Is it common for people in academia to experience prolonged lack of sleep and how to deal with it? Stuck in the lab again, for the third night in a row. I have never done three in a row I think I might just break a record. I cannot sleep, because the lab is super crammed and uncomfortable and I am afraid that someone will come in and take my belongings, I am afraid that I will fall sleep for so long that I will miss something so important that will ruin this semester, especially at a time when I beginning to see the light at the end of a long dark tunnel that has been both physically, emotionally and mentally draining.

Why not go home? Because home is an hour drive away and I am stuck working on multiple projects that lasts from 8 in the morning to 3 in the morning. Have to get up to school again at 9 am. Not much time left in my time zone. Should I go to sleep? Might just wake up in a lab full of people and look embarrassed. Should I stay awake? I will just wind up falling asleep in the lecture which is ten times worse!

But that's not the point I am asking this question. I am asking this question because I am the only one left in the lab. Eyes wide open from dusk till dawn, headed for a big crash. Can't form a full sentence, my mind is going blank. I am starting to wonder if it is just me. What is it about me that forces me to wonder the halls at 4 in the morning to go to the bathroom to brush my teeth? What forces me to drink energy drink at 11 pm at night and wonder how long before I will have my first heart attack? Can you call an ambulance over the internet, my phone is dead.

How do academicians view the subject of sleep when things left undone, problem left unsolved swirls around your mind? How to be productive, meet deadlines, and get adequate sleep?
There are three basic approaches to handling this:


Paul Erdos' approach.  Pros: it worked for Erdos, after a fashion.  Cons: you are not Erdos.
Crack, maybe have a psychotic episode, and leave academia.  Pros: it's the easiest course, and the one you're on now.  Cons: everything else about it.
Recognize that your career is not a sprint, but a marathon, and start triaging less important work in favor of sleep.  Working sleep-deprived is exactly as smart as working drunk, so you are already cutting your productivity, just in an uncontrolled manner.  Pros: Survival, possibly having a career.  Cons: you will have to say "no" to people.


The truth is, in academia there is an endless amount of work that you could be doing: you will never be done.  The only choice you get to make is whether you will choose the things that you do not do, or whether you will make self-destructive choices that mean those choices get made for you arbitrarily by the fracture points of your body and mind.