PRO: NICOLE GIVENS
Sleep: That annoying thing that separates day and night, and stops you from rolling out your daily routine on a constant basis. Why would anyone want to practice it? Maybe because you’re like me, a full time college student working 30 hours a week with a rather hectic social life.
Sleep is very important, despite what some of my peers like to think. I’ve heard people say far fetched things like, “We’re in our twenties. We have our whole lives to sleep, so let’s just party now.” Ok, but what happens when your grades start to slip and you find yourself dysfunctional at work? Soon you get put on academic probation, your parents threaten to kick you out of the house, and worse, you eventually lose your job.
Alright, so I’m looking at the worst possible results, but if my grades slipping incorporate my spending another semester or two here at a community college, I sure as hell would rather get a good night’s rest and be efficient. And the same goes for work (retail in my case), where what little bit of energy is left in you after studying, is sucked out and swallowed by the general public.
And then there’s the health part of it. Missing out on sleep can be harmful to your body and sound mind. When your body is deprived of rest, sickness can soon follow; as your immune system weakens, it can no longer fight off ailments (which I think is what is happening to me at the moment), and not to mention the state of mental well being. When you are rundown from sleep, your brain starts to do funny things, like make it unsafe for you to operate heavy machinery, or properly eat a burrito.
So basically, SLEEP = GOOD for numerous reasons. I’d love to sit here and continue this argument for another couple of paragraphs, but frankly, I am going to go and catch up on some for now. I suggest most of you do the same.
CON: KYLE CHIDESTER
Have you ever been in the situation where you’re forced between getting some “much needed” sleep, or staying up longer to get that last bit of work or play in? Well that’s when you should simply throw on another pot of coffee and shout, “Sleep is for the weak”.
Time is much too precious to waste any minute soundly sleeping, when instead you could be doing something much more constructive, like late night cramming or the more pleasurable dancing the night away. Who really needs to sleep when there are so many anti-sleep inducers out there? Besides coffee, there are now numerous amounts of various “energy” drinks, highly caffeinated sodas, as well as many other pills or powder supplements one could pick up at your local drug store which will keep you moving well into the wee morning hours. And these are just the legal options. It seems our nation encourages sleep deprivation.
I know in the many hours I waste away sleeping, there are many things that I would rather be doing, like cleaning and organizing my room, or writing a great American novel, or maybe even doing my homework. In between work and classes, I hardly have the time to read my textbooks, let alone do any paper work. But if my body wasn’t so hung up on the fact that it’s tired, I would have all the time in the world to create shining class assignments, or at least go have more fun.
So instead of complaining that there aren’t enough hours in the day to finish all your daily tasks, why not make the most of the hours usually occupied with fruitless sleep.
Stay up, keep working and having fun, you can catch up on sleep when you’re dead.