Midterms season — or, depending on who you are, the break in between midterms. For me, I haven’t got any "crunches", only a few things to do every week. It never ends. Following a mini-emotional crisis last night, I decided it’s time to write this advice out, as much for myself as for anyone else who may find it useful.
- Get sufficient sleep , whether this is 8 hours, 6, or — don’t laugh — in my case, 9. Everyone has a different optimum sleeping time. It’s usually the time it takes for you to wake up naturally without an alarm clock on a regular day (no late-night parties or all-nighters considered). Sleep has many benefits: studies show that it sharpens your memory and, most obviously, re-energizes you. Sleep stops you from collapsing from overexhaustion. I managed to get by on 6 hours of sleep for about a month after school started, then was ill for 3 weeks. I only got better last week after I started taking care of myself, but am now deteriorating again this week now I’ve reverted to 5 hours. If you haven’t got the energy to function, you haven’t got the energy to do much of anything else you want to do.
- Eat three meals a day, including breakfast. We’ve all heard the reasons why we should have breakfast — it gives you energy in the morning, it stops you from snacking and over-eating at other times of the day, and it’s not good to go on an empty stomach for so many hours between last night’s dinnertime and today’s lunch. It’s really easy to miss a meal, whether breakfast, lunch or dinner — last year, one of my residence friends told me she’s "forgotten" to eat for more than a day. Yesterday, I realized that I’d only had one meal in the whole day (lunch) because I was rushing in the morning and then I was too tired and busy to cook when I came home. When we put aside our our excuses for not eating, we realize how ridiculous it all is: Eating is a basic function of life; we need to eat to survive. And don’t just live off fast-food — really make the attempt to have a varied diet. If, like me, you cannot wrap your head around the daily food pyramid, have no idea what a serving is really like, and are struggling just to prioritize mealtimes at all, remember: have some form of carbohydrate for each meal, make sure you have a couple of helpings of fruit and vegetables sometime during the day, and don’t forget the protein!
- Do some kind of exercise everyday. The point is not to find something you excel at or to "get good at", but to find something you like doing that will make you move around a bit each day. Exercise, like everything else listed above, does wonders for helping your mood by getting rid of what I call your unhappy chemicals and increasing your happy ones. It doesn’t matter what you choose to do as long as you enjoy it. If setting athletic or physical goals motivates you, great! Just don’t feel like you have to. For some people, the act of exercising alone is a great enough challenge. You don’t even have to talk about it if you don’t want to; frankly, no one cares what you do for yourself (or don’t).
- See a friend everyday. It is surprisingly easy, even when living in residence, to go a whole 24 hours without seeing another kindred spirit. I know — I tried it. Unless you happen to be living with a close one, the people you meet are going to be your professors and other students, all very nice but not necessarily people with whom you have a deep and genuine connection. Make the effort to look someone out. Give someone a call, "Hey, do you want to have lunch?" If they say no, look for someone else. Keep trying. Sooner or later, you’ll find someone and it’s amazing how being with someone who knows you can validate you as an individual and a person. If you don’t have anyone that close to you yet, because you’ve just come to Vancouver or for whatever reason, make the effort to get to know someone. Suggest having coffee with someone you like so far. It takes time to make friends and it can get depressing — my wail of "I miss my old friends!" was quite frequent last year — but it pays off. I promise. Don’t forget to stay in touch with your old friends too — it can be a great mood-booster to get a call or an email from them.
- Call home. You don’t have to do this everyday, but it would be nice if you called your parents every once in a while to see how they’re doing. I’m sure being away from home has taught many students something about appreciation (even though it is also great to be so free and independent), but I’m not sure we all express it enough. Not to rub the point in too morbidly, but in the last half-year I have heard two acquaintances of mine lose a loved one unexpectedly. Don’t expect everyone in your life to be here forever, and don’t let angry feelings fester too long.
- Make the time to do something for yourself. It is so easy to get caught up with school and work and extra-curriculars (particularly if you have some duties), that you can pass several days without doing something you like and enjoy and which is of no benefit to anyone else. Schedule in the time each day to do something entirely for yourself, just as you would (theoretically!) for homework time, studying, work hours and your millions of other commitments. Whether it be reading, painting, making music, going exploring, or whatever floats your boat, do it. (Those are just a few things I’ve always said I would love to do "when I have time" — make time.)
- Do something for someone else. It’s that old "do a good deed a day". I’m not saying you should hunt some unsuspecting person and insist on changing their day, but do make an effort to be aware of whether someone else is in need and of fulfilling that need if you can. Sometimes this is as simple as listening to someone else who’s having a bad day. Focusing on someone else really takes you beyond yourself and allows you to be there for another person. You’ll return to your own life worries in a better mood and with more energy to tackle them.
- Admit that some things stress you out. What this is differs from person to person; don’t listen to people who belittle your concerns by going, "Why are you so stressed about that? Everyone has to do it" or some such platitude. Everyone has different worries and priorities based on previous values, experiences and personalities. What one person enjoys can make another weep — the point is to admit and to accept it, and to still deal with it. For me, cleaning is definitely my biggest source of stress. It’s just the need of having to do the same thing over and over and over again every single day of my life with no end in sight that gets to me. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t care about cleanliness, but unfortunately, I am a bit obsessive about it. (Not that you’d think so looking at my home right now.) This makes it doubly difficult: I’m overwhelemed by the mere idea of tidying my wreck and I’m angry with myself if I don’t. I’m now resigning myself to the fact that yes, I am stressed about it and probably always will be, and I’m going to deal with a little bit of it everyday. Breaking it down into smaller tasks and thinking of what I can do "today" rather than what I need to do every single day of my life is much more manageable. I also put on music I really like when I’m doing something I hate to make it a tad more tolerable. I’m never going to enjoy cleaning, but at least I can live with it.
- Smile! As one of my friends likes to say to me whenever I take particular delight in her smile (she has such a lovely one): "Everyone has a beautiful smile." It’s true you don’t know how your smile can impact other people. Last week I was coming home from Burnaby when I met this bus driver who was the perkiest bus driver I have ever seen. She wished every single one of her passengers a happy Thanskgiving and bid them each a sincere good evening when they alighted, smiling and singing away while she drove. She was just so happy, it was infectious. It really did lift my day from mediocrity to be one of the best ones possible. Wish friends and strangers a good morning/afternoon/evening with all your heart. It’s surprisingly easy to feel genuinely happy once you’ve pretended it for a few minutes.
You’ll have noticed I haven’t said anything about managing school, work, or other commitments. This is because I believe if you’re not healthy and happy, you won’t be able to deal with everything else your life demands of you. Sure, you may be able to cope in the short-term, but in the long-run, you’ll end up collapsing. When you are hungry and tired, it’s incredibly difficult to stay positive and to think clearly. Yes, doing all these things are really time-consuming when you could be writing a paper or putting in an extra hour of work. And certainly sometimes we have to sacrifice a few hours of sleep to finish off that lab assignment — but don’t let this be a long-term solution. Because it isn’t a long-term solution to keep missing meals in order to get that extra few per cent and then end up ill. If you haven’t got the health to enjoy doing all the things you are doing, you haven’t got much of what you want at all — so make the smaller sacrifice for the bigger benefits. For, paradoxically, if you set aside time to maintain your general health and well-being, you will find that doing everything else comes naturally and easier in the long run.
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