“Yeah, I pulled a four-four-six, but I don’t have class tomorrow so I’m hoping to get a decent night’s sleep,” my friend responded in the middle of our run the other day. I was non-functioning on the six hours of sleep I had managed the previous night, and the mere thought of sixteen hours of sleep over the course of three days nearly sends me into a near coma. This past summer, I chanted the following mantra into the mirror each morning: Memento Mori. From Latin, the phrase roughly translates to “Remember that you shall die.” l was 21, living in DC, and participating in events like Margarita Wednesdays. Then, I woke up at 6:30 each morning to wash the stamp off my hand and arrive at work. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” I told my father when the internship finally ended. In reality, I felt and looked like death by the end of the nine weeks, further exacerbated by succumbing to the H1N1 virus. It was the beginning of August, and I had four weeks to compensate for the lack of sleep of the past two months. According to my calculations, this required I sleep at least 14 hours per night for the remainder of the month. I didn’t see myself making my quota. But would the lack of sleep really affect my life that much?
Resoundingly, yes. A good night’s rest is as important as maintaining a healthy diet and fitness program, but it is continually overlooked, especially by students. A group of five college students served as subjects for a sleep test in a recent study conducted by Matthew Walker, director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley and documented by CBS in the special The Science of Sleep. In the first study, the students had been awake for more than 24 hours. According to the report, “Walker has found that students like these do 40 percent worse memorizing lists of words after a night without sleep. But he has discovered something far more revolutionary about what happens when we do sleep.” Sleep is actually proven to enhance memory. We wake up more healthy, refreshed, and intelligent after receiving a solid night’s rest.
But what about those like my running partner? While he may not reach the recommended hours of sleep, he is squeezing in at least a few hours each night. However, Walker found that receiving a few hours of sleep each night, known as chronic partial sleep deprivation, is detrimental to our cognitive function as well, “Well, the first finding, and it stunned us, was [that] there’s a cumulative impairment that develops in your ability to think fast, to react quickly, [or] to remember things. And it starts right away,” Walker says. “A single night at four hours or five hours or even six, can…begin to show affects in your attention and your memory and the speed with which you think… Each day adds an additional burden or deficit to your cognitive ability.” The stress of school alone is enough to put even the most well-rested, organized, and dedicated students on edge. These expectations, coupled with other life commitments, require that one work at 100 percent capacity to successfully accomplish the day’s activities.
At the beginning of fall semester, after the wounds of the previous academic year have healed, I set a new list of goals I hope to accomplish over the impending months. For the past two years, I was determined to develop a killer resume decorated with leadership positions, internships, and community-involvement activities. However, entering my senior year, I chose to act completely differently. I wanted to take a step back. I wanted to sleep. Though, my perfectionist and over-achieving spirit will never fully extinguish, I’ve found that work hard/play hard balance three weeks into the semester. Memento mori, I believe, but only after I get my eight hours.