Managing Stress
Thanksgiving break is fast approaching, and I cannot wait to take a break from classes. This past semester has been full of stressors, and so I’d like to share with you some of the resources I’ve utilized to keep my stress from being too overwhelming.
Reflection Rooms:
There are many rooms across campus —Central and North— that serve as small silent spaces for students to engage in mindfulness, whether that be through prayer, meditation, or quiet reflection time. I highly recommend them as a means of taking a break from the pressures of the day and doing a quick guided or self-guided meditation. In my experience, they’re almost always empty, so definitely take advantage of them if you have the time. A list of all reflection room locations can be found here: https://trotter.umich.edu/article/reflection-rooms-campus.
Journaling:
Journaling is an amazing habit that can take as much or as little time as you need. Not only does it allow you to express yourself and be introspective, but it also serves as a good way to track stressors, so that you can better identify and manage potential triggers. I’ve incorporated journaling into my nightly routine, and I limit myself to 15 minutes. This way, the act of journaling itself doesn’t become a stressor as I’m preventing it from taking up too much of my time. I like to use a physical journal, but there are plenty of journaling apps that make the practice even more convenient. Some such apps include Day One and Daylio, but I encourage you to do some research and find one that best fits your goals.
Sleep:
It is tough to get the right amount of sleep; a high workload could result in too little, and feelings of overwhelm could lead to too much. Additionally, the amount of sleep we need is unique to each of us. Some people can function better on fewer hours than others, and it’s up to us as individuals to find that right amount. It took me some experimenting, but now that I’ve found the amount on which I function best, I’ve been able to plan more effectively around it and create a more consistent routine that I know I’ll be likely to follow. My advice for getting a good amount of sleep is to experiment. Chances are, you’ve already found your lower bound of good sleep just by being a college student and having late-night homework/study sessions. Take some time this Thanksgiving break to find an upper bound. That way, you’ll have a good sense of what works best for you moving forward sleep-wise.
Eat regularly:
This is especially important with class registration coming up. Take advantage of Atlas’ time break feature and plan out how next semester will work with regard to meals. Will you have enough time for lunch in your current schedule? What about breakfast and dinner? A good thing about EECS classes is that for many of them, you don’t need to go to the lecture/discussion you’ve signed up for; you can go to whichever works best for you (*definitely check this for the class(es) you’re registering for because it isn’t necessarily true for all EECS classes*). What I like to do in Atlas is make two schedules: one that I’ll be sending to Backpack (in which it doesn’t matter which EECS sections I get into, as long as I get into one for each class I want) and another that actually describes what my week will look like (with the actual sections I’ll be attending for my EECS classes, regardless of whether or not those are the exact sections I’m registered for). This helps me visualize what my next semester will actually be like, and I can put time breaks in my “actual” schedule on Atlas to ensure that I make the time for things like meals.
These are a few of the practices that have helped me protect my mental health against stressors. I hope they help you too!
Meera Kumar