Posts Tagged ‘relax’

My Personal Routine: What I Do to Improve My Own Self-Love

Saturday, April 22nd, 2017

“the world

gives you

so much pain

and here you are

making gold out of it

-there is nothing purer than that”

-Rupi Kaur

This week I thought it would be good to talk to you about what I do to improve my own self- love. What kinds of activities am I doing regularly or every day to ensure that I am loving myself?

Image Credit: http://tdfitness.net/my-daily-routine/

Image Credit: http://tdfitness.net/my-daily-routine/

Some days are obviously more challenging than others, at least for me. I like to think that everyone probably has this issue; I don’t know how some could not, actually. There are days where I take plenty of time to relax and clear my mind and treat myself right and there are plenty of other days that I am forgetting to make myself a priority. At the end of days of the latter kind I feel down, often sad or disappointed in myself. I may be angry or frustrated, and then I realize that I could’ve done different things throughout the day to help me feel at least a bit better.

Of course, there are always things we can’t help. There are parts of our days and our lives that are just negative but that we have no control over. But, as I sit here thinking while I type this, I can’t help but to agree with the cliché that we can’t control what happens to us, but we can control how we react to what happens to us and how we allow it to affect us. Always easier said than done, of course.

So what do I try to do regularly to be at my personal best? For a while I would meditate when I woke up in the morning. While I slowly stopped doing that, I have wanted to get back into it. I personally am someone who always has a ton on my mind so meditating is a huge challenge for me. However, I think that further proves the point that I need to try to stick to it and I feel it is still a good way to start my day feeling fresh.

If you haven't yet, you should download this app ASAP! Image Credit:https://www.headspace.com

Image Credit:https://www.headspace.com

It is also important for me to start my day with a good breakfast. Of course, I have days here and there when I don’t really eat breakfast or I take that frightening trip to get McDonald’s breakfast. However, I feel my best when I wake up in the morning with enough time to make myself a nutritious, protein-rich breakfast and maybe even a cup of coffee. The mornings that I do this typically lead to days where I am not as hungry and have more energy.

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Image Credit: https://www.onnit.com/academy/skip-breakfast-get-ripped/

Something else that I am definitely good at is relaxing. I always have a bunch of schoolwork to get done or other productive things I could be doing like checking off my “To Do” list. That said, while I try to be productive, I also recognize the importance in checking items off of my Netflix List as well. We all need to take moments to sit down and just do something that we enjoy, or something that will take our minds off of all the other stuff we are “supposed” to do. Of course, sometimes I get carried away and catch myself binge watching my new favorite show (okay, a lot of times), but it’s okay as long as I’m still completing the To-Do list, right?

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Image Credit: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/netflix/deceagebecbceejblnlcjooeohmmeldh

I’m sure that many people show themselves some love by making sure they get at least eight hours of sleep a night, or whatever magic number works for you. Personally, I like to stay up until at least midnight and fit in time for a quick nap throughout the day; who’s with me here?

Finally, something I try to do regularly in order to feel my best is go to the gym. I am far from perfect when it comes to the gym. I fail to go every day, and I am certainly not the most impressive performer while I am there. However, I notice that mentally I feel my best when I go to the gym. Even if I only go for twenty minutes and get in something quick, or even if I do some small activities in the comfort of my home, I love how my mind is clear and my body feels great afterwards. Of course, life gets busy sometimes and I will admit that personally it is easy for me to give up the gym before something else sometimes, but I try to get back into it as soon as possible!

Anyway, these are my personal ways to regularly love myself. Hopefully, this gave you some ideas of what you can try doing to improve your own self-love. If you have different ways that you improve your own self-love that I did not mention, I would love to hear them!

 

By Chanelle Surphlis


Chanelle Surphlis is a Campus Clipper publishing intern, who is graduating from FIT this May. Passionate about giving back and pursuing volunteer opportunities, Chanelle aspires to work for a fashion or beauty company that includes philanthropy in its core values. If you like Chanelle’s writing, check out her blogs here and here. We have the most talented interns ever and we’re so proud of them! For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourage them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing and services.  

At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015. 

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Showing Love by Taking Care of Your Health and Time For Yourself

Friday, April 14th, 2017

 “you deserve to be

completely found

in your surroundings

not lost within them”

-Rupi Kaur

There is no questioning the fact that keeping our health in check and taking time out of our busy lives to take care of ourselves physically and mentally are great ways to show ourselves some love. When we put effort into taking care of our bodies in various ways, we are sure to feel the best about ourselves.

Remember my friend, Ashley? We’re traveling together this week for our Spring Break, but, unfortunately, she was unable to get a pedicure with me this time! So I asked another friend, and we used our Campus Clipper coupon booklets to show ourselves some self-love! We used the below coupon to go to QQ Nails & Spa on 8th Avenue here in the city! 

