If you’re anything like me then all year you’ve waited for the illustrious spring break and worked diligently all winter long with the anticipation of time off in the back of your mind. By the time the calendar finally reached the date, we were all ready for a breather.
As long as it took for spring break to arrive, to your dismay, the week just flew by. While you had a great time, it’s now over; time to get to campus and return to work. As you make the trip back, you realize just how exhausted you are and dread the struggle to get back into your routine. WMU welcomes us back with dreadful Monday morning classes. It’s sometimes hard to recover from an active and sleep deprived break. Even if you spent your break at home sleeping off the stresses from the semester it can still be hard to get back into the swing of things.
So how do you recover from spring break and effectively get back to work? Here are a few post-break strategies you can use to get yourself back up and running with less stress.
When recovering from spring break, you might want to try to force yourself into the right frame of mind. Sometimes simply telling yourself you’ve got to get it together and pushing aside any feelings of reluctance of getting back to work may do the trick. Trying this perspective may increase your motivation factor; the old saying “mind over matter” does have a certain appeal and can often lessen any hesitancies and give you the strength to move forward.
Once you inspire yourself, you’ll find it’s easier to get back on track and focus on school. It’s a good idea to drink lots of water and eat well-balanced meals, forgo the pizza and chips and focus on the basic food groups instead. It’ll probably be tempting to load yourself up on coffee and soda to try and revitalize yourself, but if you try to keep this to a minimum and replace it with water, you’ll likely find yourself to have more energy. Caffeine may feel good at first, but it’s only a matter of time before that feeling wears off and you feel more tired than you did before.
A good recovery method is to try and leave time in your busy schedule for enough (and maybe a little extra) sleep, it’s often alluring to jump right back into your social routine, but first give your body a chance to recover and be fully rested. This will give you the energy you need to forge ahead and tackle the last few weeks of the semester; after all finals, and spring are right around the corner. Enjoy the fact that you’ve made it to the second half of the semester and soon most will be free of classes for four months!