To sleep, to...no, wait, still working on that.
I've never had a very good relationship with sleep. When I was a young child, it would often take me an hour and a half to two hours to fall asleep. I would tell myself stories while I tried to fall asleep, continuing each night where I left off the previous night. It was a massive, sprawling sci-fi epic, though the only thing I remember about it now is that one of the characters was named Persia and was actually an android, and the ship was moon-sized. I didn't realize at the time, of course, that all that extra thinking was just keeping my brain active and preventing me from falling asleep.
When I got to high school, my bad habits continued. I'd go to bed at roughly 10:30 or 11, read for half an hour to 45 minutes and then finally fall asleep another 45 minutes after that to wake up at 6:30 the next morning. On weekends I'd stay up later and wake at 11 a.m., in a (probably futile) attempt to catch up on sleep.
In college, I lived mostly nocturnally. Every year my classes got later and later until senior year I had no classes at all before noon and none on Friday. On days without classes, I'd go to bed at dawn and sleep until 2:30 to 3 p.m. I tended to wake up 2 or 3 times before finally waking up for good, though, and wasn't usually very well rested.
The reason I'd stay up so late is in an attempt to make myself tired enough to crash, and thus, skip the usual 45 minute or more period while I waited for my mind to wind down so I could finally sleep. I still do that, in the absence of anything requiring me to go to bed at an earlier time, so that my schedule tends to shift later and later over time.
The best sleep I ever got, actually, was when I was working the night shift. I'd go to bed at 7 or 8 a.m., wake up at 2:30 or 3 p.m., fell asleep within half an hour, and I was never tired. I'm not sure what lesson to pull from that, since maintaining a similar sleep schedule is one of the major ways to get to sleep easier but comparing night shift schedule to other consistent sleep schedules leads to different results. The main thing I can think of is that my job was right before I went to bed rather than right after I woke up, meaning I never used an alarm.
If a treatment came out that meant you never had to sleep again, I'd sign up in a heartbeat.
When I got to high school, my bad habits continued. I'd go to bed at roughly 10:30 or 11, read for half an hour to 45 minutes and then finally fall asleep another 45 minutes after that to wake up at 6:30 the next morning. On weekends I'd stay up later and wake at 11 a.m., in a (probably futile) attempt to catch up on sleep.
In college, I lived mostly nocturnally. Every year my classes got later and later until senior year I had no classes at all before noon and none on Friday. On days without classes, I'd go to bed at dawn and sleep until 2:30 to 3 p.m. I tended to wake up 2 or 3 times before finally waking up for good, though, and wasn't usually very well rested.
The reason I'd stay up so late is in an attempt to make myself tired enough to crash, and thus, skip the usual 45 minute or more period while I waited for my mind to wind down so I could finally sleep. I still do that, in the absence of anything requiring me to go to bed at an earlier time, so that my schedule tends to shift later and later over time.
The best sleep I ever got, actually, was when I was working the night shift. I'd go to bed at 7 or 8 a.m., wake up at 2:30 or 3 p.m., fell asleep within half an hour, and I was never tired. I'm not sure what lesson to pull from that, since maintaining a similar sleep schedule is one of the major ways to get to sleep easier but comparing night shift schedule to other consistent sleep schedules leads to different results. The main thing I can think of is that my job was right before I went to bed rather than right after I woke up, meaning I never used an alarm.
If a treatment came out that meant you never had to sleep again, I'd sign up in a heartbeat.