How to survive finals

It’s that time of the semester, college kid yogis. Seminar papers loom. Reading assignments feel arduous and unfair. We cram as many To Do list entries into our schedules. Fear and anxiety whisper to us every moment.

Fear not, fellow college students. I have a solution, a way to mitigate the emotional and physical effects of this semester overwhelm. Check it:

The College Kid Yoga End-of-Semester Overwhelm Remedy:

1. Change mindset:

By changing our mindset, I refer not to positive self-talk, a technique that often feels exhausting and results in only fleeting moments of peace. Rather, I espouse an entire reformation of the way we think about schoolwork. Since returning to school, I’ve been hyper-aware of how students, myself included, discuss classes, assignments, and other academic obligations as things to “get through,” to complete before we can take a break and actually live life. Our constant complaining and the negative thoughts we attach schoolwork actually creates our reality of sleepless nights, un-intuitive eating, lowered immune system, and general sucky-ness when finals hit.

What if we had fun with our schoolwork instead? What if we found a way to make studying enjoyable, to feel peaceful throughout the day while putting a serious dent in our To Do list? When I felt myself buying into the traditional paradigm of school as something to endure, I thought to myself, “there has GOT to be a way to complete these assignments without feeling anxious, sleep-deprived, and tempted to numb out with food (or whatever your drug of choice is). I chose this; I might as well enjoy it.”

As I enter the last full month of the fall semester, I’ve decided to have as much fun as I can with studying, paper-writing, research, and reading. For example, I create a realistic list of the assignments to tackle or paper topics to research, and allot a certain amount of time for each. After I work on one item on my list, I take a short break (10-15 mins), dance to a heart-thumping song, read a cool blog, call a friend/my family, etc. I try to move my body as much as possible during this time.

To have fun and feel calm WHILE I work, I draw inspiration from Nisha Moodley. Nisha recommends using a Feminine (or masculine) Focus Object during intense work periods. Choose something that you love to look at, that brings you comfort or joy. Place it on your desk, and look at it whenever you pause in your work. This helps us avoid getting distracted by the web, our phones, etc. My Feminine Focus Object is my pretty, cute pot of lip gloss. I place it on my laptop and glance at it while I work, which helps me avoid wasting time by checking Facebook or staring off into space.

My lip gloss be poppin.’

2. Yoga. Duh, of course my remedy includes yoga. I’ve said it before and I say it again: yoga gets us out of our heads and into our bodies. When we shift our focus from our whirring, anxiety-laden thoughts onto a visceral, physical experience, we begin to distinguish what’s real (how our bodies feel) and what’s an illusion (stress, fear, overwhelm). When we identify those negative thoughts as illusions, as not real, we detach from them and can proceed with studying, reading, writing, etc in a calm state of mind.

So do the yoga. For 10 mins. Every morning. And before you go to bed (ha!).

Tara Stiles can help! Check it:

We’ve got this, college kids.

Coffee? Psh.

Writing this post quickly, as I have my “History of Rhetoric” class in 13 mins. Guess what helps this grad student pay attention in class and vocalize awesome, useful insights on the expositions of St. Augustine?

That would be a concoction of frozen banana, spinach, and almond milk blended to perfection. While coffee depletes our cells of energy and nutrients, this baby energizes our bodies and makes us say HELLO.

Drink this instead of the coffee, college kids. Or drink this instead of coffee one morning. You can still luxuriate in the comfy chairs in Starbucks without a caffeinated drink in your hand.

I’ve been bitten

So maybe I do understand the frenzied excitement that accompanies the season of Fall. This morning, I took a crisp walk around the lake behind my house. It was lovely. Mostly because I pumped a steady stream of Destiny’s Child into my brain. But while walking, I took a look around and noticed the change in the colors of the leaves. I noticed happy, invigorated fellow-walkers in their sweaters and jeans. I felt cool, smoky air on my face.

Then, I went to a street festival with one of my roommates. The cool weather prompted me to wear my boots. This I liked.

The street festival featured art, jewelry, cupcake samples, and my chiropractor (yeah, my chiro had a booth. Because he believes in educating the community. Don’t mess), and free T-shirts. This I also liked.

Now I feel compelled to usher in this October evening with whatever it is that Fall maniacs do. Dip apples into homemade caramel? Carve pumpkins? Light autumn-scented Yankee candles? Research for seminar papers?

I know I’m late to this game, but Fall rocks.

Um, also, I saw the woman who makes me question my sexual orientation. In the flesh. For the second time in my life. See (very poor) images below:

Still relive this show. Like every day. It helps with the paper-writing.

How do grad students do this?

Wowza, peeps. What an intense few days for this grad student. Many words have been written and read. The images below captures how I feel after this week; clearly my ambiguous emotions run the gamut:

This helps. And this.

Also, my love for Christan mom blogs persists. These digital spaces bring me joy and contentment. The women behind them offer us an alternative way to perceive of and live in this crazy, chaotic world of ours. Check them out. Fo real.

And of course, the yoga helps me endure the weeks of heavy reading, writing, talking, and portfolio-building. For anyone looking to build a home practice for themselves (i.e. doing the yoga in your bedroom/living room/kitchen, etc.), look no further than Tara Stiles. She posts her routines all over the web. The democratization of yoga is changing the world. Trust.

