Miyuki Yamaguchi Espada

Psychology Reflection #7

Sleep Log

May, 2020

Sleep Diary:
Date: Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Time I closed my 4:40am 4:15am 4:30am 2:00am 6:30am 6:40am 7:00am-8:00am

eyes (does not
include when I
actually start
falling asleep
which could be
hours after):

Extra Notes: - Played - Played - Caught up - Went on a - Worked - Worked - Worked on

game on game on on quick photo on on homework
phone in bed phone COVID-19 walk/bike homework homework
until news ride at - Worked on my
- On call with started to 11pm-12am - Watched - Caught up grad statement
friend until drift off - Watched (which some on
about 4:00am Youtube relaxed me Youtube COVID-19 - Caught up on
videos and put me videos news and BLM movement
in a good news about and protest
- Played mood) - Character the BLM news
game on building movement
phone - Caught up for my and protests
- Played a few
on creative games on my
COVID-19 writing - Played a phone until I
news in bed stories game on my started to drift
phone to off
- Tried to - Updated make me
play a game this sleep tired and
on my log despite slept
phone but the lack of
started to sleep
fall asleep
Extra (to show myself how my terrible sleeping habits born of avoidance affects my daily life)​:
Date: Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Time (woke 11:00am 9:45am (got 9:45am (got 9:45am (but 10:45am I have no
up): out of bed at out of bed at kept hitting (did not recollection
11:00am) around snooze) (stayed get out of of this day
10:11am) in bed until bed until to be honest
around 6:30pm around
and ate yogurt 12:30)
my brother
kindly brought
me without
asking)

Mood upon - ​Tired, - tired - emotionally - tired and - no energy - ​lazy - who really
waking up drained of exhausted unmotivated knows what
(plus extra energy - dressed up (from the - empty and - decent happened
details): nicely to go phone call - ate emotionally mood on this day?
- emotionally outside from the night breakfast drained
drained before) properly and - ate - I think I
- went felt a bit - overstimulated breakfast did more
outside in - low mood better and very homework
the sun anxious - good all day and
(couldn’t use mood cleaned the
- met with a social media or after house?
friend my phone for eating
that matter) - neutral
mood?
- could not get
out of bed to go
to school or eat

1. Are you surprised with your results? Explain.

To be honest, I was not surprised with the results of my sleeping time, but rather just disappointed.
There was no improvement throughout the week, and on the last two days my sleeping habits
declined.

The only part I was “surprised” by was that after taking a walk/bike ride outside, I felt my mood lift
and was feeling extremely positive. That was also the only day I started drifting off without having to
tire myself out, and that resulted in the earliest time I went to sleep that week.
Through this reflection, I was able to find some peace in the fact that there will be times where I will
have no control over my state of mind, despite doing my best to prevent falling into a slump.

2. How many nights did you recall dreaming? What might that say about the quality of
your sleep? ​Hint – in which stage of sleep do dreams occur?

Personally, I have dreams on most nights, and am able to recall them once I wake up. I try
extremely hard to remember them, and if there was school I usually would sit with my friend
Therese on the bus and share it with her so I wouldn’t forget.

Dreams occur at the REM stage of sleep, which is the 5th stage of sleep and occurs multiple
times over the duration of your sleep for varying lengths of time. REM or “Rapid Eye
Movement” sleep is the stage where your pulse rate and breathing become irregular, dreams
occur and much like its name rapid eye movements take place.
All stages of sleep are important to the contribution of a person's wellbeing, but deep sleep
(stage 4) is where the most rest is achieved. If I am dreaming on the majority of nights and
REM is the final stage of sleep, that means that I am most likely going through the full cycle of
sleep. Which hopefully means that I am getting adequate rest.

3. Given that we are no longer “going TO school”, how does your sleep for the last 7 days
compare to the sleep you got before the pandemic had us all at home?

Before the pandemic my sleep schedule was already quite poor, with the maximum amount of
sleep I would usually be getting would be somewhere around 4-5 hours (since it takes me
anywhere around 30 minutes to more than 2 hours to start drifting off), most times due to me
trying to finish as much homework as possible because I take extra time. But with school being
a constant, and following a strict time schedule, I always had to wake up at around 8am at the
latest. This meant that I usually was awake until anytime around 3am, and never fell asleep
before 4am.
But with the pandemic and school being “cancelled”, that schedule went off the rails. With no
school to wake up for, my normal wake up time became my regular try to force myself to bed
time. At the start of the pandemic I was lost, confused and frankly quite deep in a pool of
despair. I preferred sleeping through the morning for a meager 3-4 hours rather than be awake
and constantly remember what we’d all lost—normality.
Luckily, this past month has been full of reflection and proactive movement towards returning
to my decent state of well being. This includes trying to move my sleeping clock backwards in
time to where it once was, or even better. At this point in time I have pushed it back to around
4am, but as seen in the chart above, that fell apart quite quickly for no reason at all.
I hope to hop back onto that positive track and work harder to integrate healthy behaviours into
my lifestyle that I can benefit from now and in the future.
 4. Consider the PBS video we watched in class, the Adolescence Sleep Update article by Dr.
Wolfram, and your sleep data. Considering a “normal” school environment, how does
school start time affect your sleep? Do you notice a difference in how you felt on the late
start Mondays we started this year?

Since our school has a later start time, this means that even when I’m unable to sleep as early as
others, I can still get in some sleep. This also makes it so that I always woke up at a consistent time
and gave my life structure. Although it’s still quite early for me, I can’t imagine what I’d do if I didn’t
have extra time to finish up on my homework and get some sleep afterwards.

At first I wasn’t very fond of late start Mondays because I preferred early dismissal, but after the first
one I fell in love with it almost immediately. I got the most sleep I had ever gotten during a school
week, and it also provided me the chance to have time to eat breakfast, brush my teeth, and relax
before walking to the school bus. In comparison, on regular school days I push my sleeping time to
the max due to the lack of it, and often—if not always—cut out eating and taking my time (I always
run to the bus, it’s at the point where Mike waits for me because he knows I’ll be running down the
hill), which really stresses me out and is unhealthy.

In conclusion, I benefit greatly from late start Monday, and am very glad for its existence.

5. How do you think you could improve your sleep? Provide at least 3 ideas.

Take walks or a short bike ride before bed: puts me in a good mood, tiresome out just
enough to help me drift off peacefully and rather quickly

Drink something warm and listen to calming music: to help me relax, and promote a
feeling of comfort

Not think about homework: one big stressor on my sleep is my unfinished work. I
always think that if I can be sleeping, it’d be a better use of my time to do that work,
even though not much gets accomplished due to how tired and burnt out I am. If I can
learn to part with that kind of thinking, then I believe it would help me go to sleep
earlier.