Month: November 2023

Mariana Reis (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

Do you ever find yourself grappling with guilt when you pause for a moment? In today’s  demanding world, it can be challenging to embrace rest. There’s a constant pressure to be “productive,” and even our downtime is expected to be “active rest,” a term that suggests we should accomplish something, however small, even outside our work hours. But is this a genuine form of rest, or a response to societal expectations? Moreover, the relentless competition, especially in the age of social media, can make it difficult to disconnect. The fear of falling behind in the race to produce content often hinders us from slowing down.

It’s essential to recognize that guilt about resting is more common than you might think. It can be a sign of conditions like anxiety or depression, that make it difficult to slow  down and take care of ourselves. In reality, rest is not a waste of time; it’s a vital component of  productivity and well-being.

However, putting this into practice is often easier said than done. When I attempt to relax, I find myself wrestling with an underlying feeling that I should be engaging in something more productive. My mind refuses to settle, and I’m not fully present in the moment. Even when I’m immersed in a  seemingly mindless activity, like watching cartoons with my three-year-old, I’m plagued by self-doubt. I wonder if I’m setting a poor example — what kind of parent simply watches cartoons? Am I indirectly endorsing laziness? Meanwhile, a mental checklist runs through my head: the dinner dishes that need cleaning, the laundry waiting to be folded and the expectation of maintaining an active presence on social media. It’s a relentless tug-of-war.

I want you to know that these feelings are entirely normal. Many of us share these doubts and struggles. Disconnecting from the demands of our busy lives is a greater challenge than we often anticipate. In this era of intense competition, instant gratification, and constant influx of information, simply allowing ourselves to “be” can be a monumental task. Even taking a few minutes to rest feels like a luxury. But it’s possible.

Whenever you catch yourself overwhelmed by thoughts of pending chores, remind yourself that this moment of tranquillity belongs to you, and it holds the power to increase your productivity and presence in all the tasks that lie ahead. Here’s what I personally do:

Scheduled Rest Time:  I set aside dedicated time to rest, typically just before picking up my son from daycare. It’s the golden moment between concluding my work as a nutritionist and embracing my roles as a mother and a wife, and I treasure at least 30 minutes for myself.

Disconnect from Digital Distractions:  I consciously disconnect from social media and emails during this time. Those messages can wait for my attention.

Mindful Internet Usage:  I also limit my aimless internet browsing. The more time we spend observing other people’s lives, the stronger the sense of guilt when we try to rest.

I hope these insights will help you to feel more at ease with the moments you take for yourself.  Remember, everyone needs a break. 

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My name is Mariana and I am a holistic nutritionist. I love helping other immigrant mothers by cooking nutritious meals to support their postpartum recovery. As I walk the path of self-discovery and inner  reconnection, my hope is to continue forging meaningful connections and seeking opportunities to support and uplift others.

Nasly Roa Noriega (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

I want to start by remembering this phrase that my grandmother told me repeatedly when I was a teenager: “When you have children, don’t wear yourself out trying to be the perfect parent. Just be a good parent.” At that time I did not understand those words, but today, being a mother of two teenagers with an accelerated pace of responsibilities, feeling exhaustion overcome me and wanting to be the best mom in every way, I remember her and I think that she, with her great experience, was warning me that being a parent is a very complicated task in which to seek perfection. Perfection leads us to demand more than what we can give, and we should only love, support and be the best company for our children.

As time goes by, family demands make us feel exhausted as our responsibilities as parents grow every day. Each stage of life becomes a challenge, and when you think you have taken control, new challenges and new experiences appear that help us to mature, to grow as people. As parents assuming new obligations, many times we start to put aside our own interests, and time flies so fast that we do not realize at what point in our life we stopped caring about ourselves.

In most homes, parents live for their children, forgetting about themselves, making sacrifices for them, exceeding the limits of their physical and emotional capacities to raise them, not giving them space and neglecting not only their own and their partner’s lives, but also their mental health. As parents, we think we are superheroes with superpowers for everything, and we believe that life will not charge us for the physical, mental and personal wear and tear we put into raising a child.

I do not think that children are the end of self-care, but it is we as parents who willingly fall into emotional exhaustion and personal neglect, as we forget our own needs and put the interests of our children or others first.

