Juggling Responsibilities: Key Tips for Graduate Student Success

Graduate school is a journey often described as a juggling act, and for good reason. In the recent episode “Juggling & Balancing – How to Multitask and Stabilize in Grad School” of the Victors in Grad School podcast, Dr. Christopher Lewis and Matthew Oxie delve into what it really takes to find success amidst the constant pull of academic, personal, and professional responsibilities.

Understanding Grad School Stress

Dr. Lewis opens the conversation by normalizing the stress that comes with graduate school. As he puts it, “There is a lot that you are going to be tossing in the air… Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail. And that's okay as long as you learn along the way.” This sets a compassionate tone for exploring the sources of grad school stress—ranging from academic pressure and family obligations to financial concerns and planning for life after graduation.

Matthew Oxie, a licensed counselor with CAPS at UM-Flint, provides further insight, citing research that graduate students are two to six times more likely to experience anxiety and depression than their undergraduate peers. Stressors like career planning, clinical rotations, commuting, and social obligations all play a role, often overlapping and compounding each other.

The Eight Dimensions of Wellness

A major highlight from the episode is the discussion of the Eight Dimensions of Wellness, which include physical, emotional, environmental, financial, occupational, social, intellectual, and spiritual health. Matthew encourages listeners to use these as both a diagnostic tool and a growth map—reminding us that thriving in one area can help offset struggles in another.

Self-Care vs. Self-Soothing: What’s the Difference?

Perhaps the most impactful segment is Matthew’s exploration of self-care versus self-soothing. He stresses that while activities like watching Netflix or having a treat are important for unwinding, true self-care is intentional and structured—it’s about setting boundaries, routines, and practicing deliberate actions that nourish long-term wellbeing.

Strategies That Work

The episode wraps up with practical advice: prioritize tasks, intentionally schedule downtime, set boundaries (like keeping work email off your phone), and leverage campus resources such as the rec center or counseling services. Matthew and Dr. Lewis also encourage graduate students—no matter if they’re on-campus or online—to “get involved” in community and social activities.

If you’re feeling the weight of multiple responsibilities or struggling with balance in grad school, this episode is a must-listen. You’ll come away with not just empathy for your situation, but tangible strategies for thriving—one step, and one intentional action, at a time.

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Ready to find your balance and become a victor in graduate school? Listen to the full episode for more insights and encouragement!

 

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Victors in Grad School where we have conversations with students, alumni and experts about what it takes to find success in graduate school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:11]:
Thanks so much for being here today. I am Dr. Lewis, Director of Graduate Programs here at the University of Michigan, Flint. Really excited to have you here today. And as always, you know, I am excited that we're going to be talking about a really important topic because as you go through graduate school, you definitely are going to be doing a lot of juggling. There is a lot of things that you are going to be tossing in the air and you're going to be trying to keep going. And balancing all of that as you're going through graduate school is something that all of us that have gone through graduate school before have had to work through. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:53]:
And that's okay as long as you learn along the way. And today we've got Matthew Oxy with us. And Matthew is one of our counselors in our CAPS office. And I love our partnership with CAPS because we always talk about amazing topics that will help all of us to be able to learn something a little bit new. So I'm going to turn it over to him to walk us through and talk to us about this important topic. Thanks Matt.

Matthew Oxie [00:01:19]:
Excellent. Yeah, no problem. Thank you for having me again, Dr. Lewis.

Matthew Oxie [00:01:22]:
Hello.

Matthew Oxie [00:01:22]:
Like Dr. Lewis said, my name is Matthew Oxie. I'm a licensed professional counselor with the Counseling and Psychological Services, the CAPS department here at U of M Flint. I do. Like I said, how does that make you feel? Therapy oftentimes Today we are going to talk about how to multitask and stabilize while in graduate school through effective self care strategies, time management tactics and ways you can get involved both on campus and within your own communities to help promote your own well being. So a couple disclaimers beforehand. This is not going to be direct therapeutic advice. I advise if this is something you're seeking, you can either find services at caps, which we'll talk about here soon, or services within a community, or you're already connected.

Matthew Oxie [00:02:09]:
But just as a little word of advice. This is not like formal therapeutic advice. The next thing this lecture may not be a full hour. I am, I like public speaking. I'm very good at it. But I'm also kind of a fast talker. So if you guys have any questions, feel free to shout them out in the chat and I will get to them. Dr.

Matthew Oxie [00:02:26]:
Lewis, you as well, if you have anything, please let me know. But I guess before we really get started, I want to start with something kind of controversial guys might not be aware of this.

Matthew Oxie [00:02:38]:
Right.

Matthew Oxie [00:02:39]:
Grad school can be stressful. Shocking, I know, but it's important to recognize this before we get too deep into the nitty gritty of what we want to talk about with multitasking here. So the types of stressors graduate students face. I've got my speaker notes down here, so it looks like I'm not looking at the screen. I've got my speaker notes down here. I'm not checking my phone or anything like that. So correct me if I'm wrong, Dr. Lewis, but University of Michigan Flint currently offers over 30 graduate programs.

Matthew Oxie [00:03:10]:
Actually, I was going to say over 50. Over 50.

Matthew Oxie [00:03:13]:
Wow.

