Sleeping Patterns affecting progress Forum

[Nicolena.]

How much does everyone sleep?

Do you feel it is much more difficult to concentrate when you are lacking sleep? Is there something you do to fix it on days you don't get as much sleep as you should? I have trouble concentrating, but I probably only sleep about 5-6 hrs a night.

Thanks!

[magickware]

Is 5-6 hours your normal sleep pattern?

How did you normally feel on said sleep schedule before you studied for the LSAT?

Do you do better if you sleep more?

If you do better if you sleep more, then you should obviously sleep more.

If sleeping more doesn't do much, then it's probably not sleeping pattern.

Personally, I find it a lot easier to function when I go to bed between 11:00-11:30 and wake up somewhere in between 6-7. Any time after 12, and I start to feel worse, even if I get as much sleep or more.

The weird thing is that I used to do just fine going to bed at 1-2 back in college and waking up at like 7-8. Now I can't do this. It just takes me out for the rest of the day.

[Nicolena.]

Well with work and everything, I can only get around 5 - 6 hours. Usually I am trying to study after work, but honestly I am so drained. I usually work from 8AM - 6PM and I don't take a lunch. On the weekends, I can see much more improvement, but thats only two days a week. I was just wondering if anyone else saw a difference in their progress when they slept more.

I'm finally leaving my job in 3 weeks and relocating, so I should be able to focus more. However, until then I'm trying to scape by with very little sleep.

Is 5-6 hours your normal sleep pattern?

How did you normally feel on said sleep schedule before you studied for the LSAT?

Do you do better if you sleep more?

If you do better if you sleep more, then you should obviously sleep more.

If sleeping more doesn't do much, then it's probably not sleeping pattern.

Personally, I find it a lot easier to function when I go to bed between 11:00-11:30 and wake up somewhere in between 6-7. Any time after 12, and I start to feel worse, even if I get as much sleep or more.

The weird thing is that I used to do just fine going to bed at 1-2 back in college and waking up at like 7-8. Now I can't do this. It just takes me out for the rest of the day.

[RobertGolddust]

Since you had to ask, you already know. A good night sleep before the test helps and is an advantage.

[norkanite]

.

[tuffyjohnson]

Take all the minutia people analyze on this site: pencils, sex, time of day, alcohol, etc. This is one that I have found is the most important for me. If I don't get a solid night of sleep prior I simply cannot do as well. Which makes me a little nervous for the night before test day, so I've been thinking about experimenting with over the counter sleep meds.

[lawschool22]

Take all the minutia people analyze on this site: pencils, sex, time of day, alcohol, etc. This is one that I have found is the most important for me. If I don't get a solid night of sleep prior I simply cannot do as well. Which makes me a little nervous for the night before test day, so I've been thinking about experimenting with over the counter sleep meds.

If you're going to do this there is a correct way to do it. My brother is a M.D. and sleep researcher - but I really won't be offended if you take this with a grain of salt . Only take melatonin, and do not take it the night before.

Use it the week or two leading up to the test to train your body to go to sleep at a specific time as follows:

1. Determine when you want your body to naturally wake up on test day, subtract 7-8 hours (determine first what amount of sleep is optimal for you).
2. Then take the melatonin an hour before you need to be asleep to reach this targeted "awake" time.
3. If you do this for two weeks before the test, your body will be trained to go to sleep and wake naturally at these proper times.
4. Then stop taking the medication a day or two before the test, because it can linger in your system for 12 hours or so and may cause you to not be fully alert on test day.

Other things you can do to improve quality of sleep, many of which might be common sense:
1. Do not look at light in the "cooler" spectrum within 30 minutes of sleeping (these are items like TV, computer screens, cell phones, etc.). Instead read a book or anything else that involves light in the warmer spectrum, such as a tungsten bulb.
2. Make your room cooler - our body temp drops when we sleep, so you can "trick" your body into thinking its time to sleep by cooling down the room
3. Make the room as dark as possible
4. Eat a light snack hour before bed. If not you'll be hungry by 3am even if you don't notice, and it can impact your deep sleep patterns.
5. This snack should have protein of some sort - this helps induce the sleep process as well.

Overall, quality sleep is so important for a process like this. Not just for test day, but during the entire study process. Research is now showing that one of the key processes taking place during deep sleep is the synthesizing of important information we learned during the day, the removal of information deemed not relevant, and the transfer of memories from short-term to long-term. These are all processes we need to happen during the study process.