A weekend of more reading and writing awaits. Also some yoga. And food. And booze.

Boy was I wrong

Happy October, fellow yogis and soon-to-be yogis. Man, folks in the blogosphere go bonkers for this month. When I checked my usual blogs on October 1st, rhapsodies about cider, cowl necks, cool weather, and bonfires abounded. These bloggers revel in the contemplative days of fall. I can get down with that.

Currently sitting in a coffee shop preparing to freewrite my fingers off, as a paper relating blogs to Aristotle’s Poetics looms over me. I shall prevail.

Remember when I expressed some ambivalence about returning to Blue Lotus due to the slow pace of the classes? Scratch that. My ambivalence persists no longer, for I now have a pulling desire to immerse myself in the classes and philosophy of Blue Lotus.

It all started yesterday when I attended a 4pm class. Earlier that day, obsessive, destructive, dark thoughts plagued my mind, causing me to almost harm my body as a result. I felt inadequate in my classes, anxious about looming assignments, and self-conscious in front of others. I saw that Blue Lotus offered a class at a new time, so I booked it over there for some afternoon vinyasa.

Wowza. The slow pace of the class provided me the time and quietness I needed to breathe through my fearful thoughts and choose new ones.  The instructor encouraged us to notice how we transition from pose to pose, how we often focus on the end pose or result and forget about how we actually get there. I felt comforted, protected, and challenged.

In true yoga junkie style, I attended another class this morning. As I sat on my mat waiting for class to begin, surrounded by 40-ish other women, I felt a rush of love envelope me. This is not hippie sh*t. This is real, people. I sat on my mat, closed my eyes, and viscerally felt the collective energy of my sisters. I expressed gratitude for the chance to practice with and learn from them. If I allowed my self-destructive thoughts their druthers, I would have fidgeted on my mat in an attempt to conceal my body from the tiny, fit yoga bodies luxuriating in their thinness/disciplined practice just centimeters away. But I chose to take care of myself, to feel something real, internal. And the love physically rushed in. My breathing deepened, my limbs felt warm. A smile grew on my face.

Then class began. Wowza did I sweat. My muscles shook. I had all of the time I needed to notice how my body felt in each pose and transition, and to breathe through any self-destructive thoughts that entered my mind. It rocked. And like any junkie, I feel addicted, controlled by the class that made me high.

Need more slow flow.

 

Slow that flow

Although I planned to survive my grad school years with the help of Blue Lotus by attending several classes per week, my enthusiasm for patronizing that studio on a regular basis has waned. I attended two classes in the three-ish weeks since I moved to Raleigh and felt…disappointed. Not only did I have to fork over 12 bucks per class (call me unrealistic, but I think that charging more than $10 for a yoga class undermines yoga’s universality), but the folks (they really are great) at Blue Lotus teach a slow vinyasa class.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the value of a slow yoga practice. In fact, I’ve reaped significant benefits from attending classes with instructors who teach students how to slow the heck down. And I particularly enjoyed the first class I took at Blue Lotus because the instructor spoke about setting intentions before a yoga practice, then had us consciously remember that intention several times throughout class. This I liked.

But I prefer my regular yoga practice to involve copious amounts of sweat and heavy breathing. I revel in the feeling of purity that envelops my body after wringing out every toxin inside of me, a feeling that usually accompanies a fast-paced class. I also believe that a fast-paced practice helps students, especially we college kids, focus on our bodies, rather than our anxious, whirring thoughts. When we move quickly on our mats, our bodies take over and (temporarily, at least) silence our thoughts so that we can follow the instructor. Anytime we can get out of our heads will serve us well, fellow college kids.

Nevertheless, I will return to Blue Lotus…and begrudgingly pay $12 for another class. Maybe slowing our flow is what we need. Between the papers, the meetings, the conferences, and the classes, we college students might benefit from a little slowness.

It all gets done

Wowza, so this is grad school. Wowza. All good, but wowza.

Aside from working with nothing but supportive classmates and professors, I was given a cubicle. And it rocks. Because I have a designated space, outside of my house, to dig myself out of this grad school workload. Plus, my cube serves as a social outlet. With four desks to a cube, it’s close quarters ’round here (workin’ on my accent), so we students have opportunities to hang.

My desk (looks bleak, but it is mine):

I don’t have a particular objective for this post, though I feel somewhat inspired to remind you college kids, especially those who just began fall semester, that it all gets done. It really does all get done. I realize that I’m writing this at a time of year when seminar papers have yet to rear their ugly heads, but I trust that this wisdom will see me through.

Yes, our professors, advisers, etc. give us a seemingly cruel amount of work. But we choose how we react to that amount of work. We can allow that work to overwhelm us and incite within us severe bouts of self-doubt. Or we can acknowledge the assignments before us, schedule our time accordingly, and breathe. Which one sounds more productive?

It all gets done, peeps. When we force that thought into our heads until we actually believe it, we silence those feelings of inadequacy and can tackle that mountain of work AND have time to sleep. For a few hours, anyway. Trust.