Last week, I went to Rose Cafe to listen to the talk about success during finals week. We’ve all heard it before: go to bed early, take breaks from work, schedule out your day, exercise, don’t subsist on chips. However, what I did find interesting is what was said about the nature of sleep itself. Sleep, apparently, should not occur in multiple sessions (taking four two-hour naps during the day to get your full 8 hours). Sleep is supposed to be an all-eggs-in-one-basket, one-time shot kind of activity. I thought about this for a while and it didn’t make much sense to me. Either way you still get the same quantity, so why would it actually matter how you split it up? So, I asked. Of course it makes sense. Sleep resets our circadian rhythms; all the way down to a neurochemical level, sleep allows our bodies to replenish resources. Only in the 7th hour of sleep do our bodies carry out the process of muscle repair. If we sleep for 2 hours at a time, then our bodies can’t possibly accomplish all the resetting that needs to be done in order to function optimally.

It also makes sense to go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier than to go to sleep later and wake up later. Again, this has to do with our circadian rhythms–sleeping in darkness and waking up with light is a natural process that allows us to maintain a more rejuvenating and effective sleep cycle than staying up in darkness and sleeping through light. It’s important to keep in mind that humans are not just a part of nature; humans are nature; we have physiological responses to our surrounding world and we need to take into account the bigger picture. Psychological stress takes years off of our lives. Finals are important, but in the long run we’re not going to remember what grade we got in that one class during spring semester of sophomore year of undergrad. We sure will remember the fact that we killed ourselves (and I mean this in as literal of a sense as possible) to study for it though.

With that said, good luck with this last round of prelims and all the best for our upcoming finals!

Last week Wednesday, I attended the Rose Cafe event with Sarah Rubenstein-Gillis and Andrea Gerding. Sarah and Andrea work at Gannett Health Services and the focus of their talk was stress. They also gave us various mechanisms on how to cope with stress for the upcoming finals weeks. They began the talk by providing some examples of signs that can tell you if you are stressed. Stress manifests itself differently in different people. For example, stress can cause physical ailments such as physical exhaustion, muscle tension, or migraines. On the other end of the spectra, stress can cause mental ailments as well. Inability to sleep or focus are some examples of such mental ailments.

When I get stressed, I have a difficult time falling asleep at night. Sarah and Andrea said that the reason for this is that I am worried about things that I have to do. They suggested that I try listening to relaxing music or making a list of the things that I have to do so that when I sleep, I do not have to think about these things. Another thing I learned from the cafe was that it is always better to try and prevent stress. This can be accomplished by providing yourself with positive energy throughout the day. For example, if you are working on an assignment, break up the assignment into smaller parts. That way, when you finish a part, you still receive a sense of satisfaction that you completed something. This will help you to not feel so stressed out later on in the assignment.

I really enjoyed this Rose Cafe event. With finals week coming up, the information I got from the talk was very relevant. As I had mentioned earlier, stress keeps me from falling asleep sometimes, but since this event, I have already used some of the methods and have been able to go to sleep much quicker.

Stress is such a difficult feeling to describe. Although some of the physical symptoms are similar for most people, I feel like the mental state that it produces can be different for everyone. For me it makes me feel simultaneously antsy and worn out, and it’s a strange feeling. Stress is also like a bad cycle; I stress out about having so much stuff to do that it wears me out, which makes me fall behind on my work which stresses me out even more. Since stress affects everyone in different ways, it follows that people manage stress in different ways, and it’s often hard to find the best way that works for you. Last week I went to a talk by Rubenstein-Gillis and Gerding, two therapists in the CAPS department at Gannett, and I gained some really valuable insight into some ways to manage the huge amounts of stress that come with being a college student.

One piece of advice that Rubenstein-Gillis and Gerding suggested that really stood out to me was the idea of chunking your work, and doing only a few sentences at a time. It’s so hard for me to sit down and do all my work at once, and sometimes I do try to divide it up into chunks; however, I didn’t really realize until this talk that it’s perfectly okay to make your chunks really really small, as long as it motivates you to do the work. Plus, I find that oftentimes when I finish one chunk of work it makes it much easier to move on to the next. The whole concept of having very realistic, reachable goals is very helpful in finishing my work. Even if it’s only a couple sentences at a time!

I don’t think there’s anything more important than taking care of yourself, and oftentimes society emphasizes taking care of yourself physically (i.e. exercising and eating healthy), but we often neglect mental health. Although it has gotten better in recent years, mental illness has long had a negative stigma attached to it, and I find that we often try to hide our mental problems and put on a brave face. It’s easy and socially acceptable to tell someone you have the flu; however, it’s not really socially acceptable to tell someone you’re depressed. Why is this the case? Why is physical ailment more acceptable than mental ailment? I feel like some people think that your mental health is more within your control than your physical health is, and I think this is totally untrue. You can’t control your brain chemistry, just as you can’t control a virus invading your body. Sure you can take preventive measures such as thinking positively or washing your hands, but when it comes down to it a mental illness is just as real as a physical illness.

I’ve never really thought about finding better ways to handle my stress.  This talk opened my eyes to how unhealthy large amounts of stress can be and how to cope with them.  It’s true that everyone experiences stress differently but this talk made me realize that it can be very unhealthy for people, especially because of some of my stress habits.  For example, I tend to lose my appetite when I get very stressed out which is poor for my health and to overcome the stress I’m dealing with. We also talked about how sleep is important and how far too many students here don’t get the amount of sleep they need every day.

I think the meditation session I found most useful as something I could incorporate everyday that would help myself refocus.  It’s a nice way to just relax for a short while and forget about all the things you’re worrying about.  I read somewhere that stress can be like holding a glass of water: the weight of the water will depend on how long you hold it. If you don’t set down the glass for hours, then your arm will hurt and the glass will feel much heavier than it did when you first picked it up.  The point is to remember that you have to put the glass down at some point just like you have to release the stress at some point.  Continually holding on to all the negative energy and whatever has you stressed out will only increase that stress.  Hopefully I can actually do this meditation to help me put down that glass of water.