[neprep]

Take all the minutia people analyze on this site: pencils, sex, time of day, alcohol, etc. This is one that I have found is the most important for me. If I don't get a solid night of sleep prior I simply cannot do as well. Which makes me a little nervous for the night before test day, so I've been thinking about experimenting with over the counter sleep meds.

If you're going to do this there is a correct way to do it. My brother is a M.D. and sleep researcher - but I really won't be offended if you take this with a grain of salt . Only take melatonin, and do not take it the night before.

Use it the week or two leading up to the test to train your body to go to sleep at a specific time as follows:

1. Determine when you want your body to naturally wake up on test day, subtract 7-8 hours (determine first what amount of sleep is optimal for you).
2. Then take the melatonin an hour before you need to be asleep to reach this targeted "awake" time.
3. If you do this for two weeks before the test, your body will be trained to go to sleep and wake naturally at these proper times.
4. Then stop taking the medication a day or two before the test, because it can linger in your system for 12 hours or so and may cause you to not be fully alert on test day.

Other things you can do to improve quality of sleep, many of which might be common sense:
1. Do not look at light in the "cooler" spectrum within 30 minutes of sleeping (these are items like TV, computer screens, cell phones, etc.). Instead read a book or anything else that involves light in the warmer spectrum, such as a tungsten bulb.
2. Make your room cooler - our body temp drops when we sleep, so you can "trick" your body into thinking its time to sleep by cooling down the room
3. Make the room as dark as possible
4. Eat a light snack hour before bed. If not you'll be hungry by 3am even if you don't notice, and it can impact your deep sleep patterns.
5. This snack should have protein of some sort - this helps induce the sleep process as well.

Overall, quality sleep is so important for a process like this. Not just for test day, but during the entire study process. Research is now showing that one of the key processes taking place during deep sleep is the synthesizing of important information we learned during the day, the removal of information deemed not relevant, and the transfer of memories from short-term to long-term. These are all processes we need to happen during the study process.

Yep yep yep yep yep. I was paranoid about sleep before my SAT, and took NyQuil the night before; I was a zombie during test time. Luckily being a zombie isn't much of a handicap with the SAT, but the LSAT will find that weakness and exploit it.

[tuffyjohnson]

So, other sleep medications such as benedryl, taken the night before, would have negative impact on test day?

[neprep]

So, other sleep medications such as benedryl, taken the night before, would have negative impact on test day?

First off, I think the answer to this question is well beyond the scope of this TLS forum: As always, the standard response is "consult a physician." Most sleep aids have Diphenhydramine, and just because they're OTC doesn't mean that you shouldn't be very cautious about using something like this before test day.

But I believe your initial idea was to "experiment" with these aids and you weren't going to try this for the first time before the test. In that case, sure, take some OTC sleep aids and see how the PTs are affected the next day. The results of these experiments will obviously help you determine whether or not this is something you want to do before the real deal. Perhaps lawschool22 can expand on why melatonin is the sole recommendation…

Also, check out PT55, S3, #9 about sleep aids vs. other methods. The LSAT can be so meta.

[lawschool22]

So, other sleep medications such as benedryl, taken the night before, would have negative impact on test day?

First off, I think the answer to this question is well beyond the scope of this TLS forum: As always, the standard response is "consult a physician." Most sleep aids have Diphenhydramine, and just because they're OTC doesn't mean that you shouldn't be very cautious about using something like this before test day.

But I believe your initial idea was to "experiment" with these aids and you weren't going to try this for the first time before the test. In that case, sure, take some OTC sleep aids and see how the PTs are affected the next day. The results of these experiments will obviously help you determine whether or not this is something you want to do before the real deal. Perhaps lawschool22 can expand on why melatonin is the sole recommendation…

Also, check out PT55, S3, #9 about sleep aids vs. other methods. The LSAT can be so meta.

Melatonin is a naturally occurring chemical that our body begins to produce as the cooler color temperature spectrum of light is reduced (i.e. sunlight), and is then broken down once these light levels increase. It helps regulate our natural circadian rhythm by inducing drowsiness and reducing body temperature when it is time to sleep. The fact that it is broken down when our body senses cool-temp light is exactly why tv, computer, cell phone screens, etc, make it harder to get quality sleep or fall asleep.

