Jeez, school has already started a whole month ago. Doesn’t seem very long does it? although students haven’t been in school for that long, many are already feeling burnt out.  Between homework, extracurriculars, and maintaining friendships and relationships, it can often feel like too much. The real question is: what can we, as students and teachers, do to fix this?  

Obviously, there are quite a few ways to cope with being overwhelmed. What you are overwhelmed by really determines what you need to do to fix it. The hardest thing there is to fix is if you are overwhelmed by school and extracurriculars combined. As you grow older, teachers tend to hand out more lengthy, time-consuming homework. This, along with having practice, clubs, etc., can cause students to stay up late to finish everything and therefore cause them to be even more tired the next day. This continues as a vicious cycle: wake up, school, extracurricular, go home, eat, study, do homework, then sleep; over and over and over again. As the week goes on you, students continue to get more and more tired, and therefore stressed.

How can we, as students, put an end to this cycle? For may of us, dropping out of that extracurricular is not an option and getting mediocre grades isn’t either. Lexi Kapenga (11), thinks of one solution to this problem: “The teachers should at least take a one day break a week, and talk about the topic in depth or play review games, just to take a break from the crazy notes and stuff,” she said. This is definitely one solution to the problem that would be very beneficial to students of all grades, especially those of us who are already feeling like moving to the woods and becoming a hermit.

The only other advice I personally have is to take everything in stride. While constantly thinking about school among other things, it is easy to get down in the dumps. It’s important to remember, especially when you’re overwhelmed, to still have fun. Although you may be crazy busy, plan spontaneous adventures with friends, go to football games, go to social events, and have homework/study parties! There are so many fun things to do on the weekends and even on weekdays to make sure you don’t get stuck in a rut. High school may be a stressful four years, but you can make those four years worth it. So, yeah, being burnt out already is irritating, but we as students need to push through it and find fun things to look forward to. Let’s try make this school year a year to remember, and not because of how overwhelmed we were.