In school i used to pull all-nighters before difficult exams. It happened rarely and would take a huge toll on me, and whenever the exam was over i would go home and get a good rest, so i would recover pretty easily.
But when university started, as time passed i pulled more and more all-nighters. It always took a huge toll on me, but ngl it was riveting: i was able to do a lot of stuff in a short amount of time. My group mates always wondered how i was able to do it and sort of praised my for pulling all-nighters and functioning during the day. "I couldn't do it, i'd fall asleep on the spot" they said. The more intense our programm was, the more all-nighters i pulled. By my final year i was able to go for 72 consecutive hours without sleeping, just straight up working. I was tired, it was shitty, i felt my physical body giving up and asking for help, and at the same time, it was probably the most productive i have ever been.
Pulling an all-nighter to me feels like a boost in a video game, like you kinda go 1000% for a short amount of time, and then you have to recover for a longer amount of time, but that amount of output makes all the difference. It feels like your arms stretch out twice and you have ten fingers. Your lids are closing and head is hurting and once your brain realizes you're not going to sleep until you're done it pushes you so much. I have done incredible amounts of work under this pressure.
And i thought it would stop once i was out of university. "This is just the university hustle" i said. But i'm almost a year out of university and whenever i'm loaded with work (not necessarily "work" work, also applicable to personal projects) i pretty much always go into an all-nighter. I can't stop. Especially now, i can't be happy with the work i have done during the day, even if i have finished a lot. And especially because after an all-nighter it feels so good to finally go to sleep. That is something i can't get if i go to sleep at night normally. By now i pull all-nighters like twice or thrice a week, going ~30 hours without sleep. And mostly don't even become sleepy. I can feel my body giving up from the stress and my braing firing up. But at this point i am kinda worried about, like, brain damage and stuff.
I know this sounds stupid probably, like pulling all-nighters sounds really unpleasent to say the least and it really is. But this really feels like an addiction. I can't imagine my life waking up normally and going like 12-14 hours doing stuff and then going to sleep. I can barely work without this pressure. I feel like i need it to get stuff done but it is also probably, most likely, ruining my life. I want to be healthy and productive and happy, and poor sleep is probably not helping. I have roommates now. They know about this habit of mine, and whenever the see me up really early i have to lie to them, because i feel so ashamed of taking such poor care of myself. I tried multiple times following a sleep schedule an i succeeded for a couple of months, until at one point i go "i'll just do this thing for one more hour"
Sorry for the long post. Any help or advice or opinion or really anything is greatly appreciated