I had to work today at 6pm, but because of my nocturnal tendencies, I was awake all night writing a paper for my freshman seminar and then slept from 11:30 to 5:30. Work is important to me no matter how much I detest it, and being late is not an option. I will get fired and since I've only got two weeks left but $200 left to make, I simply can't afford to not work. During those six hours, I woke up four times and frantically checked the clock each time to make sure I wasn't late. It made for a very restless experience, and I was not a happy camper when I clocked in at 6 for my shift. It occurred to me later that I hate sleeping with a time restriction. The 6 hours I was supposed to be using to catch up on sleep I spent worrying about waking up on time instead.
Knowing how my fellow teenagers and I arrange our vampiral sleeping habits and that in about three weeks I'll have to drag my ass out of bed every Thursday for an 8am lab, I did some research about sleep habits and cycles and such.
I found a great resource, a blog called StudySuccessful. (There's a whole bunch of other scientifically based sleep and study techniques on the site too.) It explains Steve Pavlina's method, adapted from Pavlov's dog training technique, that trains the brain to recognize the sound of an alarm as time to get up. The author says it works, and I am inclined to believe him. The science is there but I have a feeling my implementation of the method could be riddled with problems.
One. If I get in bed and 'pretend' to sleep for two minutes, I'm actually going to fall asleep. Two. A lot of my problems getting up stem from a disease my dad calls, "Living Dead" in which I sleep like a fucking log. The reason I can't wake up isn't because I hit the snooze button twelve times, it's because I can't hear my alarm. Three. My sleep schedule is so ridiculously fucked up its celebrity equivalent is Lindsay Lohan. (Or maybe Mischa Barton, she's had issues lately.) I am incapable of power napping for 20 minutes; I have to nap for three hours. And this severely fucks up when I go to bed, so I end up staying awake until 6am and sleeping until 3pm.
I still decided I'm going to try and use this new method to fix my brain. It might not work, but I'm certainly going to fucking try.
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