Author: Charles Kelly
Upon starting college, I first needed a way to quiet my mind. This meant taking days off and being kind to myself by investing time into going to the golf range, learning the piano, and even participating in groups I didn’t like sometimes. I needed a way to get out of my mind and into my life as a college student. These outlets were beneficial for me in managing bipolar disorder and, more importantly, to me being a good student. I would often become “in my head” at the library or in class and would begin to accomplish nothing because of mind wandering. At least now, I have healthy outlets to counteract this and improve my mood. No matter how much I wanted to stay at the library and push through, I had to listen to my body step back to clear my mind with a healthy outlet.
Of course, because of my hard-headedness, I developed healthy outlets that could be performed at the library that would quickly destress and get me back on track to producing good schoolwork. The approaches I developed at the library are a little unorthodox, but they worked for me. One was typing when I would get anxious; I would close all the screens on the laptop and put minutes into typing each day. It was funny because it was my passive mood tracker. After all, the more I typed, the more anxious I was, so I would log 40 minutes, whereas other days, I would log 2-3 minutes. So, when my doctor or therapist would ask me how my mood was, I would just look back at my typing log to express how I was feeling. Typing not only relieved my anxiety for me but it made me a more efficient student. I began typing around 60 WPM and over the course of a year I am at 100 WPM, although even with the small increase to 75 WPM, I felt note-taking became completely effortless, and I was no longer anxious that I might miss something in class. Similarly, I also picked up meditation. I remember reading that meditating puts you even more in your head than when people originally sat down. It was boring for a bit, but then I began looking at it as a superpower. I could calm myself in minutes and understand more about the true nature of my mind and myself. Such as how my mood works and when it is time to pack it in because we aren’t getting much done here. These insights made me a calmer and more well-rounded student who could readily engage with college material.
When I meditate, I don’t do the traditional cross your legs; I lie down like I was asleep, so when students see me at the library, they think, “Ah, another student passed out from studying too hard.” But little would they know I’d be calming myself and my central nervous system down. I have also found that these techniques help in general life. For example, I got into a small argument with my girlfriend and found myself winding up my anger, and it kept winding until I told her I must meditate. After meditating for 10 – 20 minutes, I came back to her. We resolved the argument, kissed her goodnight, and went to sleep. This is probably the most powerful tool in my toolbox for managing bipolar disorder.
Another outlet that I began doing was running. I absolutely adored this, although I was doing it in the morning often, and it is a stress reliever. So, with my doctor’s advice, I found that I should be running at night because it was a powerful primer for my sleep. Not to say, if I was at the library and had my shorts and shoes, I wouldn’t take off on the run if I was anxious and in my head, I also did this occasionally. It gave me the feeling of feeling grounded like nothing else mattered but me and running path. It also rapidly shifted my mindset from negative to positive every time I ran. Similarly, I started climbing stairs in the library, which is five floors. Still, when I would feel unproductive or anxious, I would go up and down listening to music to calm me. There was a lot of anxiety around me looking normal to other students after a manic episode, but I shed this because my health was always going to take top priority no matter how stupid I looked. Flipping between college work and a healthy outlet was crucial to me graduating. Without it, I simply could not have graduated because when I told myself to push through ignoring my body, I turned in significantly worse work than when I implemented a healthy outlet into my student routine. I also found myself being alone a lot of the time, so I also made sure to join groups during college, such as run club, religion club, etc., because anything that kept me engaged with daily life was worth doing for my bipolar disorder.
Also, when I would receive bad grades like C’s instead of going to the library to try to prove to myself that the teacher was just wrong, “the grade book is miscalculated,” “the teacher doesn’t even know what they are teaching,” “How did this student do better than me,” I would go to the golf range. I would swing the crap out of my golf clubs until I was calm and able to resolve mistakes on my assignments. My bipolar disorder was something that I knew as a college student that I had to manage, or the condition would manage me and all my academic aspirations. For weekends, I knew that I needed to keep myself busy and that reading material multiple weeks ahead of course was counterproductive. So, I began trying to learn the piano, which gave my mind something to be busy with, keeping it off the past or future weeks’ mistakes. It genuinely made me happy and was something I could fully immerse myself in on weekends, even if it was awful. I knew that I needed to take my weekends off to get ahead of work. Honestly, that gets done just by being an efficient student during the week.
Therefore, I needed to make these weekends about making myself happy and relaxing. Whether it was going to the zoo, playing the piano, or arts and crafts class, or cold-water immersion therapy, I needed to learn how to relax and have fun with my life away from the anxieties of college as a student. It was equally, if not more important, than my sitting down to study.
