It’s 3 a.m again. Popped open another cold bottle of Starbucks Coffee and downed it in one go. Why is this cycle stuck on replay? Well it all stems from procrastination and lack of time management. One night, you get lazy and decide not to finish your homeworks. The next night, you regret not finishing your homeworks and pile all of them together. You feel defeated in a sense and realize that all this homework is impossible to complete in one night, but you take up the challenge. Even if you were successfully able to complete all that homework, at the end of the day you’ll find yourself drained out and dying to catch another wink of sleep. But, another overload of work piles up again and you down another cold caffeinated bottle for the night.
Pulling all nighters is a very common thing among young adults. In fact, almost everyone of us has pulled an all-nighter once or twice. Yet, we do not realize the potential harm all-nighters have on our bodies. Pulling all nighters is directly related to difficulty of retaining information, weight gains, and even digestive problems. When pulling an all-nighter, you probably did so to cram up before a huge test; yet, why couldn’t you remember half the things you crammed? It’s because the memory part of your brain needs to recharge from the activity throughout the day. Thus, when you deprive yourself of that crucial break, your brain doesn’t retain the information properly. In addition, during the hours you’ve stayed up, your body produces more ghrelin; it causes the crave for food during the night. Other problems such as digestive problems also arise because of the consumption of all that extra sugar, your body cannot filter out the excess glucose which directly harms your kidney. You may end up with kidney problems or even diabetes.
Even knowing about the consequences of pulling all nighters, why do some people continue to pull these endless nights? Although homework seems to be the main problem, once a person pulls an all nighter, eventually they’ll do it again. Not entirely due to work, but rather due to the first all-nighter they pulled. It may sound bizarre, but after pulling one all-nighter, don’t you feel the urge and adrenaline to do it again? You may leave more piled up work because you felt accomplished after the first all-nighter. This was the same case with me, but eventually I realized that I couldn’t stay up with it anymore. I would lose track of time and take a nap that is basically be the worth of my slumber. However, most people tend to try revert back their original sleep schedule as fast as possible. After, trying to complete this arduous task, they’ll end up realizing that they’re actually sleeping less and less. Due to your body receiving a lack of rest, it’ll have difficulties in adjusting. It may take a few days to adjust back to your original schedule but usually this isn’t the same as your original. It’s like your body has done an all-nighter once and tends to sleep a bit later and later. Scary thing is you may end up ruining your entire sleep schedule from pulling a single all-nighter.