This is a sponsored feature. All opinions are 100% from Her Campus.
Arianna Huffington, co-founder and Editor-In-Chief of the Huffington Post, recently released her new book called The Sleep Revolution. The book is full of advice on how to get better and more restful sleep to improve your output and health all at once. Huffington explains how getting better sleep can dramatically improve your health and help you feel rested enough to take on every new and eventful day. She highlights the importance of getting enough sleep – which is especially important for us Mohos, who often run on merely a few hours of sleep and many cups of coffee or tea over the finals period. It is important to get much more than a couple of hours of sleep, but not only that- it’s important to get good quality sleep as well. This is difficult and seems almost impossible to do during finals, but with the help of the Sleep Kit I worked towards getting better and more sleep during the most stressful part of the semester.
I started off by using some of the tips mentioned in the “Sleep Revolution Manifesto” below. Number 8, “We will usher our smartphone out of the bedroom when we go to bed”, was especially important for me, because even though I couldn’t literally have my phone outside of my bedroom (dorm struggles), putting it on mute across the room where I couldn’t reach it was really helpful. I often find myself checking on emails, reading articles or watching videos on my phone before going to sleep, even though I know it’s bad to do right before bed. However, I decided to stick to the tips as much as possible to see how they could benefit me. Just having my phone out of reach did wonders for my sleep! I spent the few minutes before going to bed clearing my mind and unwinding which put me in a calmer and more restful state. Also having my phone near me when I slept was distracting as the vibration and alerts throughout the nights also woke me up sometimes.
The Sleep Kit included a cute and comfy pillow, a handy sleep mask, a soothing white noise maker, and a Sense sleep tracker. Moho students sometimes end up having competitions over who can get the most work done in 24-hours with little to no sleep involved- this is rampant during finals with people setting up camp and packing overnight bags to go to the library. However, even though I usually make sure never to be in a position where I’d have to pull an all-nighter, I do prioritize my sleep a lot less during finals (as does probably every college student) and sometimes feel a little uneasy or guilty getting a good and long night’s rest. Using the sleep tracker was great in helping me to prioritize my sleep by giving me more stats and insight into how well and much I was sleeping. I noticed a pattern that when I got few hours of sleep I was less productive in studying and doing work the next day, and had more disturbed sleep tossing and turning which was also influenced by stress. I think seeing my sleep score for each night was helpful in allowing me to visually see how much sleep I was getting and helped me work towards adjusting and improving a little bit each day. The Sense sleep tracker also gave me information on whether the conditions in my room where conducive to a good night’s rest, measuring things such as temperature, humidity, brightness, and noise levels to make little adjustments that could improve sleep quality. Using the white noise maker was also great in creating a peaceful background noise drowning out the sounds of pages turning and people talking about final papers in the dorm hallways and common rooms!
Using the Sleep Kit over the finals period was helpful in helping me get better sleep at one of the most sleep-deprived moments in the semester (though there’s definitely still room for improvement), and I honestly think I was more productive and more successful in part because of it. Thank you to Arianna Huffington and Her Campus Nationals for the Sleep Kit and book! Check out some more tips for better sleep below.
Arianna Huffington’s Easy Sleep Tips To Work Towards Getting Better Sleep: