Let me make one thing clear from the beginning: I wholeheartedly believe in the importance of self-care. We have to make time to rest regularly in order to maintain any semblance of mental and emotional stability. While it may seem to nonbelievers like a waste of time, the simple truth is that we cannot run at maximum performance levels forever. Sure, you get more done by working nonstop every day from dusk til dawn. But is that sustainable?
(No.)
Enter self-care.
Don't be afraid to rest. All the problems swirling through your brain will
Resolve themselves with time, and
Probably not matter at all in a year.
You cannot pour for others from an empty cup, so it's essential to recharge and refill. The issue with self-care arises when we fail to discern an appropriate stopping point. Yes, you're stressed. Yes, you would like to take a break and watch YouTube videos for 2 hours. But this project is due tomorrow and while videos of dogs playing with babies are wonderful gifts to this world, they're not always the right course of action. Devoting too much time to the pursuit of pleasure at the expense of productivity isn't revolutionary; it's lazy and hedonistic. The key is to plan your "me time" so you can goof off and relax without feeling too much like you've let everything fall to pieces. This system will never work perfectly and you're a fool if you think it will, but it's a start.
Now that I'm in college, I'm more in charge of my own free time than I ever was when I was living at home. If I want to blow off my responsibilities and just watch Prince of Egypt at 2 in the morning, I absolutely can. But I don't give in to that urge (often) because it isn't really helping me in the long run. As it turns out,
SELF-CARE IS MORE THAN PLEASURE FOR PLEASURE'S SAKE.
Let's get specific. One of my biggest stressors is a lack of structure, be it in my mind or in my environment. If I'm trying to get work done and my friends have left their belongings strewn about the dorm, I'm not touching my academics until everything is tidied (which is hard when half the mess belongs to people who don't even live with me). Because I've got such an intense workload, I do get overwhelmed from time to time to a point where I could definitely benefit from a nice, long bath or a mindless hangout session with the boys. In the long run, however, constantly retreating from the unscheduled mess of college life doesn't help me. Not at all.
I came to realize that self-care isn't always face masks and painting my toenails, as Twitter would have you believe. For me, self-care is taking time to sit down and plan my days, making lists of the (seemingly) thousands of tasks that I must take care of if I want to thrive, rather than survive. Self-care is actually tending to whatever mess my roommates and I have been stepping around for weeks--either a potential mess in our relationships or a literal mess on our living room floor that nobody wants to deal with.
(Quick tip for those of you about to live in a dorm for the first time: someone will have to deal with these messes eventually. Don't shy away from being that person.)
That being said, none of this is meant to be an assault on the luxuries that many of us like to partake in from time to time. I love a good charcoal face mask while soaking in a lavender-scented, coconut oil-infused bubble bath, after all. But one has to think critically about their particular brand of indulgence. We all have likes and dislikes peculiar to our individual tastes--so logically, everyone's most effective brand of self-care should be catered to themselves. Don't spend twice as much as you should on shoes you'll never wear if you're constantly worrying about going broke. Don't eat 3 pints of ice cream every day if you're training for a triathlon. And don't be too hard on yourself if you slip up and overindulge every once in a while--it's probably not the end of the world, and if it is, the world is ending. So you won't have to deal with the repercussions for long. I’ll see y’all next time.
LØTA