Whether you have a mental illness, or you need something to help you get through Chicago's brutal winter, here is a collection of my favorite tips and methods to feel better and take care of myself.

1. Call or go home

If you are close with your family and have a stable home situation in which calling would help rather than hinder you, call home. Hearing your mom's or dad's voice can be extremely therapeutic. Especially after a particularly rough night out, or a hard week of classes, it can be really nice to just have some familiarity. If you are able to accommodate it in your schedule and financially, go home for the weekend or the night, depending on where you live. A phone call is nice, but being able to hug your family, eat a home-cooked meal, and see your pets is much better.

2. Indulge in a beauty practice

For your hair:

Treat yourself to an apple-cider-vinegar hair rinse if you have buildup, use a deep conditioner if your hair has been dry and dull, or use some coconut oil to add shine.

For your face:

Mix apple cider vinegar and bentonite clay for a super healing and impurity-removing mask. Exfoliate! You should be exfoliating two or three times a week already, but if you need an extra deep exfoliator, use coffee grounds, sugar, olive oil, argan oil -- the possibilities and combinations are limitless. Make sure you moisturize, especially in the winter season when the air is dry and the wind is constantly hurting your face. Coconut oil is deeply moisturizing; it's best if you rub it in your palms and apply to your face before bed.

For your body:

Take a bath, add Epsom salts, oils, or your favorite bath bomb. Light a candle, put on some soothing music, and drink some tea in the tub. Let yourself actually unwind and be in the moment, not worrying about assignments as the quarter picks up. Again, make sure you are moisturizing your body to prevent it from getting to dry or cracked.

3. Practice mindfulness

One of the best things I ever learned was the word "mindfulness." We are constantly focused on the past and the pending. Some stupid thing you did at a party, a fight with a friend, or an old relationship. Or what's to come next, how you'll do in a class, jobs, or future relationships. Very rarely are we actually focused on what's going on around us, in the moment. I myself walk around like a zombie constantly checked out and worried. It can be nice to take 15 minutes a day to sit and let be.

4. Make lists

In contrast to practicing mindfulness, I find myself constantly making lists on the notes app of my phone, my computer, or in journals. I love planning out days, weeks, classes, assignments, goals -- the list of lists could go on forever. Just make sure you aren't getting disappointed with yourself if you haven't accomplished everything or you haven't followed it strictly. Be moderate with yourself, and it can also be rewarding to cross something off.

5. Food: Be healthy, but indulge

It's important to make sure you're eating relatively healthy. For a large part of my life, to put it quite frankly, I ate like shit. I was an extremely picky eater and barely ate fruits or vegetables. I ate as much junk food as possible because it tasted good and felt good. Food really does have an impact on your mental and physical health. I believe that the two are pretty intertwined and it's important to make sure you are eating a balanced diet. Eating healthy won't cure you of depression or another mental illness, but it can help. At the same time, it is OK to indulge when you need it. Have some chocolate, drink a milkshake, get a really extravagant grilled cheese. You earned it, simply through being. You can't live your life by a strict and binding set of expectations, so it's OK to indulge sometimes.

6. Go for a walk

This may seem crazy if it's intensely cold out, but if you can, bundle up and go for a walk outside. The fresh air will do you good and allow you to clear your mind and release tension. If it's too unthinkable in the cold, go for a walk indoors; it's OK to walk on the treadmills at the gym, or around the track -- no one actually cares how you work out.

7. Work out

It can be tough to get into a schedule of exercising but it's important. Even if you're just doing light jogging or yoga a couple times a week, it is important. Sometimes you just need to work out to get enough endorphins to make it through the day. At a certain point, working out will start to feel good, and it will allow you not to obsess over the past and pending, because it physically grounds you in the moment.

8. Read a book before you go to bed

I am guilty of watching a movie or show before I go to bed, and even falling asleep to the background noise of such. It is not good for you -- the brightness of the screen actually hinders how easily you fall asleep. Reading before you go to bed will allow your mind to slowly be less stimulated and get cozy.

9. Write

Writing is quite possibly my favorite form of self-care. I love to write, and when I feel that pent-up emotion in me that I am unable to express verbally or physically to others, writing can be the most releasing thing. Write about anything: It can be a list or it can be a story you made up; it can even just be your feelings or what happened to you that day. Just do it.

10. Less caffeine

This may sound crazy, but take it from someone who was having two to three cups of coffee or three to four shots of espresso a day, it is important to cut back. I've been trying to switch to tea, caffeinated and non-caffeinated, which has also given me the bonus of saving money. Yes, you can make your own coffee, but do you make it as well as the barista at your favorite place? If you spend $5 a day on coffee every day, that's $35 a week, so it adds up and burns a hole in your pocket. Not only that, but caffeine provokes my anxiety. Sometimes it is absolutely necessary when lacking a good night's sleep, but it doesn't need to be an every-morning, -afternoon, and certainly not -night thing. When I'm anxious, pounding three shots of espresso and caramel syrup only sends me into an even bigger hand-trembling panic. The first few days are brutal, and the headaches will come, but it is worth it.

11. Sleep

This is so important! I cannot stress it enough. You need to be getting six to eight hours a night, every night. Your body and your mind need to relax and rest to be properly functioning the next day.

12. Cut back on drinking

This may not seem realistic to a lot of people in or out of college, but it's important. You know what you shouldn't do after you brown or black out? Go back out the next night. FOMO is real, I know, and you'll see people's Snap stories, but you will survive, I promise. Let yourself put on a pair of comfy sweats, make a nice dinner, and watch a good movie. You don't even need to have a productive night. Nothing feels better than waking up sober and not thinking, what did I do last night.

13. Clean your room

Throughout the week, a collection of shoes and clothes pile up on my floor. It doesn't matter if I didn't even end up wearing them, sometimes I am simply too lazy to hang them back up. So take time a few times a week to organize your desk, hang up your clothes, and make your bed. It helps. Put on a good playlist. The less cluttered your surroundings, the less cluttered your mind.

14. Breathe

This goes hand in hand with mindfulness. I get so pent up and wound up that my body is physically tight, I talk rapidly, my chest is tight, and I am rigid. Take off your backpack and your jacket, take off your shoes, and sigh. I'm talking about a lowering-your-shoulders full-body sigh. Release it, release whatever is pent up even if only for a minute. Stretch a little bit and take deep breaths. Center yourself if you are overwhelmed.