Friday, September 16, 2011

Getting enough sleep??

Good Friday morning!  I am a few hours away from the start of my weekend and I am pumped.  I would actually be more pumped if I wasn't feeling so tired right now.

Things just fell into place for this blog post to be about sleep today. 

We'll start at the beginning though with last night.  After getting home from class and watching some TV with my mom (Castle marathon to catch you up before the new season starts) I watched three of my DVR'd shows before going to bed which happened after 11pm.  It's fall so all of my favorite shows are starting back up and there are still those shows that are in the middle to end of their season already that I'm still trying to keep up on.  I love having a DVR so I can record the shows I would be missing because I'm in class or because I'm watching a show on another channel.  But there is a downside to a DVR...it can only hold so many shows at a time!  So, if you don't watch what you record pretty soon you're running out of room to record new shows.

With my night classes I don't get home until 8:30ish twice a week so that is definitely cutting into my TV watching time, forcing me to rely on my DVR to record more shows than ever.  Not necessarily a bad thing because then I can watch them when it's convient for me.  On the flip side though I usually spend time that could be devoted to homework by catching up on the week's shows.  Being more disciplined about doing homework before watching TV is something I'll be working on this semester.

Maybe I'll reward myself with being able to watch one TV show for completeing the week's work for one class when I am home?

Anyways, moving on...

Because I stayed up past 11pm watching TV I got about 6 hours of sleep which doesn't seem to be enough, or isn't at the right time of night, considering when the alarm went off at 5:30am I hit snooze like it was my job for an hour until finally getting up at 6:30am.  Ever notice that getting say 8 hours of sleep, say from 10pm to 6am feels totally different in the morning than say getting 8 hours of sleep by going to bed at 1am and getting up at 8am?

By getting up at 6:30 this morning I only had a half hour to get myself ready and on the road to make it to work by 7:30.  A half hour is not enough time for me to get ready without feeling rushed, and potentially forgetting to take something crucial to my day with me.  If I would wake up at 5:30am I would have plenty of time to get ready, and even have some chill time to check email, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever I feel like doing with that time.  But in order to wake up at 5:30am and not feel like complete crap because I am soooo tired I need to start getting the right amount of sleep.

This brings me to the question of the day.  How do you know what the right amount of sleep is for you?  I can't remember a time in my life where I felt like I was waking up refreshed from getting the right amount of sleep, or if I do I don't recall how many hours of sleep that actually was.

Alexis over at Daily Ramblings was just talking about this yesterday.  For her 7.5-8 hours of sleep per night isn't enough.  As she put it her body needs a solid coma to functiont he next day.  Read her entire post here.

Getting the right amount of sleep is an essential part of leading a healthy life because let's face it, when we run ourselves down and don't get enough sleep we're more likely to get sick, be irritable, and a whole bunch of other bad junk.

So, I'm asking for your help readers...answer me these questions.

How did you find out what the right amount of sleep was for you?

What are your tips to making sure you can get that right amount most of the time?  It's not a perfect world so I realize that there will be times that getting the right amount isn't in the cards.

What's your typical bedtime, or that range you usually hit the hay during, and what time is your usual wake up call?

What I'm currently listening to...
Sunshine Babies - Justin Moore, album - Outlaws Like Me (I miss summer & flip flops!!!)

5 comments:

LittleZewski said...

Haha many years of practice have allowed me to determine the appropriate amount of sleep.

I'm not really sure how I do it but I just make myself go to bed.. It sounds so simple but honestly i've just learned that if i go to bed any later than 11 i'm in trouble the next day.

I try REALLY hard to be in bed by 1030 -- I'm going to start trying ALOT harder. If I'm not in bed by 11 Im done for.

another trick i have is that I set my alarm for literally the LAST possible second that I know I'll have the right amount of time to get ready. So for me, I shower, dry/straighten my hair, put on make up, get dressed, change 3 times lol, make breakfast and fb for like 20 mins-- so I leave myself an hour to get ready. So Ill set my alarm an hour before I need to be out the door and when it goes off i KNOW i cant snooze anymore without being REALLY late

Claire Beeks said...

When I learned what was "enough" sleep was when I was first able to get exercise on a routine basis, too. This was sophomore year of college. I realized that I needed time for a LOT of activities, homework and other things :-) I wasn't getting enough sleep, therefore, was not really functioning that well during the day.

I started napping and was noticing that I was feeling MUCH better. I then decided that naps were for babies and old people so I pushed the "nap" time back to bedtime.

I now go to be like CLOCKWORK at 9:20 every night during the week. I wake up no later than 5:45 or 6 without an alarm usually. This is just over 8 hours of sleep which seems to be really good during the week.

I know on weekends I can sleep less actually because the mental demands aren't as great. However...it's is 10:50 on a Friday and I am BEAT and about to go to bed. I love my sleep :-)

Amy @ Living N Learning said...

@LittleZewski - guess I just need to put feeling good the next day as a priority so I listen to my body when I am tired.

I need to start trying some other alarm setting techniques, like putting an alarm across the room and making it really loud so I can't just sleep through it.

Thanks for your comment!

@Claire-Christine - I'm just going to work on going to bed a little earlier every week and seeing how it goes. Eventually I'm sure I'll find that magic time where I'm feeling great every morning and not wishing I want to get back to get the entire day.

Thanks for sharing everything! I appreciate it.

Caitlin said...

I read somewhere that it takes 2 weeks to form a new sleep habit. So if you make it a habit of going to bed at x time and waking up at x time every day then eventually your body gets used to it and that is the right amount of sleep.

and i think 8 hours (ish ) is a good go to for sleeping hours

as for me... i go to bed when i'm tired hahah but no later than 11 usually and wake up at the latests 726 ( i always set weird times)

Amy @ Living N Learning said...

@Caitlin - I'm going to do my best to go to bed by 10pm from now on so I can get 7.5-8 hours of sleep. And thanks for the tip about the 2 week thing! Guess that means if I'm still not feeling as refreshed as I would like after 2 weeks I should try getting more sleep then?

Gosh I wish I could wake up at 7:26! If I did that I would either be really really crunched to leave for work on time or already be late!