Student Deadline approach having massive Indesign Lag/performance problems Please help!!!

I am having massive issues with indesign buffering and lagging despite trying everything I can find online and through my Uni IT services.  I think am going to update my laptop but I am scared as I am afraid that will impact the space on my ram more/ interfere with my adobe or files. This was not an issue at all a couple weeks ago, I often have to work with several adobe software open at once and now I can't even use one!!! please advise!! 

About the file:

• About 25 pages 1920x1080p (uni requirement)  final will be about 40, several images, mostly low res iphone images with a few images from my sony (I try to keep minimal) as well as some scans of notes etc. 

Issues:

• I am getting the spinning wheel of death constantly from even clicking text /trying to move anything in the document 
• zoom/scroll is lagging 
• any action is severely delayed OR doesn’t respond 
• crashes 
• Loss of creative cloud info including all fonts 

About The Laptop

• I have a relatively low ram of 16gb on a Mac book Pro 2023 (M2) on ventura 13.2.1. I have had suggestions to update my laptop but I am scared as I am afraid that will impact the space on my ram more/ interfere with my adobe or files.
• Harddrive is a Lacie 1TB SSD
• Updates available: Mac OS Tahoe 26.2 OR Mac OS Ventura 13.7.8
• I have about 125gb of Macintoch HD storage available. 

Things I’ve done:

• I have talked to my uni's IT team and we have basically looked at my RAM usage via activity monitor. Before I closed other applications it was saying photoshop and indesign were using about 4.04 gb each with a total  despite there only being 2 very low res files being used in photoshop. Since then I closed all other software, even photoshop which I needed and its saying indesign is using 2.02 gb of 16 and a total of 12.62gb of total memory is being used but there has been zero improvement to performance. 
• I have re-installed creative cloud.
• Force quit any applications im not using 
• Removed or relocated downloads 
• I have reset my laptop
• Cleared scratch discs 
• I have quit Indesign 
• I have moved everything on my desktop and the files to my harddrive and made sure everything is relinked in the document. 
• I have even gone through the indesign file settings and lowered the display quality of the images as some online suggestions have said.
• As my own desperate attempt at a solution I have even gone through and taken screenshots of my finished slides and then replaces the slide with the screenshot to try to lower the amount of info/elements on pages. 

Next steps: 

• i will likely have to try to update my laptop :( will try with the less recent ventura 13.7.8 first) 

Main concerns: 

• I dont have time to go back through and re-export all the files in lower res as theres 150+ images i am needing to inclue (already very low file sizes) 
• this wasn’t ever an issue in the past dispite working on much larger files!
• Afraid an update will overload my ram even more causing less space and more issues 
• afraid update will impact adobe software and corrupt/ damage my files 
• Need to find solution asap so I can submit on time. 

Any help is massively appreciated!! Thank you!!!

Olivia