pairing: ChenLay
length: 2087 words

Day Zero
Yixing and I are starting an “experiment” of sorts to correct his sleeping schedule. I’ll be writing down my observations in this unused notebook that I found on my bookshelf, but this won’t be in the format of a formal lab report like the ones I write for my Biology and Chemistry classes. This is purely for ourselves so that Yixing can develop a healthier lifestyle, since he suffers from insomnia and has quasi-narcoleptic episodes due to his lack of sleep. I’m taking a Behavioral Neuroscience class this semester and one of the lectures was on sleep, so we’re going to see if the stuff that I’m learning is actually practical and applicable to real life. If this works, then at least I’ll feel like I’m actually getting something out of my education and that my tuition is going towards something useful. We’re starting off with naps, because Yixing has a bad habit of napping for long stretches of time but not feeling refreshed afterwards. He tells me that he usually takes thirty-minute or one-hour naps, so tomorrow, he’ll take a thirty-minute nap and we’ll see how he feels afterwards.

Day One
Yixing is working on a presentation for his Business Administration class right now. He woke up some time ago from his nap, but he told me he feels awful and he would’ve gone back to sleep if I hadn’t forced him to his desk to work on his homework. He’s playing some upbeat EDM to keep himself awake, since Lu Han and Yifan aren’t home right now. I feel really bad about not letting him sleep more, but his grades are going to suffer if he continues with his erratic sleep schedule and as his best friend, I’m not going to let that happen. Once he finishes his presentation, we’ll go to bed and he can sleep in, since his first class isn’t until two in the afternoon tomorrow. But now I’ve confirmed that thirty-minute naps are definitely not a good length for Yixing, which I suspected. I’ll explain more tomorrow after our next trial with a one-hour nap. I’ve got to make dinner for the two of us now, even though it’s pretty early. But I’d rather get some food into Yixing now, since that might help his productivity, and I don’t want him to be eating late.

Day Two
Well, one hour was even worse than thirty minutes, but that was completely expected. Let me explain. There are several stages of sleep that are sectioned into rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM sleep. Rapid eye movements, muscular paralysis, and dreaming all transpire during the stage of REM sleep. Meanwhile, non-REM sleep is broken up into three stages with the most important one (for our purposes) being the third stage, also known as slow-wave sleep (SWS) or deep sleep. People typically feel groggy when waking up during this stage, which begins about thirty minutes after non-REM sleep starts, and this results in impaired mental performance for up to thirty minutes. This is known as sleep inertia, which is what Yixing has been suffering from with his badly timed naps. Based off of my lecture notes and some articles I read outside of class, the optimal time for a power nap is twenty minutes. People are easily awakened during stage two of non-REM sleep and since they haven’t entered deep sleep at the twenty-minute mark, this prevents sleep inertia from occurring. Now that I’ve tested and confirmed Yixing’s levels of sleep inertia from waking up in the middle of deep sleep, I’ll be moving onto the next step of having him take a twenty-minute nap tomorrow afternoon.

“Jongdae, I feel terrible,” Yixing groaned as he held a mug of hot coffee between his slender hands and leaned against the wall while his roommate was finishing up his informal observations in a dark green notebook titled, A Study in Sleep: Zhang Yixing. “Are you sure this is working?”

The younger male snapped the notebook shut as he stood up from his seat and went to give his roommate a comforting pat on the shoulder. “Everything is going according to plan,” Jongdae reassured Yixing. “Trust me. I aced the quiz on this lecture.”

“But I’m still so tired,” the older male whined before lightly blowing air through his lips to push his long fringe out of the way since his hands were full.

“I know,” Jongdae answered sympathetically as he gently patted his roommate’s thin cheek. “But it’s only been two days and tomorrow, I promise you’ll feel a lot better.”

“If you say so…”

“How about some dinner right now?” After Yixing nodded enthusiastically, Jongdae beamed as he rolled up his long sleeves and headed to the kitchen while whistling a tune.

Day Three
I know Yixing too well. The twenty-minute nap was perfect for him. Usually, these short power naps can range from fifteen to twenty-five minutes, depending on the individual, and it takes a couple of tries to figure out which is the best length for each person. But I had a gut feeling that Yixing would fit the optimal time of twenty minutes and the results of today’s trial show it. When the timer woke him up, he automatically sat up and smiled at me instead of greeting me with his usual weary expression. He didn’t complain even once about wanting an extra five minutes of sleep or that the experiment wasn’t working. Right now, he’s working on his proposal for his Marketing class that’s due next week and he never works ahead; Yixing is the biggest procrastinator I know, because he’s always too tired to actually get any work done. So I consider this a huge breakthrough. I have one more nap test to conduct and then some lengthier sleep trials afterwards, but we’re on the way to a healthier, happier Yixing.

