During my freshman year, I constantly sacrificed my own wellness to do well in school and other jobs on campus. Sacrificing wellness is a slow process and doesn’t just happen all at once. I started with not getting enough sleep, and gradually affected my social and mental health. The first thing I did to sacrifice my wellness is my sleep schedule. I would say I need to get this assignment done or need to study for this test to get the grade I wanted. I went from 7 hours to 4 hours. The second thing I did was skipping meals. I would make the excuse, I can eat tomorrow or skip this meal to get my work done. It got to the point where I would eat nothing all day or just snack on things within my room because I was too stressed out to eat. The last thing was to sacrifice my social life. I would constantly say no to people or make up an excuse to not hang out with people because I wanted to have the desired grade. Sacrificing those three things would cause me to not be able to focus in class or to burn out faster.

I quickly learned that sacrificing your well-being is not okay in the long run and will cause harm to your health. The second thing I learned is that you will not always be perfect about putting your own wellness over the work. It is a learning curve and I hope that I can provide some tips to help put your wellness first:

  1. Choose one day out of the week to participate in Sabbath.
  2. Take 30 minutes out of your day to be in solitude.
  3. Plan something fun to do by yourself (watch Netflix, do a facemask, or learn a TikTok dance) or with others (go to the beach, Zoom party or go eat at a restaurant).
  4. Go on a walk or do a workout.

Sleep Week is this week and the Theme is Rest in the Mess. Last year, I wasn’t able to take advantage of sleep week and planned on taking advantage of it this year. I recommend everyone to take some time during the week to get extra sleep and try one of the listed above activities out to help you put your wellness first.