Typically, our bodies better react to and process naturally occurring chemicals such as melatonin. This is one reason it is preferred as a low-level sleep aid. Additionally, because it is broken down once light levels increase, it tends to not have as lingering of an effect upon waking as some of the other sleep aids.

Also, melatonin has relatively few side effects. One can typically start with a small dose and work up to the proper amount simply through trial and error. It does not require a "build-up" period prior to becoming effective and it also does not tend to be addictive in most cases.

Finally, and probably most importantly for our purposes, melatonin (unlike the vast majority of other aids) does not affect R.E.M. sleep. Some sleep aids work by inhibiting the R.E.M. portion of our sleep cycle. The downside of this, is that this is the main time during which all of the important memory-related tasks such as synthesis, transfer from short- to long-term memory, and the discarding of non-relevant memories occurs. By inhibiting this process, these other sleep aids can in fact make it harder to learn and recall things we learned the previous day.

For this reason and the others mentioned melatonin is preferred, and especially for our purposes.

[neprep]

So, other sleep medications such as benedryl, taken the night before, would have negative impact on test day?

First off, I think the answer to this question is well beyond the scope of this TLS forum: As always, the standard response is "consult a physician." Most sleep aids have Diphenhydramine, and just because they're OTC doesn't mean that you shouldn't be very cautious about using something like this before test day.

But I believe your initial idea was to "experiment" with these aids and you weren't going to try this for the first time before the test. In that case, sure, take some OTC sleep aids and see how the PTs are affected the next day. The results of these experiments will obviously help you determine whether or not this is something you want to do before the real deal. Perhaps lawschool22 can expand on why melatonin is the sole recommendation…

Also, check out PT55, S3, #9 about sleep aids vs. other methods. The LSAT can be so meta.

Melatonin is a naturally occurring chemical that our body begins to produce as the cooler color temperature spectrum of light is reduced (i.e. sunlight), and is then broken down once these light levels increase. It helps regulate our natural circadian rhythm by inducing drowsiness and reducing body temperature when it is time to sleep. The fact that it is broken down when our body senses cool-temp light is exactly why tv, computer, cell phone screens, etc, make it harder to get quality sleep or fall asleep.

Typically, our bodies better react to and process naturally occurring chemicals such as melatonin. This is one reason it is preferred as a low-level sleep aid. Additionally, because it is broken down once light levels increase, it tends to not have as lingering of an effect upon waking as some of the other sleep aids.

Also, melatonin has relatively few side effects. One can typically start with a small dose and work up to the proper amount simply through trial and error. It does not require a "build-up" period prior to becoming effective and it also does not tend to be addictive in most cases.

Finally, and probably most importantly for our purposes, melatonin (unlike the vast majority of other aids) does not affect R.E.M. sleep. Some sleep aids work by inhibiting the R.E.M. portion of our sleep cycle. The downside of this, is that this is the main time during which all of the important memory-related tasks such as synthesis, transfer from short- to long-term memory, and the discarding of non-relevant memories occurs. By inhibiting this process, these other sleep aids can in fact make it harder to learn and recall things we learned the previous day.

For this reason and the others mentioned melatonin is preferred, and especially for our purposes.

Thanks!

[Thethoughtcounts176]

Pro tip from a certified insomniac. You have to try these out. My brother brought these over one night because we both have sleep problems--most likely because our jobs go late and we stare at a computer screen late at night.

The problem is computer screens, phones, and most florescent lights give blue light which disturbs your circadian rhythm. however, you can retrick your body into feeling tired by wearing these blue light blocking sunglasses:

https://www.lowbluelights.com/products.asp?cid=15

Check them out because I put those babies on like 2-3 hours before I wanted to try to pass out and I felt tired within the first 20 minutes while staring at my laptop. it's ridiculous. melatonin pills, Valerian root, the amino acid in green tea that's supposed to make you tired, tryptophan or whatever, none of that stuff really works for me but these stupid yellow glasses are awesome.

I don't know where my brother got the ones he gave me but that was the site he recommended, so I thought I'd share.

[malleus discentium]

If sleeping patters are effecting progress then you should keep doing what you're doing

[lawschool22]

If sleeping patters are effecting progress then you should keep doing what you're doing

I was wondering when someone would catch that