As I sit awake at 1 AM, painfully aware that I will be driving to work in 6 hours far too tired to deal with my minimum wage summer job, I wonder why so many of us college students prefer to sleep all day and stay up all night long. Especially when we have daytime commitments like class and jobs.

My parents say that I’m sleeping my life away because I consider “sleeping in” sleeping until 11AM or 12PM, while they consider sleeping in until 9 AM a miracle. The result is that we are usually more tired when we are awake than we should be. It increases our chances of gaining weight. It messes up our eating schedules. We miss classes occasionally. But we do it anyways. 

In an effort to convince myself, and maybe a few of you to fix your schedule, here is a list of reasons you should wake up earlier and sleep during normal sleeping hours. 

1.     Starbucks, AKA my caffeine addiction supplier, is usually only open 6AM-10PM.

2.     Chick-fil-A breakfast. Totally worth dragging yourself out of bed before 11 AM. Except Sundays. Sleep in on Sundays!

3.     Sunrises. At least drag yourself out of bed once every couple of months to watch a sunrise. There are studies that say watching the sunrise and sunset are beneficial to your eye health (due to some science lingo that made sense when I was researching it) and it helps to regulate your sleep patterns. (Google “Heliotherapy” if you don’t believe me!)

4.     Some internet providers, notably AT&T, cut back bandwidth during the night. Unless you enjoy a slow internet experience, daylight hours seem like a better option. 

5.     Social media like Twitter is dead at 4 AM except for the other night owls. 

6.     As my parents like to say, “Nothing good happens after 2AM.” 

7.     Not being exhausted at that 8 or 9 AM class you hate more than anything in the world. 

8.     Not being the last person awake at a party. Nothing sucks more than being the last one trying to party. 

9.     Not having to sneak around your house to avoid waking others up. 

10. People will call you to be their designated driver at late hours if they think you might be awake. No one enjoys that.

11. The adult world is not geared towards supporting college habits. The sooner you iron out your sleeping schedule, the better. Your boss won’t appreciate you napping at your desk in the middle of the day. 

12. Cool morning runs during the summer are a lot more tolerable than running in the late afternoon with the sweltering heat. 

13. You won’t hit a mental block at 2 AM while trying to think of more reasons to wake up early.