As finals week comes to a close, you’re likely feeling exhausted and burned out. Here are five ways to relax over spring break to get you ready for next quarter.
Binge-watch your favorite show
Give yourself permission to do something you’d never do during the quarter – binge-watch your favorite show. Step one: find a comfortable spot to plop yourself down for the next four hours or so. Step two: arrange a variety of snack bowls next to your dominant hand for convenient reach. Step three: watch your favorite show (I’m currently binge watching Gilmore Girls). Step four: embrace gluttony and give in to lethargy.
Give yourself a spa day
Take care of your skin. It has taken the full brunt of the quarter system. Mix up a DIY facemask with oatmeal, yogurt, and honey, place cucumber slices on your eyes, and lie down. Catch up on that much-needed rest. For additional pampering, give yourself a pedicure after soaking your feet in warm water.
Read a book
Tuck away your electronic devices for ones. There’s something about social media that makes time pass faster. Which is why, I guess, you look at your phone when you’re at a party you want to leave or you are in a class you really don’t like. Pick up a book, a hard copy, physical book, and lose yourself in it. Begin a book you’ve been dying to read for ages (Unbroken, for me) or reread an old love (I reread Diary of a Wimpy Kid over break).
Bake/cook something
I don’t know about you, but I’ve liked hundreds of Tasty videos on Facebook, promising myself I’ll try them out someday, and I never do! Now’s the time to tackle your cuisine to-do list. Food always tastes better when you make it from scratch, plus you’ll get the prime opportunity to show off your skills on Insta.
Shop
Treat yourself. You’ve been resisting the impulse-purchase urge for months, and now is the time to entertain it. Within reasonable limits, of course. Go to the mall with a few friends and raid Forever 21. Or, if you’re like me, and don’t have the willpower to get up from your couch, online shop for a few hours (way more effective, trust me).
But honestly, the most important thing to do this spring break is to a) give yourself time to relax, whatever that might mean to you and b) do the stuff that you’ve been postponing but have been wanting to do for a long time. Have fun!
Photo credits to Aki Tolentino, Brooke Lark, and Mariana Vusiatytska