Jessica Hung, Week 9 - The Nap-tastic Power of Sleep
Looking like a raccoon (because of my dark undereye bags), there is a phrase I repeat every single day:
“I’m so tired.”
If I was a main character in a sitcom, this would be my catchphrase. If I could get a dollar for each time I say this phrase, I would be a billionaire.
Professionals recommend eight hours of sleep.
On my New Year’s Resolutions every year, I put: Get eight hours of sleep. Yet, like all of my resolutions, that goal never gets completed.
I’ve realized, however, that getting enough sleep is an amazing power, especially on school days.
Last year, due to an awful chemistry lab, I only got three hours of sleep. Guess how I felt the next day. I was absolutely groggy. I had trouble paying attention in class and had no strength to do anything. My eyelids felt heavy. Did I already mention that I was feeling terrible? Oh, and the state of my eyebags? Even worse. If eyebags were a fashion trend, I would be the top winner.
Because of this wonderful experience, I decided to get eight hours of sleep. I was determined. So, I made the effort to sleep at 9 P.M. and wake up at 8 in the morning. As the sun shined brightly through the window, I sat up in bed, feeling better than ever. I got eleven hours of sleep! And I felt amazing. Energy was rushing through me, coursing through my veins.
We should appreciate the power that sleep gives us. Sleep reduces stress and helps build our immunity against diseases. It is beneficial for retaining information and learning. Sleep, something we all take for granted, has a big impact on our mental, emotional, and physical states. Getting enough sleep gives us the power to take on the world and tackle any problems we come across.
Now, I am happy to announce that I have a new catchphrase:
“Sleep is power.”
 |
| Sleep is Power (picture taken from Google) |
Hi Jessica! I love your mix of sarcastic and truthful writing to convey the idea that sleep is essential to our lives. Everyday my parents urge me to sleep earlier instead of going to sleep at 2 AM constantly and I always ignore them but recently I myself have been trying to prioritize my sleep. Similar to you, I have attempted to set a resolution for the new year to maintain at least 6-7 hours of sleep everyday. I vowed to myself that I will prioritize exercise twice a week and sleep everyday over everything else, even my school work.
ReplyDeleteAnd once again, similar to you, I have been struggling to keep up with this resolution. I’ve probably broken it at least 15 times in the 24 days that 2024 has started. I find that the days I sleep late, I wake up late and that causes stress on school days because I need to get to school on time. So yesterday I decided to finally prioritize my health again and I ended up sleeping 8 hours. Today I felt extremely well-reseted and productive! I hope to continue this streak for as long as I can. The benefits of sleep are endless and it causes less stress and an overall better quality of life.
Hopefully both of us will be successful in our pursuit of a healthy sleep schedule! Your way of conveying this message is extremely meaningful and entertaining. Your use of bold and italics makes it interesting and conveys emphasis for certain arguments. When you mention being part of a sitcom or getting a dollar for each time you said “I’m so tired,” I was immediately interested in your message. Overall, I enjoyed your writing style and I feel less alone in my goal of getting more sleep after reading your blog.
Jessica I really thought that you blog was super relatable, and I wrote about a similar topic this week as well. Although you emphasize the need for people to get the full 8 hours of sleep, I believe that we should additionally be able to take time for ourselves and be lazy, whether people like it or not. Also, I thought it was so funny when you brought up the chemistry lab, and I can only assume that you mean the single displacement lab which contained over 15 pages of writing for everyone in the class. I think I also have to agree with you about how amazing sleep can be and how we underestimate its effectiveness for all of us. I think this was especially true for all of us right after Winter Break. At least for me I found that I was not tired and focusing better when I had enough sleep and didn't have sleep debt racking up (right after winter break), however, as the days go on and the school days keep getting busier, it does seem that I am starting to feel the effects of not having enough sleep.
ReplyDeleteI hope that both of us can get more sleep, and I really do hope that I can hold myself accountable to sleeping at a reasonable time when I don't have work to do (which is most of the time). I think it's important for all of us to stay conscious about our choices when it comes to sleep, as they can make or break the way that we function day to day.
I liked how your blog was not only informative about the benefits of sleep but also connected it to a significant personal experience of yours that you have learned from. In addition, I appreciated the relevance of the content to high schoolers like us, who often struggle to sleep as much as we should. I generally make sure to get at least 8 to 9 hours of sleep every night, but on the days I do not, I can see the difference. On the day before my first final this year, I got 6 hours of sleep, just a couple hours less, and I could immediately see the difference. During the final, I wasn’t able to process the information; I would have to re-read questions multiple times in order to understand what they were asking. I also had a general lack of motivation during the test. Instead of thinking about the questions, I was closing my eyes for extended periods of time, wishing that I could go back home just to regain a couple more hours of sleep. This demonstrates, as you emphasized towards the end of your blog, how important sleep is to us. We need every hour of sleep we can get to rejuvenate ourselves for the next day.
ReplyDelete