I know the lack of sleep is hard to deal with at times – honestly, this is the one time in your life your body can deal with it well 🙂 Take little snippets of time through the day (a few minutes at lunch, on the way to and from school if possible, a slow time during class after that work is done) to get in parts of your homework.

If you have a lot of lit work, get the audiobook from the library and listen to it – in the car, in your sleep, whatever – before you read it, you’ll find that you pick up on things a lot more quickly.

And honestly, if there is an extracurricular activity that you either truly don’t enjoy, or that you think won’t benefit you that much in the long run, it’s ok to drop it. It’s ok to push yourself, especially at this point in life, but don’t push it so far that you permanently affect your health – that’s not worth it.

Also something that helps me even today (homeschool mom/teacher of a gifted middle schooler, plus a full outside teaching schedule) – is Tension Tamer Tea from Celestial Seasonings 🙂 It doesn’t put you to sleep (unless you’re seriously ready to drop as is), but it really does make the stress go away and bring things into perspective so that you can manage it all. Talk to your parents or doctor if you have any allergies to things that might be in there (it’s at any grocery store), but it’s really just things like chamomile and ginseng. It sounds wierd, but it works! (I started drinking it in high school during my work full time/AP schedule/every activity in the book days.)

Good luck, and keep up the great work!

I was in robotics last year and due to the inconsistent schedules and spontaneous meetings, my grades suffered (85’s) and I didn’t get accepted to any honors class that I applied for