Take a Breather
In the final fall semester of my undergraduate career, I took on more than I could handle. I enrolled in two of the hardest math courses for my degree and assumed many leadership roles within my student organization and research lab. I was doing everything I wanted to do at the time however, I underestimated my workload. By the middle of that semester, everything intensified: My courses became more rigorous in content, I was coordinating an all-day virtual philanthropy event, and leading a poster team for the first time. I was overwhelmed and stressed. To alleviate my stress, I practiced a breathing exercise I learned from reading Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living and reducing my stress enabled me to better manage my workload.
To practice the breathing exercise, I followed four simple steps that I learned from Full Catastrophe Living: I set my timer to fifteen minutes, sat in a comfortable position, closed my eyes, and became aware of the flow of my breathing. If I ever struggled with focusing on my breathing because I was dwelling on my many responsibilities, it helped to follow Kabat-Zinn’s advice: Think of your thoughts as clouds passing by and focus on the movement of your belly with every breath. As I focused on my breathing, I detached myself from overwhelming thoughts and, by the end of the exercise, felt less stressed. Throughout my final fall semester, I practiced this exercise multiple times a day.
Because I felt less stressed, I could focus on managing my workload. I built a system where I parsed my work — each day having a specific focus. For instance, Tuesdays would be the day that I’d finish most, if not all, of my math assignments. Wednesdays would be my lab days, Sundays my extracurricular days, and so on. Each day, I made sure to take breaks, and, if I ever found myself feeling stressed, I practiced the breathing exercise. This system helped me attend to my workload and get stuff done — all while managing my stress.
I ended that semester with many successes: I passed the two courses, hosted the virtual philanthropy event, and presented a poster on censored data analysis with my poster team. Although I experienced stress throughout the semester, I am glad I was able to manage it with something as simple as breathing.
Reference
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2013). Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness. Bantam Books.
Monica Cordova-Medina has been a member of the Interactive Measurement Group since the summer of 2020. Last spring, Monica graduated from UNLV with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics with a minor in Psychology. She hopes apply and be accepted to an Educational Psychology graduate program to investigate motivation in educational settings.