It used to be the most usual thing on Earth. Everybody did it, every night, and sometimes even during the day. Today, however, simple sleep has become a forbidden pleasure. The eight-hour daily sleeping routine has long passed. The enormous pressure on our generation to do everything and do it best keeps us all awake at night. Every day, we work as hard as we can, trying to persist, fight and not give in to our utmost desire: sleep.
The Tisch Library is open until three in the morning and opens again at eight. Granting oneself 30 minutes to take a shower and gulp down a hot cup of instant black coffee, one can actually enjoy some four and a half hours of beautiful, amazing, mind-blowing sleep. But wait - you wanted to exercise before starting your work day, so you have to get up an hour earlier and run the five miles you promised yourself. Oh, and don't forget to plan an extra 20 minutes before leaving to read over and print out the paper due that day. If you like to check your e-mails before entering the cruel outside world, then maybe set the alarm a couple of minutes earlier, too. A real night's sleep is not much of an option.
For today's generation, and especially for college students, sleep has become a luxury that no one seems able to afford. There is no other way around it; we want to be successful, and we will be. If this means giving up one of the body's most important needs, we are willing to sacrifice it.
The National Sleep Foundation declares that seven to nine hours of sleep for an adult is optimal and that a sufficient night's sleep benefits alertness, memory, problem solving and overall health. A study performed in 2003 at the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania demonstrated that cognitive performance declines with fewer than eight hours of sleep. It's common knowledge, and still we give up sleep to get more done - but is quantity really better than quality?
The problem with sleep is that while you do it, you can't do anything else; you can only sleep and that's it. At the same time, that's exactly what's so great about it. During the busy work day, we squeeze little activities into every free minute: an e-mail here, a quick homework exercise there. But while we're asleep, we can do nothing. We have to give up our whole mental world of looking, judging, concentrating, thinking, creating complex intellectual ideas and concepts and constantly running our brains at high speed. Now we have to come to a complete halt, give it up and simply close our eyes and sleep.
What used to be seen as basic and simple has for many become more like an exclusive drug and a guilty pleasure. We exhaust ourselves more and more: five academic classes during the week; social engagements in clubs on campus; extracurricular activities which are almost as important as grades in attaining a good job after graduation; friends, family, contact with friends afar, relationships; and maybe even a job to bring in the cash flow - these are all basics on the daily agenda. Furthermore, on the weekends, one feels the pressure to spend time partying; after all, college is supposed to be the time of your life, right? Vacations become internships or involved travels. Time is not to be wasted.
Although one can combine some things - for instance, meeting friends for coffee combines both socializing and the need to feed the caffeine addiction that keeps your day going - at some point, one just needs to sleep. That good couple of hours of sleep is so crucial. We constantly moan about not having had it in so long and brag about it when we do manage to get some; the craving grows to be unbearable. The nights when you wander the hallways of your dorm and just know that everyone is getting more sleep than you are the worst. Many students try "power napping," in which one lies down and allows oneself to sleep for 10, 20 or even 30 minutes. You give yourself a quick feeling of what it might be like to do the real thing, but you don't really sleep.
Then, when you finally do reach the point of seven, eight or even more hours of sleep, you feel simply amazing - so fresh, so full of energy, like you were born anew. Still, using this emotional "upper" does not leave you without feelings of extreme guilt afterwards. But don't feel guilty. You are not alone. We all do it sometimes, even in our cozy beds - eight hours of consuming, incredible sleep - while we could have done so much more with our lives. We could have done homework or written a couple of e-mails, but the temptation was too high and the idea too powerful not to indulge.
The workload that today's students must cope with brings about common sicknesses like fatigue, colds and others, for which sleep is the only needed treatment. However, most students do not dare medicate themselves so. The pressure to succeed is too high, and for this treatment's side effects, classes might be missed, deadlines for papers and assignments not met or meetings cancelled. Other medication like DayQuil, Tylenol and ibuprofen for headaches and overall pain are swallowed by the dozens, such that students may endure without rest.
As such, sleep now seems like a novelty, or some unproven new-age remedy to be sold on television. Still, it is normal and completely healthy - so could it really be so bad? It's simply necessary in order to get things done in our daily lives. Sleep is not overrated. It is essential and should therefore not be restricted and suppressed, but rather made available again for all to experience. Don't be scared of this hard-to-get drug; after all, you can quit any time you want to, since you've likely done so before.
So if you get the chance, when you're daydreaming away after a hard day's work, give in and let it happen. Don't feel guilty. Don't feel judged. Feel - finally - rested.
Marita Mau is a junior at the University of Tübingen studying abroad at Tufts.
