I always find that I am much more productive, feel happier, and am just in a better mood when I get good sleep. The issue is that getting the right amount of sleep is not always achievable and really isn’t easy. I like many others have a busy schedule and often I will spend my time doing pretty much anything other than sleeping. Last semester I began to journal with something called the monk manual which helps you plan out your day and reflect on how you’ve been spending your time as well. What I realized during this period was that I truly was on a schedule of waking up at about 8:00 most mornings to make breakfast before I started going to classes and doing whatever else was on the agenda. By the end of the day, I would be done with homework and I would finally want to take time to relax with my friends and that often meant watching some tv or a movie with my roommates. This meant that almost every weekday I was waking up at 8:00 and then going to bed around 1:30. I felt tired all the time but I just lived with it because I was prioritizing other things at the time.
Once I started using that journal though I finally realized how much of a detriment this lack of sleep was to my day-to-day mental and emotional health. It was time to figure out a new way to manage my rest. What I did was I each week I my goal for the weekdays to bump down the time I went to bed in 30-minute increments until I reached 10:30. It wasn’t easy at first because I was dipping out early on my friends during that time we used to have but slowly each week I truly would feel a little bit better. What also ended up happening was that I found I actually would have more time free in the day. From just being well rested I got my work done faster and then in the end really gave myself more time to do the things I wanted. I highly recommend to anyone reading this that they too consider how the amount of sleep they are getting may be affecting them and attempt to try to start taking steps to be their happiest selves