What to do on your day(s) off

Ah, finally a well needed day off. You may have a random day off school or you may have actively told yourself that today you simply will not allow the very thought of work to enter your personal bubble. The question now though is what are you going to do with your day off? You may be so used to studying and doing work that you find that you suddenly have no structure to your day. Well guess what - we’re here to tell you that sometimes that’s actually good! Here’s what you can do:

1) Sleep. The nature of school and work is that due to long periods of intense studying we are usually obliged to wake up at certain times whether we are tired or not. This is important, of course, because otherwise society would cease to function. However this is your day off, so you need to see this as an opportunity to catch up on all that sleep you have missed. Don’t feel guilty if you have a lie in. Don’t feel guilty if you need a nap. You will be surprised as to how tired you really are. Especially if you are nearing the end of your term, you may realise that you’ve actually been using the reserves of energy you have to get through your school day, so when you finally take a rest you’ll realise how much your body was screaming for it. Give those eyes a rest.

2) Do something you enjoy that your studies have not enabled you to do. Students may stop pursuing extra-curricular activities or hobbies because they convince themselves that these are actually a waste of time i.e. all that time they used on their extra-curricular could be used to study. First of all, this can be quite unhealthy because no matter what you do in your life, there are very few things that you need to do so intensely day in day out for such long periods of time. You may be part of a sports team that requires you to train but even then you need periods of rest and time to do other things. And second of all, doing these extra things can actually help you in the long run. If you know you have somewhere to be every Tuesday at 3pm, you’re more likely to be engaged in your work that day because you know they’ll be time when you won’t be focused on your work. You had hobbies before your studies – pursue them today and try and carry them on when you get back to your studies. Your whole life cannot become your studies. So take this day off to think really hard about what you like doing and go and do it and try and carry it on when the grind starts again.

3) Spend time by yourself. Sometimes periods of intense study can lead to a lot of stress and just reflecting on it can help. Spending time by yourself can mean a myriad of different things. This can mean just go on Netflix all day whilst lying in your bed just to give your brain a break. This can mean exercising just for your health and wellbeing. This can mean reading a book. This can mean getting off social media just so that you can shut out the world for a bit. You could also go out and explore by yourself. Sometimes being in your own company is a good thing.

4) Spend time with others. Meet up with your friends whether at their house or on a cute day out. It doesn’t matter where you are, just make an effort to go and see each other. When you spend time with others that we love and care about, we don’t really have time to think about how stressed we are because those people make us feel calm. Studying can really keep you in your own head, so speaking to others can put things in perspective and help you see the bigger picture.

5) Do NOTHING. That’s right you read that right. Do nothing. Just relax and let the day happen. This is quite an abnormal and potentially stress –inducing statement but we really all need to learn to actively do nothing once in a while and just simply exist. It’s okay to have one or two days that objectively may seem purposeless but in reality you are actually just giving your brain a well-deserved break. Just take the day as it comes.