Tips To Not Be Tired*

As a teenage girl, I find that I am always tired, even after having a solid 8 hours of sleep. Here are a few tips to help wake yourself up if you find yourself falling asleep during the day:

1. Eat a mint.

·       Find a really strong brand of mints (I recommend Altoids), and suck on them to try and wake yourself up with the strong taste. Eating about 6 at once works best for me.

2. Get up and walk around.

·       If you find yourself falling asleep in class, or someplace where you have to sit still for a long time, try excusing yourself and just walking around. Sometimes all you need is to get your blood flowing. I suggest a small hike to your nearest neighborhood construction sight. Between the walking and the loud banging, you should be woken right up.

3. Eat something sugary.

·       Another thing that helps me is getting some sugar into your body. You may just need to get your blood sugar pumping, even if it only helps for a short amount of time. For me, eating a full cake is approximately enough energy for a half hour.

4. Read something.

·       Waking up your brain is also important to waking up the rest of you. If you read something, it helps your brain to focus and power up, thus helping you wake up. My favorite brain-jogging material for a light read is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It’s a fascinating read, and it certainly wakes me up.

5. Think about interesting things.

·       If your teacher or your boss is droning on about some boring-as-hell stuff that you could not care less about, try spacing out and imagining yourself somewhere fun, like Hawaii, the Bahamas, or Laugarbakki, a small town in Iceland. I’m sure what your teacher/boss had to say wasn’t that important.

*If none of these strategies work, give up on life as a human and hibernate with the bears, because that seems to be the only way to get some damn sleep.