Cooking for the Stressed Student
In my final project for the UHP, I decided to create my own cookbook. Throughout my years of school, I have noticed that I get stressed out over due dates, work, time management, school, and life as well. I knew that this year was going to be a fun stress ride considering I had lots of clinical hours to complete on top of work, school work, my capstone project, applying for jobs, finding a new apartment, financially stabilizing myself, and just finding time to do anything else. I decided to do be proactive about my stress this year by incorporating an activity that relaxes me and takes my mind off of everything I have going on: cooking/baking. Kitchens are where I truly feel at home, and I find it peaceful to make any kind of food. With this project, however, I also wanted to go beyond my comfort zone of making the same few recipes over and over again. I longed for adventure. In this project, I made a variety of different recipes, very few I had attempted before. Towards the end of my cookbook, I realized I was playing with the recipes more and more, tweaking them to how I thought they should be made rather than what the written recipe said. A goal of mine throughout this project was to become a better amateur cook, and I found that I had actually accomplished that.
Another one of my goals was to continuously monitor my stress level throughout the semester, and whenever I felt abnormally stressed, I would stop what I was doing and cook or bake something. In each of my recipes, I used a 1-10 stress level scale, 10 being the highest. I assessed my levels before and after making the recipe to determine the effectiveness of each recipe on my stress level. What I found was that no matter what I made, I felt less stressed after making anything. This was because cooking is a task that requires a lot of mindfulness and physical movements to make various things. By taking my mind off of what I was doing, whether it be work, studying, researching, etc., I was forced to focus on something else for a short time and give my mind a break. I had to concentrate on what I was doing in the kitchen so I did not hurt myself or add something ridiculous to a recipe. Additionally, stirring, chopping, dicing, rolling, kneading, etc. are motions that relieve stress by giving you a place to take out your frustrations. There's nothing more satisfying than punching and kneading dough for several minutes if you are angry at something.
The final goal of my cookbook was to reduce my own personal incidence of procrastination by maintaining a consistently lower stress level though cooking. I thought this was a pretty lofty goal for me, considering I am the queen of procrastination due to stress. I did not actually think this project was going to help my old habits die, so you can imagine my surprise when I was actually keeping up on everything throughout the semester. Whenever my perpetual to-do list got too long, I would take a break, bake something, and tackle things on that list one by one afterwards. I found myself studying and completing NCLEX questions half a week before they were due. My entire capstone group was a month ahead on our education project, paper, and poster. I was able to find some free time to relax with my friends and boyfriend. Even though I had a lot to accomplish this semester, including this cookbook project, I found that my time management skills were bolstered because I was always mindful of myself. Coping strategies are such important skills that everyone should learn, and they work in conjunction with time management because if your stress level never exceeds a manageable level, you can work through life calmly and confidently. I am going into the world of nursing, where time management is a huge part of my job. If my time is not effectively managed, my patients will not get the care they need. Obviously, I cannot just take a break and go cook something when I get stressed in the middle of a shift, but I can use my other coping strategies like deep breathing and making lists to help me through the day.
Another one of my goals was to continuously monitor my stress level throughout the semester, and whenever I felt abnormally stressed, I would stop what I was doing and cook or bake something. In each of my recipes, I used a 1-10 stress level scale, 10 being the highest. I assessed my levels before and after making the recipe to determine the effectiveness of each recipe on my stress level. What I found was that no matter what I made, I felt less stressed after making anything. This was because cooking is a task that requires a lot of mindfulness and physical movements to make various things. By taking my mind off of what I was doing, whether it be work, studying, researching, etc., I was forced to focus on something else for a short time and give my mind a break. I had to concentrate on what I was doing in the kitchen so I did not hurt myself or add something ridiculous to a recipe. Additionally, stirring, chopping, dicing, rolling, kneading, etc. are motions that relieve stress by giving you a place to take out your frustrations. There's nothing more satisfying than punching and kneading dough for several minutes if you are angry at something.
The final goal of my cookbook was to reduce my own personal incidence of procrastination by maintaining a consistently lower stress level though cooking. I thought this was a pretty lofty goal for me, considering I am the queen of procrastination due to stress. I did not actually think this project was going to help my old habits die, so you can imagine my surprise when I was actually keeping up on everything throughout the semester. Whenever my perpetual to-do list got too long, I would take a break, bake something, and tackle things on that list one by one afterwards. I found myself studying and completing NCLEX questions half a week before they were due. My entire capstone group was a month ahead on our education project, paper, and poster. I was able to find some free time to relax with my friends and boyfriend. Even though I had a lot to accomplish this semester, including this cookbook project, I found that my time management skills were bolstered because I was always mindful of myself. Coping strategies are such important skills that everyone should learn, and they work in conjunction with time management because if your stress level never exceeds a manageable level, you can work through life calmly and confidently. I am going into the world of nursing, where time management is a huge part of my job. If my time is not effectively managed, my patients will not get the care they need. Obviously, I cannot just take a break and go cook something when I get stressed in the middle of a shift, but I can use my other coping strategies like deep breathing and making lists to help me through the day.