Sleeping your life away

When I walk into the Indiana Memorial Union each day, looking for a quiet place to procrastinate between classes, I’m confronted by a bizarre sight. On couches and cushy chairs scattered throughout the building, students lie prone, slumbering peacefully, snuggling into backpacks and softly snoring.

Sometimes, piles of possessions are left sitting on the floor beside them, almost begging to be stolen. This is disconcerting to me not only because seats occupied with seemingly dead people foil my weak attempts to be studious, but also because I’m convinced the epidemic of sleepiness is a threat to our health.

Although I don’t understand the logic behind sleeping in such a public place (I’m frightened of what things I might do or might be done to me while I’m unconscious), I can’t find fault with it. If you can’t make it back home to take a quick 10- or 20-minute nap between the hours of 1 and 3 p.m., which doctors recommend, you’ve got to do what works for you.

However, if you’ve ever sat and studied at the IMU, you’ll notice the nappers don’t stay for 10 to 20 minutes. Sometimes, I’ll go to class, run a few errands and be back in the Union to see the same people still snoozing. I’m often tempted to draw on sleepers’ faces, just to make sure they’re still alive.

We’ve been told eight hours or more of sleep is necessary, but several studies during the past decade suggest so many hours are actually hazardous to our health.

As college students, we don’t want to hear this theory. Sleeping in is incredible; I don’t start classes until 11:15 each day for a reason. As much as I love lounging in bed ’til noon, I have to give the theory of less sleep some credit.

This summer, while working a full-time job and having no life, I got at least nine hours of sleep (or more) a night. Surprisingly, though, I found myself more and more exhausted.

Now that I’m back at school, I’m down to six or seven hours a night, and I have more energy than I know what to do with. A quick Google search reveals that the British Broadcasting Company and The New York Times both report eight or more hours of sleep per night is linked to a shorter life span.

Moreover, a University of London study showed that about 8 percent of people who slept longer than seven hours performed significantly worse in areas testing memory, reasoning and vocabulary than sleepers with fewer hours.

Additionally, sleeping makes me feel tired. If I’ve slept for a ridiculous amount of time (10 to 12 hours), I don’t feel well rested; I feel awful.

So, to you IMU sleepers: If you didn’t sleep last night, take your nap. If you need to take 10 to 20 minutes to wake yourself up and improve your focus, I commend you. But we need to think about how much of our lives we’re losing, both literally and figuratively, to excessive sleep.

And be warned: If it’s been two hours or more and you’re still on a couch, expect a mustache when you wake up, courtesy of yours truly.

­— kelfritz@indiana.edu