Taking Time to De-Stressify your Life

Hello All,

It's the middle of October and that means exactly 3 things:
1) Pumpkin-Spice flavored EVERYTHING
2) Cooler temperatures (well, maybe someday in Texas)
and 3) Midterms are upon us!

While it is extremely important to study hard and do well on your exams, you're not going to do as well if you're totally stressed out, so today I'm going to talk about ways to De-Stressify your Life.

Generally, there are three main ways to de-stress:
1) Quiet Reflection or Meditation
2) Physical Activity
3) Doing something creative

Start by brainstorming a list of things that you really enjoy; activities that make you happy. This is your starting point whenever you need to take a break from studying. However, it is good to have more than one go-to for de-stressing. For example, I have many friends that bake when they're stressed, and if they follow that up with stress eating, you can see that this will lead down a dark path. Here are some additional suggestions if you need more ideas about how to de-stress:

1. Take a long hot shower or bubble bath
2. Try some breathing exercises
3. Have a 1 minute dance break
4. Get a massage; if you're with friends, get a massage circle going.
5. Watch a Movie (I don't recommend watching TV as it can easily turn into binge watching. Movies have a set time limit, so unless you're having a movie marathon, you'll most likely only be taking a 1.5-2 hour study break)
6. Clean (trust me, this works as evidenced by my near spotless apartment during midterms. You'll de-stress and have a clean living space)
7. Be social
8. Read something for fun
9. Go outside. Go for a walk/bike ride and enjoy the change of scenery and fresh air
10. Draw or Paint - really this just boils down to doing something creative be it knitting, cooking, or crafting.
11. Go shopping - nothing like a little retail therapy!
12. Make some music! - If you don't play an instrument, sing or get a beat going by tapping your pencil.


I hope you found this post interesting and helpful!

P.S. If you have any topic in particular that you'd like me to talk about in a post, please leave me a comment.

Taking Advantage of Your College Environment

Hello Everyone!

I didn't get a chance to write up a post last week, and for that I do apologize, so for this post I'll combine two topics in a super-post I'll call "Taking Advantage of Your College Environment."

The first subtopic I'll be addressing is Campus Services. Most students are aware of at least a few of the campus services available to them such as an activity center and a health center, but there are usually many different services that many students never hear of. These services can include:

• a post office
• Multicultural/Diversity center
• Career Center
• Counseling Center
• Study abroad office
• Student escort service 
• Notary
• Discounted tickets
• Women's Center

I encourage all students, particularly incoming freshmen, to investigate all of the services that your school offers and take advantage of them since you're already paying for them with your tuition and fees.

Now, I'll move on to my second topic: Getting to Know Your New Environment. This extends beyond becoming familiar with the campus to learning about the surrounding areas. It doesn't matter where your college is, there will always be interesting and fun things to do in the city/town. Go try out some local restaurants and shops and explore museums and local history. When I was in High School, I participated in a summer college program at the University of Mississippi. It's located in the quaint college town of Oxford, MS, and over the month I had getting to explore campus with my new friends. While seeing everything on campus was neat (the Grove was AWESOME), I think I had the most fun while exploring Oxford. One day I took a trip with a small group of friends out to see William Faulkner's home and on the way back to campus, we stopped in a local restaurant to snack on some chips and salsa, and that turned out to be one of the most memorable days of that entire summer.

It's incredibly important to like the city your college is in, because that's where you're going to (hopefully) be spending the next four years of your life, and while many freshmen like to stay on campus as much as they can to get fully immersed in the college experience, by their junior or senior year they've become bored because they've exhausted all of the entertainment available to them on campus. You'd be surprised by just how much there is to do in surrounding areas, so do some research or ask some people who live in the area (like maybe your professors... here's your chance to practice those Academic Communication Skills!).


I hope you found this post helpful and informative! Next week (or hopefully sometime later this week) I'll be talking about managing your college environment including ways to avoid procrastination and get through midterms without a hitch, so please check back soon! Thanks for reading!