For the first time, I’m not sleeping well
Dr. Wallace: I’m 18, and for the first time in my life, I’m having difficulty sleeping. I think my biggest challenge is being able to unwind and fall asleep at a reasonable hour. I toss and turn a lot, and then when I finally do doze off, it seems that my morning alarm starts ringing all too soon, and I wake up remaining very tired and groggy.
When I was younger, I remember waking up feeling refreshed and ready for the day, but lately, I wake up feeling tired and must drag myself forward into my day. What can I do about this?
— Need More Sleep, via email
Need More Sleep: Setting a regular routine definitely helps most people when it comes to getting a good night’s sleep. This can be even more important for teenagers, since teen lives tend to be more random and variable than the lives of older adults.
Do your best to go to bed at the same exact time each evening and wake up at the same time every morning. At first, this will likely be difficult, but stick with it over time as your sleep habits improve to hopefully reset your body’s rhythm to match these times regularly.
Next, you’ll need suggestions to help you fall asleep at the appointed time each evening that you wish to go to bed. Here, I suggest avoiding caffeine and even chocolate any time after 3 p.m. each day. This means no coffee, iced tea, sodas or any other drink or substances that include caffeine or chocolate.
Also, avoid exercising within three hours of going to bed. Exercise awakens the body and speeds up a body’s rhythm for several hours. Be sure you’ve had enough of a cooling down period in advance of your bedtime. This will increase the likelihood you’ll be able to doze off to sleep when you want to, or when you need to so that you’ll be ready to attend school, work or any project you need to be ready to take on in the morning.
Keep your bedroom as cool as feasible for your sleep. Try not to have it too warm! And speaking of your bedroom, do your best to create it to be a sanctuary of sleep. This means to spend as much time as possible out of your bedroom in the three hours before you retire to bed. If you need to complete homework, for example, try doing it in another room, den, study or at the kitchen table, for example. This way, once you approach your bedroom at your fixed sleeping time, you’ll be focused only on sleeping. Fight the urge to clean or do busywork or homework in your bedroom in the hours before you plan to sleep. It’s fine to do all of these things any morning or early afternoon, but set a three-hour “buffer zone” to stay out of your bedroom before bedtime.
Give these suggestions a try and see what works for you. If you continue to experience ongoing difficulties, consider seeking out a medical professional for a further diagnosis and for further suggestions that may help you. I wish for you the return of pleasant, restful and refreshing sleep.
Big brother keeps the change!
Dr. Wallace: My older brother is a cheapskate! He’s 19 and I’m 17, and even when our parents give him money to buy my little brother and me some food at a fast-food restaurant, he finds a way to keep our orders small so that he can keep the change!
He looks at the menu and orders the absolute minimum to feed us. He’ll get a combination meal of some sort and then break it up and deal out the food so that he gets what he wants and then he throws us the scraps. Then, of course, there is money left over, and that all goes right into his pocket.
I told him that this is not fair, but he threatens me by saying that he will tell our parents that I’m dating a guy they don’t know about, which is true. It’s just that this guy goes to a rival high school, and my father is a sports coach who is a big booster of my high school, so I fear he would be disappointed if he knew I was seeing a guy from a rival school. Is there anything I can do about this situation?
— This Is Unfair, via email
This Is Unfair: There is absolutely something you can do about your situation. Go ahead and explain everything to your father. I was a varsity basketball coach myself, and even though I had great loyalty and enthusiasm for my school and players, I always respected other teams, schools, fans and students from every other school we competed against.
I trust your father will appreciate your honesty about wishing to date a boy from another school. You should not be hiding this from him anyway, and it’s really no big deal. You’ll feel better when the weight of this secret is lifted off of your shoulders, and then this will clear your path to address the other issue.
For the sake of your little brother, do explain to your father what your older brother is doing. Tell him the whole truth and about how he scrimps with your little brother and you while he eats what he wants and keeps your father’s hard-earned money for himself rather than feeding his siblings properly. I trust your father will not be amused and that he will correct this situation quite quickly.