10 Risky Behaviors More Common in Sleepy Teens

[HuckleB]

http://healthland.time.com/2011/09/29/10-risky-behaviors-more-common-in-sleepy-teens/#ixzz1ZMHOuyhs

"More than two-thirds of teens aren't getting enough sleep on school nights and that's a problem. According to the latest study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sleepy teens were more likely to engage in risky health behaviors, compared with their 8-hours-a-night peers.

Research consistently shows that poor sleep is linked to negative health outcomes, like high blood pressure, weight gain and even early death. Sleeplessness during adolescence, largely fueled by computer and Internet use, has also been linked with an increased risk of depression and anxiety.

..."


----------------


It seems like parents don't get this, and teens certainly don't want to get this. Heck, eight hours is not really enough sleep for most teens as it is. The question of how this will affect this generation from a developmental standpoint is certainly left to be discovered. Still...

[emcguffie]

1. Why does high school start at 7:30 am?

In my town, it is the earliest. About 7:30. Then middle school begins around 8 am, and elementary school begins around 8:30. That's ass backward. Little kids are naturally up at six, aren't they?

My teenaged daughter has CFIDS, and the hours at her high school are killing her and wrecking her GPA. Last year she went from an honor student to nearly failing a couple of classes out of exhaustion.

And she doesn't have a social life to speak of. She comes home from school and either goes to sleep or starts her homework. If she goes to sleep, when she wakes up there aren't enough hours left in the day for her to do her homework and get to sleep on time. That's all she does. Sleep, school, homework, with little breaks here and there to read books and magazines of her choice, now and then.

I can't imagine why they set it up this way. Were they trying to discourage teens from doing things in the evening, like dating and such? Why? They certainly don't have time for that. They don't have time to babysit for money, either.

[HuckleB]

4. Babysitting and dating aren't what's keeping them up.

It's computers and televisions and video games and cell phones in their rooms.

Yeah, that schedule should be changed, but we can't ignore the fact that humans are keeping themselves up later than we did before the era of electric light and screens.

[emcguffie]

24. Yeah, that wasn't really my point.

I guess I was kind of thinking it's not unreasonable for kids in high school to have something of a social life. I know we did when I was that age. But they do not have time for it. Or my daughter certainly doesn't.

But then she's not healthy.

She can't do any extracurricular activities at all.

[HuckleB]

27. I think there's a lot to that issue.

For example, teens have so many more ways to waste time via technology distractions, that, I suspect, a good deal of the lack of time is due to that. Sports have also gone overboard, with practices seeming to have taken over the lives of kids who participate. Even theatre now means that kids in a play in high school will be at school until 10 or 11 at night for weeks on end.

Balance seems to have been lost.

[emcguffie]

30. I've been glad that my daughter isn't interested in theater.

It seems to take up huge amounts of time.

But, as I said, she's not well, and she can't manage anything else.

[HuckleB]

31. That has to make it more difficult for her.

I suspect that the heightened demands keeps some kids, with health issues, or mental health issues from participating. I've worked with several very good athletes who just didn't want to spend every single day focused on more practices, and they either went down to one sport or no sports. Most of them were much happier after they chose to cut their commitments. I played three sports in high school, and I did a few plays, too, but the commitment was never overwhelming. Now, it's impossible for a family to go on vacation in the summer, if one of the kids is involved in a sport. It's bizarre.

Take care.

[trumad]

71. My daughter---a Junior ---is directing her school play this year

Home at 6:30-7 each night and then boatloads of homework. It's killing her.

[trumad]

5. 7;10 for my kids.

[emcguffie]

25. What age? N/t

[trumad]

70. High school

[woodsprite]

11. My 6th grader needs to be at the bus stop by 6:10.

That is even earlier than my high schooler had to be at the bus last year. School starts at 7:15 and he arrives at after care at 3:00.

Scary thing: My son fell asleep coming home on the bus last week and nobody woke him up when they stopped at his daycare -- even the kid who gets off the bus with him. He was almost back at the bus depot before he woke up and realized that they weren't near daycare. He told the bus driver and the driver took him back to the daycare, thankfully.

We've signed him up for homework time at daycare (30-40 min of work after a good snack) since we don't get out of work to pick him up until 5:30 hoping that he can knock most of it out and we'll just have to check it at home so he can relax and play after dinner before bed.