Physical, mental and emotional health are the most important responsibilities a person should have, because if as parents we are and feel well, our children and the rest of the family will be well too. Taking care of ourselves means loving ourselves, giving importance to our well-being, dedicating to ourselves the time we deserve and giving ourselves the personal space that we often need, and that sometimes goes on the back burner.

Anxiety over responsibilities and the uncertainty of not knowing if we are doing the right thing in raising our children leads us in many cases to mental and physical exhaustion, and sometimes we feel guilty for wishing for moments of peace and quiet. As parents we tend to demand more from ourselves than we can give, and that is where feelings of dissatisfaction, sadness, remorse, frustration and impotence are generated, because maybe we do not want to make mistakes or maybe we just want to be perfect parents.

Delegating responsibilities helps us balance burdens at home, and maintaining personal space and couple time allows us to manage our emotions. Just as children ask for their space, as parents we also deserve our own. Asking for help when we need it does not mean that we cannot handle our responsibilities. On the contrary, it assumes we need support when facing difficulties. We must learn to manage our emotions, breathing deeply, looking towards the horizon with firm feet, avoiding any thought of guilt and above all, remembering that we are alive and that we are happy to be important members of a family.

Although the clock keeps ticking and its hands bring us the passage of time, we must never forget that we will always remain young enough to dream and strong enough to face difficulties. We are valuable, unique and irreplaceable in our homes, so take care of yourself so you can take care of others.

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My name is Nasly Roa Noriega. I am Colombian and a mother of two teenagers, Natalia and Alexi, whom I love very much, because with them I learn every day and each stage of their lives is another step that I reach in my life experience. For me family is everything, without it I feel incomplete.

Natalie Zeifman (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

You would think that discussions around rest should be relaxing and soothing, but the opposite is often the case. These discussions can ironically be filled with even more things you “should” be doing, like changing your long-ingrained habits. No biggy, right? And yet, why do I feel like I might have to apologize in advance for contributing somewhat to this problem? Because resting better can take a little bit of work, as paradoxical as that may seem.

Lately, my relationship to rest has been contradictory, confusing and filled with self-eviscerating judgment. I seem to rest too much, but also not enough, and not in the right ways. Is my rest actually relaxing and nourishing, or am I just disconnecting? Do I actually really let myself rest or is there always a guilting voice in the background asking for payment for time off? And why do I have to rest so much, or at all? It’s very inconvenient to my goals. Is there really value in not being that idealistically hyper–functioning robot consistently focused on getting the next task done? If one part of me knows the answer, the rest of me could sure use some reminding of it.

It was about a year ago that, in an attempt to be a healthy person who gets out of the house more, I stumbled into the firelit basement of a yoga nidra class. Yoga nidra, for those who don’t know, is also called sleep yoga. It involves very little physical stretching and a lot of you lying down and paying slow attention to the sensation in every single one of the parts of your body. You are guided to stay as present as possible. You may then also be asked to imagine some idyllically pastoral scenery and how you would act within it. For me personally, this gave me the sensation of being a real life sim in a virtual reality, and then the realization that I had the same power and control in my own reality, that my life was not simply done to me.

I left that class thinking it was a nice enough experience, but it wasn’t until I was actually walking home that the true effects of being present in my body hit me. I felt everything so much more strongly. Music sounded incredibly cathartic. My mind was calm and not clogged with what I should be doing, or should have done, or what could have happened. It was then that I had the realization that I had not actually been present, living in the now, for a very long time. And if I’m honest, it’s been a struggle to be so since.

There is something about the quiet calm of truly being present that feels painful when we’re approaching it. We have so much to do! So much to worry about! To reflect on! We tell ourselves that by filling our focus with all of these things, we’re actually being closer and more connected to ourselves. But that’s often actually not the case. In fact, another realization that I’ve had to face recently is how much of the rest I take doesn’t actually nourish me. It’s often been making me feel more disconnected from myself.

Our lives are filled with dissociative, restful escapes from reality. Social media feeds, TV, books, gossip and games. And there’s nothing wrong with engaging with these things. There is, however, just a bit of irony in the way that we can live what is basically a “to-do list life,” and then in order to rest, we may feel like we have to disappear from ourselves, because we have become the to-do list.