Last week, Sarah Gills and Andrea Gerding from Gannett Health Services came to give a talk about stress and techniques that students at Cornell can apply to help with finals week. They started off by identifying common stress symptoms, which consisted of physical sensations as well as emotional sensations. I think that they summarized what a lot of students feel really well since they are counselors for many students on campus.

I think that the tips they gave regarding work management and preparing for finals were especially useful. One of the problems that I have when deadlines start rushing in is chunking my work. I often focus on the big problem instead of breaking down the work into manageable chunks to improve workflow. In addition, Sarah and Andrea also talked about a routine technique to help condition our brains to sleep at night. This would usually be a nightly routine, such as reading a book, packing the bag for tomorrow, or even just stepping away from the computer for the last hour before we go to bed.

Lastly, the café ended with a short meditation session that reminded us to be mindful and aware of how we are feeling when we are stressed. We are often overwhelmed by feelings of anxiety and I think the guided meditation was particularly useful in reminding myself to take a breather so that I can clear my mind and work more efficiently.

Last week I attended a Rose Cafe about a topic that is probably one of the largest issues that college students face, especially at Cornell. One fact that we were told during the Rose Cafe discussion was that college students should be getting 9 hours of sleep every night. I don’t think I know a single one of my friends that gets that much sleep every night, clearly demonstrating how much of an issue this is. One of the techniques that we learned to help deal with stress was making meditation part of our normal routine. I took two meditation classes during my freshmen year as my PE classes, and although at first I would be frustrated that this class took time out of my day, by the end of every class I was incredibly relaxed and glad that I went. I think it is incredibly helpful to meditate and it definitely helps in dealing with stress, but it is sometimes hard for me to justify taking 30 minutes out of my day to meditate when I could be finishing an assignment. We were also taught about having a pre-study routine which I thought was an interesting idea. If you can get into a habit of doing something right before you study, you will sub-consciously be in the mindset to study.

Last week’s Rose Cafe was incredibly relevant given that finals week is coming up and there is going to be an incredible amount of stress that every student faces on campus. Given the struggles that college students face regarding both stress and sleep, I am really glad that I went to the Rose Cafe last week to learn how to manage it.

Stress is either the person who rides my shoulders right before an exam or a friend who stands by my side during a fencing match.  Since it is usually the former, stress and I must have a hate-love relationship.  I really enjoyed listening to last week’s Rose Café Series about managing stress and balancing a healthy life with academics.  Supposedly, an average student should get 9 hours of sleep and that shocked me.  I get at most 7 hours on a good night.  That is probably one of the major causes of stress for me then!  Fortunately, the speakers, Rubenstein-Gillis and Gerding, were kind enough to give the group useful strategies to manage bad stress.

One of the suggestions was a pre-routine workout, which surprised me because I typically do that before I start working.  I would open my laptop and check my email and texts to make sure I don’t ignore my friends or family and then start the assignments.  Another suggestion was to set small goals that can easily be completed during the day to make you feel accomplished by the end of the day.  I started over the weekend and it made me feel a lot happier about my progress in terms of finishing assignments and studying for prelims.  But the most useful tip was their instruction on how to meditate.  The group did a 5-minute meditation session to learn how meditation is helpful to refocus the mind and relax the body.  After the talk, I have been practicing meditation whenever I feel over-stressed, and I have to admit, these tips are very helpful!  I hope Rubenstein-Gillis and Gerding plan to do more sessions like this on campus.  I am sure other students would find these tips helpful and can be easily incorporated into their routine.

This past week for the Rose Cafe Series, we had Sarah Rubenstein-Gills and Andrea Gerding talk about mindfulness and stress, and how we can incorporate different activities into our lives to deal with stress at the right time of the semester as everything gets more hectic. They gave us pro-tips and how to handle procrastination.

They discussed the importance of having breaks here and there and chunking your work. Chunking is when you break your work into portions that you can complete in a certain time period or just smaller portions rather than the entire thing. This helps you to focus on the one task at hand and better manage your time. I remember learning about this during AP Psychology as it was more helpful than cramming because of how we record memories. Even though I learned it, I never really practiced it. However, given the 24 credits I’min, this seems like a useful method to keep practicing.

They also suggested that we have a pre-work routine to tell your brain to get ready to do homework. This could include clearing your desk off, making tea, going for a run or any other ritual you would do before doing homework. Getting into some kind of routine would prepare you for what’s next; studying. I agree with this, and I think my routine is the fact that I’ll watch a short clip of Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight show to get me pumped, even though I’ll be doing homework. 

The end of the talk concluded with a meditation exercise, which admittedly, i’m bad at. It’s hard for me to fully concentrate on any one thing, especially nothing, and not the work I could be doing. That being said, overall, I thought it was a useful and rightly-timed talk!

The focus of last week’s talk was managing stress– they key point, perhaps, was sleep. A few years ago, a sleep expert gave a talk at my high school. Over a number of years, he had performed a comprehensive study of optimal levels of sleep for high school and college-aged students. He found that 9.25 hours– 9 hours and 15 minutes– is ideal. Anything short of that mark, he said, is unhealthy. The professionals from Gannett echoed this number, and I can attest to what they recommend. Since hearing the talk (and seeing the data) a number of years ago, I have made it my mission to sleep 9.25 hours each night. My friends of course have criticized me– both for sleeping for what they consider an absurd amount of time, and for being so precise (and nerdy) about how I sleep. Of course, there are other methods for managing stress, but the simple fact of the matter is that without sleep, even rudimentary and quotidian tasks become difficult.

As we enter the final stretch of the year, I urge all of my peers to exchange the last hour of late-night studying (or Netflix) for an hour of sleep. You will notice the difference.

