slept and look at your sleep cycles yourself.
(Source: iTunes App Store)
Power Nap works on the same principle, tracking your movements to wake you at the best time. You select a nap length from three choices: power nap, recovery nap and one sleep cycle. The power nap setting lets you sleep for up to 20 minutes, waking you before you go into deep sleep. Recovery nap allows for up to 45 minutes of napping, again waking you before deep sleep. One sleep cycle wakes you after on full sleep cycle, which is up to two hours of sleep.
I know there’s a lot going on all the time in college, but you have to remember to take care of your health first. You are the most important thing to take care of; as hard as it is to believe, your mental, physical and emotional health come before any assignment or grade. Without these first, you may survive for a short time, but it isn’t sustainable. So just keep this in mind: when in doubt, sleep it out.