I think for a lot of people, facing the quiet with just yourself for company often feels threatening. Maybe because we know in reality that we’re not very good to ourselves, and it’s easier to keep sweeping that under the rug. Or maybe there are negative aspects to our lives or ourselves we’d rather keep distracting ourselves from. Or maybe it is just that that quieter space feels boring because we’re so habitualized to proving our worth or fulfilling our existence through achieving and gaining new experiences. But it seems in many cases that our rest is far too often subconsciously focused on disconnecting from the self. And how much of that kind of rest is really nourishing us, if we’re honest?

Personally, I’ve recently had to face how this kind of escapist rest is actually taking more than it gives me. It’s made me feel drained, lost and less myself. While watching a few hours of TV would often make me feel more rejuvenated afterwards, it would also become my excuse for avoiding other restful activities like just taking a nap. In fact, I was so regularly using the excuse that scrolling the internet would help lull me to sleep that, in reality, I was sleeping less! I then became more tired and dependent on my “restful” activities. Oh dear.

There is a lot to unpack when it comes to how we handle rest, our goals and being present in life. I think encouraging more awareness about why we do the things we do and being honest about how it affects us can be a great step forward for our mental well-being. It helps us attune to our needs and make our rest more nourishing when we ask ourselves these hard but meaningful questions. For example, is a life so focused on the past and future that we can barely feel the present truly fulfilling? What’s the point of working so hard towards goals we never truly live in? How can we make the now feel more safe to be in? And are there activities out there that rejuvenate us that also make us feel more in tune with ourselves?

But for those who just really need a break, I fully support you taking a step back from any and all of this, because sometimes what you truly need is to give yourself that space where you are free to just be, without any “shoulds.”

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Leave your thoughts for Natalie in the comments below. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube to stay up-to-date with Low Entropy news!

Daniela Silva, Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

The practice of mindfulness entered my life through dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), which is recommended for patients with borderline personality disorder, as in my case. The disorder is characterized by instability in relationships and emotions.

Mindfulness skills are developed throughout DBT treatment, as they are considered key elements for emotional regulation, interpersonal effectiveness and tolerance to discomfort in people with high emotional dysregulation. I can say for myself that my life is divided into two stages: before mindfulness and after mindfulness.

Before mindfulness, I used to have impulsive behaviors, which affected not only me but mainly my relationship with my husband and my family. My husband no longer knew how to act with me, as anything he said sounded like a trigger, leading our relationship to arguments and outbursts of anger. With my family, the problem was even worse: I had the dysfunctional belief that my father and my sister had to be sensitive to my emotions, temperament and crying spells. It was as if I wanted them to guess what I was thinking, and in this way they would be able to fill my existential emptiness and my soul pains. There were so many arguments that I ended up breaking up with my family.

In the mindfulness skills module of DBT, I learned to focus and breathe, and little by little, this calmed my explosive states of anger and taught me to stay focused on the present moment, thus reducing dysfunctional thoughts and anxious behaviors. In practice, I adopt a non-judgmental stance, doing one thing at a time. I do the following:

• Observe

Observing is about observing a situation without making a value judgment about it, being able to experience something without labeling it as good or bad. The objective of this practice is for the mind to become still.

It’s like having a Teflon mind, where you are able to let experiences, feelings and thoughts quickly enter and leave it. It is related to observing each feeling growing and decreasing, like waves in the ocean, and being able to intimately observe what is happening through your senses.

• Describe

Describing is simply putting words to a situation or experience, describing what is happening to yourself, and naming your feelings. For example, while taking a bath, name the sensations you are feeling in relation to the water (whether it is hot, cold or warm), the texture of the soap in contact with the skin, the scent of the shampoo (whether it is sweet or citrusy) and the power of the shower running through your body.

The objective of this practice is to establish a connection between you and the environment, encouraging you to remain in the present moment and describing situations more clearly so that you are able to modify them in a calmer and more efficient way.

• Participate

Participating involves getting in touch with your experiences deeply, allowing yourself to be completely involved and without rumination. It’s getting fully into an activity and throwing yourself headlong into it.