[emcguffie]

23. Oh my god.

Do you live far from his school?

Catherine did homework at daycare back in elementary school and maybe early middle school.

In our town, I don't understand why the high school kids are the earliest ones, when little kids naturally seem to wake up early. ANd in more recent years they've figured out that high school aged kids actually need more sleep, not less. I would have to assume that when they designed this kind of schedule they believed high school kids needed less sleep. But it's just the opposite.

SHe gets mountains of homework, too. Mountains and mountains.

[snooper2]

18. What's wrong with going to bed at 10 and getting up at 6?

[HuckleB]

19. It's hard to change back to the time zone one actually exists in...

[Xithras]

22. My 3 kids, including two teens, have a 9 pm bedtime.

9PM on school nights, 10PM on weekends. During the summer, it's 10PM every day.

We don't require them to sleep, but the rules are simple: Doors closed. No electronics. No cell phones. Roof lights off (lamplight only). They can stay up reading or doing homework if they want, but they rarely do. They're usually in their rooms by 9, and sound asleep by 9:30.

A lot of parents are shocked when they hear that, and my foster daughter was FLOORED when he first moved in and fought against it, but it works out best for everyone. Even my foster daughter later became a fan when she realized that getting up was easier and that her grades were improved. My kids are up and out of bed on their own by 6AM every day.

When my daughter turned 16. she tried to argue the bedtime thing a bit. We decided to let her stay up until 11 instead. She immediately began oversleeping in the morning, her grades slipped, and she started napping during the day. We quickly moved her back to a 9PM bedtime (yeah, that was a FUN conversation), and she went right back to being a morning person.

The human mind evolved to go to sleep shortly after it gets dark, and to wake up shortly after first light. While our modern technology allows us to ignore those limits, it turns out that the brain still works best when we try to mimic that natural pattern.

[emcguffie]

28. I agree with you, in theory.

My daughter has way too much homework.

But if the town can let elementary school kids start school an hour later, why not high school kids start an hour later? Especially since they now know that high school kids need more sleep?

Back when she was in elementary school and I was still commuting to work (I'm on disability now, unfortunately), that time was actually too late for us. We had to drop her off (we lived too close for the bus to pick her up) too early, and we had to pay for pre-care. Otherwise, I couldn't catch a train and get to work by 10 am.

A high school aged kid, at least a responsible one, could be left home to catch the bus on their own. I would never do that with a little one.

[tabbycat31]

33. high schools typically start earlier due to sports

to accommodate practices in the afternoons.

My sister and I both did papers on teen sleep deprivation and we both argued that high schools should start later. I have always been a night owl (if I had nothing else to do, I go to sleep around 1 AM and get up around 10--- fat chance now though as I work 12 hour days).

My theory is to do the sports practices in the morning before school.

[jmowreader]

40. When I went to school, the HS basketball team practices were before school

The town I grew up in had two high school basketball teams (boys and girls), two junior high basketball teams, a wrestling team, one gym with a wood floor and one gym with a concrete floor. The high school had no gym of its own because they didn't know how to build one where the high school is. (There's one there now. It's sitting on 75-foot-high concrete pilings.) So, the high school practiced in the morning--one week you went to the wood gym, the next to the concrete gym--and junior high practiced after school.

[HuckleB]

58. A lot of schools, today, still have practices before school.

Of course, they continue them after school, too.

:shrug:

[HuckleB]

32. +1

[Hippo_Tron]

36. My parents had those exact same rules with me, I still could never sleep

I remember getting in bed at 9 and never really being able to fall asleep until 10:30-11:00. I can't remember but I think their rules were more strict and I wasn't even allowed to read in bed after 9pm. Maybe they should've allowed for that, as reading before bed can induce sleepiness.

[Xithras]

39. That's why I never banned it.

Reading helps you relax, which is a good thing. Same with the lighting. I require that the overhead be off, but they can have their lamps on. Why? Because reduced lighting also induces sleepiness. As does a lack of external stimuli (phones, internet, noises down the hall).

I guess it's less of a bedtime, and more of an enforced bedroom "quiet time"...that normally just leads to sleep.

The problem with your parents rule, IMHO, is that it expects the teen to transition from "wide awake and active" to "sleeping in the dark" immediately. That isn't realistic, and simply results in an awake kid sitting in bed staring at the ceiling. My method provides more of a cool town time, where they have time to transition from one to the other on their own schedule.

