Here’s the situation: you’re hanging out with some friends at night. You’re laughing, cracking each other up and generally having a swell time. As the screen of your phone turns on, you see the time is now 1:38 a.m. Uh oh. You have a class you can’t miss at 8 a.m., and mental math says you’re not going to get much sleep tonight. Eventually, you make it back to your place and slip into bed. Next thing you know, you’re greeted by the sound of your alarm clock in the morning, and your brain is in a foggy haze.
It happens to the best of us. We get busy, we lose track of time or we’re just off and we can’t get enough sleep. For some people, this can be a one-time occurrence, and for others it’s just a normal part of their life. Getting quality sleep is an incredibly important part of health. Striving for better sleep should be an important priority, but this spiel is about fixing short-term problems. We need to get you back on track for today.
Here are some things that can wake you up and give you some energy.
Light, air and water are the three simplest things that can boost your energy right away. Splash some water on your face, go outside and do a little light stretching. Taking it a step further, a cold shower will douse you with a quick jolt of energy. It may be a less graceful path to being awake, but it’s just as effective.
If you are in need of another push, caffeine is a tried and true way to go. Tea and coffee are your best bets for moderate amounts of caffeine, but be careful not to go overboard as an excess of caffeine can lead to a handful of sour side effects, including — ironically enough — poor sleep. Another fantastic thing to drink is water. It’s the cornerstone of life as we know it, and it’s also pretty handy for waking you up.
Next we’ve got napping. Naps can be fantastic but also dangerous. The trick with naps is to maximize the amount of rest that they give you while minimizing sleep inertia and the damage it might do to your regular sleep. Sleep inertia is the feeling you get when there’s still a part of you trying to wake up. You managed to get out of bed, but you’re groggy. This is one of the ways that naps can backfire and make you even more sleepy. There are two kinds of naps you can take where sleep inertia is reduced as much as possible:
The power nap
10 to 20 minutes long
Gives you a nice boost of energy
Unlikely to hurt sleep schedule or become habitual
The full cycle nap
About 90 minutes long
Completes a full cycle of sleep
Gives you more rest
Gives the feeling of sleep
Can hurt sleep schedule
Getting between 30 and 80 minutes of sleep will greatly increase your chances of experiencing sleep inertia after your nap, so you’ll want to avoid those mid-sized naps. The danger of the full cycle naps is that you may end up being over-rested and then can’t sleep again when you should at night. This is why you must proceed with caution when engaging in a full cycle nap. It can easily throw you off. To avoid this, make sure that you only take a full cycle nap when it’s really needed, get good sleep the following night and nap at the right time of day.
The fine folks who study sleep say the best time to take a nap is in the early afternoon between roughly noon and 3 p.m. This checks out from personal experience, as morning naps are often served with a heaping helping of sleep inertia no matter how long the nap. Naps in the late afternoon and especially in the evening can make it hard to sleep that night. However, I understand that you’re busy, so if you can’t casually carve time out of your afternoon for sleeping, you should limit your naps to power naps.
So how do you get awake? Start with the basics: water, air, light, movement and move onto other measures as needed, like caffeine and naps, making sure that you’re smart about how you proceed. With these tools on your side, you can get through your day and plan on how to get better sleep.
Keep in mind, these are temporary short-term improvements that can be done over the course of a day or a couple of hours. These should not be adopted as replacements for quality sleep. You should not bank on water, coffee, and fresh air to get you through your day. These will stimulate and alert you, not rest and repair you. Getting quality sleep should be prioritized over getting quality naps.
Sleep is an important part of health, and this blog post doesn’t have all of the answers. If you’re having trouble getting sleep, talk to your doctor. You could also try drop-in wellness coaching if you’d like to talk with someone about your specific sleeping patterns and how to improve them. Information for drop-in wellness coaching can be found here.
In the spring, Wellness and Recreation is doing the Pack To Sleep challenge where you and your friends can challenge yourselves to get better sleep by changing your sleep-related habits. More information about the Pack To Sleep challenge will be coming soon.