The Pleasure In A Lazy Day
because not feeling guilty about taking a lazy day is the best thing you can do for yourself
For this week's article, I'm pulling from someone whose Instagram and blog I like to follow very closely, especially those posts I can relate to on a daily basis. Most of you know her from the TLC show, Little People Big World, Audrey Roloff.
Not only does is she married to one of the stars of the show, but she has her own clothing line as well, based off of her favorite devotional which includes the phrase that most of her items dote: Always More. On top of this, her and her husband have a baby girl, who always manages to keep life busy.
This week, she posted on both Instagram and her blog about how she hasn't been managing stress too well lately, and she recognizes it's not the fault of others, but her own. And to be quite honest, I've come to the same realization. Having feelings of being constantly overwhelmed, stressed, and generally tired leads to procrastination of work, an increased amount of naps, and overall more stress due to the things I'm not getting done.
This overwhelmed feeling can be caused by a number of things relating to both school and outside of school. The workload of classes can be a lot to handle at times, especially with pressing due dates and my sense of needing to get everything done as soon as it's assigned, and making sure it's absolutely perfect. This can be very dragging at times, because there's only so much time in one day. Also because of this, sleep, while VERY important, is often pushed to the side in order to write one more page of an essay, or stay up just an extra 20 minutes to talk to my friends down the hall whom I haven't seen all day. Of course, I have my planner, which is a constant reminder of the things I either haven't done, still have yet to do, or have done. Every week seems the same, trying to complete both homework, household chores, and still have time for meetings and downtime. Getting behind on my homework is something that rarely happens, but when it does, it gets bad. "One little nap won't hurt", I always tell myself. What was supposed to be a 45 minute nap turns into a two hour nap, thus causing me to lose even more time during the day that could be spent doing more productive things. Outside of school work, it's making sure I'm exercising, eating healthily, staying on top of extracurriculars, and spending time with friends that keeps me occupied. Oftentimes, spending time with friends and exercising sometimes fall to the bottom of the list, because I feel an obligation to my extracurriculars that's similar to my school work. It needs to be done, perfectly, and on the deadline, if not beforehand.
If we're going to be completely honest here, I'm not much of a "no" person. Maybe it's a good thing, or a bad thing. I'm always willing to help someone out, even if it benefits me or not in the long run. This can sometimes be detrimental as well, because it takes more time away that could be spent doing more worthwhile, productive things. My optimism and willingness to help speaks for me before I have a chance to think things through and go with a more rational option that benefits my time as well.
I am grateful and appreciative for those lazy days where I'm not required to get up from my futon, and can leave my pajamas on all day without judgment or shame. I don't feel guilty taking a lazy Sunday to recuperate from the week before and to re-energize for the week to come. I've caught myself feeling guilty in the moment for not devoting that time, or even just an hour of my time on those days to homework, or getting ahead in coursework. But then I remind myself that I gave myself that lazy day for a reason.
I don't always have to be running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Only sometimes. Most days I just need that self-reminder that it's ok to not be on top of everything, and that it will all get done eventually. Letting anxiety and stress take over the things I can't control is dragging, and fills my mind with more unnecessary thoughts.
Lazy days, I will forever be in debt to your healing powers and as a cure for this college girls ever so busy life, that only continues to get busier and busier.
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