We are often on autopilot with our activities without even paying attention to them. The objective of participating is precisely to develop self-awareness about our actions in order to feel more in control over them. So try choosing an activity from your routine, such as driving, washing the dishes or cooking, and keep your focus and concentration on it in order to participate in the task in detail.

It is important to highlight that to develop each mindfulness skill, it is necessary to act with a wise mind. And it is precisely the state of having a wise mind that mindfulness has taken me to.

Wise mind: the balance between two minds.

Wise mind is a term from DBT that brings together the logic of the reasonable mind and the sensitivity of the emotional mind into a serene state of spirit. A wise mind is a very useful skill, as it helps us make decisions with confidence and balance. It makes us reflect on how we think, feel and act when relating to and facing situations daily. But how does the wise mind work in practice? Is it possible to develop it step by step?

The truth is that the more we practice observing, describing and participating, the more we develop a wise mind. Thus, the wise mind is the one that comes closest to our intuition, as it understands the meaning of an experience without having to analyze it.

In my life, I have used my wise mind in the following situations:

• Avoiding arguments by taking a deep breath and removing myself from the triggering place or situation.
• In stressful situations, I take time to retreat and meditate, thus taking care of my physical and emotional health.
• Accepting my family members as they are, instead of wanting to change them in order to please me.

In this way, the practice of mindfulness has transformed the way I relate to the environment, to myself and to relationships. It brought a renewal to my mind, making me a more serene, confident person with a better quality of life.

Currently, I am a less impulsive and more reflective person. I live fully, am focused on the present and seek to enjoy each experience in life in a unique and special way.

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Leave your thoughts for Daniela in the comments below. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube to stay up-to-date with Low Entropy news!

Eri Ikezawa (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

All my life, I struggled with how I viewed silence. 

“How much do I value silence in my life? Does it make me feel lonely? Am I a quiet person or am I a loud person — that is, do I talk too much or too little? How do I feel when silence falls? How do I feel around people who are quieter than I am? How do I feel around people who talk more than I do?” 

These were only a few of the questions I had when I deeply considered what “quiet” and “silence” meant to me. 

In all candidness, when I was younger, I really struggled with the idea of “comfortable silence.” Nothing made me higher-strung and anxious than the idea of being around someone and allowing silence to fill the contours of the room, each corner and crevice shrouded by quietude, the echoes of our last spoken words eventually dissipating with the condensation from our breaths. I would frenetically search for a new conversational topic before the last one even had a chance to die, my brain scrambling listlessly through my mental directory for what to discuss next. 

Along the same vein, one of my biggest insecurities — especially during my times of adolescent angst — was the fact I am a chatterbox. There was an era in my life where I wished I was naturally a quieter person, entirely romanticizing the notion of being a quiet person. I often found myself wishing that I wasn’t so impulsively conversational, always incredibly passionate and zesty with topics that interested me, leaving myself regretful and ashamed of things I’d said long after the discussion was over. 

But as I have gotten older, I have grown to recognize that everything was all interconnected. Yes, I was chagrined about my proclivity for nattering away, but I was not recognizing the nuances in my conversational preferences; the reality being that I prefer not to indulge in small talk, finding myself prone to bouts of silence during occasions where the conversation didn’t delve deeper, an orator at a symposium falling silent if the volume of the theater rose to inhumane decibels. Looking back, I think perhaps I was more abashed about the times where I prattled on just to fill empty spaces instead of using my diction and, honestly, my time more wisely. 

Not only that, but I have truly settled into accepting my introversion and contentment with stillness. Through investing more effort into relationships where I feel safe, appreciated and comfortable, I have retired the harried and frenzied habit of needing to consistently be talking to prevent silence from falling. Instead of viewing quiet as a thunderstorm, omnipresent and imposing, I began to view it like snowfall. With someone whom you love and treasure, it gently and soundlessly glides through the air, peaceful and calm, cushioning the atmosphere with its serenity. 

I also changed my perspective on silence as a concept as well. Rather than viewing it as a clunky, awkward and unwanted entity, a flailing clown on stilts, I began to regard it with a more mature lens. I recognized that in the right context it was definitive evidence of the comfortability between individuals to feel tranquil without the exchange of words. It feels like letting my guard down in a way, shedding the burden of small talk or meaningless words and allowing the soft thrum of our genuine bond to carry the light-hearted quality of the moment between us. 