Matthew Oxie [00:03:14]:
I was looking at the. The course selector. Not the course selector like the major selection thing, like the academic programs. I only counted about 35. So you got over 50, we've got over 50. So that furthers the point that across the University of Michigan Flint campus, graduate students are a significant portion of our university's makeup. Right. So this is something that's important to talk about.

Matthew Oxie [00:03:38]:
Obviously, if you're listening to this, you're likely a graduate student at U of M Flint. So you understand that now common sources of graduate student stress. Graduate student student stress. Someday I'll be able to get that combination of words out of my mouth. Now, there is actually an index for this. There is the Graduate Stress Inventory. It was made in the mid-90s and it's been revised over the decades. And it asks a series of questions related to environmental, academic, and then family and monetary stressors as well.

Matthew Oxie [00:04:10]:
And you can see those are listed here. Academic stress, family issues, interpersonal relationships and financial stress. Additionally, though a little bit more specific to graduate school or I guess in addition to the gsi, we have career, right? Career placement, career planning. What are we going to do after graduate school as well as research and teaching. I know it is a very important part of some programs that you write a thesis, for example, or you have teaching experience or you're expected to teach or run a class or a lab.

Matthew Oxie [00:04:47]:
Right.

Matthew Oxie [00:04:47]:
Just depends on what you're studying. There are other problems that are more broad that can amplify some of these stressors, Other concerns that might be totally unrelated to graduate school, but can make it harder to get through poor physical health or disabilities. If we talk about something like a physical disability, chronic pain, and even sometimes increased fatigue, all of these things can, as we've said, amplify the stress of what is above mental and emotional struggles.

Matthew Oxie [00:05:22]:
Right.

Matthew Oxie [00:05:23]:
Preexisting mental health struggles or mental health diagnoses. Or mental health struggles and diagnoses that crop up as a result of graduate school. We'll talk about that here on the next slide. So I don't want to get too, too much into the mental and emotional stuff right this second. Sleep can amplify issues. How many of us don't get enough sleep in graduate school? I'm sure quite a few of us.

Matthew Oxie [00:05:47]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:05:47]:
That constant, seemingly chronic exhaustion can lead to again, further feelings of stress and then finally age. This one, while Empirical is also a little more anecdotal. Age can play a role in increasing the potency of some of these stressors.

Matthew Oxie [00:06:06]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:06:06]:
I want you to think about it. Older students are more likely to be a little bit more established. What I mean by that is you probably already have a family, you already have a career you might be juggling, and you might have yourself embedded in other parts of your communities, for example, on top of graduate school. Whereas someone coming right out of undergrad may not have those exact same stressors right now. Moving on to our next slide here we've got the what now? Let's talk about the how how stress affects graduate student. So before we really get into this, there is a plethora of research on graduate student stress. However, given that's not the topic of the presentation, I'm just going to give you some of the highlights and I promise the rest of the presentation is just a little bit more uplifting than this right here. So graduate students report higher rates of stress than undergraduate students.

Matthew Oxie [00:07:10]:
The 2013 study by Wyatt and Oswald showed that while undergraduate students show significantly higher rates of mental illness, graduate students report higher rates of stress. This stress comes from many of the aforementioned stressors that we just talked about, right? There are a lot of expectations put on graduate students. Graduate students are six times more likely to experience anxiety and depression. And those who experience anxiety and depression also report a poor work life balance. Now, I know that sounds contradictory to the last point. This study done in 2018 found that graduate students are two to six times more likely to experience anxiety and depression during grad school, right? This can lead to that increased anxiety or decreased work life balance. My words are all over the place today. I do sincerely apologize.

Matthew Oxie [00:08:07]:
So despite grad or undergraduate students reporting higher rates of mental health struggles, graduate students are still more likely to experience those mental health struggles as well throughout their time. And finally, many multicultural elements play a role in some of the stress as well. Everything is multicultural. When we look at some of these elements, we find that graduate students who face particularly racial discrimination and Financial distress have higher rates of anxiety and depression during graduate school. These findings persist with racial discrimination and financial stress. These findings persistent even when students have strong familial and social support. So if faced with racial injustice or heavy financial pressure, regardless of a social or familial support network, you'll still see some of these issues crop up. Additionally, students who reported as LGBTQ had higher odds of anxiety and depression on an individual level.

Matthew Oxie [00:09:20]:
And students who reported financial distress were way more prone, particularly to anxiety. In this study done in 2021, financial stress was a large indicator of anxiety. So we've done the fun part. I think I have another bullet point there. Women and international students tend to show heightened distress in graduate school as well. We've done the super fun part. We have established that graduate school is stressful. We know what stresses students out.

Matthew Oxie [00:09:53]:
We know how that, how that stress affects you guys on both the macro and the micro level. However, like I said, identifying stress is not the goal of this lecture. It's the foundation for what we kind of want to talk about here, right? The goal is to learn and discuss ways to balance graduate school with everything else. Now, graduate students have kind of a full plate. Again, I'm just full of shocking statements for you guys today. You guys probably did not know that before I said that as graduate students, I have a lot on your plates. What we have examples here on this slide, right? Some examples of things that are or make you make us busy as graduate students. Coursework and exams.