Day Four
Today’s trial was letting Yixing nap for ninety minutes. It’s Friday, so he can afford a longer nap without it affecting his studies. I’m actually going to try convincing him to take these longer naps when he can, because they’re a lot more effective than the twenty-minute power naps. A complete sleep cycle averages at around ninety minutes, so this was the last nap test that I mentioned yesterday. He’s feeling just as refreshed as he did yesterday with the twenty-minute nap and his mood is a lot better than it usually is. We’re going to hang out with Lu Han and Yifan tonight, since it’s been awhile since the four of us did something fun together, and Yixing needs a break from studying. We’ll get back to the grind tomorrow, but tonight, it’ll be all-you-can-eat barbeque and noraebang.

Day Five
We got back pretty late last night, but I let Yixing sleep in this morning until he got eight hours of sleep. He’s lucky that today is Saturday, so there aren’t any consequences for sleeping in. He seemed pretty tired when he woke up though, so I guess we’ve debunked the “myth” that sleeping seven to eight hours is optimal, because it really isn’t. I’ll explain more again tomorrow, since I want to confirm my hypothesis with tomorrow’s results. For now, I’m just going to bring Yixing with me to the library so that we can get some studying done, since our next wave of midterm exams are coming up. It’s actually really important that I get Yixing’s sleep schedule fixed before exams start, because proper sleep will help with memory consolidation and overall knowledge retention. Yixing has a dreadful habit of pulling all-nighters before exams and cramming all of the material into his head, only for him to vomit everything onto paper and forget it as soon as the test is over. I don’t want my best friend to have bad test-taking habits, so fixing his sleeping habits should kill two birds with one stone.

Day Six
Yixing slept for nine hours last night, which is probably the most sleep he’s had in a long time. I made sure we came back from the library at around ten o’clock last night and that we were in bed by midnight. He usually stays up late on the weekends, but since we were studying almost all day today, I managed to convince him to sleep earlier. Midnight isn’t really that early, but it is in comparison to when Yixing usually goes to sleep because of his insomnia. I think the mental exhaustion of studying for so long in the library tired him out, because he knocked out like a baby when I proposed that we go to bed. It’s a no-brainer as to why I chose for him to sleep for nine hours; since a complete sleep cycle is an hour and a half long, as long as you sleep in increments of ninety minutes, you won’t be waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle. So instead of sleeping for seven or eight hours, in which you’d be waking up during deep sleep or REM sleep, it’s better to sleep nine hours or seven and a half. And if Yixing really doesn’t have time to sleep that much, even six hours is better than seven. We’re going to go to the library again to do homework and study, but I think I’m going to wrap up this “experiment” tomorrow with some last observations after a night of seven and a half hours of sleep.

Day Seven
I really think this worked. Even though he slept ninety minutes less than he had the previous night, Yixing has been extremely productive and alert the entire day. He usually hates Mondays and always tells me how he falls asleep or he can’t concentrate during lectures because he’s too exhausted. But today, he showed me his notes for his Business Communication class and they were actually really detailed. I really hope he can keep up this new lifestyle, because these changes have made a world of difference. I should probably tell Lu Han and Yifan as well, since this could help them too, but I won’t monitor them like I do with Yixing. They don’t have any real problems with sleeping like he does and Yixing needs me a lot more than they do. Well, it’s time for bed now. I had to finish a research paper for my Anthropology class, so I didn’t have a chance to record any of this until now. But this has been a productive week and I’m really glad that Yixing is sleeping a lot better now than he did before. Of course, his sleeping schedule isn’t completely fixed and there are probably going to be days when he skips sleep or doesn’t adhere to the correct time lengths. But I shall make sure that he does to the best of my ability, because that’s what best friends do.

“Time for bed,” Yixing said sleepily as he collapsed onto Jongdae’s bed without warning as the younger male finished jotting down the day’s notes in A Study in Sleep: Zhang Yixing. He then tucked himself against Jongdae’s knee while wrapping his arms around the other male’s waist.

Jongdae could only gape down at his roommate, who was curled around him like a koala. “You know that your bed is on the other side of the room, right?”

“Yeah,” Yixing hummed into Jongdae’s knee. “But you owe me for the days last week when I woke up feeling like death.”

“I had to confirm my hypotheses,” the younger male answered defensively as he dropped the notebook onto his desk, which was conveniently next to his bed. “Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”

“Whatever. I just want to sleep here tonight.” A loud yawn escaped Yixing’s mouth and he burrowed himself even closer against his roommate’s legs.

Jongdae could only shake his head with an amused smile on his angular face as he stretched his body to reach for the bedroom’s light switch and flicked it off, drowning the room with darkness. “Man, what would you do without me?” he commented as he laid down and threw his own arms around the sleepy, taller male’s body.

“Probably wouldn’t be sleeping comfortably,” Yixing replied drowsily as he clutched Jongdae even tighter and sighed with satisfaction against his roommate’s chest. “Thanks for helping me out, Dae.”

“Anything for you,” Jongdae affectionately murmured back, his eyelids beginning to droop and his breathing slowing to match Yixing’s even heartbeat as they drifted into slumber.

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