I have never thought of myself of having issues with sleepiness, but have known a friend who does. Growing up in Jamaica I had a friend whose life has been significantly affected by his tendency to always being sleepy. He had difficulties staying focus on school work which led him to fall behind in school and even had to repeat grades. He was always late for many events because he could never wake up on time even when he was woken up by someone he would fall back to sleep. His concentration and ability to function normally was overwhelming at times since he could not get anything done on time. It affected him so much that he was not able to hold on to a job for more than a few months since he was late most of the time. Eventually he had to make adjustments to his lifestyle by giving up some social functions at nights to go to bed earlier. He found ways to cope and deal with his situation over the years but it was a drastic change of lifestyle for him.
I get about six to seven hours of sleep nightly. I tend to fall asleep easily especially if I am watching television but I have never had a problem with sleepiness. My sleep pattern has become acceptable to me, I would fall asleep on many occasions as early as eight o’ clock and woke up around three o’clock in the mornings and is unable to go back to sleep. This has been happening for a while now and has become my norm. I am in the military and I figure that because I have been getting up early in the mornings for several years for physical training my body becomes used to my lifestyle. Some other factors that I feel contributed to my sleep pattern is that I am not an outgoing person I tend to sit at home, play on the computer, listen to music and sometimes just lay around doing nothing instead of taking the time to interact with others. So I tend to just fall asleep as soon as there is nothing else to do. I think one way to change is to find activities that involve being more active such as going to the gym, hanging out with friends or even spending more time do fun things with the family. My Epworth sleep scale had a total score of eleven which suggest there is the possibility of the danger of lack of sleep. I would disagree because I am never always sleepy and functioned normally on a daily basis without being tired or wanting to sleep all the time.