(I wrote this blog post about a month ago and am only getting around to editing it now. Prior to editing this, I can tell this is going to be a little chaotic, so sorry about that.)
Hello, lovelies! Long time, no see. You can probably guess the reason I haven’t blogged in a month based on the title. I’ve been overwhelmed!
Grad school has been kicking my ass, along with a bunch of other life things that are making my to-do list a mile long. Long story short, I was one of the lucky people to get the vaccine (I live with both my grandparents and my younger brother has autism. I was able to get the vaccine early because I am a caregiver). There was a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork in the process, but it was still relatively sudden.
My family has solidly quarantined for a year. I haven’t been indoors with another human being since last March. My siblings and I have all online classes and my dad works from home, so we were lucky enough to be able to self-isolate while having three at-risk people in our household. Anytime we saw friends or family was outside, wearing masks. We were those people. (*cough* the smart ones)
And it took me a bit to process that life was going to come back in full swing again. I was going to be able to start my career, while still in grad school full-time. My mom was going to go to Bangladesh to visit her mom once we all got the vaccine (She’s very old and sick, and my mom hasn’t seen her in a year), so I’ll have to take care of my family again, which has always been overwhelming in and of itself. We have to get Mysoon used to going out in public again, and wondering how he was going to handle it. And do I want to be outside around those people who don’t take the pandemic seriously?! Etcetera. Etcetera. You get the gist. I was just processing life moving forward in theory in January.
The thing that’s been most overwhelming is grad school. I’m not kidding when I tell you that I have been writing 2-3 papers per week for the last four weeks. This isn’t including things like quizzes, discussion posts, and regular readings. I’m talking full on projects and papers that took a lot of time. I could barely think about job applications. Normally, I’d handle the school-work fine, but everything became so overwhelming that I kind of shut down.
I have slowly crawled out of this head space and am in the mood to blog after weeks of intentionally pushing it to the side. Here is what I do when I feel overwhelmed. I hope you enjoy.
//If I can, I take the day off
I’m a big advocate for rest days. I’ve built them into my schedule so that I have at least one day a week where I don’t have any pressure to do work. If I have nothing due for school or a work thing, I give myself permission to do nothing. Usually, that’s all I need to get through overwhelming times. I can intentionally relax. Watching T.V. to procrastinate on work isn’t as relaxing as just watching T.V. I just pick a day to wake up on my own without an alarm clock, read, work out if I want to, call a friend, have some alone time, etc. without worrying about a self-made to-do list of things I should be doing to progress my long-term goals.
Related – How To Take Intentional Breaks In College
//I make a list of EVERYTHING I need/want to do, then I pare it down to the bare minimum
Taking a rest day works most of the time, but that wasn’t really possible these past two months because I had so much work to do for graduate school. This tip doesn’t work for everyone, but I like writing down everything I need to do because it helps me make a game plan for when and how I’m going to do those things. I basically plan my life in weekly to-do lists where I don’t pressure myself to get everything done on a certain day. I’ll move things around and am okay so long as I get everything done by Sunday.
But when I’m overwhelmed, I hack away at that list till it’s just the bare necessities. I did not clean my room for months. My room is pretty tidy and I make my bed every day, but I was not vacuuming or dusting. It got to the point where I was having asthma problems, but cleaning was the first thing to go. Blogging was another thing I wasn’t willing to make time for, so I pushed that off the list. I got rid of reading a physical book every morning for 30-minutes. That’s been one of my morning habits from quarantine, but I was in a bit of a reading slump and I didn’t want it on my to-do list. (I read a lot of Fanfiction, so I didn’t stop reading when I was overwhelmed). I got rid of the unnecessary textbook readings from my list too. It was very much a “this is everything you absolutely need to do in order to do well and function” today.
//I take it one task at a time
I avoided thinking about all the things I needed to do. “You don’t need to think about the paper due tomorrow. Do the paper that is due tonight.” Some days, it was things like: “Now you have to eat breakfast” or “Put on your workout clothes and turn on a YouTube video and exercise.” Don’t think about school things you ‘should’ be doing. Just what you need to do right now. This made it easier. I didn’t think about my overarching to-do list. Just what I needed to do next.
//Do all the bare bones, should-be-obvious, easy-to-forget, self-care things: eat 3 meals, hydrate, shower, get dressed, etc.)
I feel like everyone goes through phases where they think they’re being lazy, but it’s really because they didn’t eat food or drink water. I have a tendency to skip meals. I know that not everyone needs to eat three meals a day, but I know my body and I prefer eating three meals a day. I just feel more energized and I end up eating healthier food and snacking less when I eat three meals a day. There have been a few times where I’ve written “eat three meals” on my to-do list to remind myself not to skip lunch in order to keep working. Even if it disrupts my flow, I know that I’m better off taking a break and eating.
I also try to shower every day because I work out five days a week and have very oily hair. I feel better in-general when I shower. Just remembering to do functional human being things is a win some days, and that in and of itself helps when I feel overwhelmed with all the other things.
//I journal, dance, and go outside
Journaling
These are the three habits that kept me going TBH. Journaling is amazing however way you do it. I like writing everything out to process my emotions, though it’s a bit slower than talking to myself. It’s also nice to write about the good things going on. My natural tendency isn’t to journal. It’s been on my weekly to-do list for a year-and-a-half because even though I enjoy it, I don’t always make time for it. Particularly in mundane or happier moments in life. I use my journals a lot more to process life in the moment or dreaming about the future, and I typically want to do that when I’m anxious or overstimulated.
I’d just been leaning towards journaling a lot lately. It was one of the things I got rid of on my to-do list, so I only journaled when I felt like it. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do next, why I was feeling this way, etc. so the journaling just naturally happened. It made me feel better.
