By Anissa Deol
As we get older, we tend to get less and less amounts of sleep. First it was high school work, then it was college work, and will eventually be life work. We believe that other things such as homework, upcoming papers we have procrastinated on, or even lunch meetings are more important than the rest our body needs. Eventually, it will catch up to us, and we will be wishing we had taken that nap or extra hour of sleep than sitting and watching TV.
Sleep is the most important thing for your body. Not including diet, exercise or overall care, however sleep allows us to run on a normal schedule. It’s like when you need water when you are dehydrated. Water is the source for your body when your dehydrated, just as sleep is a source for your body with everything else.
Sleep helps with a lot of things in life:
· It allows us to regenerate and rejuvenate – when sleeping we can rest after an arduous workout, or after a long period time of studying
· Helps the brain recover and grow – after being active all day, whether it be inside or outside, the brain is constantly being used, and sleep allows it to not be doing as much as you usually do throughout the day
· Helps with soreness and tenderness in the body
· It helps with our mental health - gives us time to decompress
· Gives us a chance to not be doing anything
· It just feels good
Most people think if they run on four to five hours of sleep and nap the next day they will catch up on sleep. However, it isn’t true that you can catch up on sleep. The sleep time you lost is gone forever. Just because you sleep in the next day or two, does not mean you sill feel rejuvenated. Sure, you will get more time to sleep, but sometimes it leads you to feel even more tired. Going to bed at 2 am and getting up at 10 the next day does not help your sleep cycle and I get less work done throughout the day because I always feel more tired.
Tiredness also comes in waves for me. I feel less productive and slower in comparison to when I do get sleep and I feel more refreshed. If I get a lot of stuff done throughout the day, I can sleep better and maybe go to bed at an earlier time too.
College is a time for business and calls us to many different things such as social events, meetings and exams of course. However, to help with the constant stress and to focus more on things like our sleep schedule we can stop procrastinating on school things or even take some necessary time to decompress for ourselves.
Just because a party may seem more interesting and fun, doesn’t mean we should choose that over our wellbeing. The sleep time you get doesn’t come back, and believe me, when I’ve talked to adults in the workplace, they tend to get less sleep than they did back in college. So if I were you, I’d build a solid sleep schedule now and give your body the rest it needs because you never know how busy life is going to get.