On the Road to Wellness… Theoretically.

Alright bugs. So… it’s been a while. But, I’M BACK. (I know, I know, I say that every time). However, now that I’m back, this whole blog thing is going to work a little differently.

I obviously didn’t blog much last semester (judging from the fact that my last published blog post was about my trip to Africa… jeesh), and that’s because I let school and this thing called stress that often comes along with school get the best of me. Not only that, but when I let school get the best of me I didn’t have much time to do art. When I didn’t have time to do art I often didn’t have time to blog. And when I did have time to blog I didn’t have any art to blog about. Life is a struggle. Anyway…

SO. NEW PLAN. I am no longer going to call this an “art blog”. This will now just be a blog where I talk about whatever is going on in my life that I feel like sharing, whether it be art, school, or blabbing on to you about how great my friends are. AND THIS IS WHY…

So I am currently enrolled in a class called “Personal Health”. As an exercise science major it’s apparently important to learn about how to take care of yourself as well as how to exercise properly. Funny, huh? Anyway, about two weeks ago we completed this funny thing called a “wellness wheel”. Basically the point is to answer a bunch of questions regarding different aspects of “wellness”, get points based on your answers, do some math with those points, and see what portions of “wellness” are fulfilled in your life and which ones are not.  I got super high scores (which means they are fulfilled) on things like exercise and nutrition, I got about average scores on social life and sleep, and I got some not-so-good scores on the mental health and stress levels of my life. Figures. ANYWAY, this semester we are supposed to come up with a “plan” to try and improve our levels on the aspects that we didn’t do so well on, so I have to come up with things that will help decrease my stress levels. Generally the things you hear regarding how to decrease stress levels are “eat healthy” and “exercise more often”, but clearly I’ve got those things covered. So at first I was totally flabbergasted at how to even go about life in a way that doesn’t stress me out. I mean, we all know that that is new territory for me. However, we talked about the “stress” chapter in class yesterday and one of the suggestions was to reflect in some way, such as a journal or… a BLOG. So here I am. Hopefully melting some of my stress away by ranting to you (whoever you may be) about the chaotic life of a college student who is still trying to figure out this whole “life” thing.

Also my best friend is currently studying abroad in a far far away land and she blogs, so I decided it would be cool if I could read her blogs and she could read mine and we could pretend (at least for a few moments at a time) that we weren’t thousands of miles apart. Hi Kit-Kat. 🙂

Well, later in the week I will try to give you basically an updated version of my life since I haven’t posted anything in 5 months. And wow, a lot has changed in the last 5 months. But for now, just know that I am back and haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. That’s reassuring, right? Maybe it’ll decrease your stress levels.

Have a fantastic weekend, bugs!

Love,

Laney-Bug ❤

 

 

 

Weekly Whimsy – Relax

Why, hello there bugs!

So, we are going to start this week with a short story time.

Once upon a time there was a girl, we will call her Laney, who was known among her family and friends as someone who works incredibly hard most of the time but occasionally has a mental breakdown because of it.

Okay, I won’t tell the whole story in the third person. But you get the point.

So I basically do this thing where I focus like crazy on school and everything is totally fine and I’m doing really well, and then all the sudden in one day it hits me that I haven’t sat down and relaxed for more than 10 minutes at a time for the last 8 weeks. Suddenly I start freaking out and basically have a little mini-breakdown. This usually happens about halfway through each semester. Well… that happened on Monday. And just for the record, today is exactly halfway through the semester, so it happened right on time.

I felt okay Sunday night. I felt a little off but I didn’t think it was much of a problem, I just thought I was tired because I’m in college and that’s part of the deal. That is, until my boyfriend informed me the next day that he was legitimately worried about me because apparently I hadn’t seemed myself when we had skyped the night before. He told me that I had been really distracted, looked physically exhausted, and just seemed stressed and anxious. As soon as he said this I realized he was right. I suddenly realized how tired I was and how stressed out I had been. This was around 8:30 on Monday morning, and I decided to skip my 9:10 weight training class, which is pretty big for me. I never miss class – even weight training. I skipped partially because I didn’t want to do something stupid such as drop a weight on my face due to my anxious state of mind, but also just because I suddenly felt that it was really important for me to go back to the dorm and take a nap. And call my mom.

So I did just that.  My mom talked me down a bit because, well, that’s what moms are for. She did successfully calm me down, but I still felt in over my head. After all, that type of stress won’t go away with one phone call.

My roommate also gave me a hug and told me that it would be alright, which helped as well. It’s amazing how much a simple hug can do.

So at noon I went to my next class of the day, then in my 2-hr break I forced myself to at least try to be productive since I hadn’t been that morning. At 3 I went to my last class of the day, and that night I did a little more studying but mostly let myself relax. I didn’t even go to swim practice, which is also pretty big for me. After swim practice I typically don’t get to bed until 10:30 or 11, and I decided that that probably was not the best decision for me at that point in time.

So, after my studying I did a little bit of art (which I will hopefully be posting about soon), ate the last piece of leftover birthday cake, talked to my boyfriend on the phone, and went to bed early.

