Recently, I linked to an article on my tumblog about willpower. The idea is that in the short term, willpower is limited, but in the long term, you can strengthen your willpower. I actually feel like my willpower decreases over the course of a few months, until I spend a good week or so doing whatever I want. It didn’t make sense until I noticed this sentence:
“Task persistence is also reduced when people are stressed or tired from exertion or lack of sleep.”
So I have a resolution for this new term: I am going to try to be better about sleep. I used to rank sleep below everything (work, school, friends, and even pointless entertainment like feeds and TV shows). I end up averaging about 5 or 6 hours of sleep every night. This term, it moves to third place!
When I don’t get enough sleep, I end up falling asleep in class a lot and I generally feel pretty miserable. I’m hoping that sleeping more will solve a bunch of these problems.
So if you hear that I slept for less than 7 hours in any given night, poke me and make me sleep more.
And I guess I’ll start brushing my teeth with my left hand, just in case that helps.
I don’t know how you got by with so little sleep. Somehow I always average out to 8 hours a day over a one-week period even if I pull an all-nighter one day.
You say that sleep is now third place. Work > school > sleep > friends now? Maybe when you graduate, we can get friends back into the top 3.
Actually, I don’t know how I got by with so little sleep either. This term will be an experiment to see how much an an extra hour of sleep every day makes a difference.
Well, when I graduate, school drops off the list, so friends will be in the top 3. =)
I don’t know how I would survive on 5-6 hours of sleep on average. I can usually stay up really late for a couple of days, but then I have to crash and recharge. None of this sustained sleep deprivation.
Anyways, I’m glad you reached this decision one way or another. Your future body thanks you.
Next up…exercise!
Well, I was usually pretty tired and grumpy from it. Oh well, I’ll work on it… so far so good!