I don't get enough sleep.

I came to this realization when I was falling asleep at work while drinking a Red Bull after finishing my coffee just two hours before. I think it's probably a bad sign when I need coffee and an energy drink to stay awake... and still find myself falling asleep. Then I did research to make sure that I'm scientifically not getting enough sleep, rather than just feeling lazy and wanting to sleep instead of working/studying/going to class.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, there isn't a 'magic number' for how much sleep you should get.

Not only do different age groups need different amounts of sleep, but sleep needs are also individual. Just like any other characteristics you are born with, the amount of sleep you need to function best may be different for you than for someone who is of the same age and gender.

Another reason there is "no magic number" for your sleep results from two different factors that researchers are learning about: a person’s basal sleep need – the amount of sleep our bodies need on a regular basis for optimal performance – and sleep debt, the accumulated sleep that is lost to poor sleep habits, sickness, awakenings due to environmental factors or other causes. Two studies suggest that healthy adults have a basal sleep need of seven to eight hours every night, but where things get complicated is the interaction between the basal need and sleep debt. 

According to WebMD, teenagers need about 9 hours and adults need 7 or 8. And Mayo Clinic - which I've never heard of, but their website says, "We comply with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information" so I'm assuming it's legitimate - says adults need 7 to 9 hours. Both also talk about sleep debt.

My conclusion is that I should get around 8 hours of sleep each night, and anything less contributes to my sleep debt while anything more will add to it. It's like the bank of sleep.

Lucky for me, I have this awesome application on my phone that tracks my sleep. It's the only app I've ever paid for and it was totally worth it. Basically, it tracks your sleep cycle every night and tries to wake you up at the end of a sleep cycle so you feel more rested. You put your phone on your bed every night when you go to sleep, set the alarm, and the sensors in the phone track your movement. I don't know how accurately it tracks movement, though. I've put my phone on my nightstand before (a solid, non-moving surface) and it's produced a graph. I've also woken up in the middle of the night and moved around and the graph will clearly show that I was moving around. Anyway, the more you're moving around, the less deep of a sleep you are in. You can set the alarm to go off in a window of 30, 20 or 10 minutes, but no matter what it will go off by the time you set the alarm for. For example, if you set your alarm for 7:30 a.m. and it senses you moving around in your sleep at 7:07, it will wake you up (in which case you can snooze until 7:30).

Even if that data isn't the most accurate, it's still really cool. It offers much more peaceful alarm tones that fade in, so you're not just all of a sudden woken up by a "BEEP BEEP BEEP" every morning. It also records when you go to sleep and when you wake up, gives you the total time you slept, and collects that data and gives you an average sleep time.

I currently have 82 nights recorded, but rather than go through every single one of those, I'll just go through the last week.

This was over St. Patrick's day weekend, so I was in Chicago for a parade. We left Sunday afternoon (this is the night right before), so I actually got to sleep in (sort of) for the first time in forever. 

I got an extra 42 minutes over 8 hours, so my sleep bank is up 42 minutes!

Unfortunately, I had a test on Tuesday (which is the day after this), and since I spent the weekend away from school I stayed up late to study, and then had to get up for my 8 a.m. You might think 6 a.m. is super early to wake up for a class two hours after, but I have to catch the bus at 7:10, because the next one isn't until 7:40 and that's not enough time to get to class if there is traffic.

I'm down 3 hours and 30 minutes, so my sleep bank drops to negative 2 hours and 48 minutes.

This is the night right before my test, so I was up really late studying again. Unfortunately I have early classes every single day, so I had to be up for my 9 a.m.

I'm down 3 hours and 30 minutes this night as well, so my sleep bank is negative 6 hours and 18 minutes.

I was up late working on all the homework I had been putting off to study for my test, so I was up late yet again.

I'm only down 2 hours and 50 minutes, so my sleep bank is at negative 9 hours and 8 minutes. I'm down more than a full nights sleep... pretty unfortunate for me.

I went to a Breathe Carolina concert this night, so now I'm just making poor life decisions. It was really fun though, so I think it was worth it.

 I'm down 2 hours and 52 minutes, so my sleep bank falls to negative 12 hours.

This is where it gets really bad. I went to The Hunger Games midnight premiere, so I didn't get home until really late, and then had to wake up for my 8 a.m. The movie was SO good, though.

I'm down 5 hours and 1 minute, so my sleep bank plummets to negative 17 hours and 1 minute.

It's important to note, though, that the week before this looked about the same, so I didn't actually start the week with a 42 minute excess of sleep.

Good thing it's spring break next week. If I sleep through the entire week, maybe I'll have enough sleep in my sleep bank to carry me through the rest of this semester.