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1 Solving Bad Sleep Habits with Operant Conditioning Solving Bad Sleep Habits with Operant Conditioning Katherine Brubaker 23179793 The University of Arizona

2 Solving Bad Sleep Habits with Operant Conditioning Solving Bad Sleep Habits with Operant Conditioning Someone that is 26 years of age should average 7-9 hours of sleep a night, or at least get no fewer than 6 hours and no more than 10 hours, per the National Sleep Foundation (n.d.). When a person does not get the needed hours of sleep, they acquire sleep debt. Sleep debt is the result of insufficient sleep on a chronic basis which has a significant negative psychological and physiological effect (OpenStax, 2021). Just “less than 1 week of sleep curtailment in healthy young people is associated with striking alterations in metabolic and endocrine function” (Spiegel, 1999). With such knowledge, it was time I decided to correct my bad sleeps habit to help my body get the sleep it needs. To do so I will try positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. Positive reinforcement is when a desired stimulus is added to increase a desired behavior (OpenStax, 2021). The most common of positive reinforcement is seen when toilet training a toddler. When the toddler uses the toilet properly and without influence of the parent, the toddler is given a treat. This tells the toddler that each time they use the toilet of their own volition, they will get an incentive that makes the toddler want to continue the desired behavior. To train myself to go to sleep without reading in bed first, I will utilize the common positive reinforcement of a treat to encourage my good sleep habit. An advantage of this approach is that I would be implementing a fixed ratio schedule that helps my brain know a treat will be given each night I execute the good behavior (OpenStax, 2021). A disadvantage to this approach would be that a treat is usually unhealthy and the goal from fixing my sleep habits is to help my body’s metabolic and endocrine function improve. If I can change my habit though, the reward would not be needed long-term to have a chance to cause a negative impact on my health.

3 Solving Bad Sleep Habits with Operant Conditioning Negative reinforcement is when something is removed to increase the likelihood of a behavior (OpenStax, 2021). A fire alarm manufacturer implements negative reinforcement by making the resident replace the dying batteries to remove the annoying beeping sound. To get myself to go to sleep without reading first, I will remove my phone charger from next to my bed. If I did read before going to sleep, I would then be required to climb out of bed and walk across my room to plug my phone in. This reinforcement would have the advantage that I would not want to have to get out of bed after getting comfy and it would wake me up more before attempting sleep if I was bad. The disadvantage of this approach is that I could easily just not charge my phone one night so I could read in bed. “In positive punishment, you add an undesirable stimulus to decrease a behavior” (OpenStax, 2021). When someone is training their new dog to not jump on them, a reprimand is used to stop the dog from doing the bad behavior. To stop myself from staying up late reading, I would add an early alarm for a morning workout to my routine. This punishment would have the advantage that I would have to go to sleep earlier to not be sleepy during the day and I would be too tired the following nights to stay up reading if I did stay up the previous night. A disadvantage of this approach is that I could “cheat” with caffeine to stay awake during the day if I were bad. Negative punishment is when something is removed to decrease the likelihood of a behavior (OpenStax, 2021). A common negative punishment is time out because it removes a toy or playtime to stop bad behavior. I would remove my bookmarks, reading history, and reading apps from my phone to stop myself from reading before bed. This almost extreme approach would have the advantage that I would not want to lose my place in the stories I am reading and

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