Matthew Oxie [00:10:44]:
I know some graduate programs have exams multiple times a week for multiple weeks in a row. Some graduate programs here on campus even condense. And their hell weeks, for example, are even more jam packed with exams because instead of the full 16 weeks, it drops to like a 10 week, 12 week program, right? There's teaching and there's researching, as we mentioned. Sometimes there is an expectation that you run your own class or there's an expectation that you're doing research for your thesis, for your final report. Clinical rotations behind me, you can't see it particularly well through the windows, but I'm across the river from the white building and most of the programs in there, pa, pt, nursing, all require some degree of clinical rotations, some of which are not particularly close to home. Full or part time jobs, whether you have a 20 hour a week, you know, kind of like flash money job that you do working at a coffee shop, or if you're like my colleague Riley, who is currently enrolled in our social work program here at U of M Flint and is also Working as a CAPS counselor, full time work can be stressful. Your occupation can add a lot of things for you to do. We talk about expectations.

Matthew Oxie [00:12:00]:
It's a. It's a whole nother slew of things. Family obligations. This can look a million different ways. This can look like raising children, supporting a partner, supporting your parents if they're older, or navigating life with a chosen family, for example. Family obligations are persistent. Commutes. I feel like this one isn't really talked about as much.

Matthew Oxie [00:12:23]:
Some students, I mean, U of M Flint is a commuter school. I know we have on campus residencies and we offer quite a few remote programs and remote classes. But at its core, U of M Flint has always been a commuter school. And sometimes those commutes really can add up. Like I said, whether you're going to class or going to a clinical rotation, that's an hour away. If you live here on campus and your clinical rotation is in Ann Arbor, down at Michigan Medicine, that's a two hour round trip commute you have to take every day, potentially longer. And while the commute itself might not be particularly difficult, US23 is not a very hard drive. It does take away a lot of time.

Matthew Oxie [00:13:05]:
And it makes some of these other things like researching and managing your family and managing your coursework more difficult because that time you have to do it is now even less because you have to spend two hours on the road, for example. And then finally clubs, professional organizations, or governing bodies within your cohort.

Matthew Oxie [00:13:24]:
Right.

Matthew Oxie [00:13:24]:
I know some programs have like a class president, for example. And then you may be. I believe when I was in graduate school, I was in, I think it was called Chi Sigma iota. It was the professional fraternity for counselors. I believe so. And I was on the board of that. I believe I was the secretary treasurer. It was one of the things.

Matthew Oxie [00:13:45]:
It was a long time ago. I apologize for not fully remembering. But all of these things are examples of what the average graduate student might be faced with. What do we notice about the examples that were laid out? They look nearly identical to the things that caused us that kind of stress. I know, that's kind of obvious, right? When we talk about things being on our plate, they often correlate to being stressful.

Matthew Oxie [00:14:15]:
Right.

Matthew Oxie [00:14:18]:
Graduate students are faced with many, if not all of these challenges at the exact same time throughout their programs. I have talked a little bit now about the kind of obvious stressful balancing act that is graduate school. So let's get into the actual meat and potatoes of the lecture. Let's discuss ways to Juggle all of these things, balance all these things, prioritize and manage everything we have here and potentially more while keeping our heads above water. The eight dimensions of Wellness. If you have been a student at U of M Flint for any period of time, I am sure you are familiar with this image. The eight dimensions of wellness are something that university health and well being. University health and wellness uhs, they are.

Matthew Oxie [00:15:13]:
They're very big on the eight dimensions of wellness and for good reason. Honestly, these dimensions, they can help us from a practical sense, the eight dimensions of wellness can help us categorize some of our concerns and help us recognize where we can grow and also really where we're thriving. They don't just have to be about, oh, what am I lacking? We can look at these eight dimensions and go, okay, I'm secure in these areas. And that can help again further that wellness and foundation. I very briefly want to discuss each of them because I know sometimes these are not discussed, they're just sort of slapped right on the page and you're just expected to be like, oh yeah, it's intuitive, it makes sense and in a lot of ways it is. So this is information from both, I believe, University of Michigan and for the life of me, I can't remember the other website, but you'll see it in the references. What other university I got this information from. So just going to go, start at the top, going to go clockwise here.

Matthew Oxie [00:16:13]:
Physical. It's the ability to maintain quality of life that helps you get through the activities of the day with ease. Emotional awareness. These are an awareness of, of thoughts and feelings and responses to daily interactions and events. Environmental wellness is our respect for ourselves, our respect for our community, and a respect for our environment and its surroundings. Right? This can be a love of nature, a love of keeping our cities clean, for example, like really caring about the quality of our environments that we are in all the time. Financial wellness, knowing how to manage expenses and your relationship with money. This can get difficult in graduate school.

Matthew Oxie [00:17:00]:
Sometimes we have to work a lot. Sometimes graduate school, not even sometimes. A lot of times graduate school is very expensive. And trying to manage living life as a regular adult, quote unquote, and having to pay for graduate school can be very stressful. Occupational wellness, the work you do and how it fulfills you.

Matthew Oxie [00:17:25]:
Right.

Matthew Oxie [00:17:27]:
If you're in this point in your academic career, I would hope you're doing something that you love. I love therapy. I went to Graduate school of Central Michigan, Master's degree in clinical mental health counseling. I love it. I would do Therapy for free. I would do it a lot less often, but I would do it for free. I love this job. I think I will do it for the next several decades.

