In Menlo’s Upper School, students face mounting pressures as homework and tests begin to pile up throughout the school year. With stress levels reaching new highs, students have developed various different strategies for accomplishing work, especially when it comes to managing their sleep schedules. At Menlo, students’ sleep schedules vary widely — some night owls stay up late and get by on very little rest. Others sleep and wake up early. Each student has their own approach to balancing work and rest amid a demanding schedule.
Diya Karthik, a junior, has followed a sleep schedule of sleeping at 8:30 p.m. and waking up at 4:30 to 5 a.m. In an email to The Coat of Arms, Karthik stated that she started this sleep schedule mid-way through her freshman year and continued to follow it throughout tenth and eleventh grade on less busy days. “When I first started this sleep schedule, it was easy to go to sleep early but definitely harder to wake up, especially since it is still dark out around 4:30 [a.m.],” Karthik said.
Karthik began this schedule because she realized she was a lot more productive early in the morning than late at night. “If I woke up in the morning and finished my homework, I would have time to go on a run or do exercise, shower and then go to school,” Karthik said.
Looking back, Karthik thinks this schedule benefits her health and my time management, but definitely requires discipline and commitment. “This year, since my scheduled dance practices run late into the night, it’s definitely been harder to keep the same discipline, but whenever I can, I try to follow it and it always pays off,” Karthik said.
Many students find that they work best at night, and have adjusted their sleep schedules to cater to this. Unlike Karthik, some students feel more productive when doing work late at night.
Rena Kim, a current senior, is an example. Kim regularly goes to bed between 12 and 2 a.m. and wakes up between 7 and 7:30 a.m. This is especially impactful as she has ADHD. “No matter how hard I try and focus, I did my best work late at night. […] I also have a perfection complex where I work really hard on something, but I don’t feel satisfied with it until I have that last push at night,” Kim said.
This behavior became especially frequent when she became an upperclassman and work began to increase in difficulty. “Junior year, because of how academically stressful it is and then sophomore year, because for me mock trial and dance were becoming bigger parts of my life, [I had less time for sleep],” Kim said.
Other students, though, have different reasons for the start of their sleep schedule. Junior Brendan Wong started his similar sleep schedule at the beginning of high school. But for him, this change was partly impacted by the fact that he got a phone. “Ever since I got a phone, I’ve been FaceTiming with a couple of people that I talk to a lot, and I also sometimes go on Instagram Reels,” Wong said.
Kim is one of many Menlo students who follow a similar sleep schedule and said that she has grown accustomed to the lack of sleep she gets throughout the school week. “I’ve kind of learned how to balance it out. […] At the end of junior year. I kind of realized that it may help to take a nap right after I got back from school,” Kim said. She stated that this helped her become more productive, especially later at night. “I feel like it’s less that it works for me and more like it already happened, and I’m trying to find ways to make it work,” Kim said.
