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Say Cheers to Life: Take a Break From It

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In the race of life, at times we must hit the pause button and introspect on our choices and the path ahead.

What a roller coaster ride 2020 has been! We haven’t even reached the quarter of the year and already so many events, some cherishing, and others scaring us to death, have unfolded. The atmos, especially in colleges, is much amped up due to department and college fests; the ongoing, deeply worrying political and social status quo of the nation and of course, the samey anxiety of attendance, assignments and internals.   There was no better way to discover that the most common motivation mantra of our parents “Abhi mehnat karlo, college mein toh aish hai (Work hard now, college is no sweat)” was the biggest con trick of our lives. But like Sisyphus doomed to push a rock uphill for eternity, we, students push on; no matter what.

It is only natural that most students are distressed, face fatigue, loss of interest and lack of focus. If we keep ignoring our physical and mental well – being, the stress can snowball into being overwhelming and lead to serious health problems. Thus, it is imperative to realize the importance of taking a break. The approaching mid – semester break offer us all the perfect opportunity to take some real time off. It has been scientifically proven that vacations and taking short breaks, that give some physical and psychological space from everyday activities, are very rewarding. They boost your memory, spark your creativity, help to build focus and make better decisions. By interrupting the stress cycle, one stands at a better position to restore one’s physical and mental bliss. Taking a break is often labelled as being lazy and wastage of time. Videos and articles on ‘How to survive on 4 hours of sleep or How to work 22 hours per day’ appear almost every month. Being a workaholic is not a bad thing as long as due attention is paid to one’s draining of productivity battery.

So in addition to taking a break, it is vital to make your breaks effective. The effectiveness of breaks depends on an individual’s interests but should chiefly serve the purpose of relaxing your brain. For instance, although enjoyable, a recent survey by Huffington Post found that activities like social networking can significantly increase stress. There are numerous things one can do during his/her break like based on one’s amusements and size of one’s pocket, taking a vacation, staycation or playcation, indulging in hobbies, hanging out with friends and family, catching up on the sleep lost in binging Netflix and/or Prime.

Bill Gates, in one of his interviews said, “I think you could over worship and mythologize the idea of working extremely hard. For my particular makeup — and it really is true that I didn’t believe in weekends; I didn’t believe in vacations.…Once I got into my 30s, I could hardly even imagine how I had done that. Because by then, some natural behavior kicked in, and I loved weekends.” He also reads an hour before bed each night and takes a ‘Think Week’ a year to get away and just read and reflect alone. It is true that success demands sacrifice and persistence but it what good will come if we are not healthy enough to reap and enjoy its fruits?

In the end, ‘keep on keeping on’, but is totally fine if at some moment you just sit back, appreciate what you have and ponder over your locus in the universe.

Feature Image Credit: PC Mag UK

Ipshika Ghosh

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