Aim Statement
I will change my sleeping pattern to the recommended seven hours a day in the next months, meaning the unnecessary wasted hours will decline by 75 percent.
Plan
Sleeping time has been an issue and going with the current sleeping pattern, I have challenges maintaining the recommended seven to eight hours a day. The issue has been attributed to several factors, among them irregular sleep and poor napping habits. The lack of a regular pattern can be thought to result from poor work and family balance leading to stress in managing better sleep. I will have to stick to a sleep schedule to change my current sleep habit, resulting in the recommended seven to eight hours every night. For success, I will have to create a new routine to get out of bed at the same time every day. The routine will be applicable even on weekends to ensure consistency and change within the upcoming month. Consistency in the new routine will impact how the body reacts to the sleep-wake cycle (Takhar, 2017). Therefore, the changes should manifest by the end of weeks two and three, and sleeping habits should be different.
I will be involved in implementing the change, and since the new routine is meant to achieve personal differences in sleep patterns, I will evaluate possible dissimilarities in my new sleeping habits. I will evaluate the outcomes by monitoring the time I go to and get out of bed every day. The implementation will become effective starting February 1, 2022, and run throughout the month. By March 1, the target date, my body is supposed to have synchronized to the new sleeping schedule, and I should be napping for at least seven hours every night.
Do
I have followed the new sleep schedule throughout the month, guaranteeing at least seven hours every night. The goal was to ensure that I went to bed at 10 p.m. and woke up at 6 a.m. every day for the entire month. Change is inevitable; however, personal resistance to the new routine made it difficult to concentrate within the first week, especially on February 1. I kept thinking about using my phone while in bed, and my mind constantly thought of alternative things to do. Previously, I slept at midnight and woke up at 5 a.m.
Study
The second week after the target, my body adjusted to the new sleep-wake routine. It is now normal to go to bed at ten and leave my thoughts and phone behind. Additionally, with the new alarm set at 6 a.m., I find myself waking up 10 minutes before time. My body is now relaxed and having enough sleep makes it possible to wake up early before the alarm. I improved the issue by focusing on my sleep every time I went to bed, considering my target successful. Now I sleep at least seven hours a day, and going to bed itself is no longer a problem. The actual outcome is close to the predicted one since my sleep habits have noticeably improved.
Act
I improved the problem, and going with the outcomes, it has been possible to maintain the sleep schedule in the second week after the target. In the future, to maintain the habit, I need to control the time of going to bed, including monitoring the desire to use a mobile phone before going to bed or using this time to solve important issues that potentially may trigger the nervous system. I also plan to monitor the time of awakening, leaving it unchanged during the working weeks to maintain the body’s healthy sleep tendencies.
Reference
Takhar, M. (2017). Importance of Circadian Clocks: How the Circadian Clock affects a student’s sleep schedule. UC Merced Undergraduate Research Journal, 10(1).