Matthew Oxie [00:17:49]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:17:50]:
When we think about occupational wellness, we think about the meaning and the fulfillment we get from what we choose to do with our careers. Social wellness. This is defining and connecting with individuals, groups and communities as a whole. Social wellness. I mean humans are social creatures. Enough said.

Matthew Oxie [00:18:10]:
Right.

Matthew Oxie [00:18:11]:
Intellectual wellness. This is feeling stimulated and engaged with learning opportunities both within and outside of school. There are many ways that we can still learn in a non academic sense. Intellectual wellness kind of pushes us to further that. And finally, spiritual wellness. Spiritual wellness is your understanding of place and purpose and how you make meaning of who you are and what happens to you. Spiritual wellness can be understood in many, many different ways. Again, it changes person to person.

Matthew Oxie [00:18:43]:
But now we have our def. Our eight definitions of the eight dimensions of wellness. And I want you to keep these in mind throughout the rest of this presentation and think about ways you can apply what you already do as well as what we will talk about here in a bit to these dimensions.

Matthew Oxie [00:19:01]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:19:01]:
This isn't necessarily a strict homework assignment, just more of a thought experiment. Self care versus Self soothing. Part of me wants to apologize in advance. This is my soapbox. This is the thing I love talking about. But part of me also doesn't want to because I think it's great information that you guys all can have and share around as you please. So Self care versus Self soothing. Self care.

Matthew Oxie [00:19:31]:
This is, like I said, one of my favorite topics. This will serve as the foundation going forward for the rest of our time together.

Matthew Oxie [00:19:39]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:19:39]:
I've got a few more slides after this, but this warrants enough that we want to talk about this quite a bit, right? I want to take some time to lay it out for you. You have probably heard of the importance of self care, right? Everyone's heard of the importance of self care. Whether it is a paper, an article, a journal, a review about the importance of self care and well being, or self care and stress reduction. Whether it's scholarly and academic, or if it's a 20 second TikTok video raving about the importance of taking time for you, regardless of where you've heard it from, they are correct. Self care is a crucial part of balancing responsibilities in graduate school and beyond. Because if you are a graduate student mid-20s, you still got like 70 years left after graduate school is over. So we manage self care now. This can carry us for a very long time.

Matthew Oxie [00:20:42]:
Here's where I get on my soapbox though. However, our definition of self care might be a little off. Now, our knee jerk reaction when we think of self care is what?

Matthew Oxie [00:20:53]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:20:55]:
Watching Netflix, maybe taking a nice bath, Finding a little sweet treat like self care, right? I'm doing this for me. This is self care. These are all fantastic ways to unwind. They're not self care, right? These activities can be better defined as self soothing. Now if you look at the column on the left under self soothing, they can be defined as activities that help soothe a person during a stressful time. These are, I'm sure if you guys, you know, wanted to, you could think of half a dozen ways that you guys self soothe on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, right? This is something that helps you regulate yourself. This helps regulate our stress levels. One of the keys with self soothing is they're easily accessible and sometimes well established.

Matthew Oxie [00:21:48]:
You don't really have to do anything new or difficult to load up Netflix or to load up a video game or to go on a walk, right? A lot of these self soothing activities don't take a whole lot of effort. And even if you want to try something new, right? These self soothing activities, for example, it makes it sound so formal. These ways that we relax and unwind self so soothing, right? They can be learned and practiced even in busy times. You know, there's something like, like cooking, for example, can be, there can be soothing for some people. Working on new recipes, reading new books, playing new games, watching new shows, right? These can be examples of how easy self soothing can be. And that's part of the beauty of it. It doesn't take a very big barrier to entry. However, self soothing, if overused, can be deleterious to our health and well being in graduate school and beyond.

Matthew Oxie [00:22:50]:
So self soothing, while absolutely necessary to our overall well being, like I said, can have some negative effects. I want you to think about a scenario for me. You are very stressed and you say, you know what? I've had a long day. I'm going to watch Netflix for 48 straight hours, right? I'm doing it in the name of self care for, for self care sake. I'm going to watch Netflix for 48 straight hours. What do we think happens? What do you think happens when we watch Netflix for 48 straight hours? For starters, you probably haven't eaten much, probably haven't showered at all. You probably haven't slept very much. You probably haven't gone to the bathroom very much.

Matthew Oxie [00:23:35]:
So on the most basic physiological level, probably not doing great, your eyes probably hurt. Probably feeling a little atrophied from sitting on the couch or the bed all day long. What's more than that, right? On top of that, you've probably missed a class or two, you've possibly missed work, and you've likely neglected other social and familial responsibilities in the name of self care, right? Your pets didn't get fed, your kids didn't get picked up from school. Your professor was never informed about why you didn't go to a lecture. Your manager never found out why you didn't go to work. So now you have a no call, no show, right? I will admit that the example of watching Netflix for 48 straight hours is just a little bit hyperbolic. I get it, right? However, I bring it up because it does a good job of showcasing what Mistaking self soothing how mistaking self soothing for self care can be harmful, right? Is doing something like watching Netflix inherently harmful? No, of course not. There are great shows on Netflix and Hulu, or if you're a sports fan, like so NFL Sunday Ticket, for example, or March Madness Basketball.

Matthew Oxie [00:24:59]:
These are all totally fine ways to soothe, but it it highlights that if overused, they can hurt us, right? All of that said, what is self care? I like to think of self care as the framework for proper self soothing.

