Mridula Anand | Week 12: To Sleep or To Study?


Photo Credit: https://www.thecalifornianpaper.com/2022/02/caffeine-consumes-cal-students/

Yesterday after coming home from school, I immediately took a “power nap” for around three hours, thinking ahead about the fact that I was going to stay up late for my chemistry test. This was the second day that I dedicated myself to cram studying for this test, which would take place the next day. Ultimately, I ended up sleeping around 1:00 a.m., deciding that I’ve pretty much studied what there was to study.


Many of you probably relate to this same situation. Whether you guys depend on energy drinks, drinking coffee, or other ways to energize yourselves, you can probably attest to how staying up late is no easy feat.


Throughout my life, I have seen many videos and news sources stating how sleep is more beneficial than staying up and studying for a test. However, to what extent is this really true? In the hours that you can sleep, you can study for an equal amount of time; when you sleep, your brain stays dormant and for the entire time, your brain is pretty much useless. Even though when studying you may be half asleep and your brain is not fully active, it is more efficient to achieve your goals of at least passing the test.


Every human being needs and wants to sleep. It is not like we desire to stay up late and study for a test. Circumstances have led us there. But how much power does sleep really hold, to the point where researchers (and our parents) state that it is one of the most important things? Maybe over a stretched period of time this may be true, but for a day or two of pulling an all-nighter I can’t really see the harm. Even if I sleep, I wake up feeling more tired than I was before.


I think that it all comes down to individual bodies, with some of my friends dedicating themselves to sleeping at 10 p.m. every night and others who barely get over three hours of sleep. At the end of the day, caffeine holds an undoubtable importance in the lives of most students, as it is really the thing that has been consistent in powering us and our academic careers. 


(Written at 12:30 a.m.)




Comments

  1. Nichelle RodriguezMarch 5, 2025 at 12:00 PM

    Hi Mridula! I totally relate to this topic as I find myself pulling countless all-nighters in order to cram lots of work, especially with so many APs. However, I find that I slightly disagree with your statement that pulling an all-nighter is more beneficial than sleeping. When you sleep, your brain strengthens neural pathways that allow for you to remember material better and perform tasks more efficiently. But I totally understand your stance, as it does seem useless to sleep when there's just so much more material to cover. I think that sometimes sacrificing sleep must happen in order to increase academic performance, and vice versa, sacrificing material must happen to have sufficient amounts of sleep. Thank you so much for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Francis GarciaMarch 5, 2025 at 8:02 PM

    On most days, I would choose the former of these things because of how exhausted I am when I get home after a long day at school. Even though this is a bad habit and impacts the amount of time I have left to work on homework and study for tests, I don’t usually go to energy drinks of any kind nor do I study past 10 pm (although the latter is due to ground rules set by my parents, but I still don’t end up getting ample time to sleep because of the other obligations of brushing my teeth and doing my skincare routine). However, I have witnessed how powerful caffeine can be from seeing my friends who end up pulling all-nighters to finish AP Lang annotations or AP Calc problems. In the end, I agree with your last point about how “it all comes down to individual bodies” and what they need to operate well. Thank you for this blog post about exploring the impacts of caffeine and sleep, Mridula!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Caleb TrunehMarch 5, 2025 at 9:39 PM

    Hi Mridula!
    I really enjoyed reading your blog this week as I feel the topic is incredibly relevant to me and pretty much every high school student (especially juniors). I personally try my best to start my work as quickly as possible to be able to go to sleep at a reasonable time but I don't always follow this promise. As anyone with a phone knows, its easy to get distracted scrolling on social media, playing a game, or watching your favorite Netflix show, especially after a long day of school. But on the topic of "wasting" time I think that you worded it perfectly where it depends on the given person. An individual who knows they could go to sleep at 3 am and wake up at 6 would have no problem wasting a couple hours of time after getting home but someone who knows they need their 8 hours to properly function might have to structure their afternoons/evenings to finish their work before they start dozing off. I personally try my best to not have to resort to drinking energy drinks (unless its finals week of course) or coffee or anything like that but I completely understand why some students feel as if they need to. Overall, I truly enjoyed reading your blog post this week and look forward to reading what you write next time!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Caleb - Week 16 - I'm going to miss you AP Lang.

Image
      Like many others, when I wrote down AP Lang on my course request form last February, I was quite hesitant. Stories from last year's Juniors coupled with stories from all former Lang students about the infamous "POAS" paper made for a very intimidating class. In the first few weeks of school I even considered dropping the class if that was a possibility. After hearing we would have a graded rhetorical analysis essay in our first or second week of classes was the first time I encountered the difficulties of this class. The many meticulous annotations we had to do throughout first semester were also quite difficult.     However, the significance of me sharing all these experiences is regarding my memory of the year and all that I've learned from it. If I followed through with my plan to drop the class I wouldn't have had the opportunity to make many new friends, immerse myself in knowledge on Martin Luther King Jr., my POAS person, and some knowledge about ma...
Read more

Mridula Anand | Week 13: Remembering Who We Are

Image
  Photo Credit: https://studioghiblideconstructed.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/95/  In my all-time favorite movie Spirited Away, among the many themes that Hayao Miyazaki crafted within the plot, one main takeaway is the importance of memory. The movie starts off with a girl, Chihiro, and her family who enter into the world of spirits which they encounter in a new town that they are moving to. While her parents get infatuated with the tons of food that is presented in front of them, Chihiro explores the spirit town and when coming back to her parents, she sees that they have turned into pigs. The only way she can turn them back is to ask help from the spirits themselves, who do not let her leave until she can fulfill the requests they have for her.  In the midst of the plot, something a new friend emphasizes to her is that she should never forget her name, or else she will be trapped in that world forever. He even gives her a slip of paper with her name on it to make sur...
Read more

Nichelle Week 16 - The First Day of School (and the rest of our lives)

Image
  The First Day of School (and the rest of your lives) This is my first year as a LINK leader at our school. For those who may not know, LINK leaders supervise the freshman orientation and allow for a seamless, anxiety-free transition for rising freshmen. As I was filling out the application, I pulled from my own experience as a very introverted freshman to convey the exact reason I had wanted to participate in LINK in the first place. The first days of school are often the best, in my personal opinion, even overshadowing the warm, sunny days as the school year ends. The first days of school are often marked with a sort of anxious excitement—and a bit of exhaustion as you fall back into the early morning routine warranted by school. I love the preparation for the first day back: carefully arranging your supplies into your backpack, picking out the very best clothes for your outfit, and carefully styling your hair. Obviously, after a couple months in, appearance almost always falls ...
Read more