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While scheduling in sleep during a busy semester can present plenty of challenges, the summer break can often present its own restless time management concerns. Whether you’re busy taking summer classes, working yourself to the bone to save up cash before the next semester, or lounging around trying to recover from the school year, figuring out how to get into a good, solid sleep rhythm can be difficult. Here are a few tips and tricks to try if you find yourself missing out on that deep, healing sleep during the less-regulated summer months.

Lay Some Ground Rules

While class times can be frustrating to accommodate throughout each semester, they do have the benefit of providing a level of structure to work our schedules around. But, of course, a typical class load is no longer a factor during the summer months. Consequently, it’s easy to burn the candle at both ends with things like work and summer classes. On the other hand, it can also be easy to slip into a lazy schedule that tricks you into staying up until all hours socializing or even just gaming or binge-watching your favorite shows.

 

When this happens, it’s easy to become chronically tired — especially if you’re working a job or driving on a regular basis, as is often the case for students living off-campus. Try to accomodate for these deviations as often as you can and then make an effort to stay as close to your typical semester sleep pattern as possible.

 

You may even want to consider implementing a sleep schedule to help bolster the caliber of your slumber. This can be fairly easy. All you need to do is set regular times each day to go to sleep and wake up. You can let the rules slide a bit on the weekends, but try not to shift by more than a couple of hours. Establishing a sleep schedule allows you to make sure that you’re getting enough sleep and, critically, that you’re not throwing off your body’s rhythm before the next semester kicks off.

Set Real Priorities

Another way to regulate your sleep during the summer months is to take the time to properly define your priorities. During the school months, it’s easy to prioritize classes and homework. However, between these periods it can be difficult to differentiate between what is more important to tend to in any given moment and what isn’t.

 

One of the biggest challenges to setting priorities is understanding the difference between urgency and importance. The Eisenhower Box is an excellent way to map out your priorities and clarify between the two terms. In order to do this, start by creating a box like the one below:

 

Important and urgent	Important but not urgent
Urgent but not important	Not urgent or important

 

 

Then fill each box with a list of appropriate responsibilities. For example:

 

• If you need to get to your summer job at a certain time each day, that is both an urgent and important responsibility that should go in the upper-left cell as a high priority.
• If you need to decide about your upcoming classes before the end of the month, that is important but not urgent and should go in the upper-right section.
• If you want to spend time hanging out with friends, that can likely go in the lower-right box, as it isn’t time sensitive or imperative.

 

Along with prioritizing your various activities throughout the summer, it’s also helpful to keep a big-picture understanding of how important sleep is as well. No matter how much pressure you feel from your academic peers, it’s important to understand that sleep deprivation does not need to be part of the college experience, either on or off campus. It’s crucial that you resist the urge to “get in as much fun as possible” during the summer at the cost of not letting your body get the rest it needs.

 

The proper length of a good night of sleep is always slightly different, but studies typically land somewhere between seven and nine hours per night for a healthy, functioning adult. While it’s okay to fall short of the mark on occasion, it’s important that you set yourself up to get to that recommended threshold on a regular basis if you want to end your summer feeling rested, recharged, and ready for a new semester.

Setting the Stage

Finally, when you go to sleep each night, make sure that you’re setting yourself up for slumberous success. If you wear contacts, make sure that you’ve taken them out before you close your eyes. Even if they’re approved for sleeping, it’s still recommended that you give your eyes a night off at least once a week.

 

Also, make sure to give your eyes and brain a healthy break from screens before you turn out the lights, as these can seriously affect the quality and length of your night’s sleep. Summer can be the perfect time to do this, as there’s little to no need to stay up late studying. In addition, consider equipping your sleeping space with a quality diffuser and some lavender essential oil, which is said to improve sleep quality.

 

As you head into the summer months, don’t be intimidated at the thought of taking control of your sleep. The long break is a perfect time to rest and recover from a year of school and to prepare for the upcoming semester as well. Schedule out an appropriate amount of time to sleep at regular intervals each day. Do your best to make sure that the sleep you’re getting is of the highest quality possible. When all is said and done, if you can manage to regulate your sleep throughout the summer, you’ll be in much better shape when the fall arrives.