We’re at the point of the semester that everyone dreads: midterms. You’re overworked, running on only a few hours of sleep, and with unhealthy levels of caffeine in your bloodstream. It’s at moments like this that I think self-care is extremely important for college students to focus on.
Self-Care is a word we hear thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean? One definition is taking care of your mental health, so getting whichever treatment works for you; therapy, medication, etc. Another translation is making healthy choices for yourself; getting out of a toxic friendship or relationship, deleting someone’s phone number, or blocking them on social media to make your life easier with their lack of presence.
The definition I’m going to be talking about in this post, however, is the physical one; taking care of your body and giving yourself time for just you. I’m going to give you a self-care guide so that you can take a minute, relax your body, calm your mind, and help yourself get away from the stress of everyday life.
Take a bath
Warm water is an instant muscle relaxer, and it can make you feel comforted and give you a place to clear your mind once your body is relaxed. Whether you like standing in a shower or laying down in a bath, take some time to really let yourself unwind.
Use products with natural ingredients that help your body
Lots of bath products or body products have specific ingredients to help you relax and take care of yourself. I love using bath products with rose or lavender in them. Rose reduces redness, so you can visibly see a change in your body once you use a product that includes rose extract or rose absolute. Lavender is a relaxing scent that is used a lot for sleep aids, so if you’re feeling high stressed or are sleep-deprived, using a lavender lotion before you go to bed can help your body and mind unwind naturally.
Face masks
Face masks are a really hot trend right now, but that doesn’t mean they’re a useless fad. There are lots of face masks with ingredients to be kind to your skin and help repair it from the daily beating it takes in the outside world. There are lots of face masks, similar to bath bombs, that help calm your skin down. Some of my personal favorites are “Mask of Magnaminty” from Lush. It contains peppermint oil and aduki beans, which help calm down and exfoliate your skin, and it’s also great for acne prone skin. I also love Lush’s “Fomo” face mask which…again…has rose. It’s available in a regular face mask form or a jelly face mask form, which comes in a squishy jelly form that turns into a more traditional creamy face mask when you warm it up in your hands. You can find face masks for oily skin, dry skin, combination, acne prone, redness-prone, so do some research into ingredients that will be good for your skin, and they’d be a great addition to your self care routine.
Make yourself a warm drink
We love warm drinks like coffee during the day, but I urge you, put the caffeine down!! There are lots of types of teas in stores now that aren’t your traditional green tea. Chamomile is a great ingredient that helps your body and mind relax, I recommend the Sleepytime Tea brand that is a mixture of a bunch of different kind of teas that create a unique blend and taste, or a Honey Vanilla Chamomile tea if you don’t like the taste of traditional teas.
Put on your favorite movie
We all have that one movie that is our go-to when we need a pick me up. For me, it’s a classic Disney animated movie, that reminds us that we can do anything. So, cozy up on the couch and let the movie carry you away for a while. Let yourself become totally immersed, and you’ll forget about any of the daily stress that’s weighing you down.
Paint your nails
Painting your nails is a great activity to immerse yourself into. Let yourself focus on just the act of completing the task of painting, and you can have the satisfaction of completing that task.
Taking the time to do nothing is something that is very foreign to us in the modern age. We’re very go, go, go and if we stop to rest, we’re wasting time. But making time to indulge yourself with the things you love, and treating your body to some care, is NOT wasting time. Don’t be afraid to let yourself take up time, you’re worth it.