I’ve noticed that my ability to function without sleep has changed significantly over the last few years.

When I was in high school, I could pull an all-nighter almost on accident and make it through the following day with just a little bit of drowsiness here and there. Then as I entered college, it was still relatively easy to stay awake all night, whether it was working on a paper or just hanging out. I used to prefer going without sleep over waking up with very little sleep. But now as I near 22 years of age, it has become far more difficult to keep my eyes open all night if I choose to or need to.

Last night as I made the hour drive back to Lawrence between 1:15am and 2:15am, it was quite a struggle to keep alert on the road. I used to be able to make that drive when I was awake until 6am just fine. In fact, I remember my friend and I left Oklahoma at 10pm to drive to Paola, a trip around 4 hours, and I drove the whole way. We even added an extra hour to the trip to go to IHOP (because that’s what you do at that time of night).

I can only attribute this to getting older. I do not like losing any control over my sleep habits. Note that I never take any sort of energy drink, pill, or even soda. I suppose the brighter side to this is that I struggle a lot less with falling asleep at night when I want to.