Extra hour does not mean we’ll be less tired
Right now, I am sitting in my office, drinking an espresso drink, trying desperately to stay awake. I am so tired I can barely think.
You’d think this would not be the case. After all, we just gained an hour from daylight savings time Sunday. That means I had an extra hour to sleep. I had an extra hour to recover from a typical crazy college student schedule. I should feel rejuvenated now. I should be bouncing off the office walls like some sort of crazed monkey.
At the very least, I should be feeling creative to the point of making “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” seem like balancing the checkbook.
Instead, my brain is operating with all the speed and agility of an outdated computer with a virus.
Why is this? I think the main reason is a misconception on the part of many college students about the significance of gaining an extra hour. Our rational brains tell us we need sleep and this is the prime time to get it. A reasonable person heeds that rational voice and goes to bed when he or she normally does and enjoys an extra hour of sleep.
The rest of us, the ones who have decided that being reasonable can wait until we’re at least 40, see things completely differently. While we know that this is the perfect time to sleep, that thought is immediately vetoed by the brains’ “have a good time with your friends” command center. Sleep can wait, we reason. It can wait because we have an extra hour anyway.
The extra hour soon becomes two extra hours in our minds, and in extreme cases, the two hours become even more. The mentality, at least for me, carries into the next week.
Normally, after getting home from doing a radio show that ended at 1 a.m., I have a quick snack, maybe chat with my roommate for a few minutes, and go to bed. This time, realizing I had an extra hour, I had friends over afterwards and we talked into the wee hours of the morning.
The nights that followed had a similar theme. Stay out late at Applebee’s with the other members of my fraternity? Not a problem. We just gained an extra hour.
Stay up watching “The Omen” with my friends even when I have a busy day coming up? It’s all good. It’s Halloween. And besides, we just gained an extra hour.
The rest of the week will probably have a similar theme until it finally hits me that the extra hour has given me less sleep, not more, because I kept creating additional hours in my mind and using them as an excuse to stay up late having a good time.
It is possible that there are some reasonable people in college who actually use the extra hour as a chance to sleep rather than an excuse to party.
These people come to class feeling unusually refreshed and suddenly able to concentrate much better than usual. They wonder if someone slipped a Ritalin in their morning orange juice.
And to these people, I will say this: I’m happy for you. Congratulations. But don’t expect the rest of us to refrain from giving you the evil eye when you’re overly perky in your 8 a.m. Monday class.
Columnists' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of The Spectrum