At the end of freshman year, my friends and I were all making “starter-packs” for each other. Our takes on the then-current meme garnered dozens of “omg, so true!” responses on Instagram, and I’d been eagerly awaiting my turn to be summarized in a series of eight-or-so images.

When the Galia Newberger starter-pack was revealed, the pictures included a head of kale, George Washington’s presidential portrait, a stack of calculus textbooks, a ballerina, the UN logo, and a sticker that read “I love Jewish Camp.” One photo stood out to me, though: a bare mattress with the words “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” spray painted on the wall behind it.

Their observations of my sleeping habits (or lack thereof) surprised me: sure, I was sleeping only 5-or-so hours a night, but I was just working hard, right? Wasn’t that normal?
Spoiler alert: it’s not. Between ballet, theatre, Model UN, newspaper (the list goes on), and, you know, school, my personal well-being had taken the back seat. But I didn’t see it that way. Sleepless nights were a source of pride for me. The dark circles under my eyes were symbols of resilience: I’d spent that many more hours studying for a chemistry test, at rehearsal, or whatever. To get the 9.5 hours of sleep doctors recommend for teenagers, I would have to go to bed earlier than 10:30 pm every night. Doing that would be weak: how could I possibly succumb to the restricting needs of my body when I had to be awake to excel?
I knew that teenagers stayed up late. But by sophomore year, my sleep schedule was drifting farther and farther from the realm of reason. I actually started creating tasks for myself that forced me to stay up–even if I’d finished all my work for the evening–because going to bed earlier than the night before made me feel tremendously guilty. “What did I think this was, vacation?” I told myself, opening a new document to begin some absolutely necessary newspaper article that nobody had asked me to write.
I began to find it difficult to pay attention in my early morning classes and still didn’t have the clarity to implicate my own habits. Instead, I looked to the object of my affliction: school. So I wrote a (rather scathing) Op-Ed for my school in Prague’s newspaper about the dissonance between teenage sleep needs and school start times. “It seems that biology and high school boards have conspired to play a cruel joke on teenage sleep patterns,” I began. “As teens go through puberty, our circadian rhythms or ‘body clocks’–basically what makes us want to sleep and when–shift three hours backward. This is what makes teens stay up later and sleep in later than parents and younger siblings.”
I went on to cite scholarly article after article, and, to my surprise, the school administration listened. We worked together over the coming months to create a feasible plan for pushing back the school start time, and, at the start of my junior year, they implemented it. Success, I guess.
Unfortunately, what had inspired my article was a lie. Don’t get me wrong: every word of it was true, and for most students, starting school later would solve many of their sleep-related woes. But I was lying to myself: my “circadian rhythm” wasn’t forcing me to stay up until 2:30 am in the morning. Sure, maybe it was responsible for the boost of energy I usually felt around 9:00 p.m., but pushing 3:00 a.m. was, well, pushing it.
Fortunately, my perspective has changed with age. As an upperclassman, much of the pride I had felt in being the last to go to bed has evaporated. I saw my friends who fell asleep at far more reasonable hours do just as well in school. My younger brother, now in high school himself, would get home, do his homework, and be in bed before 10 p.m. His grades remained impeccable.
My wake-up call came from understanding the underlying psychological motivations for self-imposed sleep deprivation–as well as its implication on physical health. Our generation and slightly-older millennials are increasingly willing to forgo self-care for fear of being classified as lazy. Relaxation is correlated with shame. Shame is a powerful motivator.
I was moved by essayist Esmé Weijun Wang’s article for Elle “I’m Chronically Ill and Afraid of Being Lazy.” In it, she details the self-condemnation she experiences, staring wistfully at her “goal digger” pencil case and “every day I’m hustlin’” mug from her bed while she is too ill to even move. Unlike Ms. Wang, I’ve the great luxury of being able to go to bed when I chose to, not just when I was forced to by my body. My freedom to make these choices is a gift and I need to start to use it wisely.
In ballet class, balance is key. We are told to pick a spot on the wall to spot as we turn, hold our core in such a way that we are stabilized on the tiny box at the tip of our pointe shoes, and keep our whole body in alignment. I had forgotten all about these principles when it came to my life outside of the studio. Going into my senior year, I resolved to change. With each passing week of telling myself going to bed wasn’t just ok but rather the best thing to do, I’ve grown into a healthier and happier individual. And I can rest easy.