High School = Destruction of Sleep Schedule

Till 7th grade, life was chill. I wasn’t sleeping 8 hours or anything, but I was getting a decent 6–7 hours. Not perfect, but manageable.

But the moment I stepped into 8th grade… boom. Everything started slipping. I still remember one particular week , we were working on our Enterprise project where my group and I had to build an e-commerce website for makeup products. It sounded exciting in theory, but behind the scenes, it was late-night planning calls, editing glitchy code, designing pages that kept disappearing, and writing product descriptions that somehow always deleted themselves. I was up past midnight for days. Sleep wasn’t just sacrificed, it was abandoned somewhere between a Google Slide deck and an endless checklist. And oh dear lord — then came 9th grade.

Peaceful sleep? Yeah, no. Doesn’t exist here. Every assignment feels like an endless illusion. I’m juggling extracurriculars and academics like it’s some kind of alternate-universe World War 3.

Every night I tell myself, “Tonight, I’ll sleep early.” I make cute little timetables, pink highlighters, motivational quotes , the whole thing. And every night? Snap. broken promise.

My universe’s special talent seems to be throwing chaos right at bedtime.

Like this one night, I had everything sorted — homework done, bag packed, and I was ready to actually sleep before 11. And then suddenly, I got a reminder that our science presentation had to be uploaded before midnight. The Wi-Fi went rogue, my laptop started lagging, and to top it off, my cousin decided to FaceTime me at 10:45 to talk about a K-drama plot twist. Meanwhile, my brain was spiralling into full-on overthinking mode — and just like that, peace was cancelled.

The pressure, the stress, the non-stop hustle, it builds up. And I’m not gonna lie, I’ve had moments where I just wanted to escape. Like running away to some peaceful corner of the world and doing what makes me happy. No noise. No deadlines. Just peace.

Now I’m not here to bash the education system. I get it, it’s built to push us for a brighter future. But at what cost? Millions of students like me are going through the same thing. We’re burning out. Our mental health is in shreds. We’re losing touch with ourselves.

Our bodies need rest. They need to pause, to recharge, to breathe. And when I say that, I don’t just mean a random Sunday nap. I mean actual support. Schools could spread out project deadlines. Parents could check in with how we’re really doing, not just how our grades are. Even friends could stop glamorizing all-nighters and instead hype up anyone who says, “I slept at 10.” That’s the kind of flex we need more of.

Because without that? We’re just running on empty.

With dark circles and barely any sleep,

Student Reporter, Neha Das