You have a 5-hour break in between your 9 a.m. biology class and 2 p.m. Spanish class. You are exhausted.

You only got three hours of sleep because you were up late finishing your final Capstone submission, which you couldn’t start until you got off work at 11 p.m. You cannot keep your eyes open.

Your gas tank is on E, so you can’t waste the gas to drive the 10 miles to your apartment and back before class and you ran out of meal plan money, so you can’t afford coffee.

All you want is a nice, energy-restoring, mood-boosting, life-saving nap but there is nowhere to go. This is the never-ending plight of the upperclassmen at St. Edward’s University.

Of the traditional undergraduate students in Fall 2013, 61 percent lived off campus, according to the Office of Institutional Research.

To accommodate for this majority, what we need here at St. Edward’s, above all other additions to our beautiful campus, is a nap and relaxation room.

Successful corporations like Google and Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, who many would agree are pretty good at what they do, understand the value of a nap to productivity and have implemented nap pods and nap rooms into their headquarters.

A nap and relaxation room at St. Edward’s could be similar to Boko’s Living Room at Texas State University which has couches, pillows, blankets, movies and alarm clocks.

Texas State senior nutrition major, Emily Galliardt, said Boko’s Living Room is “extremely beneficial for commuter students who have long breaks” and even for those students who live on campus but have short enough breaks that they don’t have time to walk to their dorm or apartment.

According to a study from the journal Sleep, “The 10-minute nap produced immediate improvements in all outcome measures,” including cognitive performance.

A quick dip into a nap and relaxation room could provide the necessary cognitive boost needed for your Spanish quiz, or perhaps an hour or so vegging out watching a movie is exactly what you need to de-stress after a mind-boggling Theories of Rhetoric class.

The bottom floor of Moody Hall used to fulfill this purpose somewhat, with it’s old and squishy couches, but the new furniture, while aesthetically pleasing, is not inviting to nap on.

Andre Hall has a mini-lounge with a fairly comfortable couch, but the traffic through the building makes it impossible to fall asleep.

The demands of the 21st century college student are ever-increasing as the pressure and competition to do well in our courses have the potential to cause mental breakdowns. A healthy balance of work and relaxation are, in my opinion, key to a productive lifestyle.

The university would truly be investing in the students’ success and wellness with the creation of a nap and relaxation room here at St. Edward’s.