All-nighters have become something of a badge of honour in the student world, much like a game of chicken. The person who leaves their work until the last possible minute, yet still makes the deadline—or even better, makes the deadline and gets a good grade, earns a kind of respect.

I myself only ever pulled one all-nighter, give or take an hour of sleep, during my time studying at university. I’ve never felt so unwell in my life. I sat at my desk in the top room of an old church in East London, typing away until 3 a.m., churning out what I’m sure was utter nonsense in pursuit of hitting a 3,000 word count before a very close and looming deadline.

There’s much evidence supporting the role of pressure in achieving work. In this case, the pressure of a looming deadline awoke in me the discipline to quickly bash out an essay on how youth workers may support the faith development of teenagers. This discipline had been absent a week earlier when i had an abundance of time and the chance to carefully and thoughtfully craft my thoughts. Furthermore, this pressure gave me the tools I needed to fight my constant desire to be in bed no later than 9:30 p.m. a feat that neither my wife’s 21st birthday party nor my first viewing of the critically acclaimed film The Passion of the Christ managed to overcome.

Pressure is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. Occasionally, much like a hit of sugar during a race or a cup of coffee on a long morning drive, pressure can yield remarkable feats of brilliance, allowing us to hit targets that seem much harder without its help.

However, too much pressure and too much reliance on it can quickly turn this resource for good into a force that pins us down, stops us growing.  A dependence on pressure can rob us of the opportunity for careful, gentle, and patient thought.

Pressure’s gift is speed, but its absence gifts us slowness.

In degree-level writing, it’s vitally important that your ideas are informed by multiple sources of wisdom, primarily books, but also interviews, podcasts, TV shows, etc. When you first begin writing this way, it feels like an immense burden, as though it extinguishes your own thoughts and replaces them with the ideas of others. I found this immensely difficult, especially as a rather confident young man. But upon reflection, its purpose was not to extinguish your ideas but to challenge them, to see if they have the strength to stand up against hundreds, if not thousands, of years of thought.

If you always write under the thumb of pressure, you may be fast, but you’ll always seek out wisdom, books, and quotes that affirm your ideas, it simply makes it quicker to write. But if you slow down and learn to discipline yourself without relying on pressure, you will allow room for the great depths of human wisdom to challenge your ideas, forming in you something new and beautiful, creating a person who can weather the storms.

If you would like to spend more time writing or thinking about God, Theology, Mission and yourself. Check out the courses at Ridley Hall.