Ok people, since the weekends before summer holidays. I've started to find it hard to get to sleep. Not that I have a physical or emotional problem, its just that I feel the time I waste sleeping could be put to better use.So over the past year or so, i've started to go to bed later (Which is ok, because im a teen.) but now its kinda getting out of control and i've turned nocturnal. I practically spend more time awake at night than I do during day. At the moment (because of the summer) i've been going to bed around 5:00am - 5:30am, and getting up at 3:00 - 3:30 pm the following afternoon. And its not just a weekend thing it's every single day. Actually at the moment it's 3:00am, and I will be up for another hour or so, even though I have to get up at 9:00am this morning to go into school to get my GCSE Results, that gives me 5 hours sleep, which I think is enough?Now that i'll soon be going back to school I want to change everything. During school nights i'm usually asleep for around 12:30-2:00, which isn't as late compared to the summer months, but after a while, (around Wednesday on a school week) I start to get really tired during school. I don't want to go back to school with late nights, and kipping on the table ordeals. I've tried readjusting but I end up sitting up in bed watching T.V. to all hours. Anyone got any ideas on how to get myself to go to sleep earlierBare in mind that its realy hard for me to get to sleep earlier now that i'm completely adjusted to going to bed when the sun rises and getting up late afternoon.
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How can I adjust myself?
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You have to learn to set good habits or learn to adapt to a changing schedule. I do a bit of both. I've been sleeping in all summer, except when I have swim meets and need to get up between 3-6 AM in the morning and I ease myself in for a few days beforehand so I can get a decent sleep. You need to not sleep in or you won't adjust properly. Don't let yourself sleep in on weekends, you need to change your schedule around so that you can fall asleep at night. Set regular times to go to bed by.You know what's not helping you get sleep? Having a TV in your room. Psychologically, you want to separate the stimulus from the place where you sleep. That's why it's a bad idea to do things like watch TV or do homework in your room, or at least in bed. You make the decision whether you want to take the TV out of your room or not. Perhaps you could just unplug it. Pull the plug and don't watch it. You won't be as tempted if you have to take the extra effort to plug it in.
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I agree with RobBob. Rather than trying to control when you go to sleep, which doesn't work well because you lie awake, instead you should control when you get up. Make sure (alarm clock plus a reliable person) that you are woken up and dragged out of bed at the time you should be getting up in the morning, no matter how little sleep you got. Then do not go back to bed until the night. The first night you'll probably have no sleep at all, but the second night you'll get more, and the third night more again.
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Why dont you just try staying up all night and then going to bed early the next day?
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I think changing your sleeping patterns inevitably is going to temporarily affect your performance, and it should be timed to reduce the impact of that as much as possible.