Dancing
If you’ve been around awhile, you know that I’m an exercise nut. I didn’t work out the first eighteen years of my life, but once I started college, I was at the gym 4-5 times per week. I was that person. Then quarantine started last March, and I stopped exercising completely. I never forced myself to work out at that time. We were in a pandemic and it just wasn’t a priority for me. I also just hated working out at home. When I started exercising regularly again in July, I saw immediate changes in my mental health. I had more energy, I was more focused, got more sleep, and I just felt happier.
I knew this already, but I popped my shoulder at the beginning of February, which hurt for a few week, so I eased off on exercise. I also got the vaccine in my other arm, so both my arms were hurting for a few days. (My arms don’t normally hurt after vaccines, but I physically couldn’t lift my left arm above my head for two days). Anyway, I was feeling a bit off mental health wise after getting the vaccine. I assumed it was because I was overwhelmed by all the papers and the idea of leaving my house again. Then I realized it was also because I hadn’t worked out in two days. You’d think this realization would make me happy, but I just thought, “So this is my life now? When I don’t work out for a few days, I just feel terrible?” I remember John Green once said that his OCD and mental health were better when he exercised, and I didn’t believe him. Now that I exercise all the time, I feel the difference when I don’t.
Anyway, working out almost every day again helped a lot. I didn’t lift weights or do ab exercises. I literally just danced every day and it was enough. Working out doesn’t have to be complicated. You just need to find something you enjoy.
Going Outside
I can easily go a week without leaving my house. I open the windows and sit in the sun, but there’s a difference between that and actually getting fresh air. The weather has been pretty perfect in Georgia. It was one of the three states that didn’t experience snow. I could easily go outside with just a light jacket in February, so I took advantage of that. Going for a walk every day did wonders for me. Even just sitting outside on my balcony was wonderful. There were some days in quarantine where I felt off and I realized it was because I hadn’t been outside in days.
These are the three main self-care things I continued doing after stripping my daily to-do list to the bare minimum. I didn’t do all three every day, but at least a few times a week.
//I talk to someone about it and also listen to their problems
Because it’s not complaining if you do it together ?
Jokes aside, just talking things out makes me feel less overwhelmed. To be honest, almost everyone in my life has been stressed these past few months in some way shape or form. Whether it’s work or school or job applications or grad school applications or money or a family member or friend having Covid, everyone is stressed.
I see people in person outside like every other month, but I’m lucky to have a lot of people to talk to. Whether that’s on Zoom, a phone call, Facebook messenger, etc., there’s usually someone around to talk to every day. I talk to myself a lot, but it’s nice to have people to bounce things off of. I straight up wanted to drop out of grad school in February. I was hating it that much, but I don’t feel that way anymore. Venting about everything I had going on helped me get my frustration out. I also don’t mind listening to my friends vent. I think there’s a difference between complaining and talking about what’s going on in your life. This last year has been stressful for everyone in some way shape or form, and therapy is expensive, so sometimes talking to people is all you have.
Also, when I mentioned that I felt overwhelmed to my dad, he immediately said, “Then take a break [from grad school].” I thought, “whAt?! That’s an option?!” The Asian in me was thinking I’d need to finish this degree by December, but getting validation that it’s okay to lighten my load helped a lot.
//I find new or old content to numb my anxiety and enjoy immersing myself in it
This was certainly the most fun part. Because I knew some days that I wasn’t going to get any work done anyway, I watched shows. Instead of intending to do work all day then feeling like I accomplished nothing (neither for progress nor pleasure), I started new shows to watch or read fanfiction all day. Then at least at the end of the day, I knew that I enjoyed myself. I got super into The Miraculous Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir in January and immersed myself into that fandom, which has been a lot of fun. I also watched all three High School Musical in a row for the first time, which is surprising considering I’ve been such a huge fan since I was a child, and got obsessed with it again. And guys, I did not read a single book in February, but I read so much Fanfiction. One of my friends told me that she started measuring Fanfiction based on how many words were in the Harry Potter books, and I can’t stop doing it. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I have read enough fanfiction to cover the length of that entire series.
I would like to reiterate that these are things that help me when I’m overwhelmed. For some people, doing things like binge-watching makes them feel guilty, but I did not feel that way. And I wasn’t behind on work because of it. Honestly, I was relatively on top of all the school work I had in February minus one week where I had to turn in a paper late. Doing things like this just made my days slightly more enjoyable because I wasn’t constantly thinking about the million things I had to do.
//I remind myself that it’ll pass
I’m specifically talking about shorter seasons of overwhelm here. (Therapy and medication are extremely helpful for people.) It’s honestly already passed. I wrote the first 2/3 of this blog post two weeks ago, and I already feel more on top of school and job applications. Whenever I started overthinking a project or something, I remembered that this was going to be over soon. I’m not going to say that school work doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of life because I know that doesn’t help. Grades and bigger projects do matter in terms of pursuing higher education later on, so there are times when one project will make a difference if it’s a part of your thesis. So I soothed myself by remembering there is an end-date to whatever task was overwhelming me.
And that overwhelm did pass. My workload has lightened a bit. I know it’s going to hit me again when the end of the semester comes and I’m cooking for six people and helping with Zoom special education classes every day, but even that has an end-date.
Just remember that it will pass and enjoy the little moments in between the crazy.
So…yeah. That’s it for now. Hopefully, my next blog post will be my 2020 year in review, though who knows when I’ll write and publish it. This post was originally going to be a life update, but I thought framing it like this would make it more interesting because this is honestly all I’ve been doing the last two months: school work, vaccine, prepping to apply for jobs, and being obsessed with Miraculous and High School Musical.
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