An all-nighter is known to be a whole night of sleep deprivation; people will do this as a way to complete any work or even in an attempt to fix their sleep schedule. 

“Say you have not been able to fall asleep on time, pull an all-nighter so that you fall asleep quickly and easily the following night.”

This is a popular practice among college students to cope and deal with the workload of higher education.

It is widely encouraged that people abstain from doing this but why do people keep doing it if it is so bad for you? According to research done by the University of California, the act may lead to a feeling of short-term euphoria alongside making you feel cranky and irritable.

“When functioning correctly, the brain finds the sweet spot on the mood spectrum. But the sleep-deprived brain will swing to both extremes,” said Matthew Walker, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study.

Many motivation gurus encourage this behaviour and sources will even give tips on how to ensure your success—convincing you that the secret to the life of your dreams comes from less sleep and sometimes even no sleep at all.

You may feel a sense of intense productivity and efficiency as the sun begins to come up and may even feel ready to take on the day, and right when you think it’s all good, here comes the crash.

You will find yourself experiencing very high levels of irritability, fatigue, daytime sleepiness, headache, impaired focus and productivity over the course of the day. As it relates to using it as a means to ‘fix’ one’s sleep schedule, all-nighters can worsen your sleep patterns.

Ongoing lack of sleep has been closely associated with hypertension, heart attacks and strokes, obesity, diabetes, depression and anxiety, decreased brain function, memory loss, weakened immune system, lower fertility rates and other psychiatric disorders.

Healthline.com suggests that the brain itself will even begin to shut down for ‘microsleep’ throughout the day, as during these episodes, you’ll fall asleep for a few to several seconds without realising it.

With all that said, is it okay to pull an all-nighter every now and then?

Well, according to the Sleep Foundation, all-nighters have extensive and potentially serious negative effects. Sleep is vital to the proper functioning of the body, and completely skipping a night of sleep can harm your thinking and cognition, your mood and emotions, and your physical well-being. And though there are beneficial aspects to it, it is best to do it as little as you can and avoid circumstances that will lead you to do it such as poor time management, stress or even peer pressure.

After all, “Sleep is the single most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day.”

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