Walking into English class, I am met with students groaning and yelling rapid-fire vocabulary questions across the room. Everyone is worried about the newest sonnet pop quiz and the chemistry lab report due at midnight. One girl walks in bleary-eyed saying, “Oh my lord, I only got five hours of sleep last night.” Another kid slams an energy drink on the table, claiming that the sugar-free, calorie-free, caffeine-filled beverage was their substitute for breakfast. A boy walks in, bragging about how he woke up at 5 to go to the gym, even though he barely slept the night before. Everyone sits quietly chatting in the classroom — sleep-deprived, hungry, overworked, and emotionally drained. So why are they smiling slightly? It’s because they are proud of their exhaustion.
This is a scene I’ve seen time and again. There’s not much point in asking, “How’s your week going?” because the answer is almost always, “it’s a rough week.” But we Deerfield students refuse to take a break. In my experience, we glorify this state of perpetual stress and fatigue. Our hyper-competitive environment trains us to interpret taking care of ourselves as slacking off or not trying hard enough. Deerfield culture teaches us to treat dedication and obsession as synonyms.
Last winter and spring, my schedule was that of a textbook Deerfield workaholic. I woke up at 5:30 a.m. to do homework and booked every weekend full with activities to keep myself busy. I skipped lunches and dinners to study one more hour or to search for one more synonym on thesaurus.com for my Scroll articles. I opted out of Saturday morning trips to Bittersweet Bakery to run a few miles in order to stay in shape for JV swim meets. I got hooked on Celsius and dining hall coffee with a few extra scoops of instant espresso. My grades went up. So, despite my increasing discontent, I was convinced that sticking with this taxing lifestyle was the only way to succeed at Deerfield.
I experienced burnout during the summer after freshman year.Coming back to school afterwards, I decided to quit my old habits. I drank orange juice and tea in the mornings, studied no longer than an hour past study hall, and tried to do something relaxing before bed rather than half-heartedly review my European History essay once again. I spent my Saturdays watching Glee on principle. When I got my midterm grades back, I was shocked; they were better than the grades I received under my old routine.
Despite being happier, better rested, and less stressed, I occasionally felt guilty. I kept thinking that if I stayed up another hour, I would be a better student, despite evidence to the contrary. No one wants to play the “who got the least amount of sleep?” game, yet we all fall victim to it the second it worms its way into conversation. Competition drives Deerfield’s thriving academic, artistic, and athletic environments, yet that same competition causes the student body to have generally poor mental health. According to the Sleep Foundation, tired people are statistically more likely to fall into patterns of suicidal ideation or even self-harm. According to the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, hungry people are more likely to lose focus on important activities. And, in my experience, overworked students are more likely to struggle with burnout. Choosing the false promise of increased success, we voluntarily enter a cycle that ultimately lowers our performance in every single field. The second we do anything poorly or just slightly less than perfectly, we fall into this cycle. “I wasted too much time this weekend,” we mutter. “Maybe if I spent another hour in the practice rooms, I wouldn’t have slipped on the high G during the performance!”
Breaking this cycle is difficult, as it requires us to completely redefine our idea of success. I’m not saying every student needs to go cold turkey on coffee like I did, but we do need to congratulate ourselves and others for prioritizing mental health. Asking for an extension doesn’t indicate laziness; it indicates a willingness to utilize the system most institutions and corporations have in place to support students and employees. While sleeping for eight hours, a person rebuilds their brain and muscles to perform at their highest level the next day. A well-rounded dinner prepares a musician for their performance better than reviewing their concert music for the umpteenth time that day.
I still take pride in putting my all into every essay I write or song I sing, but I have learned that there’s a difference between constructive effort and mindless, crazed toil. It will take dedication, time, and effort, but I believe we can and should create a campus community that applauds taking care of one’s mental health, and a campus culture that acknowledges watching Glee all Saturday afternoon as a valid, healthy, and productive study strategy.