The most difficult part of my university experience so far has been learning how to balance. Every September, I am thrown off my feet by my new schedule, and just when I feel like I have a routine set up, midterms hit. As the type of person who insists on combing through every single reading, I often find myself overwhelmed by schoolwork and unsure how to fit in any much-needed self-care activities.
However, spending 8-hour blocks on studying or writing has never worked for me either. I lose focus after a few hours at most, and often end the day cranky and tense from so much studying at once. Last winter semester, during a particularly difficult academic period, I went to see my college's learning strategist for help. Here are some memorable tips that I learned from her, as well as some personal ones that work for me.
Source: Rusaba Alam
I think it’s safe to say I was at the point in midterm season, or huge-influx-of-essays-due-in-one-week season where my mind was frayed.
It was the kind of fraying where I just comfortably threw my clothes on my chair when I got home. I comfortably began ‘forgetting’ to put away the snacks I had on my nightstand. I comfortably hadn’t made my bed in who knows how long. I comfortably stopped using my table as a study space and instead used it as a storage for all the books and articles I had to read.
It was like when Frank Ocean sang “a tornado flew around my room before you came”, only my situation was a lot less poetic and probably wouldn’t win any awards. I’m just going to come out and say it – my room was a mess.
An example of how my room looked at the time
Who knew procrastination would not only be the reason for it but also the resolution of it?
October is a terrifying time of year – and that has nothing to do with Halloween. I have never before been so overwhelmed with things that need doing/studying/writing. But we’ll get through this… right?
I’m kidding of course, we always do and we will again – that thought has always been helpful to me when I’m swamped and feeling hopeless.
When there’s so much to be done, it can be hard to squeeze in some physical activity. As many of us live in residences and apartment buildings with small exercise rooms, I thought I’d put together a simple small gym study break as a perfect addition to my self-care routine!
Try 1-3 sets of 10 repetitions of each of the following exercises for a fast, full body workout between textbooks!
Hey guys, this week is Self-Care Week at UofT. By definition, self-care involves the things you do to take care of your physical and mental health. This week is part of the University’s HealthyU Month, which is an entire month dedicated towards celebrating mental and physical health.
Although it may not be obvious at first, self-care is directly linked to academic success because reaching your goals becomes easier when you are healthy, physically and mentally. In the spirit of self-care week, here are some common self-care practices that can boost your academic potential.
What do you do to make time for yourself? Between lectures, emails, practice, homework, exams, and all the other things that fill up my schedule, I always make sure I make some time for myself. Am I the only one whose high school teachers had posters that said "fail to plan, plan to fail"? I think that taking the time to care for yourself simply applies to this quote.
In the midst of midterms, taking a refreshing break can often be the last thing on students' minds. We may take procrastination breaks all the time -- YouTube videos, Buzzfeed, scrolling through social media -- and these are definitely valid in their own way. However, I find that more than a half hour of such activities often leaves me feeling guilty or more stressed. Instead, allotting the same amount of time for a calming, self-care activity tends to make me feel much more at ease. Here are several of my favourite ways to temporarily detach from work.
Taking a bath. One of my favourite feelings in the world is sinking into a tub of hot water. Taking a bath is a wonderful, low-commitment de-stressor because I can bring a book along and do my readings in a more relaxed atmosphere. Usually, I like to choose a fun, enjoyable novel, and since I am an English major, this works out. Sometimes, a change of environment is all it takes to refocus. In this way, I get to relax without feeling too guilty about abandoning work.
When I think of October, grainy vignettes of nights spent in Robarts during extended hours begin cycling through my memory. Moving images in sepia of myself weeping as I struggle to finish multiple essays due the next day; or in grayscale, of myself flustered as I burn my tongue on my second pot of coffee in an attempt to stay lucid while I rush to learn neglected chapters because the midterm is in nine hours, are two of the many depressing images that I automatically associate with this spooky month. Sometimes, for tolerability’s sake, I accompany these memories with a cameo of a sad panda playing a tiny violin. Essentially, October has come to represent an exhaustingly, unhealthy concoction of sleepless nights and excessive stress.
Researching paper #2
Surprisingly, this is where volunteerism has swooped in to save the day.
October is HealthyU month at U of T, an entire month dedicated to celebrating physical and mental health! October 17-21 (starting today!) is Self-Care week, which promotes ways to take care of yourself physically and mentally as well as how to de-stress. Okay, I'll be the first to admit that when I initially thought about self-care, I wondered, "Why do I have to be concerned with how I'm doing?" Well, after some careful consideration, I realized that if I don't care for myself, I get burnt out...easily. I can't always be on the go, go, go (although I do enjoy that) because otherwise all aspects of my life: social, academic, and personal would suffer.
My not-so-secret way (according my friends and family) to de-stress from the enormous amount of midterms I have coming up all in the same week (scary) is to watch some good TV shows and movies. But first, let me explain the source of my stress. I prefer to study in 2 to 3 hour blocks, even though concentrating for that long can sometimes be difficult. Finding time to study for that long can also be difficult, especially with my other commitments. Sometimes I feel stressed out because I feel like I haven't studied enough. However, at the end of my long studying sessions, I mostly feel like I've just come out of a deep slumber, blinking rapidly and looking around wondering "Where am I?" Robarts in the Winter: a building that pulls me in for many hours of studying
I'm think I am an introvert, I probably always have been. I try not to shy away from it anymore because I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Also, I think a lot of people misunderstand what introversion means. It can mean "a shy person" but I like to think that the psychological definition of introversion is much more relevant:
"a person characterized by concern primarily with his or her own thoughts and feelings"
This makes a lot more sense to me; I'm not a quite person because I have nothing to say or I'm scared to say it but more so because I'm taking everyone's inputs in and assessing my own thoughts first. I'm the kind of person who doesn't need to have other people around in order to feel happy, energized or active. I'm perfectly content spending a weekend with myself, just going about daily life and reading a book or two (or 10). I like listening to my music and staring into space (or simply staring into space).
Chilling in the Sid Smith Lounge and "people-watching" (a fancy term for staring into space)
As the photoblogger on this team, meaning the person who blogs and alsomanages the Instagram, part of my job is to see the pretty cool things on or around campus. If you’ve been following along with my eyes and perspectives on the 'Gram, you would notice that a huge portion of my photos are of landscapes and sometimes people. As midterm season rolls in with the dropping temperatures of autumn, I’ve decided to share my top four favourite places to visit on or around campus for destressing, procrastinating, fire Instagram photos, or sipping tea while you Snapchat.
A very cool spot on campus where you can see the CN Tower framed perfectly by the trees.
