North Texas Daily

If quarantine has done anything it has completely messed up my sleeping schedule. Throughout the last couple of weeks, I have found myself awake at five in the morning on numerous occasions for no reason. After a couple of weeks of making it a habit, I ended up sleeping until five in the afternoon more times than I would like to admit. Did I get a lot of work done? Yes. Did my family question why I didn’t walk out of my room until dinner was ready? Yes. Is it healthy? Absolutely not. I slowly became drowsy for the time I was awake and I decided I had to do something about it. After a couple tests with a lot of trial and error, I finally got my sleep schedule back where it should be. I know I am not the only one out there that is struggling to go to bed before the sun comes up, so I am going to tell you everything I tried in hopes that it helps someone out in the end.

First, I will start off with what helped me the best. It got to the point where I literally laid in my bed at midnight and did not touch my phone, or other distractions, until I fell asleep. The first couple of nights were rough. There were times where I would lay in bed staring at the ceiling for hours, without even drifting away. It worked the best for me, but it also took the most patience. I wanted to watch movies and play video games with my friends more than anything, but I had to make the choice to prioritize. 

Now that the boring one is out of the way, here are some things I tried that may not be viewed as normal, but they could work for you: for one, I tried doing full body at-home workouts. I viewed it as a two for one, because I was staying in shape and I was also tiring myself out. The only problem was, I was not tired when it was the normal time to be tired. Staying in shape is great, but staying up until the morning is not a healthy thing to do. My hope is that maybe this is helpful for someone and it works for them better than it did for me.

Next, and this is the one I do not recommend in the slightest, is pulling an “all-nighter.” This was a one time thing and it did not work at all. I tried to stay up for the whole day without taking a nap, but it only led to me feeling awful and tired for the whole day. I also slept for 13 hours when I finally went to bed and that is not healthy in the slightest. I want to clarify that this is not a recommendation, but more of a warning of what not to do.

Lastly, sleeping pills. The most simple of the bunch. Only problem I had was that I did not have any sleeping pills, so I can not speak much on the approach. This is a pretty easy solution to getting your sleep schedule back on track, but always practice caution when taking pills like these.

At the end of the day, or even at the beginning of the morning when you are finally going to sleep, it is so important to maintain a healthy sleeping schedule. Times like this can make it easy to stay up for hours playing “Overwatch” with your friends, but I promise you that your health is more important than anything else. Please make sure you are getting those eight hours of sleep and that you are washing your hands along with social distancing.

Featured Illustration: Ryan Gossett