Question: Ever since I started college I had the freedom of doing as I pleased, free of parental monitoring. This was great and not so great…One of the main things my parents regulated was my sleep. If they found me awake at a silly hour they would force me to go to bed. This made it more challenging to disrupt my sleep cycle and generally promoted good sleep.
Once on my own my sleeping cycle became terribly distorted and my freshman year of college was spent getting to bed at 4-6am nightly. Some days I would get enough sleep and some I wouldn’t.I didn’t think, however, that this would ever be a problem as I was used to being tired waking up early for high school. Freshman year passed and I noticed no ill effect on my health besides maybe feeling a little tired now and then. Sophomore year rolls around and my habits havnt changed. In fact, they slowly grew. I started to sleep less and less. I would consistently fall asleep in the living room on our poor excuse for couches and get horrible sleep (waking every few hours if not more frequent). The worse and less I slept the more I would fall asleep on the couches and the worse the cycle became.After only one semester of this more severe sleep deprivation my body couldnt take it anymore and it started wearing down. I felt like a frail old man to say the least and I couldnt quite pin down why at first- that is until it was undoubtedly obvious. Not only was it physical, it was mental as well–I didnt feel too great all the time, I became a much grumpier person who basically enjoyed life less.Once I tried getting more sleep I noticed I couldnt stay asleep, I would wake up every few hours and I still do, weeks later. As of now im taking more caution and am hoping my circadian rhythm will soon return to its regular beat, nothing is worth sleep deprivation–It makes life suck.So please, do as your mother asks and get a good nights rest otherwise it will really bite you in the butt later.