While the advice we heard during last week’s cafe was interesting and informative, a lot of it seemed hardly practical to implement in the daily life of a Cornell student.

Sleeping for under 9 hours a night (and usually far under at that) is much less of a choice as it is a result of rigorous academic standards on top of involvement in sports, the arts, or clubs. So when it is suggested that we get more sleep, it seems like an impossible suggestion. It just pulls me in another direction while I’m simultaneously being pulled toward my classes, my clubs, my job, my lab, classical guitar, my personal life, and all sorts of other directions. There is a limit to how many responsibilities a person can uphold, and sleep begins to dwindle in priority when compared to other activities.

But what is that pulling force exactly? For me it is my honest interest in each of the responsibilities I mentioned. Not to mention the expectations of grad schools on top of that. But sometimes I worry that people participate in certain activities only because of those expectations, and I think that is prevalent based on something very important that was mentioned during the talk. You can often walk through any crowded area on campus and hear students almost bragging about how little sleep they have gotten. You could also argue that this is the culture surrounding Cornell as a result of these high standards. So in my view, it seems meaningless to suggest students get more sleep when it is effectively out of our control.

Meditation, on the other hand, is a relatively small commitment with potentially large benefits such as allowing one to relax and increasing focus. However, some can’t even fit an hour in their schedules to walk to the session, participate for 30 minutes, and walk to their next destination. And even if they had the time, could they stay awake?

I think it is important to be aware of the sleepless culture surrounding Cornell, but to make a change would require much more than a simple statistic and suggestion.