My Sleep Habits

Check the appropriate boxes:	Usually	Sometimes	Never
I get 7–8 hours of sleep at night.			Never
I feel sleepy or have trouble focusing during the day.	Usually
I take a nap when I feel drowsy or need more sleep.		Sometimes
I fall asleep or have trouble staying awake in class.		Sometimes
I fall asleep while studying.			Never
I stay up all night to study for exams or write papers.			Never

    Sleep is not something that comes easily for me, but its not caused by a lack of care for myself (like drinking caffeine before bed or even choosing to stay up late). No, its caused by health issues and I find that due to them I often lack sleep - which causes a variety of bad sleeping habits, which I'm willing to admit.

    Often, I get close to six hours of sleep and occasionally over - which is most likely spurred on by anxiety and breathing issues. Though my constant use of my phone is probably doesn't help these issues and instead probably worsens them, but we all have our bad habits. The reason I'm aware of these issues is because of my friends notifying me about the terrible snoring I keep them awake with sometimes or my own fits of anxiety that I notice when attempting to fall asleep. But, I'm also aware of them because of the drowsiness that lingers when I wake and do things throughout the day (something that I know isn't due to my iron deficiency, since that's currently not bad enough to cause anything).

    Week nights, now that I've started college are probably going to be my worst areas of sleep if my time at high school is any indicator. So, I expect that I may be getting a little less or around the same amount that I established in the paragraph before. Weekend nights tend to be better since I'm less stressed, but they aren't that much better (but that's partly due to my anxiety issues). I think that overall, my sleep habits happen to be quite awful and that awfulness is evenly spread across the weeks themselves - despite my varied efforts to fix these issues.

    Studying compared to sleep is of less importance to me. I find that if I enjoy the material enough I can learn it quite fast, but I don't want that to invade the minimal amount of sleep I already get. That doesn't mean I don't prioritize studying, I just don't want it to effect my productivity - because I need to have energy to study and if I prioritize studying, I won't have that energy and in turn will be less productive. Alongside studying, spending time with friends/family is not something that I prioritize over my sleep as (once again) I want to have energy to do things with them. So, reading chapter 51, I can see that these aren't the things that affect me - it's something else, something that I'm aware of.

    My routines and sleep schedule can't be changed in a way that will help me as my issues are established by worsening medical issues, that I'm hopefully going to get some answers to soon. It seems like a cop out, but I haven't felt like this until the health issues started to become more apparent. But, I believe I will get better and I can't wait for a full eight hours of sleep and that refreshed feeling I've always seen/read about in media.