Silence, I think, in part, is a marker of genuine closeness — from my experience. When it falls, but it settles seamlessly like a satin bathrobe slinking onto the lines of your body, it tacitly indicates the level of easy intimacy between two people. That is, it can be incredibly lofty and overwhelming between individuals who aren’t comfortable with each other, a hulking bull elephant in the room. 

That being said, I have also grown to realize that silence has a profound way of speaking for itself. For example, the silence from people who have done wrong by you is truly a bold statement — a raucous crowd, completely muted on your television screen, holding up enormous signage of their lack of remorse. Or, on the other hand, it could be the compassionate response to someone who needs company but isn’t seeking out meaningless prattle. 

And sometimes, silence can be used as a vehicle to show respect. Whether it is the shrouding veil of soundlessness at a funeral to show deference to those who have passed on or providing someone a muted environment for them to express their frustrations or grievances without interruption, there is an element of courtesy, a banner of graciousness there. 

It all depends on context — and perspective. 

Though this is a broad statement, I think appreciating silence is a form of maturity. As much as we are social beings, elevated and overjoyed in the presence of our loved ones, as we grow older, there truly is something so incredibly serene about being in silence — no voices or external thoughts to muddle the moments, leaving us the ability to coast leisurely into the horizon. 

And to just exist. 

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My name is Eri Ikezawa and I have an extended minor in psychology and a major in linguistics. I’m still on the path to quelling questions about myself and the direction I want to head in, but in the meantime, I have always wanted to find a way to help others and contribute to a community dedicated to personal development and self-love.

Jessica Szczepaniak-Gillece (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

Being busy is supposed to be a virtue; it seems like everyone wants to share how busy they are, there’s always a side hustle or something new. I used to be one of those busy people, but then a devastating disease forced me to discover the rewards of slowing down. This lesson changed my entire life.

Since moving to Vancouver in 2017, my life had been a whirlwind of exploring a new city, making friends and doing all the things one does when getting to know a new place. I had a business I was building, I had good health and I had something, or multiple somethings, to do every day. Everything was busy and I loved it; being busy gave my life a sense of excitement and fun.

Then one day in November 2019, I sat in my doctor’s office awaiting test results. I wasn’t worried, I was healthy and happy. The doctor stared me in the eye and announced that I had breast cancer. In that one moment, everything changed. The doctor told me that I would have to learn how to rest to help manage my disease and that the treatments would take a lot out of me. After that, everything I did felt like waiting; I did some activities with friends, but then had surgery and spent a few weeks recovering. 

I remember being frustrated at not being able to do things I wanted. My world shrank to the sofa, where I would wait, watch TV and drink tea while I waited for my lumpectomy to heal. When it did, treatment began. There was chemotherapy first, where I’d sit in a chair for hours while the nurses pumped medicine into my veins. The literature I got said that some people could enjoy chemotherapy because it was a chance to rest. To be honest, I scoffed at it, and then my first treatment happened. As the nurses got out the tubes of cherry-red chemotherapy medicine and prepped the IV tube in my hand, I suddenly couldn’t be busy. I had brought in books and music to try and make it through, but then I realized I had no choice but to surrender.

I began to engage my senses and observe around me. There were peach curtains, a window with a view of City Hall and the mountains, the soft murmur of nurses talking, the hiss or beep of a machine here and there. I slowed my breathing like my counsellor had shown me, breath by breath. I remembered that she told me the paclitaxel chemotherapy medicine came from local yew trees, and that the land itself was helping me survive. I was overcome with a feeling of peace as I waited, heard the hum of the machines and fell into a meditative state, no longer waiting impatiently, but sitting there just being. This lasted until the three beeps that informed me that my chemotherapy was done.

After that, rest became a valuable part of my life. I learned how to let things go and treat myself with tenderness and compassion. Through several more sessions of chemotherapy, then the gruelling radiation treatments, I let myself rest at last. Instead of hurrying or trying to get something in at the last minute, I allowed myself to sit down, feel what I needed to feel and sleep when I needed to. I could nourish my body and spirit and simply do like I did during that first treatment.

