Am I Pushing Myself Too Far?

[SleepyDayzzz]

Okay, so as VERY few of you may know, I am (probably) the youngest person on here. And I'm currently a freshmen in highschool, and college... I enrolled in this program for students to earn their associate's degree and high school diploma by going to school on a college campus and taking college classes, that count for dual credit. I'm really enjoying myself. But I feel really tired lately, and it's easy to ignore or suppress....but I have a feeling that it's a bad idea to do so.
Ever since I've started school it's like I constantly have something new to master, which is perfect for me. I've started skipping meals to study, and at school I spend our free periods studying, working, tutoring, or drawing. At home I usually spend about 20 min-1 hour on chores every day, and I also help my mom whom has been sick since I was very young. I also usually help cook dinner and walk my brother to his friends house. I stay up late every night to finish my homework and make sure I really understand the material (usually takes about 3 hours) and then before the sun sets I work out for about an hour.

I'm happy. But I am numb to stress. I can't even tell if I'm pushing myself too far. My parents are really worried about me. I've lost 15 pounds in the last two months and I've never seen my dark circles this bad. My muscles are always tense and it's causing my body to be in a butt load of pain. In this case my mental state doesn't matter... and I'm worried about what might happen if I push myself too far, or If I'm already doing that...

What do you think?

 

[Inquisitor]

If you don't listen to your body's warning signs now, then it will make you listen through illness and incapacitation.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Sleep enough and don't skip meals. What inquisitor says is right. If you do burn out the recovery process can be long. You don't have to give up activities, you just have to engage in them with less frequency to make space for sleep and food.

15 pounds in two months is a lot of weight too unless you were quite overweight from the get go. You may be facing nutritional deficiencies as well if you don't watch out.

Not getting the sleep and food that you need is much more detrimental to your development than cutting down on the frequency of some of your activities.

Not sure if you exercise before sleeping or not, you say you do it before the sun sets, but you also say you study until late in the night and then exercise :P In any case you shouldnt exercise right before sleeping. Better to do it earlier, then you can ride the endorphins released while doing something else.

Irregardless, it does sound like you are definitely pushing yourself too far, even for someone your age.

 

[SleepyDayzzz]

Sleep enough and don't skip meals. What inquisitor says is right. If you do burn out the recovery process can be long. You don't have to give up activities, you just have to engage in them with less frequency to make space for sleep and food.

How do you think I should do this? I'm thinking about asking my family for down time, and thanksgiving break is also coming up which will give me some time to recover. I understand that I NEED to make time for eating and sleeping, but the problem is I can't find any...

 

[Cherry Cola]

How do you think I should do this? I'm thinking about asking my family for down time, and thanksgiving break is also coming up which will give me some time to recover. I understand that I NEED to make time for eating and sleeping, but the problem is I can't find any...

Prioritize. You're gonna have to give stuff up. Start doing stuff which you do 3 times a week once or twice a week instead. Understand that you'll likely pay a bigger price if you don't do this. If you burn out completely, you're gonna have to give up way more stuff. You said you have free periods, work with those. Maybe cut the frequency of your tutoring and drawing during said free periods in half and replace with homework so that you don't need to stay up super late? Moreover ask your parents to cut you some slack? Should be possible considering how academically dedicated you are?

I can't provide a good answer to this because I don't know you :P You're gonna have to work it out yourself and/or ask people who do you know for advice, such as your parents.

 

[SleepyDayzzz]

Prioritize. You're gonna have to give stuff up. Start doing stuff which you do 3 times a week once or twice a week instead. Understand that you'll likely pay a bigger price if you don't do this. If you burn out completely, you're gonna have to give up way more stuff. You said you have free periods, work with those. Maybe cut the frequency of your tutoring and drawing during said free periods in half and replace with homework so that you don't need to stay up super late? Moreover ask your parents to cut you some slack? Should be possible considering how academically dedicated you are?

I can't provide a good answer to this because I don't know you :P You're gonna have to work it out yourself and/or ask people who do you know for advice, such as your parents.

Alright thank you. My parents should be pretty understanding. I'll see if my counselor has anything to say since this is way more serious than I thought it could be.

 

[queue]

I think that if you're feeling intensely hypomanic then maybe just watch your health more closely to start, the rest will follow naturally.

It's good to push yourself and have drive, these are excellent traits. Nurture your best traits in life. Organize your strategy around the basic principle of being your best and allow the architecture to betray its efficiency.

I don't think you are numb to stress, it's working its way into your mind. Stressing more won't help. Always start with a basic positive and work your way upwards. Start with managing your physiology and then work your way outward. Incorrect administration over the body's homeostatic state is always going to feel a little torturous.

When you exercise, be sure to incorporate a routine of posture correction, for maybe five minutes as a cool down.

 

[computerhxr]

Yes, you're pushing too hard. I go through manic phases where I work pretty much non-stop and don't even consider food. When I was young it wouldn't really affect me to go a week without sleep, but now I wear out quickly. I had really bad stomach pains, and my bones and joints hurt a lot.

At the same time, I do cherish periods of mania. I finish projects that normally take a months in a few days. I feel fantastic and learn quickly. Mania is awesome but then you burn out, get depressed, and have down periods. It's worth it to me but I don't have a regular job so it's not a big deal that I work whenever I want. I couldn't maintain and have a regular job that's for sure.

And highschool is not so important in the grand-scheme of things. I mean, try and get good grades so you can get into the college you want, but other than that enjoy yourself! Learn what you want but save time for sleep. Highschool shouldn't consume all of your time. However important you think everything is right now is going to sound insignificant to you in the future. You can afford to let some stuff go and it won't make a difference to your future. You learn better when you sleep anyways so keep that in mind. Sleep has a lot of benefits and you may find more time as a result.

 

[Yellow]

You have youth on your side, which helps a lot, but if you push too hard, you can still crash.

I would suggest four things.

One, set aside one day a week to sleep in, and one day a week to go to bed early. It'll help recover some of your sleep debt without infringing too much on your time.

Two, prioritize your work. Finishing your homework is one thing, but you might make better use of your time just picking one or two classes each semester to give your 100% focus. Slide by on 93% in the others.

Three, get in the habit of preparing/buying healthy snack food that you can eat absently while working. Like energy bars, chopped fruit and vegetables, a ton of water, and string cheese.

Four, if you can't do it without stimulants (like caffeine, red bull, nicotine, etc.) then you can't do it.

Spoiler

I ended up going into tachycardia when I was 21, after years of pushing too hard, not sleeping enough, consuming an ungodly amount of caffeine & nicotine, and not eating/drinking enough water. It took about 5 years to get to that point, but you probably don't want to wait until your heart lurches from 60 to 180 bpm for no apparent reason.

 

[Sir Eus Lee]

Kudos to you for the big start!
I did something similar and took college classes from the local community college for dual credit.

Rather than putting my all into it, I kind of slacked off and ended up with a 2.96 in college credits. I barely studied, and paid the price.

For you though, it seems you're on top of it. So that's great!

My advice would be cut to the necessary and trust in yourself. It sounds like you're doing 110 percent. Which is great, but that extra 10% is going to start dragging, so be ready.

Perhaps work out every other day, just more efficiently. Or try studying for 2 hours and 30 minutes and see if the results are different.

Sometimes the right amount can be too much, nothing can ever be perfect.

You sound like an awesome person. Your work for others and yourself is admirable. Keep it up, but take some time to think about what you need NOW. What will keep you going along safely and properly.

 

[Ex-User (8886)]

There is no reason to be too ambitious. Except if you want to be famous, but unhappy scientist or corpo workaholic.
Relax and enjoy the life