Last Wednesday, the main discussion of the Rose Café centered around stress and different techniques to relieve yourself of this stress. Two of the main techniques discussed were to get more sleep and to try and meditate and clear your mind. Sleep- fine, I could get more sleep. Meditating and clearing my mind- that’s a different story. When I am stressed about something, I cant stop thinking about what I have to do until it is done especially as it gets closer to a deadline. I am only able to meditate/clear my mind when I have no stress and can focus on just relaxing. My main stress reliever is to play basketball. While not necessarily playing a pick up game, but just going to the gym, listening to music and just shoot around trying different shots. The focus that I commit to making each shot, takes my mind off of whatever is stressing me out. Everybody has a different way of dealing with stress and basketball is mine.

Last Wednesday I attended the Rose Café event on stress advice and meditation. I learned how stress affects people by hearing the experience of other Rose Scholars.  I thought that the advice given was great but I wasn’t too sure about it being realistic for me. I feel that some of the advice was stuff that I’ve heard before but never really put into practice. I’ve heard about planners before but I think that something always comes up and I don’t really stick to my plan. Sometimes I just don’t manage my time well. One of the things that stuck with me the most from the event was hearing how we need 9 hours of sleep each night. I don’t think that this is something that I can realistically accomplish because I usually take2-3 hour naps after I eat dinner just so that I can study until 3am. Then I sleep maybe 5 or 6 hours. I’m not really sure how meditation would fit into my schedule cause I tend to finish all of my responsibilities that don’t include studying by dinner time so I guess I technically consider my nap time to be meditation time. I’ve heard the advice regarding exercising in the past and I usually try to do that in the morning before class but sometimes sleep gets in the way because when I’m just too tired I don’t feel like getting up early in the morning and just choose to sleep instead of exercising.

When hearing about this talk, the first thing that immediately came to my mind was the 21 Pilots Song, Stressed Out. This song has been getting a lot of air time recently. In fact, last semester, this song reached its peak during the finals preparation time. A lot of kids seem to be relating to this overall theme of being stressed out and wishing they were younger to avoid dealing with these stresses. While this is a catchy and quite relatable song, it doesn’t really help anyone deal with the stresses. But, the stress we encounter isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A certain level of stress helps us to get work done and be productive. Stress becomes an issue when it starts to impact the way we are feeling, whether it is our emotional or physical state. Andrea Gerding and Sarah Rubenstein- Gilis from Gannet recommended some things to help when the stress turns from helpful to hurtful.
The biggest takeaway I got from their advice was sleep. I’ve always been someone who needs their sleep. In high school, I had to be in bed by 9, 9:30 at the latest to function properly the next day. As I’ve progressed through college, this 9:30 bed time has somehow disappeared, but I still know the importance of sleep. I learned that the amount of sleep you’re supposed to actually get is over nine hours. The statistic always thrown around is eight hours, but the 9 is what you’re actually supposed to get. In addition, I learned that most muscle recovery happens in the seventh hour. I did not know this beforehand. Muscle recovery is such an important part of life, both with athletics and the everyday stresses that I found this extremely interesting.
Another thing I learned from them was about meditation. We were lead in a 5 minute mediation at the end of their talk. This meditation left me feeling slightly sleepy, but very calm. Since it only took a few minutes, it is something that can be done even in the busiest of times. The research related to meditation showed a ton of positive benefits. Something like this would be a quick way to get yourself back on track during even in the most stressful times.

I sincerely enjoyed last week’s Rose Cafe. Ms. Rubenstein-Gillis and Ms. Gerding, who both work at Gannett, came to talk to us about mindfulness, meditation, and stress. We began by discussing the physical and emotional effects of stress. It was really interesting to hear what other people experience under stress – for example, somebody said that he gets a locked jaw; somebody else said that her shoulders tense up.

Ms. Rubenstein-Gillis and Ms. Gerding also spoke about the importance of getting enough sleep (9ish hours?) and establishing a pre-study routine. The pre-study routine idea is a pretty good one. Ms. Gerding said that we should consider working in chunks as well (because it allows us to focus on one thing at a time).

At the very end, Ms. Gerding led us through a short, 5-minute meditation exercise. Surprisingly, I actually felt a lot less stressed afterwards, and I could tell that other people in the room enjoyed it as well. I definitely look forward to checking out some of Gannett’s mindfulness meditation events in the future.

The Rose Scholars Cafe last week touched on how stress affects students on a consistent basis and provided suggestions as to how one could better deal with the impact that school has on a student’s health. Basically, stress can be noted if a person feels tension in their body, feels pressure in their head, gets anxious, feels their jaw tighten, or any number of bodily expressions. The problem is finding a way to treat the issue of stress, because it quickly impacts a person’s lifestyle without one noticing typically.

As a student as Cornell, receiving nine hours of sleep is unheard of, because of all of the extra curricular activities that students chose to get involved in while attending college. Skipping meals, getting on average five hours of sleep, and over exerting oneself are typical of a normal student. Yet, if more students could find a way to better program their schedules to fit in more time for relaxation, a healthy diet, and occasional leisure time, perhaps enjoying everyday college life may come easier.

Cornell offers so many opportunities for its students to get involved with different organizations, research opportunities, and jobs that it is not difficult to over due one’s commitments which eventually leads to not getting enough sleep or skipping meals. This then makes it difficult to stay awake in class or pay attention, and work is not as efficiently completed because one’s body and mind is simply struggling to find the energy to keep pushing forward. Luckily, Cornell’s own on campus medical facility Gannett offers various resources for students to reach out to if they are in need of assistance.

With the new expansion that Gannett is going through, it will better accommodate the large quantity of students on campus that are seeking assistance. Ultimately, this can only benefit the campus as a whole, and by promoting healthier living habits on campus, students will hopefully find a balance in their schedule between school and their own health, mental and physical.

While the advice we heard during last week’s cafe was interesting and informative, a lot of it seemed hardly practical to implement in the daily life of a Cornell student.

Sleeping for under 9 hours a night (and usually far under at that) is much less of a choice as it is a result of rigorous academic standards on top of involvement in sports, the arts, or clubs. So when it is suggested that we get more sleep, it seems like an impossible suggestion. It just pulls me in another direction while I’m simultaneously being pulled toward my classes, my clubs, my job, my lab, classical guitar, my personal life, and all sorts of other directions. There is a limit to how many responsibilities a person can uphold, and sleep begins to dwindle in priority when compared to other activities.

