Every year I look forward to that one Fall Sunday when we’re granted an extra hour of sleep due to the “Fall Back” Time Change. But every year I’m also reminded of the absolute havoc it wreaks on my circadian rhythm and overall quality of my wakeful hours. The sun is already setting at 5 pm and alongside it is my will to live. No matter how many times I go through it, it always takes a few weeks for me to get used to it, and even then I still begin to find myself feeling a bit more unmotivated and sluggish as we approach the winter season. There are some practices I plan on implementing, or already have, in my daily routine that hopefully help me combat the usual melancholy I experience during the darker months of the year.
Doing Homework earlier
Even on a good day when my sleep schedule isn’t all out of whack, I sometimes struggle to get homework done late at night, but it’s especially bad when the days are ending earlier and earlier. Finals are approaching and I’ve got a lot of work to do, and I know that if I want something done, I’ve got to do it when I’m at my most wakeful. By the end of the day, all I want to do is cozy up in my warm bed with The Great British Baking Show so if I want to be satisfied with my productivity for the day, I’m going to do my homework in the morning before classes or in between them.
Get Some Sun
I can’t stand that the sun gets snatched away from us hours earlier in the day after the fall time changes so I make sure that I get as much of it as I can when it’s out. Now I’m not exactly getting up at the crack of dawn to sunbathe in the quad but I am, when the weather permits, studying, eating, and taking more walks outside. Sure it’s getting colder, but I’m just taking the dropping temperatures as an excuse to style and layer all my sweaters and jackets that I’ve been missing in the summertime. I’m always in a better mood when I’m outside and the fact that we’re now getting less daytime as we approach winter, just helps me appreciate it so much more. And even when it is too cold or rainy to physically be outside you can best bet that my window blinds are wide open as a substitute.
Take short naps when needed
One of my favorite parts of college and the fact that I live on campus is that I have the ability to take naps in between classes to refresh. However, my desire to doze off mid-day increases to a frightening degree in the winter time and those short naps can turn into a 3-hour “second sleep” in no time. As appealing as a long nap sounds sometimes, I know that I’m just going to wake up feeling worse than before and for the sake of my health and my class attendance grades, that isn’t an option. So whenever I feel myself craving a nap, I make sure to set an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes, which I’ve found is the perfect amount of time to make me feel well-refreshed and completely guiltless.
Prioritize friends and family
It can be easy to feel and also sometimes crave some isolation in the wintertime. There aren’t as many activities going on, and the daunting task of leaving your apartment or dorm is getting harder and harder to make. And as much as I want to hide away from the world sometimes, I also know I need a certain amount of social interaction to stay tethered to the world. When I go home for the holidays, there’s nothing that can cheer me up out of a slump than my three younger brothers. And I know that no matter how bad of a mood I’m in, a spontaneous walk around campus with my roommate will make me feel way better.
Get that journal out
There’s such a nostalgic feeling to the wintertime that the intense longing for “the good old days” can make the present seem lackluster. Whenever I feel like this I always have the urge to journal. Now I haven’t been too good with keeping up with my journal this past semester, but there’s something about those winter blues that makes me want to pour my heart and soul out onto the page in some badly scribbled G2 ink. Sometimes it’s purely therapeutic, sometimes I have the objective goal of sorting through my feelings, but sometimes I think I just want to record my day on the page so that if I ever have the urge to read my journal in the future, I’ll have some evidence of my ordinary but gratifying life that my past self lived. Because if I know myself at all, my future self is probably lamenting how she should have better appreciated her college years, so I’m trying to beat her to the punch.