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What We've Been Doing
What We've Been Doing
This quarter we've spent a significant amount of time discussing wellness practices. These have ranged from meditation, nature walks, and journaling. Interestingly enough, this class wasn't my first exposure to wellness practices. Instead, my first time with this sort of thing came from my high school Mandarin teacher. She often showed us videos and articles about wellbeing practices and their benefits for focus and health. In class, she would allocate a period of time at the beginning where we would meditate for a minute or so, tracking our breathing, closing our eyes, and just sitting their silently. I found it interesting, but never really got the point. Another thing we'd do is if the class was slow and low energy, we'd often get up and start dancing along with a music video. I found this strange initially, but got used to it, along with walks we'd go on sometimes, because the ability to leave my desk and get my blood flowing was very much welcome.
Because of this background, I sort of went through the motions when I heard we would be emphasizing wellbeing practices during this quarter of Humanities Core Seminar. My opinion of meditation has unfortunately not changed very much, I still find it difficult to just close my eyes and empty my mind, as its usually racing with what I need to do next. However, I think I've found a lot of value in other practices, good sleep and moving around being notable ones, but also removing distractions and truly relaxing my brain. The biggest takeaway I've had regarding my health and wellbeing is just to be more aware of myself, how I'm doing and feeling, rather than just letting things go wrong and feeling bad about myself.
What Wellbeing Means To Me
What Wellbeing Means To Me
Wellbeing entails a lot of things in my mind. Physical wellbeing tends to be the most obvious. Nutrition and energy have a significant impact on how we perform and feel, and it's very obvious when they are off, since we can directly feel symptoms like headaches and exhaustion. What can be less apparent sometimes is mental wellbeing. Recently there's been more of a drive for mental health awareness, but I feel that that mental health is often thrown around without being given deeper thought. A big part of this in my opinion is an unwillingness to discuss mental health candidly and beyond a shallow level. Getting to where we want to be regarding the conversation of mental health will require being more comfortable and knowledgeable talking about it, in a similar way to how we discuss our physical health. Mental health and physical health are far from separate things, they both reinforce each other when they are strong, but they also sap each other when they are in decline.
Something interesting that was brought up in the discussion of wellbeing was spiritual health. I am not particularly religious, in fact I actually moved away from it around elementary school simply due to not finding it particularly compelling. However, I've found my own sort of interpretation of spiritual health that's more based in an immaterial sense of togetherness and community. When I work in groups with people I trust and identify with to solve problems and overcome obstacles, there's a sense of belonging and a wider purpose that I can't explain but I know is there. To me my spiritual health is how I feel in a bigger picture, as a member of a community, and how my actions can impact others.
Wellbeing Practices I've Been Doing
Wellbeing Practices I've Been Doing
Sleep
Sleep
Consistent sleep has always been vital to my health, mentally and physically, and my productivity. This quarter I've had early morning classes all 5 days of the week, so I've been waking up at about 7 every weekday and 9 every weekend. I've found that despite sometime pushing late into the night to hit deadlines, the ability to quickly recover my sleep schedule has proven vital to preventing myself from getting overwhelmed.
De-stimulate
De-stimulate
Something new that I picked up this quarter after hearing during seminar was fully relaxing my brain from activity. I am guilty of often deciding to take a "break" from working on something by going on my phone or playing a game, and then going back the task and feeling more distracted than I did before trying to unwind. Practicing fully relaxing, having no distractions or really anything to do for a period of time, has worked well for making my workflow feel better and improving my focus.
Exercise
Exercise
Exercise has been something lacking for me for a long time, as I was never really into sports or P.E. as a kid. Recently though, I've found an interest in basketball for leisure. Moving around has made me feel healthier, which has improved my energy and therefore my overall health and ability. Another thing I've found helpful is to go on walks when I have time and I need to clear my head. Moving around in cold air calms me down and wakes me up at the same time, but the act of just taking time away from my computer or phone screen and seeing campus at night has a cleansing effect on my mind.
Reflection
Reflection
This archive entry has been more of a hodge-podge than most of the other ones. This is partially due to me being on a time constraint as I need to start working on other things at the same time, but it's also due to the open-ended nature of a topic of general wellness. In a sense this archive has reflected my progress this quarter of getting better at self-reflection, because it's a very introspective and self-looking exercise. As this is the last entry for this quarter, I want to end off by saying that I think I'm starting to get into the flow of making these. I've gotten a lot more used to this being my digital archive, with making it personal and feel like my own speaking voice an increasing consideration. I'm hoping that however I go after this quarter, after this year, and after being at this school, I look back and feel I gained something meaningful from doing all this.
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