Matthew Oxie [00:25:16]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:25:17]:
One of the key differences between self care and self soothing, the way I like to define it, is that self care is intentional. What do I mean by that? I say intentional because true self care is thought out and implemented with a goal in mind, right? So we look on the other column here of this, of this presentation. Self care is comprised of intentional practices, routines and structures which are developed over time to better facilitate well being in however way we feel it necessary. Self care involves establishing boundaries with yourself and others to create a healthy environment for you to work in. I will use an example of this from my own personal and professional life. I don't have my email on my phone. Don't have my work email on my phone. I know many people, colleagues, even my partner, are stressed out of the fact that I don't have my email on my phone.

Matthew Oxie [00:26:20]:
But it's a boundary I have set over the years because despite working a job that at any given moment duty could call and we would have to see to a crisis. Nothing so serious is going to come up that I'm not going to get a phone call or a text message. And honestly, when 5 o' clock comes around, I don't want to think about work afterwards. I care about my clients, but I don't want to have that stress following me. An example of a boundary to keep that is to keep email off of my phone, my work email off of my phone, right? These can be far more difficult to implement on the fly. If you guys have something for example, like your work email or your school email on your phone and I told you to delete it, would that work? Would that make you feel comfortable? Probably not, right? Not if you've been used to using it for a couple of months or even a couple of years, depending on what program you're in. Intentional self care takes deliberate practice. Intentional self care can be started small and it takes practice.

Matthew Oxie [00:27:31]:
We'll talk about it here very soon, but I'm going to give you an example of what intentional self care can look like. I've written out a little scenario here, so follow me as best you can. Let's say you've had a stressful week of exams, work and research. You had two exams on Wednesday. You had one exams on third, one exam on Thursday. You had three eight hour work days throughout the week, and the first draft of your thesis was due by Friday morning. The weekend comes around and for the first time all semester long you don't have anything going on. There are no exams on Monday, there are no readings to do and there are no articles to examine.

Matthew Oxie [00:28:15]:
There's no shifts to clock in for. There's nothing. You truly have nothing to do in the following week. And you decide, you know what? I think I'm gonna watch Netflix all weekend long. Just like our friend who watched it for 48 straight hours. I'm gonna watch Netflix all weekend long. An example of the intentional approach with self care in this case involves setting boundaries and establishing some of some time management, right? You've already done the hard work of clearing your schedule. You've already done the hard work.

Matthew Oxie [00:28:49]:
You've done the exams, you've done the paper, you've done the work. Like the actual physical going into work, you've done the hard part. And you've said in advance, my plan for the weekend is to do nothing. You have laid that out even as early as Monday, maybe even the weekend prior this upcoming weekend. I'm not doing a darn thing. I'm going to watch Netflix all weekend long. So there are no major external expectations, expectations at this point that exist for us to neglect, right? We've already established it with ourselves. We've set that boundary.

Matthew Oxie [00:29:24]:
Now your plan with this whole weekend, you're gonna wake up, take a shower on Saturday morning, have a coffee, have a yogurt, feed your cats, and then prepare to get comfy on the couch or the bed for the next like several hours.

Matthew Oxie [00:29:38]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:29:39]:
Maybe you're a Lord of the Rings person. You want to watch all the extended editions of Lord of the Rings. That's a very long time commitment. That's a whole weekend's worth of content right there. But you, you're, you're settled in, you're dug in. You allow yourself to pause when needed, pause your movie, pause your show, pause your game to use the bathroom, find a little bit of lunch, prep some dinner, care for your animals as needed.

Matthew Oxie [00:30:04]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:30:05]:
And I'll, I'll add another example. We talked about cooking as a self soothing method. You make something simple and healthy on Saturday. You make something simple and healthy, it doesn't take a whole lot of effort filling you like it. And you're doing that because you told yourself you're going to order food on Sunday. You know, thinking about the financial dimension of wellness, you want to order from doordash, but doordash can be expensive. Yeah, we'll do it one day. You know, we'll plan, we'll plan our finances around it, we'll plan our meal around it, and that'll be our game plan.

Matthew Oxie [00:30:36]:
We'll eat a little dinner on Saturday and then order something on Sunday. On Sunday evening, take a little bit of time after dinner to prep for the week ahead. Get your clothes ready, get your coffee maker ready for Monday morning, get your laptop ready, put it by the door, get ready to go. And you set yourself a bedtime so you can get to sleep by Monday. I know that one sounds a little corny for adults, right? Set yourself a bedtime. What are you, seven years old? Set yourself a bedtime. That's part of that intentional timekeeping and that intentional boundary you're setting. I'm not going to stay up till 3 o' clock in the morning watching shows, playing games, watching movies.

Matthew Oxie [00:31:13]:
I have things to do in the morning.

Matthew Oxie [00:31:15]:
Right.

Matthew Oxie [00:31:17]:
If you're thinking to yourself throughout this whole scenario, didn't you just say watching Netflix for 48 straight hours is bad?

Matthew Oxie [00:31:28]:
It.

Matthew Oxie [00:31:28]:
You're, you're correct. I did use that example, that rather hyperbolic example to showcase how watching Netflix for 48 hours can be deleterious to your well being as a student. However, I want you to think about the differences between these two scenarios. The first served a good purpose. It, it served. It had good intentions at, at first, but quickly devolved into neglect of our well being.

