<p>Sleep is being a big issue in my studies in college. I am oversleeping and missing my morning classes. The thing is that during the summer I used to sleep for 10+ hours (and sometimes even during high school). I want to get in the cycle of running on 6 hours MAX of sleep per day so I can study at night, when I feel like I get most of my work done in an efficient manner.
-How do I wake up in the morning?
--I have my alarms on, but all I do is dismiss the alarm and end up sleeping for an hour more and missing my class. Is there any technique that will help me get up? (i.e. drink a glass of water when I hear my alarm get off? Will that wake up my body?)</p>
<p>-I also tend to take LONG (2hour) naps during the day too, even if I got 8+hours of sleep. Any plans on how to avoid taking naps (or avoid taking LONG naps?)</p>
<p>-Breakfast
--I am a vegetarian (noeggs), what type of breakfast should I eat which would give me energy for the entire day? Currently, I just eat a bowl of cereal. </p>
<p>Thank you very much! I need to get myself together before my grades are affected. (Which to an extent, THEY ALREADY ARE! :( )</p>
<p>If you need 10 hours of sleep to be well-rested and functional, figure out a way to get 10 hours of sleep. It’ll work better in the long run than trying to figure out how to survive on a sleep deficit. (Yes, some people do fine on 6 hours. They aren’t you. Sleeping less won’t make you like them any more than eating 5,000 calories a day will make you like one of those people with a super-fast metabolism who can eat whatever they want and stay rail-thin.)</p>
<p>If you want to stay up late and study, either don’t take morning classes, or take a longer mid-day nap.
If you don’t want to nap, either don’t take morning classes or don’t stay up late.</p>
<p>There’s no breakfast that will give you energy for the entire day - that’s why people eat multiple meals. A breakfast with a good dose of fat and protein will keep you going longer than one that’s mostly carbs. I like dinner for breakfast.</p>
<p>Maybe you need more sleep than others. I wouldn’t try to ignore your needs, but rather try to schedule around them as best you can.</p>
<p>I’d recommend using your cell phone’s alarm function (if you have one, that is). I set my alarms starting 30min before I need to be up, and in total, I usually have around 8 or so. I typically end up needing only 3 or so, but I have the rest as backups on the off chance they aren’t enough that day. It also helps if you have a backup alarm system (I use an old cell phone) in case your primary alarm system dies overnight or something. </p>
<p>Once you’ve set your alarms, put the phone somewhere where it’ll be more than audible, but otherwise inconvenient to access (I put mine on the floor on the opposite side of the room). Don’t bring it back to bed with you! If you have to get up and walk over to it each time it goes off, you’ll be awake for sure by the end of the set!</p>
<p>Note: Bonus points if your cellphone requires that you use its touch screen to turn it off. Those things are finicky.</p>
<p>Agreed! Everybody’s body wants different things and if yours need 10 hours of sleep, then so be it!</p>
<p>Here are some tips though that help keep me awake and energetic. On a good day, I get 8-10 hours of sleep and will wake up normally and fine after that amount. However, because of my hectic schedule, I am forced to become sleep deprived (WHICH I DON’T RECOMMEND IF YOU CAN PREVENT! I literally hate myself every morning)</p>
<ul>
<li>Exercise more. The gym has become my best friend – I fall asleep quicker and my body feels more energetic</li>
<li>Eat smaller ~5 meals a day instead of the big 3.</li>
<li>Fruit is your best friend! I eat fruit in the morning to keep me awake, and keep more fruit with me at school. I find it to work better than cereal.</li>
<li>Drink water! Lots of it. </li>
<li>Are you happy? Any slight sign of depression can make you more tired than usual.</li>
</ul>
<p>I’m the same way you are. This summer ive slept about 10-12 hours a day and now that schools started and i have 8am classes every morning, im getting about an average of 5 hours of sleep per day (some days ill take an hour or 2 nap). Right now im not feeling too great cuz im still adapting but sooner or later, your body will adapt to the amount of sleep youre getting. Of course its terrible to get 5 hours of sleep everyday for the rest of your life, but i have a bad class schedule this quarter so ill have to deal with it.</p>
<p>If you have a memory foam mattress topper or any other kind of comfortable mattress topper… GET RID OF IT! I started the year without one, then someone here gave me their 3-inch memory foam topper and I overslept literally for a week after I put it on… it’s just so… dreamy and amazing. But seriously, if you have one, it may be part of the problem.</p>
<p>^^lol I tried that and it never worked for me…:(</p>
<p>For breakfast, I would say a bagel with cream cheese and fruit on top is really good. Also, potato and apple salad with (insert dressing of choice). Potatoes contain carbohydrates that will help you throughout the day.</p>
<p>If you need more sleep, then make that a priority. You can’t do anything about your classes this semester, but next time, try to make them later in the day. Definitely try going to bed earlier too.</p>
<p>"I have my alarms on, but all I do is dismiss the alarm and end up sleeping for an hour more and missing my class. Is there any technique that will help me get up? "</p>
<p>Put your alarm on the other side of the room. When you get up, you have to force yourself to NOT climb back into bed. </p>
<p>Also, I’m a vegetarian and I always eat those Morningstar chicken nuggets for breakfast. I have a weak stomach (that’s coincidentally always hungry), and these calm it down and fill it up for a long time.</p>
<p>Put the alarm across the room, make it so loud that it scares you – also in being so loud, you will be scared that you will cause a disturbance to your neighbors. Whenever you feel like you want to take a nap, think about what you want to get done with your assignments (it could be getting a good grade, learning a lot, or even as part of your life’s purpose, but ground yourself in your outcome) and this will give you more passion in doingyour work which will keep you going.</p>
<p>it may be an unhealthy unbalanced diet if you are a vegetarian or other health issues. it could just be genetics. I would see an MD tell them about your sleep habits and diet and get a blood workup.</p>
