College is a time of independence and personal exploration. You have to find a way to stay on top of your academics, social life, and extracurriculars which in itself is exhausting. Taking care of yourself often falls to the waist side, especially at a competitive school like bucknell. Students are encouraged to overachieve and often do, sometimes at the expense of their personal health. In a confined campus surrounded by more cows than people it’s easier to feel isolated and Bucknell sees earlier burnouts each semester. It becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with work, expectations and taking care of yourself. Many often forget that in order to keep up with academics and extracurriculars, you need to take care of yourself first. Because if you’re unable to do that, school can become seemingly insurmountable.
Here’s some ideas to help digest the day:
Write out a To-Do List
This is simple and maybe boring but extremely important to do everyday. When you start, don’t put everything you can think of on the list, start small. Put absolutely necessary items on like homework or laundry. This helps you physically see what you have to do for the day and might help take the weight off your shoulders, at least for those twenty four hours. Write it out the night before on actual paper, this way you can stick it somewhere you can physically see all day. Cross things off as you go and by the end of that day, it’s easier to feel accomplished, even if there’s twelve things to do tomorrow. The most important thing is taking it day by day, any longer and that’s when things start to feel insurmountable and even dire.
Try an I Did List
Okay, this sounds a bit silly but it honestly helps. When you’re writing your To-Do list for the next day, make another list called the I Did Today list. Write down everything you did because oftentimes, you’ll find you did so much more than you thought. It helps you to actually see what you accomplished and relieve some of the anxiety you feel. It’s hard to gauge how well you’re doing compared to your peers but as long as you start to see what you can do, it helps to relieve some personal pressure.
Do Something Before Bed
This one is a little more abstract because something different will work for everyone. It’s personal, what works for you may not work for others. Do something an hour or just a half hour before bed to help signal to your body it’s time to rest. I try to drink tea but you can try reading a book, writing in a journal(which sounds worse than it is) or even meditation. The point is to do something that slows your body down, because creating a good sleep cycle is the foundation of taking care of you. Especially in college where your day is packed with classes, meetings and friends, it’s important to take time for yourself. Just because you can do fifty things then pass out and do it all again tomorrow, doesn’t mean you should.
Becoming your own person is all about finding the right balance for you, so it can be hard when you’re surrounded by like-minded people because you can easily fall into a rhythm of just being there. This is where it gets dangerous though so start to look for warning signs that you are struggling and ways to alleviate that. Reach out to family and friends from home more, create a solid support system for yourself, so even if you find yourself burning out, it won’t need to get to that point. Understand that not every day is going to be the same, you don’t have to cram everything into Thursday because you spent Wednesday in bed. It’s what your body needed or wanted, and that’s just as important as being sick. If your battery is low, don’t continue to drain it, that’s just going to leave you feeling depleted. Start taking it day by day and realize, there’s a reason so many people try these tricks, because they work!
Just remember, without you, none of your goals will ever be achievable, take care of yourself.