To sleep, perchance . . .

His head tilted back, his nose pointing straight up at the ceiling. His eyes closed, and his mouth opened. A sort of wheezing noise — not quite a snore, but certainly more than just deep breathing — filled the classroom. No one there could deny the obvious: He was asleep. Catching forty winks. Packing back the z's. Serving a salutation to Señor Sandman. And in the middle of my precept, no less.

Now, being a grad student preceptor is an inherently awkward business. Here we are, a bunch of geeky 20-somethings barely out of college ourselves, presuming to assume authority over a dozen undergrads. So when one of my students fell asleep in precept the other week, I wasn't sure what to do. It wasn't as if I hadn't dozed off in class many a time myself — and not just during the undergrad era of my education. A moralizing rebuke in front of everyone would thus be an act of pure hypocrisy. So, after the bleary-eyed sophomore awoke of his own devices and the precept came to a close, I gently chided the sleeper.

"Eight hours a night, man," I said. "Gotta get those full eight hours."

He laughed, and apologized. He and I both knew it was nothing out of the ordinary. No one here seems to get those full eight hours, myself included. At a place like Princeton, who can afford to waste time on sufficient sleep? There's always that last question on the problem set to finish, that last guest on Conan O'Brien to watch, that last 'Prince' column of the semester to write. An embarrassing narcolepsy or an addiction to caffeine are the only real options remaining.

But Princeton's pillow-aversion might have far more profound effects than simply lining the pockets of the Small World barristas. The cover story of the most recent Princeton Alumni Weekly outlines the disturbing rise of mental health problems on campus, blaming the ever-increasing stress inevitable when you're at the top of the socio-academic totem pole. According to a 2000 survey, nearly half of all Princetonians reported experiencing depression so severe it inhibited their functioning, and almost a quarter said that mental health problems had affected their academic performance. The Counseling Center has admirably responded with greatly expanded services. If the inherent stress of Princeton life is to blame for all this misery, however, there's very little that anyone can do to improve the grim condition of the Princeton psyche.

The inevitable stress of Princeton life may be bad, but great stress combined with profound sleep deprivation is a recipe for disaster. Although a quick search of the Net provides voluminous scientific confirmation, none of us needs an advanced statistical survey to know that we're all much better at handling life's unavoidable potholes on a good night's rest. I wonder what percentage of those all-too-many Princetonians who reported severe mental health problems were brought low primarily by a lack of sleep. How many were suffering from real, clinical depression, in other words, and how many were suffering from simple exhaustion?

And unlike with the inherent stress of Ivy League life, there's something very straightforward that each of us can do to help fight sleep deprivation. You might even want to try it yourself some time. It's called sleep.

To be sure, the campus culture hardly values such nightly non-activity. Students may or may not be the sort of anti-intellectual philistines about whom there's been so much hand-wringing in recent months, but they certainly do both work hard and play hard. Sleep is tossed by the wayside; Princetonians take a perverse pride in pulling repeated all-nighters, and in getting by on three hours a night for all of midterm or exam week.

On the other hand, we're all good individualists here, and are firmly convinced that what goes on among consenting adults in the privacy of their bedrooms is nobody's business but their own. So try being a real nonconformist for once, and go to bed at a reasonable hour this evening. You'll be glad that you did, and so will your preceptor. Michael Frazer is a graduate student in the Politics Department. He can be reached at mfrazer@princeton.edu.