Picture this…
It’s 2 a.m.. While the rest of America sleeps, you lie awake. Your mind is racing, crowding you with thoughts about homework or paperwork and how awful it will be to get up in a few hours. While this only happens every once in a while for some of us, this happens almost every night for a small percentage of people.
Many of these people deal with a condition called “Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome,” D.S.P.S. for short. Put simply, this covers anyone who goes to sleep hours after what’s “normal.”
However, while they can’t sleep at night, that doesn’t mean they just sit there staring at the ceiling. Many people are actually more productive at night than they are during the day.
“I’m more alert and clear minded at night,” Mack McKisson, sophomore biology major, said. “There are fewer distractions so I can just focus and get work done.”
Yet, this is still a small group, in a society that begins at sunrise. Work still starts bright and early every day. Schools still start right around 8 a.m. every morning, and for those constantly up deep into the night, that presents an issue.
“I still like sleep,” McKisson said.
The National Sleep Foundation says that, on average, adults between the ages of 18 and 25 should sleep between six and nine hours every night. It also says that sleep deprivation can cause mood problems, immune system deficiencies and problems remembering new information. When someone only gets around six hours of sleep every night, the problem is obvious.
Despite that, every person is different and people can still make it work, like sophomore business major Olivia Young. She considers herself both a night owl and an early riser.
“You can get a lot more accomplished during the day,” Young said. “But I get more work done at night using sleep as a reward.”
Yet, there are still people who disagree.
“There is just more time to do stuff during the day,” Dalton Roberto, sophomore biology major, said. “Sleeping later is just wasting a day.”
But, times may be changing. More and more jobs are starting later in the day. For college students, the practice of staying up late to finish homework is a given. A society set in its ways for hundreds of years is actually starting to adapt. People are starting to adjust to accommodate a group of people who do things differently.
Maybe someday people will see a world where stores regularly open up at 9 or 10 a.m. and stay open late at night, schools start classes at 10:30 a.m. instead of 8 a.m. and people who struggle with sleep don’t have to struggle anymore.
So picture this…
It’s 2 a.m.. While the rest of America sleeps, you sit awake at your desk, putting the final touches on a homework assignment due the next day. But this isn’t an all-nighter trying to make a deadline. It’s no problem, you always do homework at this time.
