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Ivy League Students: Thoughts About Sleep?
iblifeishorrible
15 replies8 threads Junior Member
in College Life
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Replies to: Ivy League Students: Thoughts About Sleep?
Last semester varied, as I avoided going to bed with homework whenever possible, so that could be anywhere from 11-2, and I woke up an hour and a half before my first class, which was at either 9 or 10 depending on the day. This semester I only have morning classes one day of the week (my hell day, 8-3:30, and I'll have to get up at 6am because the classroom is a hike) and tried to sleep in until 10:30, but my room faces east and too much light comes in around 8:30-9ish.
I've found that it doesn't matter how much sleep I get as long as it's consistent; I feel better getting 6-7 hours every night than 5 one and 9 another.
In high school, I slept at around 1AM--sometimes earlier, sometimes later--and woke up to a set alarm clock at 6:30AM. I often skipped breakfast because I had my bus to catch at 7AM; but if I did have breakfast, it would be a quick bowl of cereal. So, this adds up to approximately 5.5 hours of sleep on weekdays. Then I frequently had extracurricular tournaments on Saturday, which meant 2-3 hours of sleep on Friday nights due to tournament preparation. Thus, Sunday was my day to catch up on sleep. However, since I held board positions for several organizations, I usually had early Sunday morning meetings/calls, so I took long naps on Sunday afternoons and then tried to be as productive as possible with homework during the evening/ night.
As a freshman at Harvard, my sleep schedule is far more shifty. Nowadays, I'd say I most often sleep at around 3AM and wake up to a set alarm clock at 7AM. I like to start my day early for a number of reasons--to prepare myself for the life of a working adult, to feel active and not sluggish, to feel "hard-working" or "successful" so that I inadvertently become those two traits, etc. I'll then usually take a power nap for 1-2 hours in the afternoon/evening. However, sometimes I pull all-nighters to cram for tests, sometimes I sleep very early and wake up at 4:30-5AM, etc. Earlier in the year, I experimented a lot with my sleep--like working at night and sleeping during the day, sleeping very little at night and taking spread-out half-an-hour naps during the day, staying awake for 36+ hours and then sleeping a lot the following day, etc. In the end, I found my current sleep pattern to be the best in terms of my health, happiness, and productivity--plus, I have breakfast everyday!
I don't think I, by any means, represent the typical Ivy League student when it comes to sleep. Some of my friends go to bed very late and wake up very late, and some of my friends get 8+ hours of sleep daily. I think the source of my sleep problems is that I tend to be very unproductive during certain hours of the day, and then find myself having to stay up very late or wake up very early. I also tend to waste a lot of time doing busy work, like spending extra hours color-coating and formatting my notes, even when the ROI is practically null.
It's reassuring to know that even Harvard students do things with 0 ROI.
At Princeton, my sleep schedule has gotten a lot worse, probably due to a combination of more work and later classes in the morning. I try to sleep by 1a.m., although I've slept as late as 2 or even 3a.m. (never pulled an all nighter though). I wake up around 9ish most days, since most semesters I've had 10a.m. classes. I've actually found that when I had an 8:30a.m. class two days a week last semester, my entire schedule just felt better, so I'm gonna chase that feeling. When I'm home for breaks during college, I pretty much sleep until noon every day.
Try not to be too stressed? Try to sleep at least 7 hours in a 24-hr cycle. Good luck our future politicians/doctors/scientists/lawyers/bankers/moms and dads!