Go to Sleep, Idiot

At universities and workplaces across the nation, there's a certain machismo around staying up late.

"Dude, I stayed up all night studying for the final."

"Just finished the report! I pulled an all-nighter trying to get it done."

This is dumb behavior.

Sure, I've often fallen into the same trap (who among us has never binge-watched Netflix?), but it's stupid and we need to stop.

Why?

If you want to master difficult topics quickly, your brain needs to function at an optimal level.

This means 8 hours of sleep. At least.

Don't believe me? Here's an excerpt from Popular Science that summarizes two pivotal studies on sleep deprivation:

"Their findings were basically identical. Even the group that slept seven hours a night—which some people think of as a luxury, says Walker—were dozing off at a rate three times greater than the group sleeping eight hours a night just five days into the experiment.

So, how much sleep can you take away before someone becomes cognitively impaired? Sorry, but the answer is less than one hour."

Two independent studies on sleep deprivation found that eight hours was the optimal amount of sleep for humans. Even seven hours - which I've often assumed to be good enough - was enough to seriously impair brain functionality.

The evidence is in. We need eight hours. You have no excuse for pulling all-nighters.

If you want to be the best [insert career of choice] you can be, protect your greatest asset - your brain.

Go to sleep, idiot.