Activist Wellness 101: A Student Leader's Guide To Self Care

By Julia Dunn on November 11, 2015

Whether they are aware of it or not, highly involved-college student leaders who do an exceptional amount of work in their communities can be under a lot of constraints schedule-wise that lead them to practice poor self-care.

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Students often forget to take basic care of themselves while lost in their community work and other commitments. If you’re one of those extra-driven, highly efficient and successful student leaders, props to you — you are making a tangible difference in your community.

Nonetheless,  it is important to recognize and learn how to manage a concept called “activist burnout.”

What is activist burnout?

At UC Santa Cruz’s 13th annual Practical Activism Conference, a group of conference organizers put together a mini-session called “Love Powered Activism” to recognize the physical and mental tolls that student activists, leaders, and organizers face in their leadership/activist work. Their definition of “activist burnout” is as follows:

“A state of physical and emotional exhaustion due to long-term involvement in situations that are emotionally demanding.”

Activist burnout is something you might experience if much of your community work is social justice-based and revolves around working towards liberation from oppressive structures; this is because you are more likely to become overwhelmed/bogged down by all of the systematic failures and social problems from which our world suffers when engaging in activism.

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Some student leaders who may have focuses in organizations that do not directly address social injustices may become burnt out for alternate reasons such as not having enough time to complete what they need to do, or having to resolve stressful, recurring conflicts with a certain group of people who do not get along very well. Activist burnout can take many forms beyond simply these examples.

Student leaders who do not take care of themselves are missing one of the most crucial skills needed to be an effective and healthy activist: self-care.

Read on for some key reminders and tips to ensure you are giving yourself enough personal attention to function happily and productively.

1. Schedule permanent activities in your schedule that are purely for your own (non-academic) enjoyment.

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High-achieving students should ditch that pesky inner voice that comes up when they remotely consider taking time for themselves. Say you vaguely want to go to a comedy show tonight, but your mind tells you “Well you could be doing an hour and a half more of chemistry studying so you can get 100% on the test next week!” even though you already worked on your homework for 9 hours straight today.

This is more on the compulsive side, and it is just as important to know when to stop working as it is to know when to start working.

Learn to schedule self-care time in your week/day that cannot be altered or cancelled. For instance, I make sure to go to every bi-weekly poetry slam held on campus as my self-care treat.

2. Challenge yourself, but don’t over-commit.

Student leaders seem to have an inherent addiction to cramming as much as possible into their days and doing the maximum amount of work they can do for their campus community.

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This is a wonderful quality to have, so long as you don’t go completely overboard. Personally, this is my biggest challenge as a college student who is so invested in a lot of diverse organizations and roles. It isn’t that I feel obligated to do a lot, but it’s that I am genuinely interested in bettering myself and the environments in which students live.

This is the case for many student leaders.

It is best not to spread yourself so thin that you cannot produce high-quality work. Knowing your work capacity is crucial to your success.

3. Give yourself enough time in the day to eat.

This seems very basic and obvious, but for some student leaders, it’s not.

When you’re caught up in back-to-back meetings and trainings, it’s too easy to forget to eat or to say “I’ll just eat later” over and over until your day is done. But this habit of skipping meals is harmful to your efficiency, and will even cause you to get sick more easily.

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Make sure you carve at least three meal blocks out in your schedule no matter what the cost — you just have to eat, or else your blood sugar will get dangerously low. How are you supposed to multitask, facilitate discussion spaces, or finish that spreadsheet at work without food in your system?

4. Go to bed in the PM hours.

This is practically unheard of for highly-involved students — but my mother always says “two hours before midnight equals one hour after midnight,” meaning that every hour of sleep you receive before 12 a.m. is twice as powerful as one hour slept after midnight.

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To extract the most out of a short sleep time, start early. Then, you’ll even wake up earlier, which makes days feel longer (you can accomplish even more!)

5. Remember that you are allowed to say no purely for the intention of self care. Do not say “maybe” if you want to say “no.”

Is your organization asking you to table at a day-long festival? You are 100 percent allowed and encouraged to decline this request for the purpose of watching Bob’s Burgers all day.

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This is what self care looks like in action. You do not need to do everything all the time and you should not feel guilty for saying no sometimes if you need a break. Without breaks, activist burnout can ensue.

6. Break up those long weekend days of studying.

Personally, the number of organizations and commitments I have occupies all my weekday time, leading me to devote literally every hour of my weekend to studying and catching up on homework. On Saturdays and Sundays, I’ll normally wake up at 8 a.m. and do homework straight until 11 p.m. This in itself is taxing on one’s mind and well-being.

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To ease these days (which inevitably will need to take place if your school days are too packed to be able to complete coursework), make sure you leave one hour or so in between each assignment you write down on your to-do list.

For example, on your schedule, you should write “study Biology from 10-12:00” and then “write reflection paper” from 1-2:30, rather than doing back-to-back work from 10-2:30.

This hour in between tasks is extremely important because it accounts for the realistic interruptions that will occur while you’re working, and it also allows you to relax a little if you are behind schedule. If a friend comes to visit your dorm, you should not feel stressed — you should let yourself visit with them. You have allotted time for that.

7. Most of all, remember that others appreciate your work.

Student leaders should know that they are to thank for their university’s success and their community’s safety/happiness. Without the activism and initiative student leaders channel into their community and coursework, many safe spaces would not exist for students to express their creativity and exercise their voice.

For most of us, the leadership roles we take on are aligned with what we love most, and the work we do is not because others want us to do it–it’s because we really, really want to do it. Just do not forget you are a human being with needs for food, entertainment, and relaxation from time to time.

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Note: For any mental health concerns, please seek out your campus Counseling and Psychological Services department for support.

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