Academic life at Cornell is undoubtedly rich and valuable, although it can also be one of the most stress inducing aspects of a college student’s life.  Everyone has his or her own way of coping with stress.  Some people like to run marathons and others, like myself, prefer to binge eat pounds of chocolate and peanut butter.  In attempt to avoid extreme weight gain, however, I’ve adopted a healthier alternative to relieve stress, that being practicing yoga.  Over my past two semesters at Cornell, I’ve learned that taking just thirty to sixty minutes out of my daily life to stretch, exercise or even meditate has truly improved my productivity, motivation and energy.  During last Saturday’s Self-Care Workshop, Rose GRF and CAPS counselor Sarah Rubinstein-Gillis discussed various ways to manage stress during busy, high-pressure times.  Some techniques Sarah addressed involved taking the time to exercise, color, reach out to friends, utilize on-campus mental health resources or even carve a pumpkin, as we had the opportunity to do during the workshop.  Even though I failed miserably at carving a scary looking cat and I left Rose with pumpkin hair under every fingernail, pumpkin carving was the perfect break from studying organic chemistry nevertheless.  Manipulating something other than a molecular model kit and meeting and speaking with other human beings were exactly what I needed to clear my mind and to mentally prepare myself for a stressful upcoming week of prelims.  Aside from learning that I would make a horrible surgeon, I ultimately realized that that self-care and mental breaks are the keys to stress management.