Dead Week: A Personal Experiment

As I am writing this now, I have just woken up from an eight-hour nap. That’s right, I slept for eight hours, but it was a nap only.

As a fine arts student who is prone to sleeping in on the weekends and wasting a lot of time watching videos of freestyle canoeing competitions on YouTube, I am no stranger to pulling all-nighters. This week, however, the week of all weeks, I have pulled three in a row.

To some of you, three all-nighters in a row is small stuff. For the rest of us who are not superhuman, going on less than 12 hours of sleep is a little harder.

Personally, I would compare my immune system to that of a small-to-average-sized rodent. My body is a more delicate ecosystem than a rain forest full of endangered bald eagles.

Not only does the slightest adjustment throw me through a loop physically, but my foundation of emotional stability is weaker than a house of cards – if the cards were made of tissue paper, and you put them outside during a thunderstorm.

Perhaps I am exaggerating, but the last few days of spring semester are consistently the most stressful time of year for me, and I’m sure the rest of the student body is suffering similarly.

So what can we do to cope?

Here are a few helpful hints from a seasoned veteran of the cruel academic hustle.

First and foremost, make sure to keep your eating in check.

At the end of the day, take note of everything you’ve consumed. If it is a single jelly donut and one slice of leftover frozen pepperoni pizza, you’re doing just fine. If your concerned roommate suggests that maybe he could make you a salad or something, get offended and go get fast food somewhere.

This one seems obvious, but drink a lot of water.

If you don’t have any water, consider drinking energy drinks, gross energy syrup or eating a watermelon.

If you can’t drink water because your house is out of clean cups and you seriously refuse to clean one stupid cup, just go lay down somewhere for a while. Make sure your roommate gets you up after about 20 minutes and is constantly checking your pulse and breathing.

If you have prepared the following beforehand, it would be ideal. If not, take a few minutes to do this.

Nothing will get you through a rough week of studies like a good, long self-pity playlist.

Maybe you have an old one archived somewhere in your music library from when you got dumped three years ago. Now is the time to bring it back out.

Listen to it on repeat until you forget how to express human feelings.

Lastly, and most importantly, make a point to constantly remind everyone around you how busy, tired, sad and lonely you are.

If it gets to the point where simply telling someone about your day warrants a response of “that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” you’re doing it right.


—alliston@indiana.edu