Prioritizing Sleep

Sleeping is one of the most integral parts of the day. Despite how busy life can be, sleep provides each person with the necessary energy and well-being to accomplish difficult tasks. However, as a teenager in high school, I find myself forgetting to prioritize sleep. With sports, classes, homework, extracurriculars, and now the stress of college, it has been hard for me to ensure that I get 8 hours. In fact, sometimes it seems impossible to me that people are able to regularly sleep for that long. To help any of you out there that also need to learn to prioritize rest, I have made a plan so that both of us can implement new strategies to get sufficient sleep allowing us to function to the best of our abilities each day.

1. Prevent electronic use before bed

Unfortunately, I am definitely guilty of this one. I try to read before bed, or work on something else productive, but usually I stay up late on my phone instead. While in the moment I enjoy staying awake on my phone, I always wake up the next day sleep-deprived and groggy. Further, no matter how hard it may be, I am going to attempt to stop doing this. Instead, I will keep my phone on a table away from where I sleep. This will prevent me from reaching for it when I can not fall asleep and staying up late.

1. Limit procrastination

Again, I struggle with this as well. For me, I tend to put off tasks until the last minute. Being a junior, it can be overwhelming to juggle activities, school, and getting ready for college. Further, I tend to forget to complete certain tasks ahead of time. To reverse this, I am currently working to plan out my weeks so that I stop leaving things until the day before.

1. Prioritize mental health

A lot of people, including myself, tend to put school and other things above taking care of themselves. Sleep is a necessary part of self care. In fact, school and tasks can be better accomplished with regular sleep. Therefore, even if it may be hard, I am going to try to start putting my health before accomplishing tasks.

Do you have any other tips on how to prioritize sleep? Let us know in the comments! :)