We're up all night to do nothing

So I was told absolutely not to do this by someone very lovely, but I went ahead and did it anyway. 

What did I do, you might ask? 

Well, dear reader, had I thought of this last week, today’s blog would have made a nice segue from my previous one about staying awake in class. Alas, I was dumb and came up with this idea only after last week’s blog was published. Nonetheless, I continued undeterred and so I decided to pull an all-nighter in the name of science. Well, in the name of the DTH. Close enough, right?

If I’ve learned one thing about college — and I’ve been here almost two months, so if I haven’t learned anything by now I don’t think I ever will — it’s that everyone here is a zombie. No, really. Every single person on this campus is a "Walking Dead" extra just waiting to be cast. Instead of blood and brains, we’re powered on coffee. And instead of coherent sentences and a functioning personality, we’re all reduced to grumbling waspish columns of meaty anger doing our best to impersonate the undead.

Whether it’s from a rough night of partying or studying for that chemistry test you just know you’re going to fail, we’ve all pulled an all-nighter at some point in our college career. And we’ve all stumbled aimlessly around the next day just trying to put one foot in front of the other. 

And if you read all that and thought, “Pssh, whatever. It’s not really that bad” then you’ve never really pulled a working all-nighter. There’s a difference between staying awake all night playing on your phone and actually doing homework. 

Hollywood and flawed stereotypes immortalize the idea of “burning the candle at both ends.” Staying up all night to finish projects and type up memos used to be a standard of success back in the day. If you had enough work that you felt it necessary to ply yourself with four triple red-eyes in order to keep your eyes open, people generally thought you had it made. 

But here’s what they won’t tell you about pulling an all-nighter (and when I saw they, I mean the omniscient friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend kind of they from whom you heard the news of Sally’s disastrous engagement). 

It. 

Sucks.

I started out the evening with a nice cup of coffee and a backup K-cup in the machine just in case. My Xbox was calling to me with its soft green glow, but I ignored it — whimper — and decided to finish up all my English readings. I passed the 10 p.m. mark easily. Same with the 11 p.m. and midnight. Things started getting hazy around one, but it wasn't until 3 a.m.-ish that I really started to lose it. By 5 a.m. I was trying to rationalize myself into a catnap (my first class wasn't until 10 a.m.), but I managed to persevere. It wasn't the staying up that sucked so much as the day after. Eyelids drooping, fingers twitching, I had to go through the rest of my day grumpy, tired, and over-all miserable.  

While the occasional all-nighter is necessary, prolonged exposure has disastrous results. Like watching "Jersey Shore," repeated offenses of pulling all-nighters reduces cognitive function and can actually downgrade the quality of the work you’re doing. Sleep also stabilizes basic bodily functions, like a restorative yoga session without all the bending and egregious sun salutations. 

So do yourself a favor and go to bed. Grab your Blue Bear plushy or your little Webkinz cat — don’t try and tell me you don’t cuddle with your stuffed animals cause you take that attitude and backspace right out of this DTH blog — and close your eyes. Your sleep is more important than that chemistry final, trust me. That work will still be there when you wake up, and if you really want to dive back in as soon as you wake up, go for it. But at least give yourself a little time to sleep. Your body and your subconscious will thank you for it.