However, before going to bed I did one more thing – I looked up quotes about stress on pinterest. Because I’m a teenage girl and you’re not allowed to judge me for the fact that this makes me feel better. The quote I have chosen for this week is one of the quotes that I found that night;

You have enough. You do enough. You are enough. Relax.

This really made me reflect and realize that I could chill out a bit without any severe consequences. I realized that I have high A’s in all my classes right now, but that if I totally stopped studying for my upcoming chemistry test RIGHT FREAKING NOW, that I would still probably get a low A. Of course, I didn’t completely stop studying for it because I am who I am and it is pretty much physically impossible for me to stop studying, but I did decide to cut back a little bit. I realized that as long as I do my best it will all be alright, and I don’t want to push myself so hard that I’m not taking care of myself.

While talking to my mom that afternoon I realized that I hadn’t sat down and done art in about a month. A MONTH. There’s problem #1 right there. Art is a major stress relief for me, so I have now made a mental note to make sure to make time for it. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to do it, it’s just that I’ve been so busy that I haven’t gotten around to it in a while. But it’s important to get some of that stress out of my system!

Another thing I realized about myself is that while exercising and training is also a stress relief for me, I need to balance it with my art time as well. Exercising is a stress relief because it gives me something to focus on for a while and get my mind off of my chaotic life. However, art actually makes me evaluate my troubles and realize that they really aren’t as troubling as I’m making them. Both of these types of stress relief are important for my sanity, and I need to remember to have a balance between the two. Just because I’m training for a triathlon doesn’t mean I can ignore my artful side and just focus on my training. I need to do both, so for now on that is what I will do. For the sake of both my sanity and my happiness.

Anyway, I’m doing much better now – my tests for the week are all over and tonight my family and boyfriend are coming into town and I can’t wait to  see them. Next week I don’t have any big projects or tests for my classes so I plan on focusing on spending time with family and relaxing a bit.

Anyway, keep arting bugs, and stay positive! 🙂

Love,
Laney-Bug ❤

Running in the Rain

Hey Bugs! Happy Weekend!

First of all I would like to say that I was half tempted to write a rant about my pretty crappy week, but recognizing that my last blog post was all about being sick I decided to tend towards a more uplifting post today. I will say though that I did have a pretty crappy week, but I say this because knowing that will make what I’m about to say much more meaningful. As I’ve mentioned before, I had a fantastic weekend last weekend, but I started off my week following it on a pretty bad note; I woke up sick Monday morning. It wasn’t really until Thursday that I had my normal energy level back again, and on top of feeling like death, homework seems to have the tendency to pile up like crazy lately. I have a paper and 3 tests coming up pretty quickly, and my week has pretty much consisted of homework and nothing else. Some other crappy things happened too that I won’t get into since this is supposed to be an uplifting post, but just know that it was not the best week. So with that, let’s get to the happy part shall we?

Well this afternoon my outlook on life picked up a little bit. I had just done 3 hours of calculus homework, and knowing that I needed to take a break before my brain exploded, I decided to go for a run.

Now usually when I go for a run I think to look outside beforehand to make a note of the weather but for some reason I didn’t think to today. Too much on my mind I guess. Anyway, I changed into my running attire, grabbed a water bottle and some tunes and headed outside.

As soon as I walked outside I realized something… it was raining. Not pouring down buckets or anything crazy like that, but sprinkling a good bit. How did I miss that? One wall of my dorm room is practically just one giant window so you would think that I would have noticed the water falling from the sky. But for some reason I didn’t.

For a split second I contemplated going back inside, just watching a youtube video or reading a chapter of a book as my break instead. But then I realized something – running in the rain actually sounded wonderful.

I’m not really sure why. I’ve never run in the rain before. But for some reason it seemed like it might be… refreshing I guess. So, questioning my judgement and sanity, I started moving my feet. And the farther I went, the faster I got, and the more my mind wandered away from the troubles of the world.

Running has always been a stress-relief for me, but usually I tend to stay inside when it’s raining. But for some reason I just felt like I had to go for it today. I knew I needed a break, and the cold sprinkles of water somehow made me more energized and ready to go.

I got back to the dorm room after my rainy run, changed back into normal clothes, and went to dinner with my roommate. After dinner I got back to calculus homework and realized that I had a much better outlook on everything than I had just a few hours before. I still had just as much stuff to get done, but I was taking it one thing at a time rather than worrying about all of the things I would have to get done after my current task. This actually got me through what I had to get done faster because I was more positive and wasn’t stressing as much.

So was my positive demeanor due completely to running in the rain? Probably not. But it did allow me to clear my mind, take a break from the crazy of my life, and realize that life would go on despite my one crappy week.

So, moral of the story? Find something that allows you to clear your mind when you feel overwhelmed, it sure did help me.

Or maybe the only thing we learned from this is that Laney likes running in the rain. I’ll leave that interpretation up to you.

Anyway, stay happy bugs! Go for a run in the rain! Clear those minds of the cluttered world around you! All in all, stay positive! Life goes on.

And with that happy note,

Love,

Laney-Bug ❤