Hours of Sleep: Force of Habit or Conscious Effort? by Tana

Hours of Sleep: Force of Habit or Conscious Effort? by Tana - January 2019 Scholarship Essay

Many people can either be classified as an 'early bird' or a 'night owl'. While most people fit into one category or the other, I find the rare few such as myself in between both roles. The hours that I am alert the most depends entirely on what time I wake up and when I fall asleep. Typically, that is between the hours of seven in the morning and nine at night. Ideally, getting a maximum of nine hours of sleep keeps me functioning at my prime. Although I have discovered changing this schedule by even half an hour can lead to missteps during the day, such as drowsiness earlier on in the day than expected. Accounting for the length of time one sleeps for is essential to health- a fact I always knew but didn't fully absorb until I acknowledged it to be absolute law.
My family members, who awaken before dawn, are at the peak of productivity in the early morning; however, they tend to wind down by noon. Many of my friends sleep for as long as a student can before school obligations require them to wake and start the day. This is due to the fact that they stay up quite late- when presented the opportunity, sometimes they do not lie down to sleep until the clock changes to the next day's date. They tend to be tired during the day, but their mental gears start churning by noon. The reason many people are early or late to rise can depend of those around them. The hours our families are awake contribute to our own schedules. But, when either an early bird or a night owl changes their sleep schedule, it can drastically change the hours their productivity is heightened. My productivity levels go up before noon and comes down after seven in the evening. Because my daily routine is suited to these hours, I do not deliberately change them, but when they are changed due to unaccounted for situations I find my schedule thrown out of the window. If I wake up an hour late, my brain is locked on to whatever it is I do, but only for the first few hours of the morning. It quickly runs out of juice and I desire sleep much sooner than normal. And at times I go to sleep early and wake up hours earlier than normal, there is a lack of energy for the first thirty minutes of the day, but after the warm-up time I am double as productive than under any other conditions.
I'm very grateful that I do not suffer being unable to sleep often. I firmly believe that it is because I have stuck to an unspoken rule of going to bed before eleven at night and waking before eight in the morning. Additionally, not going to sleep until past seven at night or waking earlier than five in the morning seems to be a subconscious rule of mine. Those rules cannot be broken unless I am willing to alter the day. Since I was young, I always thought it to be taboo to stay up past midnight. How long, then, would I have to sleep until I gain my required hours of sleep? What if I wake up at my usual time in the morning, and I am unable to mentally function properly due to lack of sleep? These thoughts of worry prevented me from staying up so late, even on New Year's Eve. Health was always a high interest of mine, because I aspire to become a veterinarian. So when I was told the average amount of sleep needed per age range, one can surely believe that this knowledge strictly affected the hours I set for myself. I monitored the effect the hours I slept had on me. Before this, I would sleep whenever I felt like going to bed, but I realized that habit had a lasting effect on me. Changing my hours of sleep, even for only a day, created a butterfly effect. One hour less increased my chances of going to bed an hour earlier. Once I made a conscious effort- regardless if I was tired or energetic- to stick to a schedule, I found it easy within a week of practice. That is when I found common ground with both early birds and night owls. I realized that even if by nature someone goes to sleep late or early, by changing this habit they can pick a side for themselves.