Another school semester has passed, though this was not an ordinary one. School busses and cafeteria food were replaced by zoom meetings and take-home exams. We were also mostly indoors and this fact still holds true for this holiday. Yet these breaks are for a change in our routine. Then the question is, how can we destress with these constraints put upon us?

 

Change of location is usually one of the major signs of holidays: we no longer see our classrooms every day and instead can hang out in our rooms more. Unfortunately, for most of us, our school visited us in our bedroom every day for this term. Therefore I find it important to first start with re-adjusting our bedroom and make it suitable for a time outside of class. It can be a big refresh or a small addition to our environment, the spectrum can vary. Yet I believe reducing the number of things related to school and work, and even organizing your furniture differently can drastically impact you.

 

Once you are set up, you will need some actual, tangible things you will do with your spare time. Considering that our screen time has increased a lot, moving away from computers and turning back to the world that contains material actual things (instead of virtual zoom squares) can help. Things that would stimulate your five senses and would make you feel your body again might be good alternatives. I don’t want to list all the hobbies you can take up for I know that these lists usually stress people out. Instead, I would recommend investing your time on the things you already know how to do and are sure that you get satisfaction out of them. You may have forgotten what you used to do before you were busy with school and schoolwork. If so, take a look around, and maybe go through your stuff. And for the future, it could be a good idea to take notes whenever you save some project or hobby of yours for the future.

 

And finally, boredom is also a necessity and is highly valuable. I don’t talk about mindless scrollings or binging any content available. What I refer to as boredom is the old school, five years old you not knowing what to do with the whole day type of boredom. It is valuable because we usually go around having thoughts and concerns sitting at a corner of our minds. When they pop up, we don’t have time to digest them, hence we postpone the work for another time. And as usual, we forget. This is why it is important to create a space within which these free-flowing thoughts settle and maybe turn into something creative.

 

And if you notice that you become tired of having to come up with something to do all the time, there are probably lots of movies, series and youtube videos you need to catch up on. There is no shame in that. Enjoy while you can, before the next semester starts and before we enter the cycle once again.