 

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Both my friend and I are seniors graduating in less than two months, and, needless to say, we are feeling the stress and anxiety as we get closer to graduation. Not having jobs or apartments secured for afterward is simply frightening. That said, we both felt great when we took the time out of our schedules to get our nails done and simply relax займ без звонков . Clearing your mind and spending quality time either alone or with a good friend can be incredibly beneficial to your overall wellbeing.

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If you love getting your nails done or any sort of spa treatment and you love student discounts just as much, then follow the above link for the coupon and try QQ for yourself! All of the staff was friendly, our nails turned out great, and we even got complimentary massages! We will definitely be returning to take advantage of the loyalty program!

If this isn’t really your thing, then find out what is and take the time to do what you love in order to take care of yourself.

Something else that is important is ensuring that you’re putting effort into trying to maintain good health by working out, eating nutritious foods, and visiting your doctors and health professionals regularly.

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My roommates and I love to make smoothies, especially after a workout. Making ourselves go to the gym always helps us feel better afterwards and trying to eat foods that will feed our bodies in the best ways gives us the boosts we need each day! While I love a good smoothie and pack tons of different ingredients into that NutriBullet, I never forget to splurge and give into my cravings either-what’s life without a little fun!?

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So, I encourage you to seek out more ways to continuously take care of your mental and physical health. Find what works for you and what helps you feel good and stick to it. If you can, use a coupon in the Campus Clipper booklet to make it that much better, too! Take the time to relax when life becomes too overwhelming, even if it is only a few deep breaths. When you begin to consciously take the time to put yourself first, you will find that you can love yourself more.

By Chanelle Surphlis


Chanelle Surphlis is a Campus Clipper publishing intern, who is graduating from FIT this May. Passionate about giving back and pursuing volunteer opportunities, Chanelle aspires to work for a fashion or beauty company that includes philanthropy in its core values. If you like Chanelle’s writing, check out her blogs here and here. We have the most talented interns ever and we’re so proud of them! For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourage them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing and services.  

At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015. 

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Chambers of Solitude: the October Schlump

Sunday, June 6th, 2010
Big Apple

New York City: you don't have to see all of it in a month

About a month into the fall semester, a phenomenon occurs that I refer to as the October Schlump. It’s easy to recognize: first-year students, (who every night up till then have turned Washington Square into a giant social playground,) suddenly disappear. For a few weeks they are conspicuously absent, and then slowly, as Halloween approaches, they begin to tentatively reemerge from their dorms. What happened?

I know, because I went through it. For students new to this amazing city, that first month is like a dream. So many wonderful things to see and do that were never available before; new friends to make, new places to go, new things to discover. But it really feels like a dream: there’s a constant sense that this is illusory, that at any moment you will wake up and this opportunity you worked so hard for will dissolve around you. When a new friend invites you to go to this party at their friend’s place in Brooklyn, you think, Brooklyn! When else will I get to see Brooklyn?! When you read about a new exhibit at the MoMA, you think, the MoMA! When else will I be able to visit the MoMA?! When you pass a new Mexican restaurant in the Village offering a two-for-one Margarita special, you think . . .  well, you get the idea.

This lifestyle is, of course, impossible to maintain. About a month in, you wake up one day, maybe around 5 PM, and think, what day is it? You realize that you slept through an entire day of classes. See, you meant to just take a short nap – it was 3 AM, you’d just gotten back from a party at a friend’s – Happy Wednesday! – and you realized you didn’t have any clean clothes, so what a perfect time to do laundry! You threw a load in the washer, and then came back up to finish that essay on Socrates – that’s what New York’s about, multitasking! – and about two pages in thought, I’ll just take a quick nap – an hour or two, tops. After all, you haven’t slept in two days, so it’s about time to give the body a little refresher. Now here you are, essay not finished, classes missed, your load of laundry having been removed from the washer and scattered aimlessly all over the laundry room floor by some jerk. And even after sleeping twelve hours, you still feel tired. Or not tired, more than tired – exhausted. Your resources have been depleted; nothing in you wants to get out of bed, go anywhere, do anything. The momentum is gone.

This is the October Schlump. Although skipping meals and missing sleep are major contributing factors, the Schlump is not a disease, at least not physically. It’s the mental state that settles in when you realize that you barely have any idea what you did in the past month. You were in constant motion, you went and saw and did a million amazing things, but you can barely remember any of them. Some of them you liked, some of them you didn’t, but which were which?

So, for about a week, you don’t go out. You stay inside, do homework, get lots of sleep, eat right, and figure out what to do next. In that time, you realize that New York City isn’t going anywhere. It won’t disappear under your feet one day; it will be there the next day when you wake up, and the day after that, and the day after that. You will have at least four years, at most the rest of your life, to explore. So after that week, when friends call you up and invite you to this or that, you can say no, not tonight, rain-check. You don’t even need to give a reason. You can (in fact, you must) spend a night in now and then. And you must do is reflect. You are swimming in a sea of new experiences, new stimuli, new ideas, and some are good for you and some are not. You can have all these experiences but if you never stop to reflect on what they mean, they are – literally – meaningless.

