It was a pleasant surprise to have a session on meditation, stress management and healthy habits instrumental to a student. Stress has both a emotional and physical component and it is often subtle when we are under extreme stress as Ms. Rubenstein-Gillis and Ms. Gerding pointed out. As one would imagine, it differs from person to person and it could be the tightening of the chest, to a racing mind, a fragile emotional state and more.

Stress is the byproduct of the body and the more healthier the body is, the higher tolerance one has to stress. A healthy body depends on sleep and getting a sufficient amount of sleep is imperative. Unfortunately that is easier said than done. To be honest, it is easy to slip into a mindset that sacrificing sleep will allow you to stay on top because someone else will be sacrificing sleep to get ahead. Therefore you would have to keep up and sacrificing sleep seems more of a tangible accomplishment than say the boosted mental awareness from sleeping the entire appropriate period. You may not perform as fast but you would still get it done since the only real time limit exists with exams. Regardless, quality and attention may suffer so I try to shore up my shortcomings in sleep with power naps.

It was interesting to hear about setting up a pre-work routine, similar to how people have a routine before sleeping with brushing teeth etc., as a means of getting work done effectively. I never knew that before and I will be sure to implement that. I will also try to work in chunks but it requires exceptional time management and I would be more concerned with what needs to be done today and tomorrow, rather than 5 days from now. It probably is more efficient to work in chunks but I am so used to my way that it will be hard to change. That is probably a problem with a lot of students with inertia with current systems of how they work, preventing them from improving how they approach their tasks.

This was a delightful session and I enjoyed having a mini-meditation period at the end. Do you plan on integrating any techniques we learned during the talk?