But what is that pulling force exactly? For me it is my honest interest in each of the responsibilities I mentioned. Not to mention the expectations of grad schools on top of that. But sometimes I worry that people participate in certain activities only because of those expectations, and I think that is prevalent based on something very important that was mentioned during the talk. You can often walk through any crowded area on campus and hear students almost bragging about how little sleep they have gotten. You could also argue that this is the culture surrounding Cornell as a result of these high standards. So in my view, it seems meaningless to suggest students get more sleep when it is effectively out of our control.

Meditation, on the other hand, is a relatively small commitment with potentially large benefits such as allowing one to relax and increasing focus. However, some can’t even fit an hour in their schedules to walk to the session, participate for 30 minutes, and walk to their next destination. And even if they had the time, could they stay awake?

I think it is important to be aware of the sleepless culture surrounding Cornell, but to make a change would require much more than a simple statistic and suggestion.

We are supposed to get 9 hours of sleep each night.  At the time, this statistic startled me, and after the presentation, caused me to reflect on my time at Cornell.  Getting even 8 hours of sleep is a rare occurrence, especially among engineering and science majors. Moreover, Cornell encourages its students to become involved in campus activities and special interests.  As a result, even if a student could manage to get 9 hours of sleep each night if they only took classes at Cornell, they would lose the opportunity to become involved in student organizations and never partake in a quintessential aspect of Cornell.  However, we are told that in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, we should have 9 hours of sleep.  The juxtaposition of being involved and getting adequate sleep/maintain a healthy level of stress manifests the struggle that Cornell students face everyday.  Should we stay up all night to finish a problem set or simply go to sleep and not satisfactorily complete our work?  When should we become involved in extracurricular activities since most inevitably result in additional stress and detract from our academic focus?  Is it this stress, academic rigor, and balancing a social life/extracurricular activities that make Cornell graduates so desirable to employers and institutions of higher education?  Does the high level of stress that we welcome and choose make us better at time management and stronger, more resilient individuals?  I don’t yet know the answers to these questions, but I feel like I’m becoming a more confident and capable individual by pushing myself to my limits and then succeeding – even this success goes hand in hand with incredible stress and sleeping 40 hours a week.

Sarah Rubenstein-Gills and Andrea Gerding came to talk about mindfulness and stress, and how we can incorporate different activities into our lives to deal with stress. They discussed the importance of taking breaks and “chunking” your work. The method of chunking is when you break your work into portions that you can complete in a certain amount of time or a portion that consists of small amounts of work. This helps you to focus on the one task at hand and better manage your time. I personally have developed a method that works for me that draws on these principles. I make a list of five things that need to get done each day. After one is complete, I cross it off. This helps me to realize that I am getting things done and being productive. They also discussed the idea of a break being an actual break, an intentional break. Instead of doing something where you would still be thinking about work, they recommend something else where you can be present and in the moment. For me, I like to use coloring as a break. It is a great way to relax, but it is also an easy task to focus on.

Another suggestion that they made was to have a pre-work routine to tell your brain to get ready to do homework. This could include clearing your desk off except for the piece of work you are going to be doing, making tea or anything else you would do before any time you start homework. This sets our brain in the pattern of knowing when it is time to focus. They ended their talk with a brief five minute mindfulness/meditation exercise. I always find meditation difficult because I get lost in my thoughts but this was a nice way to end a stressful day.

As college students, we’re no strangers to stress, which is why the Rose Cafe last Wednesday was particularly interesting. Ms. Rubenstein-Gillis and Ms. Gerding, both from Gannett, discussed stress and its physical and mental effects. Through audience polling, they determined and expanded on the fact that each individual experiences stress uniquely. Some mentioned feeling of tightness in their jaws and/or chests, while others said it’s more mentally draining. I personally appreciated the overall understanding of the unique nature of stress because I believe it’s important to understand the many various experiences and effects in order to develop and improve comprehensive ways to mediate said effects.

The discussion also included potential resources for stress reduction available on campus. The services throughout campus, including EARS and frequent guided meditation sessions, were mentioned. Other techniques mentioned were napping, exercising, meditating on your own, and trying not to procrastinate on work in order to avoid pulling all-nighters. While I always aim to utilize different stress management techniques, I found being reminded of the wide availability of campus resources to also try out will be useful. Towards the end of the discussion, we were led through a 5-minute guided meditation/relaxation session. Already tired after a long day, I found myself nearly falling asleep by the end of the five minutes, proving to myself that meditation, when done correctly, does in fact relax the body and mind. I now look forward to implementing meditation techniques into my schedule as much as possible.

I feel that stress is like a fly that just keeps getting in your face while you try to swat it away and eventually it disappears but somehow it always returns. So how does one deal with this beast? I usually prefer the self-destructive methods like banging my head on the wall or not sleeping but according to most people those methods aren’t exactly healthy.  After the most recent Rose-Becker Café, I was surprised to learn that there are indeed better methods out there.

The first one that impressed me was the idea of tackling your schedule a little bit at a time, I usually fill out my planner for the week on Monday and spend loads of time simply staring at all I have to do that week. Recently, I’ve decided to just take it one day at a time, which is easy to say but will still take some getting use to.

Next, is a thing called meditation, which I thought was just for people with loads of time on their hands and Kung-Fu masters who were preparing to kick some major ass. During the event we did a bit of meditation and I can honestly say that it did relax me for a bit. Not because my mind was clear but rather I focused on this weird African dude from a movie called Congo that was mad about people eating his sesame cake. Check it out: https://youtu.be/rObnAFr4qr4

That scene was so funny that it actually did put my mind at easy for a while. I’ll probably try meditation again in the future and even though I didn’t really use it correctly the first time, it still did the trick.

All in all, my guess is that life is only going to get more stressful so it’s good to learn some coping methods at this age.

