Summer kills sleep schedules. It’s not uncommon for college students to get used to late bedtimes during summer break. Still, it’s important to realize the necessity of proper sleep and to reset your sleep schedule for the start of the fall semester. Resetting your sleep schedule is good for your health and concentration, could boost your grades and your mood, and could set you off for a better semester right from the start.
During the school year, many students wear sleep deprivation as a badge of honor, an indication of how much harder they work than their peers. This mentality plays into a university’s culture of stress, competition, and dissatisfaction. This culture in turn damages students’ health and distorts their incentives for achieving academic accomplishments. But sleep is important. Sleep helps improve physical and mental health. Sleep makes you more productive, happier, and ready to take on the challenges thrown at you on a daily basis.
Below are some tips to help you reset your sleep schedule and continue getting the sleep you need this fall.
1. Start by adjusting gradually.
In the days leading up to fall semester, gradually adjust to waking up earlier by setting your alarm 20 minutes back each day. Try your best not to “snooze”. Fixing your sleep schedule in small increments is far easier than forcing yourself to suddenly wake up several hours earlier than you’re used to.
2. Watch how much you eat and when.
If you’re trying to get used to sleeping earlier, start by shifting your eating habits so that you don’t eat a heavy dinner before you go to bed. Eating a light dinner a few hours before bedtime will help you get to sleep much faster. Conversely, eating a bigger breakfast will help you wake up quicker and stay awake longer. Most people tend to skip out on breakfast completely, then come home late and hungrily devour a huge meal one or two hours before they sleep. This contributes to extreme tiredness during the day and unbearable restlessness at night.
Food gives you energy. Eating enough during the day is crucial for your focus, efficiency, and well- being. Be very mindful of eating enough in the morning and in the afternoon. It’s very easy to skip breakfast and lunch to “save time”, but skipping these meals will greatly lower your productivity and mood. Skipping breakfast and lunch also forces you to eat your biggest meal late at night, which in turn keeps you up with a huge surge of energy you should have had way earlier during the day.
3. Be aware of light.
This includes computer screens, phones, and television. Try your best to cut out technology an hour or so before you go to bed. In general, try to surround yourself with dimmer lights in the evening instead of overstimulating your brain with floods of brightness. Using a single lamp in a large bedroom or wearing sunglasses before bed can help. While you sleep, make sure your room stays as dark as possible. Keep in mind that light confuses your body into thinking it’s daytime. Additionally, you may want to make sure your blinds and curtains are fully drawn before you go to sleep. The natural light coming through your windows in the morning can disturb the final hours of your sleep cycle and make for less effective rest.
4. Do not consume stimulants after 5:00 pm.
This seems obvious, but it’s one of the hardest changes to make (at least for me). Stimulants include caffeine and nicotine, both of which are highly addictive and incredibly hard to cut. The key is to cut both of these gradually, and focus on consuming less of them in the evening.
It’s very tempting to drink coffee if you need an extra boost of focus for nighttime studying, but it reflects terribly on the quality of your sleep. Caffeine has a half-life of three to five hours, and can keep you awake long after you stop feeling the effects. Nicotine in particular can worsen the quality of your sleep by giving you nightmares and increasing the likelihood of having vivid dreams.
5. Watch your physical activity before bed.
Try your best to go to the gym during the first half of the day. A heavy workout close to bedtime will overstimulate your body and make it much harder to fall asleep. On the other hand, a short walk outside before bedtime may relax you and help you get to sleep much faster.
6. Do something that relaxes you before you go to sleep.
Read a book or do a craft right before bed so you don’t stay up worrying about schoolwork or any other tasks you’ve yet to complete. Choose something that relaxes you. Before you sleep, you must take your mind off of daily stresses that keep you anxious and lying awake in the dark. Establishing bedtime habits and rituals can also help you get to sleep easier. If you get used to say, drinking a cup of chamomile tea before bedtime, you will begin to associate that activity with sleeping. Over time, drinking that cup of chamomile tea will become an established habit that relaxes you for a full night of rest.
7. Look into supplements, medicines, and treatments for insomnia.
If you have severe trouble falling asleep, don’t be afraid to talk to a doctor and ask for help. Sleep deprivation and sleep disorders are not to be taken lightly, and an accumulation of sleepless nights can have detrimental effects on your physical and mental health.
