Let’s talk about sleep for a hot sec. The lack of it, the need for it, how we humans are pretty much not good for anything without it.

I’m just going to preface this by letting you know that I am currently running on one hour of sleep with no nap today. That being said, I apologize in advance for any typos, grammatical errors, etc.

I finally pulled an all-nighter in college. I say finally as if it has this connotation that you should strive to stay up all night doing work before you graduate college. Well, if you haven’t had the great privilege of walking home just as those morning sprinklers water Elon’s glorious grasses as the sun rises in the background, you are seriously missing. Jk. 1,000 percent lying. You can live through someone else’s experience, trust me.

Now, the reason that I stayed up so late to see the night turn into the day wasn’t because I procrastinated writing a paper or doing homework, as is often the case with these all-nighters. I went to Charlotte with two other senior reporters in my school’s local news program to cover the riots in the city.

We returned to Elon close to midnight, and then we had to edit all of the footage. By the time we finished our stories, I came home showered and unpacked, it was close to five a.m. I had an eight a.m. media law test that morning that I wanted to get up early and study for a little more just as a refresher. So, I set my alarm for a little after six a.m.

When my alarm sounded, I tried to fight it, I really did. I desperately just wanted to roll back over. My body was telling me I needed to sleep, and your body knows exactly what you need, right? Well, I couldn’t listen to my body because I had too much to do- classes, work, and meetings all day. Not even enough time to take a nap. How sad is that.

Well, the first part of the day started off pretty well. I didn’t even need coffee once I was up and ready. Honestly, I think I was still running on adrenaline. I’ll crash later, I kept telling everyone. For a while there, I was impressed at how long I did last. Then I went home for a little bit and made the mistake of sitting down on the couch. BIG mistake. It was 10 times harder to get back up and that’s when the crash started.

I was in this haze of sorts. I didn’t feel human. The words coming out of my mouth didn’t make sense. My thoughts weren’t cohesive (not too sure if they are right now to be honest). I was just going through the motions from 5 p.m. onward, and prayed for it to be time for me to go back home so I could shower and crawl into bed at a time acceptable for a toddler to go to sleep.

So, moral of the story is you may think your body is superhuman and can operate on little to no sleep, or that coffee suffices. The reality? You’re running on fumes that will soon run out and you’ll crash. When that happens, make sure a bed is close by.

Goodnight. Sleeptight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.