Sleep Schedule

I'm a night person. My normal sleeping schedule is 1:30-9:30, later on weekends. So basically, an average student. This is not something I'm overly fond of. Yeah, it might be natural for me, but so having no hand-eye coordination. If I can learn to juggle, I can change my sleep schedule.

I'm generally a lot happier with a 11-7 schedule. This isn't just a "life would be better if I was a lark" wishful thinking. There have been several month spans where I'd force myself wake up at 7 every weekday. The rush I get from being up early is incredible. There was even a month where I did 6, out every day before the sun was up. It felt like stepping out into a barren world and watching it come alive. I'm just a lot happier on days when I wake up early. On the flip side, if I get up past 10 I just feel miserable. It's like the whole day is wasted.

There are a couple of big disadvantages to an early schedule. One, I'm shifting two of my awake hours to when nobody is up, or at least socializing. I'm taking a small hit to my social life. Then again, I'm usually in the apt at that time so I'm only affecting my fb and roommate interactions. I'm not particularly worried about either of those. The other issue is that I'll have to get better at completing assignments. When you stay up late, you can trade sleep for homework time. But if you go to bed early, you have no idea when to wake up to have adequate working time and can botch an assignment that way. This means I'll have to get better at doing assignments in advance and managing my time well. Horror of horrors.
 
The bonuses are huge and the problems easily resolvable. So why don't I do this all the time? Like I said, my body naturally does a late-night schedule. It's also a lot easier to go to bed late- it's only a matter of procrastinating sleeping. Sleeping early requires a lot more dedication and willpower. I've only recently tried to pick it back, and have consistently woken up at 7 for the past week. I stopped it during the weekends because everything interesting happens in the evening and night.

I'm going to try to keep this up at least until Spring break. I've never kept up an early bird schedule during vacation. I think that would be nice to try. It's just a lot harder when you don't have obligations during the day. Even if I stumble over vacation I'll attempt to pick it back up again for the new quarter and run with it until finals. It seems like it'd be really nice to do during the Spring. I'd get an extra two hours of warm daylight.