burn the candle at both ends
idiom

- to overwork or exhaust oneself by doing too many things, especially both late at night and early in the morning

- exhaust one’s energies or resources by leading a hectic life

The Farlex Free Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

The expression “burning the candle at both ends” stems from an 18th century French expression Bruler la chandelle par les deux bouts, which had nothing to do with working too much. Since candles were so essential at that time, this phrase referred to being wasteful.

The modern definition uses both ends of the candle as a metaphor for day-and-night with the implication that one works all day and all night long. Burning the candle also refers to a hectic lifestyle or to people who just have too much going on in their lives.

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11 DAYS WITHOUT SLEEP

In December 1963, a high school student named Randy Gardner had an idea for a science fair project; to see how long he could stay awake, and to record any side-effects that might occur.

By day three, Gardner had become uncoordinated and quite emotional, with strong mood swings beginning at around the 72-hour mark, and hallucinations occurring after five days. During the day, Gardner would stay occupied by playing basketball and pinball with his fellow students, and staying awake while the sun was up was reportedly much easier, while night-times grew progressively more challenging.

Gardner wasn’t able to go straight to bed. First, he had to give a press conference about his experience, and then he was taken to a Naval hospital so that doctors could conduct an electroencephalogram, or EEG, and study his brainwaves. Only then was he permitted to go to bed, and he slept for a solid 14 hours.

Gardner had managed to stay awake for 264.4 hours, or 11 whole days.

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

“We’ll need to BURN THE CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS until this project is complete.”

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THANKS to Harald for suggesting today’s OWAD.

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HERZLICHEN DANK to all readers helping me keep OWAD alive with single or monthly donations at:

https://donorbox.org/please-become-a-friend-of-owad-3

and,

Paul Smith, IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40