Photo by Anastasiya Vragova on Pexels
Written by: Ian
I could sleep in almost every day this summer semester. I took only two courses with one class a week each, with my only other time commitments being club coordinator roles.
So, naturally, I slept in. I thought, given the opportunity, who wouldn’t? The time I went to bed was gradually pushed back, with the time that I would wake up being pushed later as a result. Hypothetically, it shouldn’t have changed too much; I was still getting the hours of sleep I needed, just at a different time. Oddly, however, I was also noticing a steady downturn in my mood.
It started feeling like I was wasting half of my day, every day. Summer offers the most daylight, and yet here I was consistently squandering it for more time awake at night. I may have been getting the same amount of sleep, but this sleeping habit was starting to affect the trajectory of my every day, even beginning to affect my self-efficacy; simply put, I felt like a bum.
I decided that I needed a better routine that did not include simply sleeping whenever. I’ve known that routine is good for the brain, but I hadn’t been applying it. I started trying to sleep earlier, wake earlier, doomscroll less before and after bed, and I wanted to do it all more consistently.
Taking responsibility for my own sleep schedule meant setting alarms when I didn’t need to, and resisting the temptation to stay up when there were no immediate repercussions. Ultimately, instead of just being an issue of sleep, it became a development in self-discipline.
Not only did this change help me get into the swing of things quicker and set me up for a more productive day every day, but it also helped with my perception of myself, and therefore my overall mood and outlook.
At the end of the day, perhaps it wasn’t as much about the sleep itself, but more about the ability to self-discipline in the absence of its necessity – just because I could, doesn’t mean that I should. On top of developing discipline, I can move forward with a few big benefits: more productive time in the day, and a better mood to make use of that time.