[gkhouston]

42. My kid's still in elementary school but we've always had a lengthy

"ramping down" time before we expect her to drop off. It works, and although she sometimes grumbles when we tell her it's "toothbrush time", a reminder that she won't have any reading time if she doesn't go to bed now always works.

[Hippo_Tron]

48. Those were the rules when I was a child, bedtimes were out the window by the early teen years

Granted, if I was up past 11, my dad would walk into my room and say that I'd better be doing homework if I'm still up.

But I just find it weird that even as a 6 year old, I remember that I couldn't fall asleep at 9, nor was I really able to get up out of bed at 7 without feeling tired. I think I tended toward the nocturnal side, even them.

[HuckleB]

55. If you hadn't lived in a world with electricity, that would not have happened.

That's the part of the equation that everyone misses.

[Hippo_Tron]

59. I dunno, when I visted Monticello...

The tour guide told us that Jefferson would stay up late in his study reading by candlelight. Granted, late for him may not have been as late as most people stay up now.

But I don't think electricity is the only factor. I think lifestyle is another factor. I bet if I were one of Thomas Jefferson's slaves who were doing manual labor all day, I'd probably sleep and rise (don't really have a choice on that one) with the sun. But if I were reading and writing all day like Jefferson, I probably wouldn't.

In the pre-electricity days, most people were doing manual labor all day long. Today, most people sit at a desk all day.

[HuckleB]

60. Aren't anecdotes about the elite, fun!?

Electricity appears to be the main factor, or so research indicates. The body is not the only thing that regulates sleep. That brain works hard, and it needs rest.

[riderinthestorm]

38. I would speculate that your kids have a fairly free schedule then after school

On a normal "no extra curriculars" day, my daughter gets out of school at 2:30 pm and rides the bus home for an hour (we're rural and she gets carsick so she can't do her homework on the bus). She's at her "sports practice" (she's a very competitive rider) by 4 pm and rides for 2.5 hours. She inhales her dinner and is showering and getting her next day's school stuff together ready by 8 pm to START her homework.

Most days she's not even finished with her homework til 10:30 or so (she's a straight A student).

Now of course, she's in the school play so she has rehearsal til 5 pm daily. So add on another 2.5 hours unto the whole routine and most nights she isn't in bed til midnight.

Yes midnight. And she does NO socializing or computer time or anything else.

Her bus comes at 6:45 am and she is DRAGGING to get up at 6:30 am. It's a daily nightmare to rouse her.

I have no idea how you manage to get your teens into bed by 9 or 9:30 unless they have a short bus ride, no extracurriculars, or limited homework. My daughter is slammed. My 23 year old (who went to school in a different school district but faced the same kind of routine) was even more slammed as she was an overachiever and was in a ton of OTHER clubs as well as all the rest.

[Xithras]

46. Except for the bus ride, you're wrong.

My daughter is a HS senior with a full load of AP courses and plenty of homework. She also plays both rec league soccer and is on her schools varsity soccer team, so she practices 6 days a week betweent he two teams. My son plays rec league soccer, is in the high school marching band, and is an active Boy Scout. He's in a couple AP classes as well. My younger son is still in elementary school, but it's a similar story. School, scouts, soccer. My foster daughter, before she moved out, maintained much the same schedule.

The older two don't take buses since my daughter can drive, but other than that, they're running nonstop from the time school gets out (2:40) to 9PM.

There have been plenty of nights when I've called quiet time at 9PM and they've whined that they're not ready yet. It doesn't matter, the rule is fairly inflexible. We only make exceptions for the occasional night game when my daughter might be playing soccer, or my son might be marching in a football game that goes late (we have one of those tonight actually, and the game will go to 11).

Either way, I don't actually stop them from doing homework. They can stay up and do it after 9 if they want...with no radio, no cellphone, and no computer, in their bedroom. My kids are also aware of one other important stipulation: If the grades slip, we cut extracurriculars. If there isn't enough time to do everything they want to do in a day, AND get their homework done, AND get into their rooms for bed by 9, we'll start cutting things so they WILL be able to do it. I'm not going to let my kids run themselves into the ground for these activities. If they can do everything they want in the time they have during the day, they can do it. If they can't get everything squeezed in, they'll have to cut something.

