April 7, 2025
By Isabella Bartlett
Managing Editor
As the clock strikes midnight, senior Ariana Feliciano feels her eyelids getting heavy as the pressure of an impending deadline keeps her awake. Like many high school students, Feliciano, who takes four college-level courses, said she feels trapped in a cycle of late nights and tired mornings.
“My first all-nighter was at a sleepover with my cousins years back. We did it just for fun,” Feliciano said. “Since high school, though, I have pulled them because I needed to finish an assignment or study.”
Feliciano is not alone in this struggle.
A 2018 survey conducted by the Better Sleep Council, an organization that does research and provides educational resources to foster better sleep schedules, revealed that only 20% of teenagers get the eight hours of sleep recommended by the National Sleep Foundation. According to the Better Sleep Council, the main reason students stay up late is homework, with 34% of teens spending 20 or more hours a week on at-home assignments.
Feliciano said staying up late negatively impacts her the next morning, as it is hard for her to remain awake. Nonetheless, she said she waits until a deadline is approaching to complete her assignments.
“I work better under stress, so I always find myself staying up to finish my work. I feel that I work faster and I’m able to write more when I feel pressured,” Feliciano said.
She said filling out college applications put an extra strain on her schedule in the fall.
“The whole process was during color guard season, too, so trying to do any work on my applications was hard because of the practices and the [football] games,” Feliciano said.
She said that despite the stress of filling out college applications, her effort paid off, as she was accepted into six of the universities she applied to and was waitlisted for one.
Senior Nancy Attia, who takes three college-level courses, said she started staying up late and pulling all-nighters last year to balance the workload from three Advanced Placement classes with extracurricular activities she joined to enhance her college applications. She said her after-school commitments and homework have led her to stay up past midnight most nights.
“I work better under stress, so I always find myself staying up to finish my work. I feel that I work faster and I’m able to write more when I feel pressured.”
“[During swim season,] I had to go to swim practice… after school. Sometimes I have to stay after school for clubs, sometimes I have to do community service or tutoring, and I always have a lot of homework,” Attia said.
She said she does not enjoy staying up late but feels she must to complete all her assignments.
“If you have [activities] after school, and you come home late and… you have to do your work, then it’s helpful to stay up and do what you need to do,” Attia said. “But if you don’t have to stay up, I don’t think you should.”
Freshman Sebastian Lupinski, who is enrolled in five honors classes, said he rarely stays up past 9:30 p.m. because he wants to avoid the negative impacts of sleep deprivation.
“Sometimes [staying up] can be helpful, but not for me. I feel most productive in the morning. [Staying up late can] help in extreme cases like finishing an urgent project or studying for a major test,” Lupinski said. “But in general, it’s not worth it because it hurts focus and productivity the next day.”
Lupinski said schools should do more to help students maintain a healthy sleep schedule.
“[Teachers] can give more balanced deadlines, spread out major assignments and teach time management skills so students don’t feel pressured to cram everything at once,” Lupinski said.
Health teacher Mrs. Decker said busy people might think staying up late and pulling all-nighters makes them productive, but the health effects should deter them.
“Staying up most of the night is not helpful no matter the circumstance. [It] can lead to poor concentration, mistakes at work or school and many other cognitive issues long-term,” Decker said.
According to Houston Methodist, one of the nation’s leading health care systems and academic centers, the sleep deprivation caused by all-nighters can lead to heart disease, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. All-nighters can also have short-term effects, which include difficulty concentrating or forming memories and a reduced ability to follow directions or make decisions.
Decker said students can avoid going to bed late and pulling all-nighters by setting aside time each day for test preparation rather than cramming before an assessment.
“One study technique that helped me in school [was] reading over my notes every night. This helped because the night before the test, I was already familiar with the content,” Decker said. “Additionally, making one or two flashcards a night after reading over my notes was helpful. I would review those flashcards before the test.”
Decker said she understands why students stay up late to study but believes the costs outweigh the benefits.
“You are going to have to pay for it later another way, and it’s just not going to be worth it,” said Decker.
