Between college classes, working jobs, keeping up with the world and trying to maintain a social life, where do college students find time for themselves?
Self-care has been linked by many as an important factor for mental health and well-being. Kobe Belcher and Taylor Chanel are two busy students who shared their experiences and thoughts on self-care, and how it helped them through their college years. People are often taught that work is the most important aspect of life, and that there’s no time to play. But if you’re burnt out, how can you be at your best? Whether it’s early in the morning, during midday or late at night after finishing assignments, many college students find themselves doing self-care to combat this burnout. For some, it’s a trend, and for others it’s a way to stay balanced.
Self-care can come in many forms. It can be physical activities such as skin care, yoga or exercise, or even just lying down in bed for a little while. It can be internal, like meditating, praying, or exploring your inner mind after a long or stressful day. It can be listening to music, baking a sweet treat, or even just setting aside time to watch your favorite movie or TV show. In a world full of stressors, taking care of ourselves is a vital part of protecting our well-being.
Kobe Belcher is a very busy 22-year-old senior at Southern Miss. He majors in liberal studies with a minor in psychology. He also has a job outside of school and runs a photography account, where he posts content semi-regularly.
He emphasized that being a newly independent adult can be intimidating and only adds to the pressure he feels on a daily basis. Between his outside life and the never-ending college workload, Belcher says that his self-care time plays a significant role in forgetting about constant stressors in life.
“It's a time to just turn my brain off,” Belcher said. “Just to have a moment to focus on myself and my well-being. It’s like my me-time.”
Belcher said that his self-care consists of skin and hair care routines that he performs daily, as well as journaling. It helps him to process his days, whether good or bad, and how he can prepare for the future days. Belcher said it’s a healthy way for him to express his emotions through writing, and he enjoys documenting his day-to-day life. He said that being able to write and explore his feelings in depth is freeing and leaves him feeling relaxed.
“It keeps me grounded and makes my stress levels go down,” Belcher said. “It lets me kinda just breathe and take a moment to be at peace.”
Belcher said that keeping up with his self-care routines has given him a sense of structure in a life where every single day is different. He can spoil himself with skin and hair care before bed, which helps him look and feel good each day.
Taylor Chanel juggles a lot in both her academic life and personal life as a social media influencer. She is a 21-year-old nursing major, a Coca-Cola campus ambassador and is a part of
the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Outside of school, she works a retail job and is a social media influencer. With over 46 thousand followers on TikTok, keeping up with content creation is a part of her daily life. But Chanel also prioritizes herself as well, taking just an hour or so out of her day each day to care for herself.
“Self-care definitely needs to be prioritized,” Chanel said. “Especially in college, self-care is also connected to your mental health. When I feel good, I look good. It’s an internal thing.”
Chanel performs self-care in a variety of ways. Like Belcher, she uses skincare and journaling as a way to wind down and relax. She also says that she silences her phone and prays during her self-care time. She finds that she can relax the most when it’s quiet, there’s no phone disturbance, and she can be close with her Lord during prayer.
“Your thoughts can overwhelm you,” Chanel said. “I have a therapist back home, but when I can’t reach my therapist, the first thing I always do is open my journal and get my thoughts out onto something.”
Sometimes she’ll do her self-care routine with friends or sorority sisters, which helps them all connect and come closer through caring for themselves—especially after a long day. Chanel said that it brings them together and helps them forget about their troubles for a little while.
“People in my sorority have self-care nights where we turn off our phones, watch a movie and do some face masks,” she said.
While it sometimes seems daunting or too time consuming, self-care doesn’t have to be hard. It can be as simple as lighting a candle, or tidying your bedroom, or even listening to music and running a hot bath to relax. There are multitudes of online guides on methods for self-care that can help find what’s best for each individual. Some people believe that self-care can lead to a journey of self-exploration, too. Social media influencers Tam Kaur and Fernanda Ramirez describe self-care as more spiritual care and less materialistic care in Kaur’s podcast Self Obsessed.
“Self-care isn’t just the beauty routines, like the ice rolling or whatever,” Ramirez said in the podcast episode. “It’s a lot of internal work and showing up confidently and authentically and being a kind person… that is self-care.”
There are a multitude of guides and how-tos across the internet that can teach a person how to perform self-care, but it’s important to do what feels right for you. People often gravitate towards the things that make them feel the most relaxed, or most accomplished. There is no right or wrong way to do self-care, either, making it possible for anyone and everyone.
Southern Miss gives its students access to student counseling services, where trained mental health professionals can provide therapy, but also tips and guides on how to perform self-care and other de-stressing methods. The counseling center has a Zen room where students can relax, meditate, draw or even talk to a counselor or other students. It’s an accessible place for students to start their own self-care journey with experienced people to help guide them along the way.