Identify Target Behavior: Get a Healthier Amount of Sleep/Stop Napping Daily
I chose to modify my sleeping behavior for my behavior modification project. Sleep is something that I have always had a problem with. In high school I would get an average of about 5 hours of sleep a night, and now as a junior in college I get about 5-6 hours a night. I wanted to modify this behavior because I feel that not getting enough sleep is negatively affecting my mood, health, and overall outlook on my every day experience. It would be beneficial to me to be more awake and happy throughout my days rather than be tired and pushing myself to stay awake. My main issue with my sleeping behavior is the amount of time I spend per day napping. If my nightly sleeping patterns were increased, I could eliminate the need for naps during the day.
Baseline Data: 4.5-5.5 Hours of Sleep per Night
At the beginning of the term I observed my sleeping patterns for a week. Since I have a different schedule on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays than I do on Tuesdays and Thursdays I found that I do get slightly more sleep on some nights than I do on others. I did not include weekend sleep times in my data. On Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights I would go to bed between 11:30 and midnight. I would then wake up at 5:30 am the following mornings. Therefore 3 nights of the week I was getting around 5.5/6 hours of sleep. On Monday and Wednesday nights I would go to bed somewhere in that same time frame of 11:30 to midnight. However on the following mornings I needed to be awake an hour earlier, so I would wake up at 4:30 am. On these nights I was getting about 4.5/5 hours of sleep. I noted that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I was more likely to get home from work and fall asleep around 4 pm for about 3 hours each of those days. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I would nap for about an hour and a half around 3 pm. I observed that during the times that I would come home and