Sarah Rubenstein-Gillis and Andrea Gerding from Gannett Health Services led a discussion on work and relaxation techniques that we can effectively employ to improve our lives. Despite the immense benefits and eye-opening experiences that college provides an individual, sometimes it feels like the work load amounts to more than a full-time job. At the beginning of each day, it can certainly appear daunting when it seems like the work and activities of the day will leave you with minimal spare time. However, Rubenstein-Gillis and Gerding emphasized the utility and importance of chunking one’s work. Indeed, rather than deciding to sit down for the entire afternoon to fully complete an essay or a problem set, it can be far more effective to have shorter work sessions of say, 30 minutes, where the goal is to complete a short task like a paragraph or single problem and then take a short break before you begin the next work session. I actually tried this technique a couple days later, and I can definitely attest to the fact that this is truly a great technique!

Another interesting component of the discussion was when our guests led us through a few minutes of meditation. As someone who has never practiced or engaged in any type of meditation, I was certainly curious about the mechanics of it. Although we only practiced basic breathing techniques in those few minutes, for some reason, I certainly felt more loose and relaxed afterwards. This definitely got me more interested in meditation!

Last semester, I remember pulling an “all-nighter” in Uris to work on a 20-page paper. The assignment wasn’t even due the next day. I told myself that there was no way I was going to be able to complete it in the time that I had without pulling at least 1 all-nighter. When I saw an image of Ezra Cornell on the wall, I thought, “Cornell University: Having students pull all-nighters since 1865.” Thankfully, I haven’t pulled too many during my time at Cornell. I am well aware, however, that the same thing cannot be said for several others.

The term “stress” usually has a negative connotation ascribed to it. However, most of us tend to overlook the positive aspects of stress. A certain amount of stress is needed to, well, get stuff done. The key is to find the right balance (easier said than done). Sarah Rubenstein-Gillis and Andrea Gerding, experts on stress reduction, provided some insight on how to strike this balance. Having a routine before you study, for example, can prime the brain into a “study mode.” I was actually quite shocked to hear that the recommended sleep time for college students was 9 hours. I had always thought it was 8 (I guess this explains why I don’t feel as well rested when I get 7-8 hours of sleep). Exercise can be a great way of alleviating stress. The gym serves as an outlet for the stress and anger I have internalized. I unleash it into the weights I lift and steps I take. It was also quite refreshing to have a meditation session. Sometimes, taking a deep breath can be the remedy one needs to strike that balance. Well, that’s enough for this blog post. It’s time to get some rest (hopefully I’ll get 9 hours of sleep)!

On Wednesday, I attended the Rose Café series talk given by Sarah Rubenstein-Gillis and Andrea Gerding from Gannett Health Services. The focus of the discussion was on techniques to better handle stressful situations, such as finals week. I liked that Ms. Rubenstein-Gillis and Ms. Gerding first gave some background on what exactly stress is and its’ positive, as well as negative effects. Most people can instantly identify with discomforts that stress brings, but we often forget about the benefits that a little bit of pressure can have in helping us effectively accomplish tasks. Some resistance is necessary for us to experience achievement and to survive.

Taking a course on children’s play and one on anatomy and physiology, has given me a broadened view on stress and stress-relieving activities. I echo what Ms. Rubenstein-Gillis mentioned about how important it is to take time out of one’s busy schedule to exercise and engage in fun activities. As children get older, they are given less time for free play and recess at school. This then translates to less time for fun activities as adults. Meanwhile, research has shown that play can aid in cognitive, social, and emotional skills and coping. This also connects to the point that Ms. Gerding raised of how the body cannot distinguish the difference between utilizing physical versus emotional energy. We essentially have to adapt and find ways for our brains and bodies to better adjust and relieve the stress.

During my sophomore year, I took a physical education class teaching Chi Gong. It involved both mind and body through a series of calming, repetitive movements and meditation. As of late, I have not been keeping up with practicing the moves, but it is something that I would like to pick up again. It forced me to slow down and become more in tune with my body. This was the same feeling that I had during the ten minutes of guided meditation led by Ms. Gerding. In moments of calm, we find clarity. It never hurts to feel refreshed. I would recommend that everyone at least give meditation a try even if you think it may not be for you and to take on an “I can” mindset because I think that we are often our own obstacle and creator of stress.

This week was really great. I enjoyed hearing about some of the services gannet offers such as walk-in counseling, guided meditation sessions throughout campus, and help in many other areas. One thing we discussed that I want to try is using pre-studying habits to focus on work when stressed. Often times I know I have so many assignments I need to get done and when I sit down to start I get overwhelmed and can’t focus on the task at hand.

My favorite part on the talk was the meditation at the end. I felt so relaxed and happy afterwards. Before the meditation I did not even realize how tense I felt. I think I am stressed so often that I don’t even really realize what the difference between not being stressed physically feels like.

Sleep seems to be the biggest problem that everyone deals with however, I know that if I don’t get enough of sleep every night I start to feel short fused and frustrated  because it takes me much longer to get my assignments completed. I also think going days without enough of sleep makes me more prone to getting sick and then that really just makes everything much worse. It’s hard to keep a balance sometimes, but in order to feel like myself I need sleep, and time to hangout with friends, or go out otherwise just doing work is draining. I also try to make time for the gym everyday because I feel so great afterwards. I think planning in time for the gym or time to catch up on my favorite shows makes the day go by faster and gives me a break from all of the work that can be extremely overwhelming at times. I think I may try to go to one of the drop in meditations on campus as finals start to approach to decompress from all of the studying. I know this may sound strange but my favorite part of meditation is hearing the instructor’s voice, it’s so soothing. I wish they could record a guided meditation and upload it to the gannet website so that people can do a guided meditation even if they cannot make it to the ones on campus.