Matthew Oxie [00:32:00]:
Right.

Matthew Oxie [00:32:01]:
If we got so overwhelmed throughout the week that we decided we're just going to turn ourselves off for the next 48 hours. In a way we can appreciate it.

Matthew Oxie [00:32:12]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:32:12]:
We're taking time to reset, but if overdone, it causes harm. The second scenario on the other hand, showed how intentionally planning to do something like that. You know, intentionally planning that weekend. We've set our boundaries, we're keeping time limits and we've allowed for nearly two whole days of self soothing activities.

Matthew Oxie [00:32:39]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:32:40]:
How these intentional pieces can allow for this extended self soothing while also setting us up for success for a potentially stressful week.

Matthew Oxie [00:32:49]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:32:52]:
It sounds similar in practice. It is very different. I know self care can be hard. I know implementing these things can be hard. Especially when we have our routines that work so well. There are so many external pressures. It's like you have to focus on me. You have to focus on me right now.

Matthew Oxie [00:33:09]:
You can't look at anything else. You have to pay attention to me right now.

Matthew Oxie [00:33:13]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:33:15]:
And at times it's very easy to feel like we are drowning under these expectations. There are so many at once. It feels like we are drowning under these expectations. I encourage you guys to take a screenshot of this. I'll send these slides to Dr. Lewis later as well. In addition to the recording, I'll have some other links that go in there too. We'll talk about here in a little bit.

Matthew Oxie [00:33:36]:
I encourage you guys to practice self care. Practice it over and over and over again. It might take a few times to get right. You might find that trying to prep the night before to make your morning a little less stressful doesn't help you at all. You might find that removing email off of your phone, it makes it so much worse. Makes your day so much more stressful than it needs to be. Not being able to check your email, right? Practice. This is different person to person.

Matthew Oxie [00:34:07]:
Practice being intentional with your time, with your boundaries. Practice being intentional. Intentionality is the key for true self care. Speaking of time, I would be remiss if I did not talk about time management skills in a lecture like this. It feels a little redundant. You guys are graduate students. I'm not going to sit here and be like, you should get a planner. You should get an app on your phone.

Matthew Oxie [00:34:36]:
You should set yourself for reminders. You have been in school, some of you, 20 odd years, right? You know how to keep yourself balanced, I guess, when it comes to that kind of time management. But I want to talk about time management and prioritizing tasks, right? Using what we know about self care from the previous slides, we can Work to establish a schedule that allows us to both complete necessary tasks as well as rest and recharge. Now, like I said, this can look different student to student. I will give you an example that I have used in the past in therapeutic situations. What I sometimes tell students to do is to stop studying after a certain time, right? Time management and prioritizing tasks. We have an exam on Friday, Today's Monday, right? When the week, as the week progresses, stop studying by a certain time.

Matthew Oxie [00:35:41]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:35:42]:
This builds on a point that I will talk about here in a little bit. Those assignments taking as long as you give them, but when we practice intentionally. All right, 9pm Book is closed. I have two hours to do whatever I want for the rest of the night that does not involve school or studying. That intentionality helps us not only prioritize ourselves, right? We get some free time. We get to unwind a little bit, do something that we've been looking forward to, even if it's just nothing scrolling on our phone. I could sit here and talk about the negative effects of scrolling on your phone, but I'm also a person who enjoys TikTok and Instagram and am prone to scrolling on my phone after a long and stressful day. It happens, right? But when we set that boundary with ourselves, not only do we prioritize our own well being, we also prioritize the exam.

Matthew Oxie [00:36:39]:
You've got class from, I don't know, 8am to 4pm you're going to get a little food afterwards and you're going to hunker down from five to nine and study. That causes you to prioritize studying effectively. If you've only got four hours, it doesn't do you any good to sit there on TikTok because you know you can do that later. I know this varies student to student, like I said, but when we put these kind of limits on these things and we put that hard time limit, for example, it allows and in a way forces us to get the most out of that study period. For this example exam. This leads into my next point that deadlines can be stressful, but they can provide a great framework for us to work in. An excellent framework. Now, there's a very extensive review done in 2020 and it talked about the impact of stress on graduate students.

Matthew Oxie [00:37:40]:
One of the things it highlighted in this review, I don't remember the paper it found it from, but it showed that some stress can be helpful when completing works such as working on a thesis or masters or doctoral.

Matthew Oxie [00:37:57]:
Right.

Matthew Oxie [00:37:58]:
I believe the proper term is actually Eustress. There's the, the difference between eustress and distress. We're very, we're very comfortable with the idea of distress.

Matthew Oxie [00:38:08]:
Right.

Matthew Oxie [00:38:09]:
I have to, I don't have any time to do homework. I feel very distressed. It's all right there. Sometimes there is eustress. Sometimes these deadlines cause this sort of positive stress in our life. Instructor, determined dates for exams and papers can help guide studying and researching. They can help guide that intentional self care.

Matthew Oxie [00:38:31]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:38:32]:
I use the example of the exam, no matter what, it's going to be done on Friday as an example statement. You can apply this to any homework assignment, group project, doctoral thesis exam, clinical, oz, key. Whatever you have to do, right? It's going to get done by Friday. This allows us to work with that. Intentionality works with boundaries. Sometimes it involves telling people no. Sorry guys. I love trivia night.

