Feature Photo by: Glenda Chiang – A photo early in the morning showing how dark it is outside when students have to wake up for school.

No one denies not wanting a day off from their everyday life once in a while: to take a day where it is entirely down time and there is nothing else to do besides relax. Most times, self-care is regarded as taking an entire day off from work or school.

“When I wake up on the morning I’m already pretty stressed because I wake up a 10 minutes before I leave because the night before I was up really late doing homework for the day,” sophomore, Sean Ryland-Winter shares,

“So I go to school and in math class, I begin to get even more stressed and then as the day progresses my stress level just continues to rise. In fourth period I have a break and my stress level begins to cool off with lunch as well. Once 5th period begins my stress rises until I get home and go to sleep which sometimes isn’t until 10 or 11.”

However, self-care does not have to be a scheduled spa day or going out to see the latest game. Self-care is not narcissistic, it is making sure that one person is taking care of themselves in a way that it is healthy. The mentality that self-care should be reserved to be a massive vacation affects how people take care of themselves because they end up not doing it more often than they should. In everyday life, there should be breaks that are taken as often as they are needed.

An excerpt from inc.com states, “Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign studied four groups of people. Each of the groups worked on a brain-intensive task for 50 minutes. The group that took more breaks had the highest mental stamina at the end of the 50 minutes.”

Taking a small break gives the brain, well, a break. Hyper fixating on a task drains the mental focus as time goes on and sometimes motivation goes down as time goes on. Sometimes, working on a task for so long makes time goes by so fast that they forget to eat, do the laundry, etc.; giving the brain a break lets it focus on other things and different areas of the brain are being used as well as making sure they’re keeping track of time.

“Sometimes I wish I could spend more time with friends,” said Mary Brungardt, sophomore.

Self-care could be as simple as taking a five-minute breather. A break does not have to be a big deal as many people make it out to be. Taking breaks is relaxing and lets the muscle residing in your skull rest for a few moments. Taking a break relieves the strain of fixating on a task and sitting in one area for a long period of time.

It is difficult to define what self-care is. Sometimes, it is eating healthier, while other times it is doing yoga or any other physical activity– maybe it is regarded as treating yourself. Self indulgence also play a factor in self-care.

To actually care for yourself, you need to know what your limits are, and letting yourself admit that maybe too much really is too much. More often than not, it is just letting go and having a little treat to yourself.

“I take time for myself and do what I want and not what other people want of me,” sophomore, Sean Ryland-Winter states.

Be warned that these little self-indulgent actions should not affect any work that needs to be done; these are breaks at best and should never be an excuse to escape from work or school. Surprise, it’s important to do them, but the productivity will increase in quality when the motivation is present to do it.

A website called psychologytoday.com states, “Sometimes supervisors are not even aware of the reality of what the worker experiences in a work day. A frank conversation delineating the things that are most stressful might precipitate the process of improving your working conditions.”

Each person lives through their own perspective. That much is obvious, however, others have as much stress as any other person. Take into account that sometimes people are mean because they’ve had a bad day or they are insufferably happy because they had something good to them.

“I make sure to notice whenever I get too worried and I use music or painting to calm me down when I’ve had a rough day.” sophomore, Brianna Sanchez states.

Self-care is knowing how you are feeling, and acknowledging that it is time to take a moment to yourself– from work, school, to everyday life. Taking a break levels those emotions to a tolerable standard no matter what emotion it is. Self-care is a part of that when you take some time and let yourself to just, breathe.

Sources on self-care and taking a break;

https://socialtriggers.com/why-you-need-to-take-more-breaks-and-how-to-do-it/

https://www.tonyrobbins.com/mental-health/self-care-tips/

https://www.rd.com/advice/work-career/productive-people-take-breaks/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/skinny-revisited/201805/self-care-101

https://www.ted.com/playlists/299/the_importance_of_self_care

https://www.verywellmind.com/importance-of-self-care-for-health-stress-management-3144704