At this week’s Rose Cafe, a couple of psychologists came in from Gannett to discuss stress reduction techniques. One of the things they talked about was conquering a big workload. They suggested having a pre-work routine, which is a routine of things you do before you start working on something. I like to relax and search the web after getting back from class but before starting homework, but I tend to get distracted and waste a lot of time before I actually start working. Another thing they mentioned was working for a little and then taking a break, but they said that breaks that involved social media usually lowered self esteem and decreased productivity. Instead they recommended making some coffee or tea, or taking a walk. I realized that a good break or pre-work routine for me could involve cleaning my room, because it always makes me feel better to have a clean room, but I can never find the time to clean it. The other main topic they discussed was sleep. They again suggested a pre-sleep routine. they also said that it was important to schedule in the sleep and not treat it as optional. At the end of the session we were guided through a short meditation. I have done meditation before, and I have always found it to be pretty useful in terms of stress reduction.

I was surprised by how much I learned at this Rose Cafe event! It seemed like a simple talk about how to decrease your stress and how to take care of yourself, but I truly learned about lifestyle choices that I want to implement in my life. And I realized that Cornell students don’t value their health as much as they’re supposed to!

We had a discussion about how difficult it was for some people to start large projects or homework, and Ms. Gerding had two suggestions for how to approach this: (1) Have a pre-work routine of about 15-20 minutes that you do every time before you start working, and (2) Breaking up the large projects/assignments into chunks. In regards to (1), I thought it was helpful because if we condition our brains to get into working mode, we’ll be much more efficient than trying to immediately sink from a relaxed mode into a deep-focus mode, which is usually what I try to do. With that being said, I think that (2) is very simple but I never attempt to do it. I try to do all the smaller assignments first, and then leave the large assignments for the last minute, mostly because I find it extremely hard for me to start an assignment that’s HUGE. But what Ms. Gerding said was to break the large assignments into chunks so that our brain gets a sense of accomplishment after finishing one “chunk” of the assignment. Although I think it could really work out for some people, sometimes I feel like I’ll list out so many “to do’s” and I never really get to any of them, and seeing that many “to-do’s” left makes me feel the opposite of accomplished. But I will definitely try doing this anyway!

Finally, we ended the Cafe event with some meditation. I’ve actually thought about trying meditation before, but the idea of it seemed very spiritual to me, and I felt like I didn’t possess enough spirituality for it to help me. Ms. Gerding actually talked about an experiment done on teenage girls who participated in a guided meditation, but didn’t feel like it did anything for them. However, studies showed that there was a decrease in cortisol from saliva samples before and after the meditation, which means that even if your mind is wandering during a meditation, the activity itself can calm you! I didn’t really believe it until the meditation ended and I felt much looser and less tense, and I’m convinced that it will help me during finals week!

The Rose Café this past week had some really valuable advice that I would be useful to anyone at Cornell. The main topic of the talk, stress, is a feeling that is ubiquitously complained about at Cornell. We all have so many things that we want to do or accomplish, but in trying to manage those everything we often become overwhelmed leading to this feeling of stress. Furthermore, once the stress has begun, it creates a vicious cycle, where it makes everything more difficult to do and things being harder to do leads to more stress. Now of course there are lots of “strategies” for dealing with stress that everyone has heard over the course of their lifetime, but they are usually pretty vague and either don’t have concrete steps, such as “get more sleep” and “schedule your time,” or are just not possible, such as “reduce your workload.” Where Ms. Sarah Rubenstein-Gillis and Ms. Andrea Gerding’s talk really stood out was in the precise practicality of the suggestions they had for us. One of the ones that really resonated with me was the idea of creating routines not only for getting work done, but also for getting more sleep, as I have read a lot about the power of habits and how effective they can be. For getting work done, for example, they suggested having a pre-work routine to get the mind ready to work as well breaking down or “chunking” work into manageable 20-minute blocks. For sleep they suggested a similar strategy of creating a routine, explaining that the mind needs help knowing when to start shutting down, and this can be accomplished by having a regular sleep schedule and a pre-sleep activity such as reading a book or listening to calming music. Overall I was so convinced by this talk that I tried some of the strategies they suggested the very next day and hope to continue to use them!

This week, Gannett’s Sarah Rubenstein-Gillis and Andrea Gerding presented tips for how to manage stress. First, Ms. Rubenstein-Gillis asked the audience where we feel stress in our bodies. I immediately thought about the tight, heaviness in my chest that I experience during weeks with multiple prelims. After discussing different techniques for managing time and staying focused while working, we were able to participate in a five-minute long meditation. I felt much more relaxed in my shoulders and neck after the meditation, even though I noticed my mind wandering away from my breath and to thoughts of the work I had to do after the Rose Cafe.

For me, the biggest takeaway from this cafe was a reminder of the importance of sleeping. We were told the story of a student who said she treated sleep like a job, making sure she was always “on time” for her bedtime and wake-up to ensure that she had ample rest every day. I have more work than ever this semester, and have noticed myself sacrificing my normal sleep schedule to study. After this cafe, however, I am reminded just how important sleep is to our overall mental and physical health, and I have already started to make a conscious effort to prioritize sleep. I am happy to report that after just three nights of making an effort to sleep earlier, I feel much more alert both physically and and mentally.

Stressed? Since we are in midst of second round of prelims and nearing finals season, the stress level of students have been increasing constantly. Cornell students often feel like they are competing in the Stress Olympics. In a conversation between friends, a common phrase that we hear is “Oh, I’m so tired. I only slept for x hours last night.” Then the friend usually agrees about being tired and gives another reason why they are also equally or more tired, and so on. For this week’s Rose Café, we invited Sarah Rubenstein-Gillis and Andrea Gerding to talk about how to manage stress.

I thought the suggestion of making a pre-work routine was a great idea to help condition the brain for working more effectively. I will try making a pre-work routine of making tea, and doing a couple of stretches. Also, chunking work sounds like a good idea to feel a daily sense of accomplishment. I have used a planner ever since middle school and I continue to use it to keep track of due dates, meetings, and events. Something new that they suggested during the café was putting non-work things in the planner, such as “having lunch with friend.” I’m not sure if my planner would get too full if I start putting non-work related things in my planner, but I’ll keep it in mind in the future.