Matthew Oxie [00:39:03]:
I love my Tuesday night trivia. For example, I can't go tonight. I have a very important paper I have to work on. I'll see you guys next week. We're intentional in what we are and are not doing right while prioritizing ways to keep us healthy. I mentioned earlier that assignments can take as long as you give them, right? This was actually said to me by a friend a couple years ago after we were both long out of school. I, it may be obvious by the way, I'm very kind of casually talking about this topic. I was never the kind of student to work on things really, really, really far in advance.

Matthew Oxie [00:39:44]:
Never was my thing. Always been a last minute kind of guy. Definitely didn't put the finishing touches on this presentation this morning. I would never do that and I would never tell my lecture group about that.

Matthew Oxie [00:39:55]:
Am I right?

Matthew Oxie [00:39:56]:
But while having a conversation with this friend, they mentioned to me that assignments take as long as you give them. What she meant by that was, let's say I give you a paper due in two weeks. If you say, ah, I gotta work on it right now, it's due in two weeks, I gotta work on it right now. You are gonna go back to that paper every single day. Even when you think you finish it, you're gonna go back every day, you're gonna try to make changes. And that stress is gonna last for two whole weeks, right? If you only give it the evening, well, Thursday night I better start that paper I was given two weeks ago. The stress is only going to last for the evening. Now, I think both of those examples are a bit extreme.

Matthew Oxie [00:40:42]:
And having lived a lot of my life in the latter, I can tell you that it does get stressful and that's not the advice I am telling you to do. I am not telling you to put off all of your your assignments until the last minute. That's not the best tactic. What I'm saying is these assignments take as long as we give them. So feel free. Please utilize your self care and utilize your self soothing. I have a quote right below that. It says it's okay to not.

Matthew Oxie [00:41:12]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:41:12]:
It's okay to not do homework for a night. It's okay to take a night off and go to trivia. You've got a huge exam on Friday and you studied Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, throughout the day on Tuesday you had classes and lectures. It's okay to go to Tuesday night trivia. It's okay to not. Just as it's okay to not partake in things that are a little bit more enjoyable when you have to lock in as the kids say and focus on what you have to do. It's okay to not neglect other important pieces like that self care and that self soothing that we talked about. This is something that I always express to students who come into my office, right? Always try to mention that it is okay to not.

Matthew Oxie [00:42:01]:
There are so many expectations that sometimes we forget all the things we talked about a couple slides ago.

Matthew Oxie [00:42:13]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:42:13]:
If I ask you guys to recount all of the things that were on your plate, does anybody think they could list them all off from memory in order? Probably not. I can't even do that. And I made the presentation and I have the speaker notes in front of me on a separate window. I could scroll back up and look and I don't remember off the top of my head. Professors, managers, family members, friends, they may not realize all of the things that are on our plates. Despite understanding in a way, yeah, grad students are stressed. They may not know the full extent of it. Only we know truly what each of us are dealing with throughout our time in graduate school.

Matthew Oxie [00:42:56]:
It is okay to not. Now. We have talked about a lot of ways to practice that are a little bit more theoretical I guess because they vary so much person to person and this is not a psychological well being group. So I'm not trying to, you know, and ask everyone like, so what are your stressors? How can we work it out individually? That's not what I'm talking about. But I want to give you guys some general things that we can engage in here, right? Get involved, get involved, get involved. Get physical.

Matthew Oxie [00:43:35]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:43:36]:
Join your local or university sponsored sports teams. If you guys are on campus, the U of M Flint Rec center and all of its programs are free for all U of M students, even graduate students. They are all free. I don't even know if you need a membership. You show up with your M card, swipe, you are good to go.

Matthew Oxie [00:43:54]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:43:56]:
Get yourself involved in community wellness practices.

Matthew Oxie [00:44:01]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:44:02]:
Join local gyms, join running clubs, join athletic sporting teams, join walking groups. I believe there's actually a walking group at the rec center. Funny enough, it might be a community walking group or might be a student staff walking group. I believe every day, maybe every like Wednesday or Thursday, they walk around. Ask someone at the rec center about that because I believe that actually does exist here on campus. And you talk about, you know, getting involved with community wellness practices. I don't know if you guys have seen your email, but Flint does bike tours. There's bike tours all around Flint that talk about the history of the various parts of the city.

Matthew Oxie [00:44:39]:
I know there's one coming up in October of like haunted Flint. That one sounds like quite a bit of fun. I know some of this stuff isn't always as straightforward, right? We recently had a staff breakfast last weekend. Again, this is a little more anecdotal, a little less empirical, as it were. Dr. Jerusalem, Dono mentioned in our whole DSA gathering that over 50% of graduate students are enrolled in online programs. Which means some of you guys might not be on campus at all or ever.

Matthew Oxie [00:45:14]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:45:14]:
Riley was actually just telling me that a couple of members of her social work cohort don't even live in Michigan.

Matthew Oxie [00:45:20]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:45:22]:
Please don't let that encourage, discourage. Please don't let that discourage you.

Matthew Oxie [00:45:27]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:45:27]:
Please don't let that discourage you from getting involved and engaging in campus activities if you live two hours away. I get it. No one wants to drive to Flint for four hour round trip for a two hour spin class. Totally understand that.

