DAT Studying and Sleep Cycle

[LetsGo2DSchool]

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Since I've been studying for the DAT, my biological sleep cycle has really changed.

Instead of becoming sleepy during the 18th hour of a typical 24-hour day and sleeping 6 hours, my body/mind doesn't become sleepy until the 30-34th hour of the day.

For example, one day I'll fall asleep at midnight but the following night, I won't fall asleep until 6am in the morning, and then it will be followed by 11am in the morning, and then followed by falling asleep at 4pm in the afternoon and so on.

Even if I try to go to bed at a normal time, I'll just lay there with my eyes closed and just wasting time. So I've been just studying until my body/mind finally wants to fall asleep.

The fortunate thing is that despite the long waking hours, my brain is still functioning normally so I can essentially study more hours in a given day.

It must be due to stress. But it's ridiculous. Everyday is a mystery lol. The other day when I was taking a practice exam, I unexpectedly became sleepy WTF and couldn't finish the exam.

So I'm worried that when test day comes, my sleep cycle will be such that I may fall asleep during the exam. 😴 I may have to reschedule the exam date/time to match my cycle to coincide with normal waking hours.

Anyone else experiencing this strange sleep cycle?

 

[UCF FINatic]

Since I've been studying for the DAT, my biological sleep cycle has really changed.

Instead of becoming sleepy during the 18th hour of a typical 24-hour day and sleeping 6 hours, my body/mind doesn't become sleepy until the 30-34th hour of the day.

For example, one day I'll fall asleep at midnight but the following night, I won't fall asleep until 6am in the morning, and then it will be followed by 11am in the morning, and then followed by falling asleep at 4pm in the afternoon and so on.

Even if I try to go to bed at a normal time, I'll just lay there with my eyes closed and just wasting time. So I've been just studying until my body/mind finally wants to fall asleep.

The fortunate thing is that despite the long waking hours, my brain is still functioning normally so I can essentially study more hours in a given day.

It must be due to stress. But it's ridiculous. Everyday is a mystery lol. The other day when I was taking a practice exam, I unexpectedly became sleepy WTF and couldn't finish the exam.

So I'm worried that when test day comes, my sleep cycle will be such that I may fall asleep during the exam. 😴 I may have to reschedule the exam date/time to match my cycle to coincide with normal waking hours.

Anyone else experiencing this strange sleep cycle?

Being that my exam is in 9 days I am going to try to regulate me sleeping patterns to wake up early/ I normally wake up around 9:30am, but since my exam is at 8am I want to but up and functioning. The week before my exam I plan on eating a portion of a melatonin brownie at 9:30pm, so I will hopefully fall asleep by 10pm and wake up at 6am with a full 8 hours of rest. So I would just keep doing what works for you till its test time!

 

[LetsGo2DSchool]

Being that my exam is in 9 days I am going to try to regulate me sleeping patterns to wake up early/ I normally wake up around 9:30am, but since my exam is at 8am I want to but up and functioning. The week before my exam I plan on eating a portion of a melatonin brownie at 9:30pm, so I will hopefully fall asleep by 10pm and wake up at 6am with a full 8 hours of rest. So I would just keep doing what works for you till its test time!

I bought a bottle of melatonin today. I'll save them for a week before the exam in case if I build up a tolerance to them.

It's 1:30am, I'm wide awake. Time to study!

 

[molar3]

STORY OF MY LIFEEEEEEEEEEE. its 2am and im still studying!!! more like "studying" at this point but WTFFFFF i should BE SLEEEEEPYYY i wokeu p at 9am. ON A SATURDAY? since when is that cool? never.
i use to be able to sleep till 12.........clearly those days are over. stress is a killer!!! im never sleepy im never hungry but im almost always TIRED
im trying to learn about proteins at 2am on a saturday, ive reached the next level of coool

 

[Polk]

I bought a bottle of melatonin today. I'll save them for a week before the exam in case if I build up a tolerance to them.

It's 1:30am, I'm wide awake. Time to study!

I came across this post and thought I should comment on the melatonin. Defiantly try it out before your exam and not the night before. I find that if I take two I will sleep soundly but be drowsy the next day. One works fine, and I am not as drowsy.

Just be careful and see how you feel the next day. It would suck to be drowsy on test day.

 

[JustwantDDS]

im ALWAYS sleepy now or get massive headaches from DAT studying
i think this is called depression

 

[buckey]

a bit of exercising really helps out with balancing body, mind, and sleep. If you feel like that time is a waste get the mcat audio osmosis tapes and put them on your ipod

 

[LetsGo2DSchool]

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[predental012]

My sleep pattern is like this: wake up at 10am, sleep at 3am... but I take a lot of breaks and I always get distracted. Does this happen to you guys? When I do study I make it worth my time but I really do get off track at times, not getting my work done for the day so I always stay up. It would be nice sleeping early and waking up early

 

[rav4182]

sleep cycle is really important. a week before your exam practice going to sleep earlier than you normally would and wake up early (even if you dont have to be anywhere). What really helped me for my test was taking melatonin really early the dat before the test. i slept like 16 hrs straight and woke up extremely refreshed. walked in destroyed the dat with ease