We\u2019re constantly told to go out and have fun, but never told how or what to do!<\/p>\n
In discussions about\u00a0self-care in graduate school<\/a>, we\u2019re always told to build in some time for ourselves. It sounds simple, but that proposition is baffling to me. Unwinding and having fun can seem impossible when we wear multiple hats (student, teacher, administrator, family member, partner, etc.) and constantly running from one appointment \u00a0to another.\u00a0Graduate students are trained to be efficient with our time, money, and energy, and to constantly be hitting two — or ten — birds with one stone<\/strong>. If I\u2019m supposed to present my work at a conference, I\u2019m also supposed to meet five famous scholars,\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0hear about the newest theory in our discipline,\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0get to the caucus meetings,\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0catch up with my friends,\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0take a great Instagram picture. Oh, and also pay for this conference without going into debt. This mentality has transcended to my everyday life too: if I\u2019m going to kick back with a new book, it also has to be fun\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0teaching me something about new developments in the field. Or, if I\u2019m going to cook a nice meal for myself, I also plan to be reading furiously for seminar while it simmers on the stove.<\/p>\n No doubt about it: doubling up on fun and work is effective, especially when we\u2019re short on time, money, and energy. The downside of all this?\u00a0We forget that completely stepping away from work is not only restorative, but absolutely necessary<\/strong>. We can get bogged down in trying to get it all done, to the point that completely disconnecting from work seems impossible.<\/p>\n However, disconnecting is constantly associated with luxury: expensive spa days, fancy dinners out, cocktails on some sunny, distant beach. These are great, but they\u2019re not really within the reach of a graduate student budget or schedule. I personally think that\u00a0disconnecting is less about how much time or money you spend, and more about a state of mind<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Schedule your fun<\/strong><\/p>\n Scheduling your downtime doesn\u2019t sound relaxing at all, but I find that actually writing it down and securing its place in my schedule makes it more restorative. I also find that if I plan out my downtime and decide exactly what I\u2019m doing, where, and when, I\u2019m much more likely to do something fun instead of lying in bed scrolling through Instagram for hours. (I do that even when I\u2019m swamped with work anyway!). So: if you want to get a little more from your downtime, WRITE IT DOWN.\u00a0S<\/strong>chedule it and hold on to that time fiercely<\/strong>: prioritize it like you would a meeting or a doctor\u2019s appointment, and don\u2019t put it off!<\/p>\n Decide how much social time matters to you<\/strong><\/p>\n Spending time with your friends is crucial in graduate school, but I think we have a tendency to conflate social time with relaxation. Going out with your friends\u00a0can<\/em>\u00a0be fun, but don\u2019t forget that hanging out with friends can feel very different from time alone to do what you want. When it comes to budgeting your time, remember to keep those two categories of downtime separate, especially if\u00a0you\u2019re an introvert who absolutely\u00a0needs<\/em>\u00a0alone time to recharge.<\/a><\/p>\n But what am I supposed to do for fun?<\/strong><\/p>\n Lots! I used to be terrified of the \u201cWhat do you do in your spare time?\u201d question, simply because I didn\u2019t feel like I had well-defined hobbies or interests. I\u2019m still working toward this, but after trying different things out, I\u2019ve found a few options that help me unplug from work. You can do these activities by yourself or with a group of people<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0Video\/computer games<\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t play video games very often, nor do I follow the culture, but I\u2019ve found a few games out there that I like. Complex moves like aiming and shooting on a controller stress me out, but I enjoy solving puzzles and exploring worlds \u2013\u00a0it reminds me of being a kid and playing on the computer for hours after school<\/strong>. I have a few games saved on my computer that I play when I\u2019m taking a writing break, and they\u2019ve really helped take my mind off work. (My personal favorite:\u00a0Tricky Towers<\/a>, which is a tower-stacking version of Tetris with physics and gravity. You can play in single-player, online multiplayer, or local multiplayer mode!)<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0Indulgent cooking<\/strong><\/p>\n I do two kinds of cooking: functional, quick, everyday cooking and indulgent, slow, slightly more complicated cooking. Functional cooking is something I can do in a rush: it mostly involves quick saut\u00e9s or popping something in the oven. When I do this kind of cooking, I\u2019m usually not following a recipe and I\u2019m often catching up on my texts or scrolling through Twitter at the same time. Indulgent cooking, however, is more rare and is what I consider a break from my routine. It usually involvesfinding a recipe, getting ingredients, putting on music or a podcast, and enjoying the sights and smells of a warm, bustling kitchen<\/strong>.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t have to be an expensive recipe either<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 I\u2019ve had a lot of fun experimenting with recipes from\u00a0BudgetBytes.com<\/a>. And when I don\u2019t feel like following a complicated recipe, I\u2019ve had great success buying a single steak (which can range anywhere from $7 for standard freezer aisle steak to $20 for a prime grass-fed cuts) and throwing it into a sizzling hot skillet.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0Walks<\/strong><\/p>\n Similar to cooking, there\u2019s functional, quick walks (e.g. from your parking lot to your main building or to the store to get more milk) and then there are more deliberate, planned walks. When I do walks like the latter, I like to leave my headphones at home and really take in my surroundings. It\u2019s a great way for me to sort through my thoughts, and to get moving after a long day (or week) of sitting and reading. A walk is also a great way to catch up with a friend, especially if you don\u2019t want to center hanging out around food or drinks, or if you\u2019re both\u00a0trying to introduce more physical activity into your schedule<\/a>. Check out hiking trails, bike paths, and bustling sidewalks near you, and see which fit your mood.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0Board games<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019re the social type,\u00a0board games are a great way to kick back and unplug from work<\/strong>. When grad students get together, it\u2019s easy for conversation to shift from catching up to teaching, classes we\u2019re taking, departmental gossip, the next conference, and other professional topics. Board games are the perfect antidote for this tendency because they offer the group something to do together rather than leaving a huge chunk of time open for conversation. I really enjoy cooperative games where all players are working together to win \u2013 think of it as low-stakes practice for collaboration and communication in the professional world. My personal favorite is\u00a0Betrayal at House on the Hill<\/a>\u00a0— the constantly changing configuration of the board makes it so that this game never gets old. The spooky theme is a bonus!<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0A quick at-home spa experience<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s something profoundly soothing about very visible and ostentatious-looking grooming and maintenance methods. Rituals like beard grooming, mud masks, DIY manicures and pedicures, or even teeth-whitening(!) are great reminders to step back and take care of ourselves., When I\u2019m having a bad day, I like to put on\u00a0my thickest, goopiest mask<\/a>\u00a0and wander around my apartment in my pajamas. It doesn\u2019t take a lot of time (about 30 minutes to put the mask on, leave it, and wash it off), and I can pair it with other small indulgences, like a longform non-fiction piece I\u2019ve saved on my browser and a cup of tea. \u00a0Whether it actually does anything for my skin is debatable, but I do love catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror and giggling at how ridiculous I look.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019re constantly told to go out and have fun, but never told how or what to do! In discussions about\u00a0self-care in graduate school, we\u2019re always told to build in some time for ourselves. It sounds simple, but that proposition is baffling to me. Unwinding and having fun can seem impossible when we wear multiple hats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-post","8":"category-life-of-a-grad-student"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/graduate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/08\/all-work-and-no-play.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/graduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/graduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/graduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/graduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/graduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/graduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":687,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/graduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions\/687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/graduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/graduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/graduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.tntech.edu\/graduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}