Americans are chronically sleep-deprived, and college students are even more prone to overexhaustion.
Here’s what you need to know to rest easy tonight.
I had a good friend in college who, whenever I was up late trying to study for a final exam or belaboring a lengthy paper, would turn to me with half-closed eyes and tease me in a sonorous, tempting voice: “Forever sleep,” he would say, “forever sleep.”
In response I would either hustle him out of my room or take the opportunity to procrastinate by chatting him up about one thing or another. Sleep, sadly, would have to wait.
Study after study shows that I was not alone, that college students are chronically sleep deprived due to their erratic work and social schedules.
“Often, I’ll have weeks when I average about six hours of sleep per night,” said Harvard University senior John Warren. He admits to “snoozing” anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour and a half after his alarm goes off each morning.
Warren is one among many. Students are simply a particularly exhausted vanguard of a nation of sleepyheads.