All in all, we really don't have a problem with it. There are occasional conflicts, and they occasionally have to wake themselves up early to finish homework they couldn't finish the night before, but it mostly seems to work well. Even my foster daughter, who came to us from a household where the teenagers routinely stayed up until midnight or 1AM, adapted to it very well after a short transition. The sleep improved both her grades AND her disposition :)

[riderinthestorm]

47. I am angry at her 2 hour daily commute. It sucks the life out of our lives

My kids are/were also in advanced classes (my current HS daughter took AP classes at the high school last year while she was still in middle school). I could drive her so we could cut out some of this damn commute but of course she needs to be driven right during chore times. She gets her license in a year and I will happily turn over the keys. I suspect though that she'll just use the extra time saved from commuting to add on another intense activity.

I dunno. Obviously your kids can figure it out but mine is majorly slammed and never gets to bed before midnight. And I KNOW she isn't slacking. She doesn't even have a cell phone so it's not as though she's texting her time away. She's just crushed trying to fit it all in. She's doing it but obviously only 2 extracurriculars can fit. She gave up band/music this year since she couldn't figure in the practice and lessons anymore. I am heartsick about that.

[emcguffie]

26. Nothing at all, if you're healthy.

But at high school age, I think it's reasonable that they begin to develop a social life. I think it's kind of more normal to let a high school kid stay up past 10 pm than a seven-year-old. So why set it up backwards?

Catherine can't get her homework done by 10 pm. She has many hours of homework to do every day, it seems.

I may be exaggerating a tiny bit. She does take breaks, and she might do something else for a while. But she often doesn't, and can't get all her work done until much later.

[Puregonzo1188]

20. Well, when I went to high school, which was not that long ago, school started at 7:17.

Not 7:15. Not 7:20. But 7:17.

If you rode the bus it left sometimes before 6:30.

It was an ungodly hour to be up.

[mopinko]

41. +1,000,000,000

[JVS]

45. So that the parents of young children can deposit them at school on their way to work...

and not have to worry about them being unattended too long after school.


This means the bus schedule has to start with older kids.

It sucks, but that's why.

[qb]

2. My 6th and 9th graders both support the concept of an elective called "Naptime"

I think it's a great idea... increase the school day by 30 minutes and insert naptime after lunch. Kids could bring their own mats just like in kindergarten! I think it would greatly increase student performance & learning in their afternoon classes.

[Occulus]

3. We used to call that "study hall" when I was in school

:D

[grasswire]

6. the teens that I have lived with (now 19 and 20)

.....generally went to bed after midnight, and with earbuds playing music and cel phones at hand. No wonder that they are sleep deprived. (I had no say in that aspect of their lives, it was a multi-generational family home) They were not only sleepy, but regularly sick with sore throat, URI, even pneumonia.

[HuckleB]

7. Yeah, it's become a cultural "norm," and it has not been addressed as the health issue it is.

I see teens who are depressed and anxious, and they say they want help, but they don't want to have to give up the technology and go to bed earlier.

[Neurotica]

8. Our high schools start later than our middle and elementary schools

Elementary generally starts around 7:50, middle at 8:30 and high school at 9.

Sounds good at first, and seems to make sense given teenagers' natural body clocks. The problem, however, is that the high school kids get home so late. If my son has no activities, he gets home at 4:15, and he has a very short commute to/from school.

Add after-school clubs, evening sports practices/games, and many hours of homework and studying, and you have problems. Even though they go to school later in the morning, they are still not getting enough sleep. My son is pretty much exhausted by midnight, and the work is starting to pile up.

[phantom power]

9. When I was a teenager, I could sleep 12-14 hours given the opportunity.

This was probably healthy, regardless of what my dad thought about it

[HuckleB]

10. Many teens seem to need that much, at least off and on...

[Odin2005]

12. The real solution is to start school later in the morning.

But that will never happen because all the anti-intellectual idiots will bitch that it will interfere with school sports, and that is far more important to them than their kids learning.

Oh and quit dumping great gobs of useless busywork on kids for homework.

[Jamastiene]

21. That makes the most sense. n/t

[emcguffie]

29. From your lips to the ears of you know who. N/t

[seabeyond]

13. i get it. i am concerned. son's cc practice over 6 pm, and mornings start 6am

he gets up an hour before practice at 5.

has to do the studying and homework sometime. then the down time. then always being really bad at sleep.

i hear ya....

thanks for article, gonna read.