<p>^Six hours is not difficult to obtain. I’m taking 18 hours this semester and work 13.5 hours a week plus am involved with several clubs on campus. I still manage to get at least eight if not nine hours of sleep a night and I’ve made good grades in all of my classes thus far.</p>
<p>Honestly, what’s worked for me is just scheduling my life away. It’s annoying, but it does help me get the sleep I need and the ability to go to all of my classes and keep up with work. I have on my phone the times when I have meetings each week and classes. When I have free time during the day, I usually use it to do homework/write papers. I leave the evenings and weekends to hanging out with friends if I’m not already scheduled for something.</p>
<p>Also, I’m one of those people who needs sleep too. I feel like I can function better once I’ve had some sleep, so if it’s like 1 o’clock in the morning and I have a paper due at 10, I just go to bed, get up at 6 or 7 and finish it then. At least that way I’ve had some sleep so I can be more efficient and then I can catch up on it that afternoon or go to bed earlier that evening.</p>
<p>It’s all about balancing out your schedule.</p>
<p>Au girl, boasts about sleeping 8-9 hours then talks about sleeping 5 to finish a paper. The finishing paper deal is the way most students have to deal with in college haha. </p>
<p>I’m taking 19 units this semester as well as spending time doing extracurrics and small jobs. I’m averaging about 5-6 hours a night.</p>
<p>I’m vegetarian too, and if it becomes super difficult for me to get up and stay alive in the morning, I have a glass of juice with whey protein in it-it doesn’t taste he best at first, but it really helps you keep up your energy throughout the day. I drank it religiously during my 3-hour nights during high school due to super long study hours, and I plan to do the same in college right now.</p>
<p>I needed 10 hours of sleep as a college student and never, ever got it. It was 12 hours to feel rested, 10 to function. The result was that I never went to half my classes, stayed up all night working to compensate, and then couldn’t function the first half of the next day all over again. In the end, I only got 2-4 hours of sleep a night. I made decent grades but I gained 50lbs and got really sick. Getting enough sleep is critically important. An all night here and there won’t hurt you but consistently trying to operate at a sleep deficit will wear you down until there’s nothing left.</p>
<p>The good news is that now that I’ve graduated and work full time, I actually only need 8 hours of sleep to be fully rested and function on the 6-7 I’m typically actually able to get. I did grow out of needing the 10 hours. But if you need that 10 now, I’d find a way to get it at least every other night. I think it is definitely true that it is easier to schedule around your sleep needs than it is to try and function on a sleep deficit. Lack of sleep compounds and exhaustion builds upon itself, and your level of functioning will get lower and lower.</p>
<p>You may find that you can wean yourself to need less sleep. Try starting at ten hours and taking off 10-20 minutes every few nights and see if you adjust. That is more or less what my body did automatically when I started working full time, by means of making me too exhausted to stay up as late as I used to.</p>
<p>If you have an Android based phone, there’s an app that may work for you. When you set an alarm, you take a picture of an item (a plant, a chair, a toilet…whatever) or a person (your roommate). When your alarm goes off in the morning, the only way you can turn it off is by taking a picture of that same item, in the same location, same everything (if the toilet lid was up, it’d better be up in the morning). It forces you to get up and requires thought to find the item, take a picture of it, etc.</p>
<p>Do you have a smartphone? I have an alarm clock app on my smartphone that allows you to set it to require you to solve a math problem before you can dismiss the alarm. (It’s an Android phone and it’s called Alarm Clock Plus; I’d imagine there is an iPhone alternative.) There are also alarm clocks you can get that shake your bed in addition to playing music or a sound to wake you up. Try one of those, because it will wake you up before you dismiss the alarm. Another simple fix is to put your alarm clock or phone across your room, not near your bed. That way, you have to physically get out of bed to shut it off. I also set my alarms 30 minutes before I have to get up and my alarms have 10-minute snoozes. After three snoozes I’m usually up.</p>
<p>A lot of college students feel like they are more productive at night; I did, too, when I was in college. I don’t think it’s true: humans are naturally more awake during the day. I think college students think they are because they like to sleep. Still, you have to find your own personal sleep cycle. Some people are best with 6 hours of sleep; others need 9. I have a friend who needs 9-10 hours of sleep. She goes to bed at a reasonable hour so she can get that. I need 8, personally, and so I go to bed at 11 pm or midnight so I can wake up at 8 am. So if you need 10 hours of sleep, go to bed 10 hours before you wake up. If you have an 8 am class and can get up by 7:30 to make it, logic states that you need to go to bed at 9:30 to get your 10 hours. If you need to get most of your studying done during the day in order to make that happen do it.</p>
<p>If you feel yourself getting sleepy in the middle of the day, immediately get up and go stretch, walk around, jog, something. The best way to avoid taking naps is, of course, to get a good night’s sleep: when I sleep a full 8-9 hours I don’t get sleepy in the middle of the day. And like a vicious cycle, taking naps for too long destroys your ability to fall and stay asleep at night. I’ve heard it recommended that you don’t nap longer than 90 minutes, which is just enough for one complete REM cycle. Another way is to exercise - if you work out 3-4 times a week for 30-60 minutes, you’ll have more energy. Eat well, including lots of fruits and veggies. People who don’t eat right are sleepier. I drink orange juice in the morning and that keeps me alert.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t encourage scheduling your classes later in the day, necessarily. First of all, that’s not always possible. Second of all, don’t miss out on interesting classes just because they are at 8 or 9 am. And third of all, eventually you will have to be an adult and go to work, potentially at 9 am. Might as well get used to waking up early now.</p>
But seriously, if you have one, it may be part of the problem.</p>