I write this article having stayed up until 4am last night binge-watching Black Mirror on Netflix (which, as a side note, I would definitely recommend as a show) – so that makes me either much more or much less qualified to comment on what a normal sleeping pattern in Cambridge should be. I suppose you’ll decide after reading this which one of those I am.

I recently told someone who’d slept from 2am until midday that they’d slept for 'just about enough hours', but that the hours they’d chosen were ‘interesting’. He found this mildly amusing, but it did get me thinking about how incredibly upside down and irregular our sleeping patterns can become as students here. I certainly found that my previous love for sleep began to be sidelined from the very beginning of first-year in order to make way for work but also for relaxing. I struggle to believe that this would be considered quite so normal at other universities – but that might just be the self-centred theory of a Cambridge student.

I’ve discussed with friends before – in conversations I’m sure they found truly scintillating – the merits of sleeping for various numbers of hours. I maintain that sleeping for two hours can be less painful the next day than sleeping for five; an idea I’ve based on presumably very misguided ideas about ‘running on adrenaline’. I feel it’s important to clarify at this point that I really do love sleeping. As my parents can attest, I spent the lion’s share of this summer in bed, asleep. And yet, the minute I’m back in Cambridge, sleep is often the first thing to be sacrificed when life gets busy.

I heard someone give advice the other day along the lines of never going to sleep later than 11:30pm, and I genuinely thought that was utterly unrealistic and ridiculous. But clearly it shouldn’t be. There is surely a way to strike the perfect balance between staying on top of the workload, having a life and catching up on sleep at a reasonable hour every night. Yet, even if there is this perfect way, would we want to do it? Would we be willing? I’m not sure I would.

A large part of the experience of being at uni is the independence, the ability to live by your own rules and, as a part of that, your own body clock. I’d be the first to admit that during the eight to nine hectic weeks I spend here each term, my body clock is by any normal standard way off. But I’m healthy, happy and at this point, not too stressed – although by the time you read this there’s a good chance I’ll be in the midst of an inconceivable number of translations and essays.

So I do love sleep – but when it comes to choosing between watching quality drama on Netflix until well into the morning, and sleeping for an extra few hours, as long as I’m healthy and can lie in until 12pm the next day, I think I’ll probably keep choosing the former. That is, until the already precarious Wi-Fi in my room totally breaks down and sleep really is the only option left