“One more episode,” the binge-watcher promises. “Oh, just one more page,” the chronic studier pleads.” Either of these convictions are gateways to sleep deprivation. 

Whether they attempt to conceal it with concealer or not, the cognitive repercussions are undisguisable. While they may be able to cover up their eye bags, they cannot cover up a dull and tired mind. 

You may be judging these archetypes, claiming you are not afflicted by the same disease merely because in you, it has taken a different form. More likely than not, though, you are infected, too. 

At 12 o’clock when crossroads are met and you can choose to either stay up “just one more hour” or go to sleep, the decision seems minuscule. You rationalize that on this one night, one hour of lost sleep couldn’t possibly amount to anything. Makes sense, right? 

Actually, it does. If you were to keep your bad habits restricted to an, I don’t know, one night a month basis and able to ensure that your “one night” actually stays that way, you’d be fine. And if you were able to ensure that your “one hour” doesn’t become four, then you’d also be fine.

The problem is that nobody lives like that, especially not teenagers.

And who can blame us? In the wake of our childhoods and on the brinks of adulthood, we are trying the best we can to prime our minds for whatever trials await down the road. Oftentimes, though, our future-gazing makes us forget how in order to get to wherever we need to go, each step, each second of the journey, must be exacted. 

This is why when the chronic studier pleads for “one more hour” to complete “just one more page,” they don’t give it much dilema. They don’t picture the next day where they are too tired to even hold their head up, no, they picture the moment when after years of trial, they finally lift their head to a sea of graduation caps being propelled into the sky. To them it’s a mere matter of time.

And they’re right. Time is the essence of all they, all anyone, hopes to accomplish. “Practice makes perfect”, parents preach. Time is not just 10 years down the road, though, it’s also every day, every night and every hour in between. 

It is crucial to savor time, every second of it, and to do so we must also savor sleep.