While cancer is in the rearview mirror for me, I am grateful for the lesson it taught me about the benefits of slowing down. I treat my time differently now and I value the pauses as much as the action. I do this by incorporating a meditation practice into my life and going to therapy. I let myself rest whenever I need to and enjoy walks with friends instead of big events. It has been a change, but it is something that feels right for me. The slower life is a little harder in some ways; I miss certain aspects of my former life, but I am grateful for the lessons I have learned along the way. It’s a process and I’m happy to be here for it.

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Leave your thoughts for Jessica in the comments below. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube to stay up-to-date with Low Entropy news!

Grace Cheng (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

Are you one of the many people who struggle to sleep at night? You are not alone. Sleep issues are more common than you might think, with more than one in three people having trouble sleeping each night, whether it is due to insomnia, anxiety, depression or another sleep disorder. Sleep is an important part of human life that plays an important role in our physical and mental well-being. In this article, we will explore various strategies that can be employed to improve sleep quality and explore ways of learning to sleep well.

Understanding Your Body’s Sleep Signals

You receive signals from your body when it is time to sleep or wake up. By paying attention to these signals, you can establish a natural circadian rhythm. Our bodies may indicate sleepiness through many physical and mental cues, known as sleep pressures. Sleep pressures may include physical fatigue, difficulty concentrating, drowsiness or the feeling of listlessness. The moment you feel these pressures, it is time to begin preparing your body for sleep.

Establishing a Healthy Sleep Schedule

Establishing a regular bedtime and wake-up time can help you establish a healthy sleep schedule. A lack of consistency in your sleep schedule can disrupt your body’s natural ability to regulate sleep and wake cycles, leading to chronic fatigue and difficulty sleeping. You can establish a regular sleep schedule by going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, even on weekends and holidays. If you are having trouble falling asleep, adjust your bedtime accordingly, but maintain a consistent waking time.

Creating a Relaxing Sleep Environment

The environment in which we sleep can have a significant impact on our ability to obtain a quality night’s rest. Creating a relaxing sleep environment is an important strategy to consider. This includes maintaining a cool, dark and quiet atmosphere in the bedroom. Soft bedding and a comfortable mattress can also contribute to a conducive sleep environment. Wear comfortable sleep clothing, and use relaxation techniques such as progressive muscle relaxation.

Developing a Nighttime Routine

Adopting a nighttime routine signals to the body that it is time to relax and prepare for sleep. By engaging in relaxing activities such as reading a book, taking a warm bath or practicing deep breathing, one can unwind and let go of the stresses of the day. To enhance the quality of your sleep, you should refrain from engaging in stimulating activities, such as using electronic devices or consuming caffeine before going to bed.

Managing Stress and Anxiety

The effects of stress and anxiety can have significant impacts on sleep patterns. Stress management techniques, such as meditation and journaling, as well as regular physical exercise, can help reduce mental pressure and promote restful sleep. In addition, a mental health professional may be able to provide valuable guidance on the management of stress and anxiety.

Diet and Exercise

It has been shown that maintaining a healthy diet and participating in regular physical exercise can have a positive impact on the quality of sleep. A balanced diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins contributes to an overall sense of well-being. Furthermore, regular exercise has been associated with improved sleep patterns by reducing anxiety and stress, promoting relaxation, and regulating the sleep-wake cycle.

Improving your sleep is a journey that requires commitment and patience. By adopting healthy sleep habits, effectively managing stress and creating an optimal sleep environment, you can enhance the quality of your rest. Remember that everyone’s sleep needs and challenges are unique, so be willing to adjust and experiment to find what works best for you. Prioritizing your sleep is an investment in your health and well-being, and the benefits of a good night’s sleep extend to every aspect of your life. So go ahead, embrace the journey to better sleep, and wake up each day feeling revitalized and ready to conquer the world. Sweet dreams.

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Grace has an accounting and finance background. She enjoys reading, writing, listening to music, watching movies and playing sports.

