At this time of year, students are battling deadlines and the flu, as most of us fall ill during finals season. This makes studying feel infinitely more challenging, not to mention isolated and disheartened, when you’re quarantined in your room. Being away from home, you’re having to not only experience the symptoms of your sickness, but also take care of yourself. You miss the comforts of complaining to your mom that you don’t feel good and waking up to a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup. In the haze of your sick-ridden mind, you have to figure out how to feed yourself, what meds to take, and all the while stay on top of your schoolwork. Here’s your guide to surviving sickness at uni so you can focus on resting rather than figuring out what to do:
1. Managing Classes and Coursework
To start, we have to establish our priorities. When you’re feeling sick, the most important thing is resting, so don’t let the student guilt develop into a ‘push-through’ mindset. Plus, you don’t want to be spreading your sickness to other people!
Establish what tutorials you can miss, which lectures you can just watch the recordings for, and what extensions you can get on your coursework deadlines. Send out emails and self-certify your absences before you get too exhausted, and note the non-negotiable things you really need to get done regardless.
When it comes to getting those tasks done, take it easy on yourself. Split up the workload over several days into smaller parts. Work on it from bed with a warm cup of tea. Get it done early in the day when you first wake up and have the most energy, so that you can spend the rest of the day sleeping and recovering.
2. Sick Survival Kit
This next step is helpful with a bit of prep beforehand. At the beginning of the school year, put together a sick survival kit for these exact moments. When you’re not feeling well, the last thing you want to do is drag yourself out of bed to Boots for medicine or tea. Have a supply of your generic cold medicines, pain relief, throat lozenges, a thermometer, tissues, and chamomile tea. That way, you’re always prepared with the sick day basics.
3. Rely on Others
This can be a hard step for those who are used to doing everything themselves and struggle to ask for help. But the next time one of your friends texts you when you’re sick, saying ‘let me know if you need anything’, take them up on their offer. That’s what friendship is for, and you’d do the same for them if they were sick.
One of the most important things, in addition to sleeping when you’re sick, is nourishing your body. When you’re not feeling well, it’s easy to lose your appetite for the dining hall food and skip meals when you don’t have the energy to get yourself something. But you have to keep your body nourished so it can heal itself. So ask your friends to buy you microwavable soup from the grocery store, or get a to-go box from the dining hall so you can eat. Your friends are here to support you, so lean on them when you’re too fatigued and ill to leave your room. Your mom isn’t there anymore to make sure you’re eating, so you need to do that yourself.
4. Get LOTS of Rest
Sleep is one of the best things you can do for your body when you’re battling an illness. Sleep allows certain immune system processes to function while you’re unconscious. Protein molecules called cytokines are produced and released during sleep, kick-starting your immune response to illness. Your body also has a better fever response during sleep, increasing your body temperature, which makes it harder for bacteria and viruses to survive. Sleep also redirects most of your body’s energy to your immune system, so you can get better as quickly as possible. So don’t resist that feeling of sleepiness that overcomes your body when you’re feeling sick; you’ll often need more sleep than usual.
5. Battling the Restlessness and Isolation
Staying in your bedroom for several days recuperating from being ill can be quite isolating and restless. When you start to feel a bit stir crazy, but still too sick to return to everyday life, go on a short outside walk. You can go as slow or take as many breaks as you need, but getting outside, even for a little bit, can lift your spirits tremendously. If you’re too exhausted to do this, even just opening your window to let in some fresh air can feel healing.
While you don’t want to infect your friends, you can call them while you’re feeling sick. If you can’t talk much because of a sore throat, you can even do a study call and simply sit in their company. This helps motivate you to get some of your work done while mitigating the potential loneliness you might be feeling.
6. Refresh
You might still be feeling a bit restless in your environment. Don’t underestimate how much a quick shower can refresh your mind and body. You still want to be comfortable, but maybe change out of your pajamas into a comfy lounge set so you can get out of the same clothes you’ve been wearing for a while.
No shame, but your space has probably (and understandably) become a bit messy with dirty tissues or clothes you were too exhausted to fully put away. Set a five-minute timer and do the bare minimum tidying so you don’t feel overwhelmed living in this sick, messy environment. When you start to feel a bit better, you can do a deeper clean, wiping down surfaces, washing dishes, and changing your sheets to get all that bacteria out of your space.
No matter how much you prepare beforehand, you probably will end up getting sick at some point during the academic year. While you can’t prevent it, you can be prepared for it by knowing the exact steps you can take to help take care of yourself away from home. This sickness won’t last forever, so just let your body rest as much as possible and stay hydrated and nourished. Getting sick might be a sign for all of us to slow down a little after a hectic semester!