We're approaching the end of the calendar school year, for me it's the end of my first year of college. Though this year has been full to bursting with opportunity of all kinds,
I am
R E A D Y
T O
GO
I've reached a point in which it takes no less than four alarms to wake me up for my 8 a.m., I stare at my ceiling for about 30 minutes every morning questioning my existence, and mull over reasons why I maybe don't actually need college, all the while actually getting out bed a smooth 10 minutes before class and arriving every morning as soon as the clock grazes 8:01 a.m.
If you are like me, and are living a consistent existential crisis here are a few pro tips for surviving the rest of school year...
...or in other words, how to fight the funk:
1. Scream. Everyday.
If that's a method that helps you relieve stress. The pro tip of all pro tips is identifying that which causes you the most stress and finding a way to combat that. For me, it's flapping my hands and prancing around in a circle until I tired myself out. For most other people, I recommend yoga, spending time outside/with friends, and finding ways to take meaningful study breaks.
2. Write your heart out
I live and breathe by journaling. Simply having a place to transfer my thoughts so that I can get them O U T of my head offers an unmatched sense of relief. Especially when I find myself up at night longer than I desire simply because my mind won't slow itself down. Make your journal your personal therapist, confidentiality included.
3. E A T
For a lot of people I know, myself included, stress often takes form in the worst of habits. The worst in my eyes?
Loss of appetite.
If you think you're stressed out now studying for exams, and contemplating the existence of the world it is severely heightened when your body lacks the essential nutrients and energy it needs to function properly. A solid practice to live by, setting meal alarms and a nightly study/homework cut off. By 10:30 p.m., whatever isn't done on my to do list just becomes tomorrows problem. In the same manner, I try to eat at a certain time everyday regardless of where I am, what I'm working on, who I'm with etc. It takes 21 days to form a habit, and these are some of the most failsafe ones you can make.
At our age, especially at our age, there are few things that are more important than a healthy diet and sleep ... which brings me to my next point:
4. S L E E P
The image below is an X-ray of a brain with adequate amounts of sleep, and one suffering from sleep deprivation.
"Results from a brain imaging study suggest that while a good night's rest can regulate your mood and help you cope with the next day's emotional challenges, sleep deprivation does the opposite by excessively boosting the part of the brain most closely connected to depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders.
"It's almost as though, without sleep, the brain had reverted back to more primitive patterns of activity, in that it was unable to put emotional experiences into context and produce controlled, appropriate responses," said Matthew Walker, director of UC Berkeley's Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory and senior author of the study,
That's because the amygdala, the region of the brain that alerts the body to protect itself in times of danger, goes into overdrive on no sleep, according to the study. This consequently shuts down the prefrontal cortex, which commands logical reasoning, and thus prevents the release of chemicals needed to calm down the fight-or-flight reflex." - Yasmin Anwar, UC Berkeley News
Basically, sleep becomes the least of your worries when you try to operate without it.
GETCHO EIGHT HOURS
And Lastly:
5. Know your worth
The one thing that keeps me going, and forces me out of bed even on my worst days is realizing that this, my exhaustion now, extends so far beyond me.
I am here, at the school of my dreams- the most beautiful campus in america- on a full scholarship as a first generation college student because this was always my dream. Post-secondary education isn't a right, nor is it easy. But in order to create and live a life in the most meaningful of ways, I needed to expand my horizons. I have done everything this year from working for a magazine, becoming make up and wardrobe director for a production company, being a social media and legal intern, to adding on a second major and planning to spend a semester in Alaska.
I've come a long way for a small town girl.
And I have too much farther to go, as do you all.
Fight it with every breath you have, because the air on the other side will be so so worth it.