Arsh Gill, Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

To briefly introduce myself, I am a third-year undergraduate student at the University of British Columbia. Hence, all-nighters, sleep deprivation and stress are prominent in my life, while I can also, shamefully, admit that rest and self-care are often put onto the back burner. 

With that being said, whenever I push myself to stay up late to complete my work or put in a few extra hours of studying, I can confidently say that it ruins my productivity for the next day. Although I always convince myself that I’m doing myself a favour by staying up late, I usually end up waking up extremely late the next day and being less productive because I feel so groggy and tired. In sum, what I thought was a good idea to get extra work done just ends up balancing out because of the lack of work I do the next day.

As all-nighters often force students to run on empty, in my experience, I have also found that the material I think I’m learning doesn’t stick around for long. As the night goes on, every sentence starts to blend into one, it becomes more difficult to memorize information, easy concepts start to not make any sense and the frustration, along with my anxiety levels, rise. With this usually comes a full-blown panic that I should’ve started my studying earlier and been more responsible in organizing my time. However, now that it’s too late to reverse time, I simply have to force myself to keep going and hope that I can do better next time. 

Pulling an all-nighter, especially prior to a daunting exam or assessment, in my experience, is never worth it. While during the night I think that those extra few hours of studying are only going to be beneficial to help me get down even more information, it never really works that way. By the time the actual exam rolls around, I am, without fail, feeling extremely tired, and have slowed cognitive functioning. The coffee is usually wearing off and the new cup I convince myself to brew no longer has an effect on me. Moreover, my body is aching and my sleep-deprived state has reduced my attention span and concentration. All of a sudden, because I am so tired, the exam becomes significantly more difficult for me. I find it harder to even remember basic facts, I can no longer critically analyze and apply knowledge to questions, and it becomes harder for me to draw connections between various concepts and lectures in the way that the question is prompting me to do.

I guess I should also add that I think how beneficial all-nighters are depends on whether the individual is a night owl or a morning bird. Therefore, I don’t want to speak on behalf of everyone with my bleak experiences pulling all-nighters. In a way, I should be thankful for being able to at least try to pull all-nighters, as those experiences helped me realize how much of a morning bird I am. Now, rather than pulling any other all-nighters, I have learned from my mistakes and instead organize my work prior. I plan out my schedules accordingly to pace my learning more beneficially to ensure I am getting a full night’s rest. With this new balanced schedule, not only can I avoid cramming before an exam, but I also have opportunities to ask my professor questions, which in turn allows me to have a greater understanding of the topics and perform better on my exams to achieve greater marks. 

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Leave your thoughts for Arsh in the comments below. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube to stay up-to-date with Low Entropy news!

Glory Li (she/her/hers), Volunteer Writer     

An adequate amount of rest is crucial for our overall health and well-being. Sleep especially helps with tissue repair, hormone regulation, and immune system maintenance. In our society today, most people have problems with insufficient sleep routines as everyone has so much to juggle in their daily lives. Therefore, we are told to sleep more, significantly more than what’s required on an irregular basis to “make up” for the lost amount of sleep. For example, on a Saturday, an entire twelve hours could be spent sprawled in our bed, trying to extinguish the feeling of exhaustion. Unfortunately and somewhat ironically, we have all noticed the exacerbated feeling throughout the afternoon as our eyelids are firmly closed in response to any external entertainment, not to mention demanding assignments. So the question is, why would we feel worse when we slept more than the regular, insufficient amount we usually take?

Excessive sleep can have a negative consequence on mental activity. Sleeping too much is a condition called hypersomnia, which is the opposite of insomnia where people have difficulty falling asleep. Unlike the latter, insomnia is extensively researched and studied in terms of its detrimental impact on health. However, it appeared most researchers overlooked or simply neglected hypersomnia because it wasn’t too much of a societal problem currently, but it doesn’t mean that this condition is something to be forgotten completely.

