Dance Marathon: Burning the midnight oil

Sleep deprivation -- an affliction that costs the nation as much as $100 billion annually, has been linked to 100,000 auto accidents a year. The crippling fatigue it brings is so much more than statistics. But a college student, aggrieved over the loss of a friend, began a legacy of vigil that makes insomnia honorable for one weekend a year.\nA cavern of blindness\nJill Stewart saw it unfold: Kokomo rejected Ryan White.\nThe small town in central Indiana reacted only with fear and hostility. People shunned him and his family, on the street, at church. A bullet was even fired into his house.\nIt was the 1980s. Few people were informed about AIDS at the time. The media staged a factual blackout, spreading only horror stories and urban legends.\nConcerned parents didn't want Ryan in the same classroom as their children. It was assumed that casual contact was a form of transmission. School officials panicked and kicked him out. \nThough in the throes of the fatal immunodeficiency virus, he insisted on going to school. It went to court, and he won. \nRyan White died at the age of 19, back in 1990. He was a hemophiliac infected with HIV through a blood transfer. His story captivated the nation, and it led to sweeping change.\nThe legacy\nFor the first time, the media portrayed AIDS victims in a positive light, instead of sinners reaping the whirlwind. Congress passed the Ryan White CARE Act to provide financial assistance for families and communities coping with the rages of the AIDS epidemic.\nHis death also left a lasting mark on the Bloomington campus.\nA few days after Ryan died, his friend Jill Stewart, an IU student, sat in the office of student adviser Jeff Jones. They discussed how IU students could carry on White's name.\nJones mentioned a 48-hour dance marathon at Penn State which had received top student event honors the year before. \nAnd so, Stewart and about a dozen other IU student leaders chose to organize the IU Dance Marathon in February 1991, with Jones as their advisor. \nPouring money into the freshly christened Ryan White Infectious Disease Center at the Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis, the Dance Marathon is now nearly a decade strong.\nFor 36 consecutive hours, students dance and occupy themselves with games and competitions. It's become a calendar event, a staple of the fall. Raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for sick children, it's the third largest collegiate philanthropy event in the country.\nBleary eyes\nWhile being crammed into the Wildermuth Intramural Center with hundreds of people might not be a common experience, going drastic lengths without sleep is. Now slowly infiltrating corporate America through the gung-ho ethos of Silicon Valley, it's been core curriculum on campuses nationwide from time immemorial. It's as pure college as pizza delivery or a keg party.\nWith an upcoming exam or project, few students flinch at the prospect of pulling an all-nighter. Or putting off sleep for a few hours. And maybe then another few hours, then sleeping through the class one stayed up to do the reading for. \nAt one time or another, everyone has stumbled wearily into the restroom at four in the morning, splashed water on one's face and groggily glanced at a heavy set of eyes, disheveled hair and a sheen of grease streaked across the forehead.\nEveryone has then slowly trudged back to a stack of books and scattered papers, tempted to crawl under the warm, inviting covers. Or flip on the television and lie down, telling oneself all the while that it's just a moment of well-deserved rest. \nBut, however much neglected, sleep is essential to good health, like a high-protein diet.\nIt's not merely a "time out" from the daily routine -- it's a period of rejuvenation for body and mind. Sleep problems often lead to a lack of productivity or enthusiasm, and an inability to handle stress. \nAccording to a survey conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, respondents who admitted to not getting enough sleep reported difficulty concentrating, completing regular chores and dealing with minor irritations. Sleeplessness has adverse affects on learning, memory and logical reasoning.\nStill, the foundation reports that more and more college students are spending less time sleeping. \nIt's not a matter of insomnia, though that's how it's usually referred to in conversation.\nInsomnia is a chronic psychological problem, rooted in an inability to sleep. It's tied to many other mental disorders, like depression and free-floating anxiety.\nKeeping themselves awake with stimulants varying from coffee to television, most students are prone to simple sleep deprivation. Cutting back on this is a simple matter of better scheduling, says Anne Reese, director of the Health and Wellness Education Center. \n"(Students) try to cram too much into a day," she says. "At night, entertainment and activities keep us awake."\nBut Reese concedes that the life of students doesn't lend itself to well-restedness. Like debt, sleep deprivation just adds up over time.\n"Experts always tell you to go to sleep at the same time each evening," she says. "But the whole schedule of students makes this very difficult to do."\nAs much as the work seems to pile up, spilling over the boundaries of routine, there's a price to be paid for all those late evenings -- the price of one's sanity.