Staycation Tips
With the season of the beautiful yet fleeting March Break finally upon us, many of us who have not been whisked away to a Caribbean paradise by our loving families are now wondering how to spend this week in the most relaxing and rejuvenating way possible. To help with this insurmountable burden, I have compiled a list of tips and tricks to ensure that at the close of this week, you are feeling renewed, refreshed, and ready to tackle the rest of the semester.
1. Unplug
In this day and age, it is virtually impossible to go through one day without turning on your phone and checking for the latest updates. However, checking your phone often leads to hours being lost, which could have been spent on accomplishing something more productive. Besides, all of the information clouds your brain and keeps you from achieving your ultimate goal: relaxation.
2. Meditate
Cliché, I know, but since our main goal is to unwind from the stress that school bombards us with on the daily, it seemed out of place not to mention it. You don’t have to be a professional or know what you’re doing at all in order to meditate. Just put on some white noise or calming music in the background, light some scented candles if you have to and find a quiet place. Try to calm your breathing and clear your head of all the burdens that occupy your mind.
3. Catch up
In the hustle of the school year, it is often hard to find time to fit in your hobbies or completing activities that you enjoy. Take this time to catch up on some of that. Whether it be finishing the book that you started over the last break, binge watching the latest season of your favourite tv show, or finally finishing the project (NOT SCHOOL RELATED!) that was left on the back burner, we can all use this time in order to tie up some of our loose ends.
4. Sleep
Arguably the most important tip here. I strongly advise you to follow my lead and catch up on sleep this week as many tests and presentations that were crammed into the last week before the break has left us all in a perpetual state of sleep deprivation. So don’t feel guilty about sleeping in! Remember - sleep improves brain activity.
5. Discover
Be it a new recipe, nature trail, or a café downtown, spring break is a perfect time to discover new interests, hobbies or places. Besides, studies show that if a person does something new than the time that it was done, it appears to last longer. So not only will you get to experience something original to you, but it will also make the break seem to go by slower.
I hope that this short list of tips regarding how to spend your spring break wisely was useful to you all and I will see you again in a week in the torturous chamber of conformity we most commonly refer to as simply; school.
