Transcript of Sleep

Students on sleep

6 to 7 hours a night.

Oh man, like 5, 6.

I usually sleep about 8 hours a night, but sometimes I'm really bad and I oversleep.

My Assignment.

Before I go to bed I actually go on my phone and I play some games, or I go on Facebook.

Youtube mostly.

A lot of muscle pains around my body.

I'm quite like lethargic during the day. I get really tired, and I'm usually not paying attention or focusing.

I feel exhausted, I also feel hungry sometimes.

I spend the whole day wishing like damnn I should have gone to sleep earlier, and then I'm probably going to have a nap when I get home. And when I do get home, you just don’t feel tired anymore, and then you end up sleeping late, so it's like a daily regret.

I usually get really stressed in the morning when I don’t get enough sleep.

So I did end up pulling an all-nighters, the first time I ever did it, and I absolutely screwed up the test, it was really bad.

I mean, being a uni student you tend to pull them off when you have a 20% assignment or something due the next day.

I've stayed up till like 5am and then not being able to fall asleep, because I've just been so wide and awake.

I generally listen to music, just like classical music or something like quietly.

I have learned this technique where you're meant to associate bed with sleep. So you're meant to lie down on the bed, and if you can't fall asleep for like 15 minutes get up walk around, go back to bed. And you're not meant to study in bed as well, so try not to do that.

I usually just sometimes drink like a cup of milk.

You know, maybe I'll take a hot shower.

I like lie there until I feel sleepy.

I play with my phone until I literally can't open my eyes anymore, and I'm struggling to read things on my phone.

Tire yourself out during the day, go for a run, do some exercise, eat properly, you find yourself more likely to fall asleep at night.

Experiment to find out what feels best for you, because different people fall asleep to different things.

Stop using like screens, like watching TV, playing games. Like you need to have a winding down period before you sleep.

Maybe not drink coffee after about 6 o'clock.

Listening to some guided meditation, listening to some like relaxing sound tracks off Youtube, maybe of the ocean or whatever. That usually helps me go to sleep.

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Expert on sleep

Danny:When you are sleep deprived, your amygdala is 60% more reactive. So you're more likely to make rash, emotional, unintelligent decisions if you sleep less than 6 hours at night.

You're more likely to die prematurely, you're more likely to gain weight, have cardiovascular consequences. Every single organ in the body is affected if you're not sleeping enough.
So when I was a student, I did have to pull some all-nighters to get those assignments done. I now know that, that was not an ideal approach. Staying awake for 24 hours is the equivalent of having a blood alcohol level of .1. So I was effectively doing my assignment intoxicated.

You want to do what is called good sleep hygiene. Having a dark room, a quiet room, a regular sleep pattern is really important. It's a behavioral thing that we do. And avoiding caffeine prior to sleep, heavy meals, having used electronic devices near your face, so smart phones and so forth, computers prior to sleep, bad idea. It actually resets your body clock, and its blue light and this is a stimulating effect, and it can impair you from having to sleep. So I avoid those things prior to sleep.

The other thing, I'll say is that you know, if you  are learning for a test or assignment, do it ahead of time because we now know that all the learning and memory consolidation actually happens during sleep. And yeah, about every 90 minutes, and particularly in the lower half of the night you have more dreaming sleep, which is really when your memory and learning takes place. So optimising sleep makes you think better and learn more effectively. If you want to get the most out of life and your student experience, and get the best grades you possibly can, prioritise sleep up there with exercise, healthy eating, and as one of the three important pillars for heath.

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