It’s the middle of the semester, and most stationary objects on campus can now be found with a member of the student body utilizing them as a crutch against the heady combo of gravity and sleep deprivation. Because of that, The Cascade has compiled a list of the best places to catch a few z’s, and hope that knowledge really can be gained through osmosis.
Orange Chair: This retro, traffic-cone-coloured couch is a staple in the design department. The Cascade’s Culture and Event’s Editor, Cassie, gives this couch 4.5 drool pools out of 5 for sleepability. Half a pool lost for availability, as it is often fought over. Art students can be found using what remains of their creative energy to devise Wile E. Coyote-esque plans to capture the chair for themselves.
Jeff’s Car: My mother always said to stay out of cars with boys, because they’re basically hotel rooms on wheels. However, in university this statement went from warning to welcoming. Back seats are perfect places to take naps between classes, despite the 10 cars lined up waiting to take your spot.
Library Chair: As mentioned a few weeks back in a snapshot by this same fiery-haired individual — The Cascade’s Multimedia Editor, Mikaela — these chairs are the perfect spaceship to Slumbertown. Good luck snagging one of these spheroid sleepshacks, though; their desirability level is out of this world.
Jess’ Tree: News Editor Jessica spends her spare time doing cool surgeries on salamanders for science, and loves all manners of plants and animals. So it is no surprise that her addition to this list is amongst the foliage and trees on campus. The birds and bugs sing sweet lullabies to her. She must be part Disney princess.
Nest Chair in Archive Room: There is an old broken chair in our office. It’s moved from one room to another, and now lives in the archive room, among water bottles, old editions of the paper, and passed over holiday decorations. It’s teal. It’s furry. It’s an eyesore. But it is a nest that makes me feel like a little baby bird.
All of us on The Cascade couches, asleep: This mismatched menagerie of crappy couches sits in the front of our office. Most times we are hunched over backlit laptops, but once in a while we catch a catnap.
The current trend is “busy is better.” People have side hustles, and glorify the god of the colour-coded schedule. The competition is steep when it comes to a conversation comparing the density of one’s daily docket. But that competition isn’t worth winning.
Busy can come like a season, akin to falling leaves, or walls of rain. But busy is a toxic long-term lifestyle choice. Busy means increased stress, and stress over a long period of time leads to a variety of health problems with symptoms including fatigue, chest pain, heart palpitations, change in eating patterns, and sleep deprivation. So if even the land needs seasons to heal, then we should take note from nature.
A survey conducted by Harvard Business School found that of 1,000 professionals interviewed, 94 per cent worked over 50 hours per week. Across the border, University of Waterloo studied the distribution of time for Canadians, and found that there was an increase in work, and a decrease in time spent taking care of ourselves.
There are three stages the body endures during prolonged stress: the alarm stage, the resistance stage, and the exhaustion stage. The body goes into a state of shock as a reaction to the stress, thus harkening in the second stage, in which the body attempts to adapt in order to stave off illness. Finally the body, weary from overexertion, collapses in exhaustion and ultimately burnout.
As a staff, we know what your stomach does after the fourth cup of coffee. We know that the brownies from Fairgrounds constitutes an adequate dinner. We know the delicate touch it takes to balance life, school and work. But we are also advocates of sleep, even if it is at weird times, and in even weirder places.
