We’ve all been there — we get a venti Starbucks coffee while we’re studying at the library, thinking our motivation will continue until all hours of the night. Then you hit a wall. You can no longer focus on your multi-colored flash cards or study guide. You give up and try to go to sleep, but that $5 coffee you drank thinks otherwise.
1. Denial
You think, “No, no, I really am tired. I can go to sleep. Caffeine ain’t got nothing on me!” while replaying every exhausting thing you did that day, as if to convince yourself that you deserve to fall asleep. You review the timeline and sequence of events that led up to this point and tell yourself it has been long enough and it should be out of your system by now.
2. Anger
The tossing and turning commences. You sigh heavily after you finish flopping around like a fish in your bed, desperately trying to get comfortable. You want to glue your eyelids shut. You’re having a full out battle with yourself — beating yourself up for staying up so dang late. Every time you see the time on your phone, you violently slam it down again, as if your iPhone’s lock screen is mocking you, confirming your bad decision-making skills.
3. Bargaining
At this point you’re on the way to forgiving yourself, and to make yourself feel better you make a little agreement between you and yourself. “Tomorrow will be the day I go to bed at 9:00 PM,” and you feel proud of yourself for thinking that way and give yourself a celebratory pat on the back. Good job, girlfriend. But in your heart of hearts you know full well that you’ll be in this same position tomorrow, having the same inner dialogue with yourself once again (in your twisted blankets that you wrecked while tossing and turning all over the place).
4. Depression
OK, now you’re really upset. You’re sad because it’s late, sad because you have to be up in fewer hours than you have fingers on one of your hands, sad because your roommate is sound asleep, sad because why in the world isn’t anyone texting you back at 3:00 AM? You begin to question your every decision — including the boy you dated in the 6th grade and the Frosted Flakes you ate for both breakfast and lunch. The downward spiral happens, and then you’re more awake than ever. You might even shed a tear or two because you just can’t take it anymore. Darn you, Starbucks.
5. Acceptance
You’ve come to grips with the fact that you have to be up in three hours and that you’ve taken naps longer than that. Speaking of naps, you ultimately settle for a nap tomorrow after class to make up for what you went through. And somehow, suddenly, it happens. You’re asleep. Right on.
Then the cycle repeats itself (no matter how hard you tried to fight it) the very next day. At least you’re consistent.
