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Miami Student > OpEd Page

Deprived and tired

Column: Perspective

By Allison Kolodziej

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Published: Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Updated: Sunday, February 14, 2010

As I write this I am suffering from reduced decision-making skills, poor judgment, slower than normal reaction time and slight memory loss. My eyes are glazed over, my mind is blurry, and all I really want to do is pass out in my bed. This sounds quite normal for a fun Saturday night, but it's the middle of the afternoon. And these conditions aren't the result of drunkenness - but the perpetual effects of sleep deprivation. We may never have to drink or sleep again - studies show that running on minimal sleep is analogous to functioning with a blood alcohol level that approaches being legally drunk. We all know the feeling - trying to function the day after a night of cramming or partying. It's usually easy to recover with a nap or lots of sleep the next night. But getting in the habit of the five-hour night, every night, is not a good thing. I typically get four to five hours of sleep at night. At the beginning of the school, I made a list of new (school) year resolutions that included sleeping seven to eight hours a night, eating healthy, calling my parents, staying organized. I read something this summer about hours of sleep deprivation building up and taking years and years to make up. It freaked me out and I vowed to sleep more. This lasted about a week. Studies also show that sleep deprivation can be caused by a personal choice - a person (in this case, myself) doesn't realize their body needs adequate sleep and can't go to bed at a reasonable hour. The way I see it, sleep deprivation piles up like debt, and it is really hard to get out of. The more and more I don't sleep, the more and more I feel like I don't need to. And the more tired I get. You'd think I learn when it's only ten minutes into my first class and my eyes begin to droop. When I reach for my coffee for some kind of relief, I find it empty - already. Not that it would have helped. After a five-semester caffeine addition, I've become immune the alertness it once offered. Since I can't depend on caffeine any longer, I've had to resort to other ways of staying awake in class. I used to think that writing whatever the professor said and keeping my hand moving would be a great way to stay awake - and also act as a technique for effective note taking. In theory, it's a great idea. But halfway through class my ears and brain and hands stop working together and I have trouble processing what's being said. Checking out my notes after class, my scribbles looks like a 4-year-old was trying to write Chinese. And since holding my eyes open and pinching myself looks a little weird (as if the frantic note taking doesn't), I've also resorted to being a compulsive gum chewer. If I focus on chewing my gum, how could I doze off? After 50 minutes and four pieces of "curiously strong" Altoids' gum, I'm curious as to how I can't remember what the lecture was about. And then there's always tallying the times the instructor says that one word or phrase over and over again throughout the entire lecture, doodling, or drawing my initials countless times in bubble letters Of course, none of these work, and since I sit in the front row, I'm always left with paranoia that everyone can tell my eyes are drooping. Since this happens everywhere - meetings, the library, in front of the computer...wait, I think I need another Red Bull or mabye a peicee pf gmmmmmmmmmmzzzzzzzzz....

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