Lucky for her, she got to leave class early and was rewarded with three minutes of fame on BBC’s ‘Bizarre ER.’ Unfortunately for Thompson, she had to endure pain and embarrassment. Unfortunately for me, when I should have been studying, I was wasting an additional hour laughing at Thompson’s expense on YouTube.

What if she could have kept her exhausted British lips sealed? Scientists have found yawning has several possible causes, including our revolutionary ties to cavemen who bared their teeth to intimidate their peers. As frightening as her canines may have been, intimidation wasn’t the factor causing Thompson to yawn.

Perhaps if she had stopped playing with her Kate Middleton Barbie doll a few hours earlier and instead spent those hours sleeping, all of the misfortunes I previously mentioned could have been avoided.

Some may think they can get by on a catnap and a shot of an energy drink, but most are incorrect. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that ‘short sleepers,’ individuals who only need five or six hours of sleep to function, only make up 1 to 3 percent of the population. In reality, the vast majority of adults need at least seven hours of sleep. A lack of sleep can bring down our immune system’s effectiveness and can also lower our ability to rid the body of a cold. A couple of extra hours of studying may seem necessary to avoid getting behind, but that pales in comparison to the effects of sickness and productivity in the classroom caused by lack of sleep. There’s nothing I love more than the soundtrack of sniffling and sneezing during class.

As the school year comes to a close and we have more on our plates than we can handle, sleep is usually put on the backburner. As we shift our priorities to amp up the learning, we are ironically doing the opposite. The Harvard Medical School reports that a lack of sleep can hinder the ability to commit new information to memory. Consequently, tiredness can prevent us from adequately preparing for final exams when we’re finally learning the information we never read during the semester.

However, preparedness for an exam is irrelevant if students are unsuccessful in the games of human Frogger I witness every day on Comstock Avenue on the way to class. Sleep can help keep us safe by making us aware and clear-headed throughout the day. From the number of people I see dashing across the street in front of cars during heavy traffic, hoping they don’t get hit, I have been led to believe that the admissions staff at Syracuse University only admits sleepless students. 

The bottom line is this: Television shows are almost always replayed after their 11 p.m. premiere, and contrary to popular belief, Facebook will still be there in the morning. Doing well on exams is important, but so is crossing the street without getting hit by a semi-truck. Avoiding sickness and having proper brain function is essential to reaching graduation. 

I cannot confirm the number of hours of sleep Thompson got the night before the day of the yawn, but I am going to bet it wasn’t enough. I don’t want to see any SU students with yawn-induced lockjaw making the trek to student health unless I have my camera on hand and their permission to turn them into YouTube stars.

Alicia Smith is a graduate student in the magazine, newspaper and online journalism program at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Her column appears every Thursday, and she can be reached at acsmit05@syr.edu. 

Published on April 13, 2011 at 12:00 pm