“Sleep is the easiest thing to put last!”
I heard a classmate exclaim this today, and two weeks ago I couldn’t have agreed with her more. I’m a Communications Studies and Theatre major, aka I want the best of every world. To take an example from this past summer, there was a point where I was working at my co-op, also working for a department on campus, catering, and working as an assistant stage manager for a fringe theatre company, while trying to fit in trips home and acting in a musical production on the side. I book myself and overbook myself, constantly trying to attend all sorts of events while also making time for friends and family and stepping up in leadership positions at Northeastern.
Basically, I’m the typical college student who gets excited by taking on a little too much. And as I said, two weeks ago I couldn’t have agreed more that sleep was last on my to-do list. “Self-care” wasn’t in my vocabulary, and I thought that was okay because I was fulfilling all the professional development goals I had set for myself upon entering college. Time for myself meant collapsing into bed at night, and relaxation was often the ten minute breather I had between one club meeting and the next.
However, this all started to shift two weeks ago when I woke up in incredible back pain. I ended up barely making it to class that day, and woke up the next day feeling just as bad. Classes just weren’t going to happen for me on Wednesday, and I decided that if my body needed a full day of rest to be back to normal on Thursday then that was fine.
But Thursday I didn’t feel better. I woke up crying from the pain I had been in all night, unsure of how I was going to get through even just the morning. Later that afternoon I found myself at Boston Children’s Hospital, seeking refuge from the incredible pain. Long story short, my MRI showed a severely slipped disk between L4 and L5 in my lower back, and after a night in Boston Children’s Hospital I was sent home on a regiment of PT and painkillers.
Two weeks later, I’m still in some pain everyday. However, I feel that the last two weeks have been a serious wake-up call for me. I strongly believe that the physical and psychological aspects of our bodies are linked to one another, and that my crazy busy schedule definitely had something to do with my back finally giving out on me. I had refused to slow down for so long, and my hospitalization was the end result of my body basically collapsing on itself from the stress and the pressure that I had put on it. I wish I had come to this conclusion earlier, but the fact is that it took me being unable to walk and in searing pain to realize that my lifestyle wasn’t balanced enough.
I came across a picture the other day (above), and it resonated so much with me as far as what exactly I was missing in my priorities throughout my first two years of college. Self-care should be an essential part of every young woman (and young man’s) lifestyle, yet it’s so easy to forget in the bustle of day-to-day college life. Professional development isn’t very fulfilling when you’re lying in a hospital bed. Hustling from one club meeting to another feels more like a burden than anything when you can barely walk on two feet.
I want to challenge anyone who reads this to take a step back and assess how you’re doing in terms of self-care. When was the last time you made yourself a really yummy home cooked meal? Took a walk with a friend? Sat and watched the sunset? Marathoned Netflix all day because you CAN? I’m not going to pretend to be a self-care expert, but I can honestly say that being hospitalized for an injury that may have been preventable had I just slowed down a little was a pivotal point for me in my college career. I don’t want to speed through life at 100 miles per hour, hurting myself physically and emotionally along the way.
As of right now, my recovery is slow going and I’m in pain a lot of the time. I can’t do simple things like bend over or reach to a high shelf, or even walk all the way from my apartment to campus! Had I known that my injury would be a side effect of taking on way too much, I definitely would have thought twice. Self-care isn’t taught in typical university classes, nor is it talked about often enough. It’s so easy to run through each day focused on classes and work and internships, and not even realize that your lifestyle is taking a genuine toll on your body. I challenge you to take a look at the chart above, and think about your sleep, eating, and exercise habits. Not as what you wish them to be, but as what they genuinely are. How does taking care of your happiness and the simplest of your needs fit into your life and your daily routine? It may be that you need to make a change the way I so badly needed to.
Self-care is going to be a journey for me, and it’s one that I wish I’d started taking a long time ago. Maybe a hospitalization won’t be your wake-up call, but hopefully you will take the time tomorrow to go home early, or stretch in the morning, or give yourself a break when you’ve done all you can do. As the chart above notes, “attending to your comfort” is just as important as anything you might be rushing around to get done this week. So give yourself a break, take a deep breath, and care for yourself.