Matthew Oxie [00:45:42]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:45:43]:
But if we're close, don't let that discourage you from getting involved. And don't let it discourage you your your status as a graduate student. Don't let it discourage you from getting involved in other ways too. Might live two hours away. You might live in Lansing, Grand Rapids. You might live in the metro Detroit area. You might be up in the up. You might be out of state.

Matthew Oxie [00:46:04]:
You can still find a local gym. You can still find a way to involve yourself in community. We'll talk about other ways here. Please don't let it discourage you. Graduate students are. We want you guys at our activities just as much as as other other populations of students. Get mental if you've gotten Physical. Now let's get mental.

Matthew Oxie [00:46:26]:
Let's get emotional. Utilize the available mental health resources both on and off campus. Speaking of shameless self promotions, the CAPS office here at U of M Flint is free for all U of M Flint students, even graduate students. The only exception is that if you live out of state, we cannot see you if you are within the state of Michigan and enrolled in classes. And at the University of Michigan Flint we offer counseling services that are totally free. I like to joke that that actually makes us the most expensive therapy provider in Genesee county because graduate tuition is way more expensive than outpatient therapy. But it's already included. So if you need to feel free to come utilize the service as a graduate student.

Matthew Oxie [00:47:12]:
If, say for example, therapy is not your thing or maybe you already have a therapist. We have reflection and sensory rooms all over campus. If you guys are on campus, I know specifically for my students over in the white building, it can feel like when you're on the other side of the river. There's no way to get over to the south side. There's no way that we can get to the use ending CAPS to utilize their wellness resources. We have many of these rooms on campus. We've got one in the library. We've got one in the CAPS office here in the University Center.

Matthew Oxie [00:47:46]:
Usen and I learned today that we actually have a sensory room in the white building. Room 1209. Go. I've never been there myself, but I've learned about today. It's on our University Health and wellness page. Go check it out.

Matthew Oxie [00:47:58]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:47:58]:
These rooms help you relax and unwind a little bit. The CAPS office again, because we're so cool. Have a bunch of other wellness resources in addition to our sensory room. We have a biofeedback machine. We have a Happy Light as they call it. And we even have a massage chair that literally nobody uses. You guys could book time on our massage chair and CAPS and come use it today if you wanted to. Well, we're almost close, so maybe not today, but early in the winter.

Matthew Oxie [00:48:30]:
U of M Flint is oftentimes our week of wellness.

Matthew Oxie [00:48:33]:
Right?

Matthew Oxie [00:48:34]:
Keep an eye out on your email over the next couple of months to hear about Week of Wellness. In addition to doing a bunch of fun giveaways and things like that, it really is a great environment on campus to promote student well being throughout those eight dimensions that we talked about earlier. Speaking of keeping your eyes out for things on campus, get social. Get social with it. Visit Campus Connections for all the latest event updates for both on campus and online programs. That is the most commercial sounding thing I have said in this entire lecture and for that I apologize. This is not a paid advertisement by Campus Connections, right? This is something you can utilize. Log into as a, as a U of M.

Matthew Oxie [00:49:20]:
Flint student and get the lowdown on what is happening around campus. There are a lot of great programs that again, promote wellness that are oftentimes totally free. Finally, we talk about getting social. Connect with your family, friends and peers. When we have this kind of amount of stress on our plate that we talked about, we have the stress, we have all of the expectations. It can be a lot. And I know talking about it can be hard as well. Take it from me, as someone who both listens to people talk about it and struggled to talk about it myself in graduate school, it can be a lot.

Matthew Oxie [00:50:00]:
Connect with your family, connect with your friends, Connect with your peers in class. Connect with your cohorts. Even if you guys are all remote, have a game night, right? Connect with one another. As I mentioned earlier, humans are social creatures and the connection is vital to helping us stay afloat, keeping our heads above water. I want to thank you all so much for coming to this lecture here today. I hope you guys have learned a thing or two about how to kind of balance and manage all these expectations in graduate school. I hope you guys have learned about the dimensions of wellness. I hope, most importantly that you have learned the difference between self care and self soothing and how you guys could apply that to your day to day lives.

Matthew Oxie [00:50:43]:
And I hope you guys are encouraged to get out and get involved. Talk to people on campus or off campus. When I send Dr. Lewis the slides, I'm going to send him some additional links. Links to the rec center, links to the CAPS office, links to campus connections. Things that you as students can and absolutely should utilize. Remember, they're all free. So like I said, thank you so much.

Matthew Oxie [00:51:07]:
Dr. Lewis, I'm going to turn it back over to you. You can close us out.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:51:10]:
Well, thank you all for coming today. Really appreciate it. Thank you Matthew for all of this amazing information and I wish you all the best as you're moving through your graduate school experience. Thank you so much for your time today and for being here. The University of Michigan Flint has a full array of master's and doctorate programs. If you are interested in continuing your education. Whether you're looking for for in person or online learning options, the University of Michigan Flint has programs that will meet your needs. For more information on any of our graduate programs, Visit umflint.edu/graduateprograms to find out more.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:51:44]:
Thanks again for spending time with me as you prepare to be a victor in grad school. I look forward to speaking with you again soon as we embark together on your graduate school journey. If you have any questions or want to reach out, email me at [e-mail].