[Hippo_Tron]

61. Two practices a day for CC at that age is ridiculous

Especially when it inevitably takes away from sleep, which the body needs to recover from intense physical activity. We had a guy on our team whose performance on the course suffered drastically because of over-training. He would go do long distance runs after running a meet. The coach told him that he needed to cut it down but he didn't listen. As a result, his time at state his senior year was almost 2 minutes slower than his PR.

[seabeyond]

69. i go a little with you on this. i was competitive swimming and we had two a day

his work out is about our level. the coach is pretty well informed. he mixes it up with weights, water exercise, sprint runs, distance....

where i really had the issue is after track last spring they did not have a break thru the summer this year. we got a couple months in the fall, off.

[grasswire]

14. there is a prevalent junk idea floating out there that teen bodies...

...naturally function better at later hours of the morning. I have heard smart people tout this notion, not recognizing (or admitting) that the reason they do function better then is because of electronics and the cultural milieu that keeps them thinking that the wee hours are the cool hours to be awake.

I object to the idea that the world of education needs to adjust to their acquired pattern. Here's why: the workplace isn't going to accommodate it, and they should be preparing for the workplace.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. And of course, the REAL purpose of school is to prepare kids to be

cogs in the machine.

[HuckleB]

17. I do have issues with the research that claims to have discovered this to be "true."

It does not appear that electronics were taken into account. Until we begin to realize that humans did not evolve to deal with electric light, computers etc..., we will probably continue to do harm to many of our brains.

[Hippo_Tron]

34. The workplace doesn't dismiss at 3:00-3:30pm, either...

My first job out of college was a political campaign. We started at 7:30am and we worked 12 to 14 hour days. Maybe once every couple of weeks, we'd take off "early" and go home at 6pm. I seldom had a class before 11am in college. I managed to survive without a whole lot of "conditioning".

[AndyTiedye]

35. I Didn't Have All That When I was a Teenager and I Still Was Sleepy in the Morning. Still Am

There is a prevalent junk idea that everybody should get up at Oh-dark-thirty, just because.

Early to bed and early to rise still leaves me sleepy in the morning. Always has. I'm not a morning person.

People are different.

I object to the idea that the world of education needs to adjust to their acquired pattern. Here's why: the workplace isn't going to accommodate it, and they should be preparing for the workplace.

It is not necessarily an acquired pattern, and some workplaces DO accommodate it. Flextime rocks!

[mopinko]

43. they won't be adolescents with growing brains then.

most of this stuff mitigates by the time they are 18.
i object to the idea that things should be done the way they have always been done in the face of scientific evidence.
kids are committing suicide. suicide. kid. suicide.
what the hell is worth that?

i don't mean to sound snippy, i just have a kid who was nearly one of those statistics.

[grasswire]

49. I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about when you say...

..."they have always been done in the face of scientific evidence."

There is no scientific evidence that teenagers need to sleep late and start their day late for reasons of physical requirements. There is only a flawed theory that does not take into account the fact that the reason they don't function well in the morning is because of the cultural environment encouraging them to stay awake later at night than previous generations did.

I am sorry to hear of your situation with your kid. Very sorry.

[mopinko]

52. do you not believe in circadian rhythms?

or do you just not believe that they act up in adolescents?

[HuckleB]

66. Uh, circadian rhythms are actually poorly understood at best.

The history of humans is much better understood, and technology cannot be ignored as a HUGE factor in the equation.

Until we do address that, the rest of the equation remains impossible to understand.

[mopinko]

72. i can't argue that.

for a long time farm kids had a much lower crime/dropout rate than city kids, and i always thought that their adherence to the day night cycle was the reason.

but i also have a kid with a free running circadian clock, and i believe it is real, for sure. as an adult he keeps it in check with melatonin and a fierce (late blooming) sense of order. but when he was younger you could reach out and touch that thing.

[grasswire]

68. sure I do

But I know that many adolescents are acting in ways that are threatening their future, by allowing social and electronic stimuli to dominate hours that would be better spent in sleep. I've lived with them. I've seen it. Lack of sleep regularly led to illness, which led to (for example) missing a team athletic event or (for example) missing two or three first period classes a week, which led to failing classes.....etc.

