<p>My school starts at 8:30 so I get up at 7:30 to get ready for my first class. I set my alarm for 7:30 and get out of bed that time, but for whatever reason, I normally wake up an hour before my alarm goes off. I always just lie there and try to go back to sleep, sometimes successfully, and other times not.</p>
<p>So my question is, should I get up an hour earlier whenever I wake up and study, or should I just stay in bed until it's time for my alarm to go off? Because I read an article once that said if you go back to sleep once you wake up or if you don't get out of bed immediately and instead you just lie there, you will be more tired and lazy throughout the day. However, I always tell myself I need to sleep for that extra hour.</p>
<p>So what should I do? Should I just get up and do something productive, or should I sleep until it's time for my alarm to go off?</p>
<p>Why don’t you try it one morning and see how you feel? Personally, I don’t want to leave my bed even when the alarm DOES go off, but I’m really not a morning person.</p>
<p>Maybe if you can’t fall asleep within fifteen minutes or so, get up and do something productive. I think it’s true that you don’t get extra rest by dozing on and off after you wake up, at least for me. If you get something done in those 45 or 60 minutes, perhaps you can go to bed earlier and get the extra sleep that way!</p>
<p>I never go back to sleep when I’m awake and alert as long as it’s past 4:00. I figure my body knows what it’s doing that it doesn’t want to sleep right then.</p>
<p>I think studying is best left for at night when you’re going to sleep directly afterwards. That way you can absorb the info over night. When I wake up early in the morning, I read the news, go exercise, and make myself a nice breakfast.</p>
<p>I WISH I could do something productive in the morning! I have difficulties getting out of bed at 8:30 when my alarm goes off! I think studying is good, but I’ve tried to do that before but I feel u comfortable with it because I don’t know if I’ll have enough time or not if I run into something difficult that requires extra attention. If I ever by some miracle get up early, I spend extra time on my hair and makeup or just relax and watch some tv.</p>
<p>I wake up at 7 for school and have gotten up earlier on occasion to study/finish homework/whatever. It usually happens when I know I’m too tired to realistically get stuff done, whereas I know I’ll be ready to go in the morning. </p>
<p>The article you read is more or less correct (by my understanding, anyway): if you wake up feeling rested, you’ve hit the end of a sleep cycle, and your body is satisfied. If you go back to sleep for 30-40 minutes, your alarm might wake you up in the middle of a sleep cycle, which means you’ll be lethargic for the rest of the day. So if you wake up rearing to go, then go! I’m sure most people would love to have an extra hour in the morning, so take advantage of it. </p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I think we actually tend to <em>overestimate</em> the amount of sleep we need, because conventional wisdom tells us 8 hours is the golden ticket. For me, 5 hours works. It’s probably not ideal to do it every night, but after 5 hours, I don’t feel tired during the day. (6 hours, on the other hand, makes my eye sockets feel like they’re eating themselves and my brain feel like it’s getting bashed in with a hammer. So there you have it.)</p>