TACKLING EXCESSIVE SLEEP
Sleep is a good thing to do for sound health and increased productivity especially for mental work. However, when done in excess, it spells doom for any student that desire a successful cruise through school. In fact, the time for adequate preparation for exams is not usually adequate when sleep is done excessively. This implies that any student that desire to excel in school should tackle excessive sleep,
My focus in is to show you how to ensure that you don’t sleep so much that you won’t have enough time to study or do what you are supposed to do. Let’s go.
One of the steps to tackling excessive sleep is to understand that your body functions in a certain way. God designed and organized it to get tired at some point and be full of energy and vigor at another point. Apart from depression, engaging in strenuous activity is one of the things that make the body tired. If you spend your day in activities that make your body weak, it can’t be effective at night except you have allowed it to take enough rest with adequate supply of energy, by feeding. This therefore implies that you should try as much as possible not to get yourself totally exhausted that you cannot sit down to study at length in the night. When you can take bike or taxi instead of trekking, do so. This helps you conserve energy and reduce the level of your exhaustion. Avoid too much task that are not relevant and ensure you avoid irrelevant thing that can get you exhausted. Even after taking these precautions or when you fail to take them, know that a few minutes siesta will do you a lot of good. It helps your brain and body rest and leaves you better refreshed to face any mental work you need to do. For me, ten minutes nap does wonder; even if it’s done on a table.
If you have planned to sleep and then wake up in the night to read, you should be careful about what you eat. My experience and that of many others show that heavy meals before sleeping generally makes one sleep longer or deeper than usual. Therefore, I prescribe that you avoid heavy food before going to bed. At worst, you could eat it some hours before going to bed; that way the digestion must have started or been completed before you start sleeping. Also note that reading after a heavy meal is not advisable; most humans sleep off due to the food. So, if you must eat before reading, fruits, juice or healthy snacks is suggested if you desire to remain awake.
Moreover, if you want to wake up to read at night, a good thing to do before going to bed is to define what you want to read when you wake up. Develop interest in what you want to read and have the volume of and duration for study clearly defined before sleeping. This could even help you wake up at the time you have decided to wake up. This practice has made me see something connected to my reading in my dream and wake up as a result. Also, when you wake up with energy and knowledge of the task facing you can be a spur that will get you off your bed when you are feeling like sleeping “just for more 30 mins” that usually last for 3 hours. So, please set target of what you want to achieve when you wake-up before sleeping.
One thing you should do before going to bed is to set your environment (room) such that it will encourage your standing up and studying as you have planned. As an example, you could leave the light on or just make the room not-totally dark. Well lit environment has a way of telling you, “You have slept enough; stand up and read”
Having your study material properly set in your reading table makes your environment conditioned for study. So, getting your study materials on the table, lightening the room and making the study table as organized as possible are practices that will make the environment encouraging.
Now, that you are awake, ensure that your sitting position in relation to your reading table does not encourage sleep. If it’s too short, get another one or support it with pillow, book or something else. If it’s too long, change it! Just ensure that you are not too comfortable to sleep or two uncomfortable to concentrate and read.
Also, ensure that there is adequate lightening in the room especially your reading table. Dim light is most likely to help you sleep sooner than you expected while bright light has a way of making you awake by giving a sense of day time.
Furthermore, don’t start reading a subject that can easily make you feel like sleeping. A subject that makes you very relaxed like novel or story book and subject you don’t find interesting can do this. So read them when you are wide awake or may be in the day time and read the one you find fascinating before you start getting tired or feeling dizzy. It could even be revitalizing.
Because you eat light before going to bed, you may wake up and feel hungry. You don’t have to go and eat; it may make you feel like sleeping. Many people take snacks but ensure it doesn’t contain milk. I read in one of my biochemistry textbooks that milk contains an amino acid that has the tendency of inducing sleep. Don’t even attempt taking milk unless you want to sleep since an amino acid in it induces sleep. I prescribe fruits, juice or healthy snacks; fruit is my choice.
Let me add quickly that any attempt to keep yourself from sleeping that affects your health such as taking drugs or causing physical harm to your body is bad. I have long overcome excessive sleep without using any drug. My strongest weapon is having work to do which I really need to do urgently. It keeps my nerves alert to respond to the techniques I am describing here.
Now listen, if you are a believer in Christ Jesus, don’t believe in the lie that someone, a witch, is manipulating you’ making you sleep too much. No witch can do you anything except he secures permission from God. Spend time on important prayers, not about witches and jazz people. You get?
What have I said in all these? The starting point of overcoming excessive sleep is your mind. Have something you really want to get done. Condition your body to discourage sleeping too much. Prepare your environment to encourage you your being awake.
May you have victory over excessive sleep from today in Jesus name!