As anyone who’s lived in a dorm can attest, dorms can be a lot of fun, but they aren’t really the best places for quiet reflection. After my October Schlump, I began to seek out places I could go to be by myself, to think and ponder, to reflect and debate. I can’t give you the answers to the big questions of life that all college students confront during those four years – I don’t have them. But I can share with you come places I think will provide the stillness, the solitude, within the bustling metropolis that we call home, to find some of these answers. And I will call them Chambers of Solitude. More to come.

And in the meantime, if you need to a moment of calm and some advice on chill-axing, (sorry, I won’t use that word again,) go here.

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A Spot of Green in a Grey City

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

It’s crazy, I think, that no matter what time of the year it is I feel like I’m being run into the ground. Right now, for example, I’m in the middle of my finals. Unlike most semesters, though, this semester seems to be all about papers instead of tests, and I’m still not sure if that’s an improvement or not. On top of that, I’m supposed to be finding a job — which I’m sure everyone can agree is almost harder than doing well in school. I think it’s different for people not in New York, though. Everywhere else is moving at a different pace than New York…like we’re always trying to catch up and move ahead at the same time, so everything is muddled and rushed and it’s hard to focus on anything.

My old roommate is commuting from Long Island to the city this semester, and she has an early final tomorrow. I’ve offered to let her stay here for the night, but she won’t get here until late (some people, apparently, take advantage of the libraries being open all night during finals), and I’m already exhausted. Not to mention my mind is on a million different things, none of which include cleaning the apartment and having some kind of breakfast offering in the fridge. I like to consider myself an adult, but I really don’t understand how “real adults” can multitask so efficiently when it feels like I’m stumbling along to get just one or two things done in a day.

What I need, and what New York happily provides when weather permits, is a peaceful day in Central Park. All too often we’re intent on doing something cool and exciting, or something flashy and expensive, that we forget that New York City offers one of the most peaceful places imaginable, for free.

Sure, there are dogs barking and kids running around, but I think that’s what makes it so perfect. Reading a chapter for a Literature class while a couple of guys play Frisbee is just the perfect college experience, as if Central Park is the communal college ground for every single university in the City. I used to be jealous of my friends who would show pictures of them sitting on grassy knolls at Rutgers, or lounging in the sun at Rider between classes, but it’s really everyone else who should be jealous. Central Park offers that unique melting pot that the United States is lauded for; on a nice day you can walk along the 5th Ave border and see a stand from the Strand, or buy a classic print of Aubrey Hepburn. Walking down one of the many paved areas, one will be surrounded by musicians of every different style imaginable. It’s easy to forget about these little things because we all take them for granted, but that colorful spot of green shown in every satellite picture of the city is really the best way to keep grounded, and entertained, in a city as fast paced as New York. And hey, maybe before finals are up we’ll see some sun again.

-Mary K

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Relax Your Mind and Feel Good

Friday, May 14th, 2010

As a student, it may sometimes seem that stress is never-ending, especially in New York City, which, based on data from forbes.com is the third most stressful city in the country. The difficulties in balancing school, work, and our relationships can increase stress to the point where it has a negative affect on our physical and mental well-being. According to WebMD, “People who don’t manage stress well can have headaches, stomach pain, sleeping problems, illness, and depression.” However, if it is managed effectively, stress can be defeated, allowing us to live a healthy and more fulfilling life.

Cost Effective Ways to Reduce Stress in Your Life

Workout at the Gym for Free– Many gyms offer guest passes that vary from one day to two weeks for non-members. Colleges and Universities around the city also offer students free access to their facilities. This is a great way to work out without coming out of your own pocket. Just contact your local gym for more details or click on the link below for access to another way to get fit for free.
Shape Up NY

Talk to Someone– Sometimes you just need someone to talk to. Contact your school’s mental health center for details on what services are available to you free of charge. It may also help to find a clergy, relative, friend, or therapist that will listen to you; afterward you may feel relieved to have let it all out. If you still feel a sense of urgency, you can always call 1-800-LIFENET.

Meditate– Look for a quiet place to relax, put your body in any position that you feel comfortable in; stand up, sit down, or lie down and take deep breaths, keeping the focus on your breathing. Continue to do so until you feel the stress melt away. For more information on meditation courses in New York City, take a look at the link below or go to your local library for some books on the topic.
Meditation in New York

Listen to Music– Ever wonder why music is a universal language, it’s because no matter what culture or background you come from tunes can speak to you. Just turn on the radio and before you even realize it, you’ll be dancing and singing or humming and bopping your head. There are also places throughout the city where you can listen to free music. Check some of them out below:
Music at Madison Square Park
Music at Licoln Center
Music at Central Park

-Shana H

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