There goes the sun, so get out of bed

Lately, I have become a sleep addict. It seems like just as midterms have started and I should be using every waking moment to cram in the study time I skipped earlier this semester—I just want to go back to bed. At least I'm not alone; pretty much everyone I talk to has just taken a nap, has missed his first two classes because he overslept, and is constantly complaining about how tired he is. The person in class next to me dozes between slides on the projector, and a few of my more daring classmates blatantly nap right in front of the professor. Why has sleep become the center of our lives?

NOAMI PEASE/YH

At first, I thought that this zombie-like behavior was a simple case of being overworked and overachieving Yalies who burn the candle from both ends and make sleep a lower priority than it should be. But that can't be the whole answer. It's not just hard work—it's the fact that I hardly ever see the sun.

It always seems to be sunny at the wrong times. When I want to be outside playing frisbee it has already gotten dark, but when I wake up in the morning for class it's been light outside for hours. I spend most of my day in a dimly lit auditorium where I have to squint to make out my notebook, and then later that afternoon head to dinner—in the dark, of course. My schedule feels like it's the reverse of what it should be: sleep when it's light, go outside when it's dark.

The "winter blahs" many of us are currently experiencing aren't just a figment of our imaginations. Recent studies done at the University of British Columbia show that the problem is more frequent in northern latitudes where there are fewer hours of sunlight each day. In psychological terms, this lack of exposure to sunlight is the primary cause of what is called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). According to Gray's Psychology, SAD's symptoms include sleeping more than usual, intense hunger for carbohydrates (which can cause weight gain), and depression that becomes stronger in the evening hours. While SAD only affects a small percentage of the population, more mild forms of the symptoms affect nearly everyone.

Is there a solution to SAD, or do we just have to sit on our sun-deprived duffs and bear the misery? One solution, which many northern European countries have tried, is to set the clocks forward an extra hour in the winter so that more of the few daylight hours we have are spent out and about. But since seceding from the time zone probably isn't on the Administration's agenda, is there anything else we can do to alleviate our misery?

I cringe when I think that my mother's advice—"Go to sleep earlier"—actually seems logical to me. My own brilliant plan when I don't have early classes the next day is to go to bed late and then sleep in to compensate. I'm still drowsy, though, because I reduce my hours of sunlight. But am I actually going to follow my mother's sensible advice? Probably not. Like many Yalies, I'm a night owl. I really doubt that I'm going to fiddle with the typical college schedule unless there are no other options.

Studies have shown, however, that some of the lost light our bodies desperately need to maintain their proper circadian rhythms can be artificially created. If you are so inclined you can order special "light boxes" on the Internet that mimic natural sunlight, or a more reasonable approach is to study under natural light or in well-lit areas.

So the next time you find yourself drowning in your Cheerios, more sleep might not be the best answer. But every once in a while, it's nice to say screw the consequences, because for most of us there's nothing better (or healthier) than a nice, long nap. Justin Loring is a freshman in Jonathan Edwards.

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