Sleep is something often hard to come by for college students, especially those of us who work a “part-time” job on the side. You have to pick your spots to catch your Zs.
My priorities don’t often include it, but when I’m most stressed, that’s when I seek out eight to 10 hours of quality time with my mattress and down comforter.
It’s refreshing to reconvene my relationship with sleep because most of the time I’m operating on six hours of it or fewer. (Workaholism, a crippling addiction to reruns of “Whose Line is it Anyway?” and a newfound penchant for waking up early may all be to blame here.)
This lack of sleep can lead to me going about my day with the speed, awareness and gray-facedness of a zombie, which isn’t a problem most of the time — I make for a high-functioning zombie.
When things really count, that’s when I go for the sleep. At a certain point, when there’s just too much on my plate, I’d rather go about my day feeling the kind of refreshment only provided by a quality slumber. It’s the only way to alleviate that prevailing sense of doom lording over me as I try to get done everything I need to finish.
There’s nothing that beats that feeling you get when you roll out of bed after a long slumber. The energy and sense of purpose I get once I wake back up is a relieving moment of positivity when I’m faced with a cavalcade of exhausting tasks. (As I write this, I have a piece of notebook paper covered top to bottom in pending responsibilities.)
My affinity for Mountain Dew aside, I seldom use caffeine to keep me awake to do class work. (Study drugs are 100 percent off-limits. Never. Ever.)
The only way I can come away attentive, determined and refreshed is to get some sleep and refocus on the task at hand when I come back to it the next morning.
I’m not one to sleep my life away, but being able to relax for a second to gain control of my life and emotions is paramount.
A night of quality shut-eye affords me that possibility. Other college students probably shouldn’t overlook nature’s way of getting them back to feeling their best and doing their best work.