Why OT Students Need Balance

In our Foundations class, we discussed Work-Life Balance, which has to do with the amount of time participating in activities in work and outside of work. It can be difficult for people who work in certain professions to maintain a proper work-life balance, such as individuals who work night shifts and may not get to see their family during the day, or people who work long hours nearly every day of the week. In graduate programs such as ours, it can also be difficult to maintain a "school-life balance."

When I was working at my outpatient PT clinic, I would dread going to work and would stare at the clock, watching the time drag by. It would seem like days waiting for lunch time to come, and once it was over, the "3 o'clock sleepies" as I like to call them, would set in and make me even more bored. The good thing about being in the workforce (for some people) is that once they clock out and leave for the day, they get to leave their work AT work and don't have to worry about anything else until the next work day.

In OT school, we are pretty much working a full-time job (plus overtime). What I mean by that, is we are supposed to be available from 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. That is a typical work day, with one hour of lunch calculated in. And most days, we are going all day. But whenever we leave our last class for the day, the work is not done. For me, I have to go straight home and let my dog out and feed him. I usually change into comfy clothes and wind down from the long day I just had. Sometimes I'll sit in my room and scroll through social media for a while, or even go sit outside and enjoy the weather. Whatever I have to do to release the stress of that day, that's what I do. Sometimes I will go home and take an hour-long nap before dinner. Then I'll fix dinner or heat up some leftovers, maybe watch 30 minutes of television, and jump into studying.  Because my boyfriend and I are long-distance, we usually FaceTime for about an hour before we both go to bed.

I say all this because we all have ways we maintain balance in our lives. If I studied day in and day out with no breaks, I would drive myself crazy and burn out quickly. Everyone is different. Some people like to go grab coffee or go out to eat after class, others can dive right into studying. For me, I just need a break to digest everything before I start studying again. And I think that's okay! I have beaten myself up because I don't study the way my peers do and am not constantly in the library or study through my lunch break. What works for me is frequent breaks, which might not work for someone else. The bottom line is, we all have different ways we cope with stress, and I am proud of taking care of myself and maintaining balance in my life while going through a rigorous graduate program.