for me, sleep is an interesting thing.
i wouldn't say it's one of my loves, though i do enjoy it a lot. how much i sleep is pretty much dependent on everything else in my life, though i generally am sleeping between the hours of 12 and 3. waking up at 12 is a good time for me.
i'm someone who's always had a difficult time waking up, being easily tempted back to the dream world and the pleasure of "just a few more minutes" when i know i should be waking up. this has resulted in many missed classes, overslept lunch appointments, and frantic bike rides to wherever i have to be.
note: before we proceed, i would like to say that i am not a sleep expert, and have not studied anything about sleep. these are just my personal opinions and gatherings.
what i'm going to talk about next is how i fall asleep and what i need to sleep. i realized this is something i should have written much earlier, and would have helped to have before college started. nonetheless, here it is.
when it comes to falling asleep, people talk mainly of light and sound. and of course, the definitions of light and sound can be subjective. however, i honestly think that the main proponent to being able to fall asleep in your circumstances is simply believing that you can.
(these upcoming "requirements" are for when i feel normally tired, not extremely tired. also, these are for going to sleep at night, but also translate to napping.)
lights
i can sleep with the lights on, meaning the room light, so that automatically includes everything not as bright as the room light, such as a desk lamp, computer monitor glow, you name it. as for strobing lights.. maybe, i haven't tried that yet, but i can imagine it'd be a bit harder.
in any case, i don't get why this is hard. if there are lights on,
1) close your eyes.
2) don't open them.
3) fall asleep.
sound
sound is where it gets interesting and more complex. for me, the criteria for sound for which i can fall asleep to depends on how attentive the sound is to me. i believe the better able you are in making a sound "background noise", the less hindering it will be towards your sleep.
in my mind, sound can be categorized with two factors: consistency and harshness.
consistency is described as intermittent vs. constant. scattered vs. predictable.
the less you have to guess, and the less randomness inherent in the sound, the easier it is to sleep to it. i believe this is because it's easier for your mind to not think about the sound when the sound is predictable.
harshness is described as piercing vs. gentle, and to a lesser degree, loud vs. soft. piercing sounds are hard to put in the background, but that's not necessarily the same with loud sounds.
these two factors combine to determine whether or not a sound is attentive (instrusive) to your efforts to sleep. i believe consistency plays a bigger part in the acceptability of the sound than harshness does, in that it's easier to sleep to a constant harsh sound than to an intermittent gentle sound.
(note: intermittent means irregular intervals.)
examples:
computers humming - most people don't hear this anyway, but if you do, it's really constant and gentle, and can easily be backgrounded [easy]
portable heater - very constant, a bit louder, but still a gentle sound. [easy]
tv - constant, gentle, predictable. this seems to be the standard test for people's acceptance of noise levels as they trying to sleep. [easy]
concerts - perhaps you've seen people (parents?) fall asleep when they went with you to concerts. how? even though it's monstrously loud, they're able to effectively put the noise in the background and not have it bother their sleep. the noise, while loud, is predictable and constant. boredom also probably helps a good bunch. [haven't done it myself, but if i had to, moderately easy]
group chatter - group chatter tends to have a high level of consistency (save for the outbursts), which makes up for the high volume it can have.
few people chatter - a few people talking tends to have a lower consistency with a lower volume.
so, they're about the same. [pretty easy]
radio - a moderately gentle sound, but radio stations aren't constant enough- different songs, talking, commercials. [difficult]
typing - THE WORST! intermittent, piercing sounds (partly depends on the keyboard, but most keystrokes sound like bullets when you're trying to sleep). [difficult]
snoring - while the sound can be described as predictable since it's regular breathing, the gaps between breaths makes it not "busy" enough, and the sound quality is also not gentle enough. [difficult]
beyond the nature of these sounds, flexibility is important, and a lot of what flexibility entails is first, how hard you try to sleep despite surrounding conditions, and second, how much you believe you can fall asleep in those conditions. both of those play a big role in sleeping. for example, i've fallen asleep to all of the "difficult" conditions above, because as hard as it may have been, it wasn't impossible.
with that said, think about the conditions which you think you need to sleep
on a somewhat-related side note: when i sleep, i like to occupy my mind with active thoughts about something- usually badminton, hockey, blog entry ideas, tetris, or something like that. this is because it helps me to block out anything else around me, and thus help me fall asleep better.
i like to sleep on my tummy. :}
