Being in quarantine has changed many things for us as individuals. To keep the population healthy and mitigate the spread of COVID-19, we’ve had to give up many normal daily things, such as having fun with our friends in person or getting food from our favorite restaurants. In fact, most of us can’t even go back to our college campuses, changing our daily routine indefinitely. One of the things that have been thrown out of whack has been our sleep schedules.
Sleep schedules are incredibly important. They are what keep your body running at healthy levels and enable your brain to get some rest after a tiring day. Ideally, one should get about eight hours of sleep from around 10 p.m. or midnight to around 6 a.m. or 8 a.m. Now obviously, as college students, our sleep schedules are already a bit mixed up: We sleep later and sometimes have to wake up earlier. This isn’t very healthy, but it comes with the lifestyle, and we deal with it and make the most of it.
However, our lifestyle depends on a schedule. We have classes the next day that we must go to, homework and exams we must study for. With the coronavirus pandemic, our entire schedules have been going through it. Sometimes, classes are not necessary to attend on time. Other times, we simply choose to not go and catch up on the content later. Either way, our schedules get screwed up, and as a result, our sleep schedules are also a little messy. At this point, that can’t really be helped. Rather, let’s rank the best and worst sleep schedules that some of us might have.
5. 10 p.m.–6 a.m.
A 10 p.m.–6 a.m. schedule is perhaps the most vanilla one out there. It’s healthy, long-lasting and gives you lots of time in the mornings to get stuff done, like maybe finish up math homework and go on a morning jog. In conclusion, this is a pretty boring sleep schedule — no pizzazz. Score: 3/10.
4. 2 p.m.–10 p.m.
This sleep schedule is indicative of someone who is nocturnal. Typically, you might find international students having to stick to this sleep schedule as they attempt to fix their inner clock to make it match up with their local time zone. It’s a pretty unhealthy schedule since your day and night cycles are completely shifted. It’s understandable if you have this schedule for a little bit, but in the long term, this is really just a terrible and harmful habit to keep up. Score: 4/10.
3. 5 a.m.–1 p.m.
A 5 a.m.–1 p.m. sleep schedule is definitely chaotic. Less so than the 2-10 p.m., but still, it’s not meant for the faint of heart. Essentially, it means you’re going to have to do your work during the night time, and you won’t really ever experience morning time. If it works for you, then I suppose there’s nothing keeping you from continuing with it, but in general, not a super dope idea. It’ll definitely keep things interesting on a day-to-day basis, though. Plus, you get dinner instead of breakfast as your third meal for the day. Score: 5/10.
2. 2 a.m.–10 a.m.
This is the exact opposite of the 2-10 p.m. schedule. This is probably the most realistic sleep schedule. A bunch of us were on this one, or some close variant of it, for most of our semesters at UC Berkeley. And it makes sense: You sleep relatively late, but not too late, and you get to wake up at a decent time, with just enough morning to make do with brunch and perhaps some classwork. A truly iconic sleep schedule. Score: 8/10.
1. Random naps
This is by far the most chaotic schedule, and one of the hardest to keep up. With periodic and random naps, everything is uncertain. Will you go to sleep during your discussion? Who knows? Will you wake up in time to catch the sunrise? At this point, it’s anybody’s guess. This is also one of the most unhealthy schedules, but hey, you can really commit to the whole philosophy that we’re here for a good time, not for a long time, and that’s impressive. Score: a very chaotic 10/10.
We hope that y’all are finding yourselves well rested in this quarantine, no matter what sleep schedule you may have!
