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Ah, finals week. An entire seven days of all-nighters, the occasional nervous breakdown, and consuming so much coffee that you develop a vaguely-threatening eye twitch.
Finals week is a bummer, but what if I told you that it doesn’t have to be so terrible? For me, the most important thing to keep in mind is that it’s not that serious. Yes, this is college and you’ve paid an ungodly amount of money to be here – but chances are, if you’ve put in your best effort throughout the semester, you really have nothing to worry about during finals week. So breathe, babe.
Since you will likely spend the majority of finals week slumped over a desk (no shame, me too), you should get endorphins whenever you get the chance. Do yoga, go for a walk, put on your favorite playlist and dance like nobody’s watching, anything goes. As the iconic Elle Woods once said, “Endorphins make people happy.”
Speaking of happiness, it is incredibly important to take care of your mental health, especially during finals week. Since it’s winter, it’s easy to feel pretty low when you spend all day in class and then it gets dark by 5:30, so if you feel like you’re running yourself into the ground studying for finals, take a break. You’re 100% allowed to do that, you know.
Taking a break doesn’t always mean setting aside an entire day to relax, although I recommend doing that from time to time. Taking a break could be anything from making a cup of tea to taking a luxurious bath with your favorite bath bomb from Lush.
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A few weeks ago, I was drowning in assignments and I was having panic attack after panic attack. Cute, I know. I felt like there weren’t enough hours in the day for self-care, and guess what happened? I got a migraine.
If you’ve ever had a migraine, you know that pretty much the only thing you can do is lay in a cold, dark room and pray for it to magically go away.
I get chronic migraines, but I haven’t had one for over six months. This is probably a good time to mention that I don’t believe in coincidences. My takeaway is this; if you don’t schedule self-care, nature will do it for you.
If you feel like you don’t have the time to practice self-care during finals week, make time to practice self-care. Treat it as a priority, your health (mental and otherwise) depends on it.