Gradlife

Jump to Comments

Welcome back to the Gradlife Blog!  We’ve made it to Thanksgiving weekend! I hope that the long weekend provided time for some rest, sleep and of course, yummy food.  I find it fitting that this holiday acts as a bit of a midway point in the semester, and that it is a holiday which emphasises reflecting and being grateful. In doing this, I think that it can help us to take a breath and re-orient ourselves as we head towards the end of the semester.

One way that I took a breath in the last week was by being mindful of all the fall colours around campus. Fall is my favourite time of year, but I find that I get easily caught up in school and it tends to fly by before I can enjoy it. What was nice about this was that I did not have to change my schedule that much, I just promised myself to be more aware of what was around me as I rushed around to classes and other commitments. The result, are the following photos:

 

 

I have to say, in the midst of a busy week the little moments that I took to stop and take these pictures and feel grateful for nature, helped to provide a little boost. Putting energy into feeling grateful helped to remove my mind from a stressful place.

As it turns out, there is actually some science behind this. By doing activities that involve expressing gratitude, we help to orient our brains to noticing these things more in our day to day lives, and this improves your overall mental health. While huge changes may not happen overnight, adding acts of gratitude to your daily or weekly routine can start to have long term benefits on your well-being in the long run. You begin to adopt an attitude of gratitude.

I highly recommend trying out adding deliberate expressions of gratitude into your routine. Here are some small ways to give it a try:

• Write down 3 things you are thankful for at the end of the day
• Tell someone you love how much you appreciate them 
• When you’re grabbing a coffee, take the time to make eye contact with the barista to say thank you
• If you make eye contact with someone walking on the street, give them a smile 🙂

If you are reading this, then I am grateful that you have read my whole blog post! I hope you all had a restful long weekend and that you are able to find some moments of calm in a busy semester.

With Gratitude,

Alex