Thinking of sleep as if it is work seems like a great strategy to make sure that you can an adequate amount of sleep every night. If we have work, we make sure that we get to our job by that time and work until the shift is over. Similarly, we should go to sleep for 8 hours at a designated time. Overall, the talk was interesting and gave some great tips on time management and sleep. Near the end of the discussion, the meditation session was very relaxing and I might consider taking a meditation class next semester.

Last week at Rose Cafe, Sarah Rubenstein-Gillis and Andrea Gerding of Gannet Health Services came to talk about how we can reduce stress and promote a healthy, balanced lifestyle. Rubenstein-Gillis began by defining the experience of being stressed. For me, I immediately think about its mental effects and drain. However, they reminded me that prolonged stress can affect you both mentally and physically. Physical indicators include discomfort, shallow breaths, and loss/gain of appetite. With prelims currently ongoing and finals looming in the near future, this discussion could not have come at a better time. My goto in dealing with stress is to find a distraction/do something fun for a bit. To better cope with stress, Gerding suggests chunking your work, this way, you have a clear idea of your progress and tackle a manageable amount at a time. Keeping a planner/organizer is essential to staying organized and feeling connected with yourself and your goals for the day. Since I started keeping a calendar when I first began college, I definitely agree with this. It may feel like a short term nuisance, but it carries long-term benefits in organization and sense of well-being.

One of the most important things you can do for your health is to get enough sleep every night. I would say I get a good amount of sleep at night, probably around 7-8 hours consistently. I was mildly surprised when the research said that the optimal amount of sleep for college-aged students was over 9 hours. I have many friends who go by on as little as 4-5 hours at night, and I think sleep is the biggest factor people can improve here on campus. The body and brain renews and repairs itself at night. Rubenstein-Gillis also led us through a meditation session. Meditation has always been something I’ve been interested in trying. After just a 5-minute meditation session, I believe that I felt calmer and more connected with myself. I am interested in learning more about the benefits of meditation/checking out the resources on campus.

This week at the Rose Cafe, mental health experts Sarah Rubenstein-Gillis and Andrea Gerding came to speak. I’ll gladly take advice on managing stress any day, especially during the last few weeks of the school year, and I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to learn a few more tricks to help myself deal with stressful situations. Since high school, I’ve struggled with anxiety, and it was almost comforting to know that others at Cornell (specifically those who were also attending the cafe series along with me) stressed the same way I do. In fact, the speakers started the discussion by asking, “What is stress?” Some of the responses that were given included: lock jaw, shallow breathing, insomnia, a racing mind, and appetite loss, all things that I’ve personally experienced during the height of prelim or finals season.

Asides from feeling put at ease that I wasn’t the only one going through stress that affects both my mind and my body, I also appreciated the destress strategies that the speakers gave. A few of them I was already used to, and even practicing during times of stress, such as using a planner and having a pre-homework routine. But the rest of them were strategies I’d never even considered, namely the Italian “Pomodoro” Technique of using a timer (any timer, not just a tomato timer, as the name implies) to take a short (20-25 minute) break from work. This break can include doing some jumping jacks, walking around, taking a shower, making a short phone call, etc. If one is to break up their work every so often using this technique, he or she is sure to find themselves more able to concentrate, according to the speakers.

Additionally, Ms. Rubenstein-Gillis and Ms. Gerding mentioned a study where it was shown that checking Facebook during work can actually bring down people’s moods and decrease their energy. Sure, I knew scrolling through my news feed every half-hour was probably a bad idea, but I had no clue that it could actually have negative effects on my concentration or energy. Knowing that has definitely allowed me to rethink how I study, how I spend my time, and how I structure my day. Like I said, getting advice on how best to succeed at Cornell always comes at just the right time.

Andrea Gerding and Sarah Rubenstein- Gilis talked about the important topic of how to sense stress and be able to cope with it. Stress is manifested in many ways and differently for different people. Some people said that they experience tightness in the chest, mental breakdowns, and mind racing over many things. I personally get extremely tired when I am stressed. Meditation is a great way to stay in tune with your body. They gave the good advice on how to tackle your work in periodic chunks and that you should give yourself more purposeful breaks. Purposeful breaks are short times of doing another activity that gives you more energy and makes you more motivating. For example, I see Ellen DeGeneres and Jimmy Fallon show clips. For longer breaks, I love to go to the gym. Seeing Facebook over the breaks actually depresses the mood for people and people tend to watch Facebook longer in losing track of time. There were some interesting tips that were given to understand how to have better sleep. Typically a person needs 9 hours while most students get much less than that. Sleep helps with emotional management and cognitive function and in fact tissue healing occurs in the seventh hour. That is critical to get for people who worked out excessively the day before. They touched on the exercise aspect a lot, which deals with me since I have made it a habit to go to the gym every weekday in the morning. Some nights I have to go to the gym since I could not make it in that morning and sometimes it helps me sleep and other times it keeps me awake. The primary way I motivate myself to exercise is that I keep my exercise clothes outside for me to see when I wake up to remind myself to go right away. Lastly, I liked how Andrea and Sarah ended with meditation. A lot of times meditation is unclear exactly what needs to be done. The key problem with me is that I tend to sleep when I start to meditate where as proper meditation actually requires you to be mentally active. Overall, I found this talk extremely helpful to understand my sleeping patterns and my mental health to help me improve my ways.

This week the guests at the Rose cafe spoke to us about stress management in the upcoming weeks before finals.  Rubenstein-Gillis and Gerding were from Gannett — Rubenstein-Gillis works with CAPS, Notice and Respond, as well as being available to faculty/staff who are concerned about a student’s well-being.  Gerding works with CAPS as well, and is a general therapist.  She also works closely with the Let’s Meditate program that goes on around campus.

The talk began by discussing what stress is and how we feel it.  I personally get a slight tightness in my chest along with racing thoughts when I get stressed out, but other symptoms include a tight jaw, loss of appetite, a change in breathing patterns, or memory impairment.  We then discussed how while stress has negative connotations, a small amount of stress is important in our lives because it motivates us to get work done.  Without any stressors in our lives, we wouldn’t be motivated ot do any work.  Rubenstein-Gillis then showed us the stress continuum.  I’ve noticed this graph many times in Gannett before, but it was nice to have it really explained to us.  As long as we stay on the green, left half of the continuum, we’re doing well.  We have enough stress to do the work we have to get done.  Once we get over to the red side of the continuum, though, we are on a path towards a breakdown, which is very bad.  One of the important things about stress is that we sometimes don’t even realize we are stressed, which can be bad as well.