Here are some consequences and effects of hypersomnia on people:

1. Disruption of circadian rhythm is the disturbance of our biological clock that regulates our sleep-wake pattern. In stretching the sleeping time, other stages in a customized sleep cycle will have to be adjusted correspondingly, inducing an overabundance of deep sleep. During the prolonged time we are sound asleep, the brain receives a redundant amount of slow brain waves that might assist with the restorative quality of our mind but slows down our cognitive processing. Individuals will be experiencing concentration challenges, alertness reduction, and diminished absorption of information.
2. The lethargic, groggy feeling after a supposedly good-quantity rest is called sleep inertia. Because of hypersomnia, people need more time to shake off this feeling because it’s harder for a rapid transmission from rapid eye movement (REM) sleep to wakefulness. Through this transition, focus, memory, and motor skills are partially compromised in order to fully reactivate their functions.
3. Even with bed hour extension, it’s not equivalent to supreme sleep quality; in fact, hypersomnia decreases sleep quality. After hours of physical leisure, people express fatigue and lack of motivation especially in the face of intellectually daunting tasks. Characteristics like frequent awakenings, fragmented sleep, irregular sleep patterns, and constant dreaming all indicate poor sleep quality. As compensation, hypersomnia pushes the quantity up in exchange for its quality. 
4. Fluctuating mood and emotional regulation. Hypersomnia contributes to mood swings, irritability, and even symptoms of depression. The thought of lounging in bed for half a day may sound like a dreamy vacation, but the following consequence is an epic battle of post-sleep emptiness and a vulnerable sense of donating twelve hours to nothing but the mattress. While most of us would rather engage in some form of entertainment than spend unwarranted time in bed, some people may use hypersomnia as an excuse to escape complicated tasks or stressful situations in an unhealthy, intentional manner. This deliberate act could sprout into guilt, anxiety, self-denial, and a plummeting self-confidence. It’s especially true after the realization that people were extending sleep solely for the purpose of escaping reality.
5. Overall, hypersomnia will reduce daily productivity because individuals sleeping too much often feel constant daytime drowsiness, inducing a compelled feeling to take frequent naps throughout the day. They also suffer from the bottleneck of initiating tasks because somnolence works as an excuse to postpone and procrastinate, even for missions with great urgency. Nevertheless, on the other hand, if people start and attempt to work efficiently during this time, an inactive brain decelerates both mental and physical movement, so tasks take longer to accomplish anyway. Therefore, we should refrain from establishing the productivity standard unrealistically high immediately after sleep, the brain needs time to resume and adapt to its usual speed of functioning.

It’s important to emphasize sleep and rest are essential factors in health and standardized amounts of sleep are different according to each age group. Regardless, that’s not to exaggerate its necessity by doubling the amount we would normally require. Instead of producing the benefits we hoped to obtain, our mental cogitation does the opposite. In the current trend of underestimating the importance of sleep, there’s a swift amplification in rest awareness with countless studies and persuasions advocating and promoting sleep as the cornerstone for cognitive enhancement and mental rejuvenation. It’s possible the future problem would be the reverse of what’s happening now: people could be so convinced and brainwashed by the overemphasis on sleep that many will unhesitatingly delve into hypersomnia being self-deceived with the assumed advantages. This is not to say sleep is overrated nor to argumentatively decrease its value: rather it’s more of a premonition preventing the misunderstanding that oversleeping would be healthier when it’s not. The primary goal now is to avoid raising a new futuristic trend of hypersomnia similar to the modern trend of not getting enough sleep since both have proven to be detrimental to keeping a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, depending on individual needs, sleeping properly with a balanced amount each day is the only resting ritual to nurture our body that has ever existed and proved profitable.

Works Cited 

[1]Parker, Hilary. “Physical Side Effects of Oversleeping.” WebMD, 23 July 2008, www.webmd.com/sleep- disorders/physical-side-effects-oversleeping.

[2]Johnson, Jon. Oversleeping: Risks, Prevention, and Causes. 9 Sept. 2020, www.medicalnewstoday.com/ articles/oversleeping#causes.

[3]Pacheco, Danielle. “Sleep Inertia: How to Combat Morning Grogginess.” Sleep Foundation, 8 Sept. 2023, www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/sleep-inertia.

[4]“Can Too Much Sleep Cause Depression? Here’s What to Know.” Healthline, 21 May 2021, www.healthline. com/health/depression/too-much-sleep-depression.

[5]“Is Sleep Overrated?” The Healthy Choice Compounding Pharmacy, 19 Apr. 2017, www.thehealthychoice. net/is-sleep-overrated.

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