[HuckleB]

57. Yup. Which is why it's time for parents and society to moderate technology.

MODERATION!

[Odin2005]

44. That is quite ignorant and wrong. It's not a "junk idea".

Delayed Phase Sleep Syndrome is a common and underdiagnosed issue with teans and it has NOTHING to do with electronics and everything to do with our inborn Circadian Rhythm. When I was a teen it was impossible for me to fall asleep before 1AM, but after 1AM I would fall asleep just fine.

[grasswire]

50. ah yes

....but only 3 in 2000 people are sufferers of this condition, according to the medical literature. So to claim that all those teenagers who are sleep deprived have DPSS is too broad an assertion and not supported by science.

Many of them just are too socially stimulated to allow themselves sufficient rest.

I'm a nightowl, too. Brightest after midnight and love working then. But I have trained myself to go to sleep at 11.

[Odin2005]

53. If you can train yourself to go to bed at 11 then you are NOT a night owl.

I'M a night owl. I simply cannot fall asleep before about 1AM no matter how much I try, and no matter how much I refrain for stimulating activities.

[NYC Liberal]

63. Neither can I and no amount of "training" or forcing myself

has changed that.

[HuckleB]

65. So, you're in the wrong time zone.

Move to the right time zone.

[NYC Liberal]

67. Huh? nt

[HuckleB]

73. Think about it.

[antigone382]

51. From studies I've read, teens do naturally do better when they go to bed later and wake up later.

And this predates technology. As I understand it, the studies were conducted in controlled situations, where access to technology wouldn't have been a problem. In my own life, I know I have become a much earlier riser as I've gotten older, and not through any conscious change. If anything, technology (and my own access to and participation with that technology) has increased. My natural wake up time used to be 10:00 or 11:00 AM, if I allowed it (and this was even when I was homeschooled and didn't have anything more than radio and network TV. Now I'm awake at the latest by 8:00 or 9:00, and usually by 7:00. Several of my friends are the same way.

I read the studies I'm talking about a long time ago...I don't remember exactly when or where, so I can't reference them. But I seem to remember some connection was made between the way bands of humans used to operate, and the potential evolutionary advantages to a later bedtime/wake-up time for young adults, versus young children or older adults.

[HuckleB]

56. No, it does not predate technology.

The studies that make that claim, do not address that issue.

Teenagers went to bed at seven or eight and got up at four or five to work the fields for thousands of years.

Somehow that reality just disappears amid the lights of night.

[gkhouston]

62. Just because they did it doesn't mean they did it well.

My dad got up early to work the farm because he had to. (No electricity for some of those years.) He got up early when he was in the Army because he had no choice. After he married, he still got up around 4:30 because he's a sluggish grouch for the first hour or two of the day and my mom is perky and talkative the moment she wakes up. He figured out early on in their marriage that if he wanted to stay married, he needed to force himself to get up at least an hour before she did. Despite arising early, he never bothered going to bed before 11:30 because he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep.

[HuckleB]

64. Uh, anecdotes are nice, but the reality is that most people did it quite well.

Unless you're going to pretend that evolution didn't happen...

[Lucian]

54. School isn't about getting kids ready for a job.

It's about giving them an education by allowing them to think in ways they wouldn't think otherwise. It's about preparing them to think critically and getting them ready for more education at a higher level if they choose to do so.

It's NOT about preparing them for the working world.

[xchrom]

15. recommend

[ellisonz]

37. I had zero period for French class. 7 AM. Sharp. My French still sucks.

Marching band in the fall went to 530 - concert band in the spring often ran late too. I was in charge of loading and unloading of instruments. I was the newspaper editor and photographer. Lunch was a half hour. That's a ten hour day. I took a total of 6 AP courses - would have been more but I am awful at calculus/physics and my school didn't offer some of them. I started posting on DU my sophomore year and would generally go to sleep after Politically Incorrect w/Bill Maher ended at like 1230. I graduated with an unadjusted GPA of 3.5 running on generally less than 6 hours of sleep. I also volunteered for and canvassed for the Dean campaign - including a trip for which I pulled myself out of school to go to Tucson and canvas. I'm an overachiever.

You can do it - but in college I quickly developed sleep problems and became less productive. Spent way to much time perfecting my billiards skills.