We then were given some useful tips on how to manage our stress and keep it at manageable levels.  The first suggestion was to have a pre-work routine in place to condition our brain to realize that it is time to work.  For example, we could clean off our desk, get a cup of tea, do some stretches, and then sit down to work.  If we did this same routine before working every time our brains will get conditioned to realize that that routine signals work time, which will help us focus.  I plan on implementing a pre-work routine as soon as I can think of one, hopefully by next week, because I really like this idea and think it will help me work more efficiently.

Another tip was to chunk work, something I already do to an extent.  By breaking up tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces, we don’t get as overwhelmed by the amount of work that we have to do.  We can do a chunk of work, take a rest, and then start working again.  This is something I already do a bit, but plan to do more because it is a very good work technique.

The next topic is the typical one for any stress management talk: sleep.  This is a part of stress management that I know I do well, because I make sure to get enough sleep every night.  When we get sleep, our brains just function better.  At our age, we should be getting 9.25 hours of sleep a night, which happens to be around how much sleep I like to try to get so I can function nicely.  For napping, we should either sleep for 20 minutes or 2 hours, to get a proper amount of sleep cycle in.

At the end of the talk we did a brief 5 minute guided meditation that I actually found incredibly useful and calming.  I plan to try to incorporate a lot of these techniques into my everyday life to try to reduce stress overall.

The Rose Café tonight was about stress reduction techniques. Two professional counselors from Gannett gave us tips about how to reduce stress and preform better during the final weeks of school. It was a very timely talk because classes are getting busy, papers are coming due, and exams are around the corner. Luckily, using the tips from Gannett you can try to achieve optimal stress levels.

The talk focused on little things that students can do to help reduce stress and increase performance on exams. Some of the suggestions included breaking up work into “chunks” to make assignments seem more manageable. This is a tip I will try to use for my upcoming papers. This makes sense because three papers of three pages in length seem much more manageable than one nine-page paper.

The speakers also stressed the importance getting a proper amount of sleep. Luckily I have been in the habit of getting a good amount of sleep at night, but I could definitely improve. I was going to start trying to get more sleep tonight, but I have to finish this blog post. Actually, I did not lose any sleep over the writing of this blog post.

During the last five minutes of the talk we did a group meditation session. It was my first time doing meditation and I was impressed with how relaxed I felt afterwards. After only five minutes I felt reenergized and hungry. I’m not sure if the hunger was related to the meditation, but it was noticeable. In fact, I went to eat another dinner following the meditation session.

I also enjoyed seeing college councilors in action because my mother is a psychologist at a university. When I was quite young, I would tag along with my mom when she would talk to groups of college students. I remember going to an event that she organized called “the stress free zone.” It was conducted during final exam week and had all sorts of fun activities for the students. I remember the therapy dogs, stress balling making stations, and more.

My mom has an emergency on call phone for her university so I could relate to the councilor who was nervous about possibly getting an emergency call during the night. Luckily, my mom’s phone doesn’t ring very often.

Often times at Cornell or college in general, we stress about different assignments, GPA, life after graduation, personal relationships, etc. During the lecture, I even caught myself a little stressed about a grade that I had received earlier that day. I knew the signs, really well, discomfort in my chest, butterflies in my stomach, increased heart rate, sweaty palms, and the feeling of anxious. All of this over an exam that I was hesitant about seeing my grade. It was really funny how much I could relate to this lecture under that current circumstance. In that moment, I realized that I needed to make some changes to reduce my stress and avoid breakdown. I immediately grabbed two paper calendars provided by the lecturers and utilized their pre-work, routine-strategy before I even started this assignment.

I am really happy that this lecture was provided because it is a little past the middle of the semester, and there are still roughly six weeks of school left. During this time, I usually get unmotivated to do work and I no longer have the strive and determination that I started off the semester with. This can be very problematic if I want to maintain decent grades and avoid stress from my procrastination with assignments, so I was very fortunate for the advice they provided. I think I will definitely take with me their advice on the pre-work, routine strategy and finding a good recharge that is not facebook or any other social media because they tend to worsen your mood, which I have found to be true in my personal experience. One of the ladies also stated that a good nine hours of sleep was recommended for people of the college age group, which was actually really surprising to me. Considering I have always been taught that seven hours was enough, I believed anything more was over-sleeping.

Overall I felt that this was a much-needed lecture that I am sure almost every student at Cornell can relate themselves. with.

I believe this talk on stress and handling stress couldn’t have come at a more perfect time for me (and I’m sure some of my peers). At this very moment I’m stressing about my two upcoming prelims, a problems set due Friday, finding an internship, and of course finals. Oh and let us not forget how much laundry piles up. Basically, Cornell is so overwhelming that Rose house felt it was important to bring these women in to figure out how to bring the stress level down and give us techniques on how to handle mounting worries in the next few weeks.

So how do we manage our stress so that it doesn’t bring us into the “red zone” of stress. One example given was to have a pre-work routine that tells your body that it is time to do work. The speaker explains that she will brew herself a cup of tea, watch the water boil, then sit down at her desk and tell herself it is time to work. I personally think this would be a great idea, because I always tell myself ok I’ll do work but let me just check Facebook and then an hour later I haven’t done anything.

Another suggestion was sleep. According to data, people in the college age group need about 9 hours of sleep a night. I can pretty confidently claim that no one on Cornell’s campus is regularly getting 9 hours a night. I try to get as much sleep as I can, but it tends to be 5 hours and then napping 2 hours sometime later in the day.

There are so many remedies to stress, but also so many causes of stress, so I think there is a balance to be found, but no matter what we do, we will be stressed when tests come. I think that is a good thing, however, because it drives us to work and do better.