Academic Life: Stress and Self-Care

  Welcome back from Spring Break! If you're like me, it was way too short.  About the time I started finding my center and remembering to breathe, it was ending.  But, just because break is ending doesn't mean our perspectives should shift.  What perspective were you able to find during break?  I remembered that it's better for me (and my students) if I put self-care first.   How long did that perspective last?  About 5 minutes.  Actually, it would have lasted about that long, but I ended up scheduling an early lunch with a friend that I've been out of touch with during the pandemic.  Normally I dive head first into work and knock out as much as possible on Mondays.  But, with an early lunch planned, I only got a few things done before having to leave to make the date. And, it was the best thing that could have happened.  I had a leisurely lunch for about 2 hours and then returned fresh to deal with my to do list.  I'm now very quickly crossing things off.  And, the

  Today I rediscovered my yoga practice after more than 6 months off the mat.  Was it what I wanted it to be? No. My body doesn't want to move into the positions it previously found easily.  My butt was in the air for child's pose rather than resting on my heels.  And, rather than being a long energetic practice filled with heat and movement, I chose to do a brief yin practice filled with slow floor poses and gentle stretches.  As I laid in savasana (resting pose) at the end of my practice, a thought entered my head - Acceptance.  Today was all about letting go of control and accepting where I am now, right in this moment.   Accepting the present moment can be challenging.  I find this to be especially true when I'm super-stressed or simply in a competitive mode.  At these times I'm reminded of what one of my favorite yoga teachers used to say in class whenever he saw us pushing too hard: "Yoga is not a competition - not even with yourself."  Even so, acceptin

  Yesterday was the first day of meteorological Spring.  Today's weather is expected to be 67 degrees, and there's an 80 degree day in the forecast for the weekend.  Spring fever has set in!  I'm counting down the days until Spring Break and readying my porch and garden for their Summer look.  This is about the time that many people start thinking about doing some major cleaning out and cleaning up.  But, sometimes that can be a bit daunting.  There's always too much to do and not enough time. So, if you want to start decluttering and doing a little Spring cleaning but don't know where to start, here are some tips: 1) Start small.  Clean off one counter in the kitchen.  Clean out your school/work bag.  Anything is progress. 2) Crank up the tunes!  Music makes everything better.  Put on something that makes you smile and dance your way to a cleaner space. 3) Recruit help.  See if you can talk a friend into helping or keeping you company.  Maybe they can help you clea

How well do you deal with change and ambiguity? Some people are blessed with the skillset to go with the flow and readily adapt as needed.  If you're like me, though, you prefer structure, clear directions, and to know what to expect in any given situation.  Unfortunately, life doesn't always offer us the consistency and clarity that we might want.  Change happens.  What's that old adage...The only constant in life is that everything changes?  As we continue through the pandemic and deal with changing expectations at work, in class, and out in the world, it's important to have some skills to help us cope with the unknown.  So, here are a few things that I hope you'll find helpful: Will it matter in 5 years?  If it won't matter in 5 years, don't waste energy railing and fighting against the tide. Are you practicing self-care?  Taking care of yourself can help you take care of others when dealing with change.  It also can help to keep you from overreacting to

  How many matches do you have today?  Did you wake up fully recharged and ready to tackle your day?  Or, was it more of a struggle to get out of bed, a tired that not even caffeine could fix?  Each day is a new day, but not all days are created equal.  Some days we get a great night's sleep and can accomplish all of the things on our to do list with grace and ease.  Other days.... sigh.  We may not even have the energy to truly care about much of anything.  Either way this is perfectly normal. A very wise man once explained it to me like this - we are all given a set of matches each day to use however we need to.  Some days we have more matches than we need to get through our day and can invest our extra energy into perusing fun and tackling projects. And, on other days, we are handed a matchbook with only a few matches to use.  They may not even be enough to get through everything we need to; but, that's where we are.  Ultimately, we don't really get a say in how many mat

  So, we've all heard that adults need on average around 8 hours of sleep per night.  But, how many of us actually accomplish that on a regular basis?  It's way too easy to get distracted with social media, hanging out with friends, and enjoying life.  That's not even including the time we spend taking care of ourselves, our living space, and our families each night.  In fact a study by the National Sleep Foundation (2011) reported that only about 63% of Americans say they're getting enough sleep during the week, and 15% of adults aged 19-64 reported getting less than six hours of sleep each night.  So, we're not great at getting enough sleep on a regular basis.  What impact does this actually have?   Sleep plays a major function in memory by allowing the brain to convert short-term memory into long-term memory.  That's like clearing the cache on a computer.  Mass and Robbins (2011) point out that the final two hours of sleep (hours 5.5 to 7 or hours 7-9) are cr

  This week I'm reminded of the importance of mindfulness.  Being mindful means being in the present moment.  Being mindful means that we place our full attention into what is going on in the moment.  This isn't as easy to do as we think.  And, we often think that it's easier to be mindful during happy, pleasant moments than it is to be mindful during sad, uncomfortable moments.  But, that's not necessarily true.  Think about something that made you happy. Can you remember the details, or just an overall feeling and fleeting thoughts?  What about an unpleasant moment?  Is that one clearer, or are those details fuzzy?   Learning to be mindful allows us the opportunity to fully embrace a moment and an opportunity to remember it more in detail. This is awesome when it's a happy moment.  Mindfulness lets us slow down to really appreciate this experience fully.  It reminds us that time is fleeting; this moment is fleeting  - gone with the next breath. So, by focusing on