While break can’t come soon enough, we must first survive midterms, and I’m not sure I’m going to.  

That is an exaggeration, but somewhere between stressing over all the homework I have coming due and running around to everything I’ve scheduled myself into, I stopped taking good care of myself. Now I’m paying the price by writing this article under the influence of my cold medicine. I’m making a ridiculous amount of dumb spelling mistakes because my brain refuses to do any more than the bare minimum, all while coughing every 10 minutes.  

It’s time to remind myself of the basics of self-care so I can take on midterms.  

I don’t even have to look back more than a week to find a night I stayed up until 2 a.m. to finish everything I wanted to get done. Is that going to help me do well? No. 

A study done by Kana Okano and others found sleep quality accounted for almost 25% of the differences in college students’ academic performances.  

“Overall, better quality, longer duration, and greater consistency of sleep correlated with better grades,” the study said. “However, there was no relation between sleep measures on the single night before a test and test performance; instead, sleep duration and quality for the month and the week before a test correlated with better grades.” 

I’m trying to get acquainted with consistent bedtimes, but that’s not the only place I’m holding myself back. When I’m going from classes back to back to back, it is easier to put off getting food until who knows when. But then my brain is tired and all I can focus on is my stomach, not my instructor lecturing about economic impact and multipliers. 

According to a study by Michelle Florence, “Dietary adequacy and variety were identified as specific aspects of diet quality important to academic performance, thereby highlighting the value of consuming a diverse selection of foods in order to meet the recommended number of servings from each food group.” 

I know that I need to sleep and eat well, but sometimes I need to remind myself, and I think everyone can benefit from a little reminder.  

When we take care of ourselves, we are empowering our brains to ace our studies. And when your pencil is down for your last exam? Enjoy your break, Wildcats. Take care of yourselves.