Pesach Cleaning/Rest

This week, I had a math exam on Monday, and an Orgo exam on Tuesday. I felt reasonably prepared for the math exam, but felt like I was rushing through my Orgo studying (the previous test was right after break, so I spent the whole break studying/writing mechanisms). Needless to say, after the Orgo exam was over, I was tired. After four hours of classes on Wednesday and three hours volunteering, I cleaned up my room, which took about an hour. I was amazed at how much I'd let the room "go" this semester. When you don't share a room with someone, it's easy to let piles of papers and clothes accumulate. After doing some homework, my roommate and I spent about 2 hours cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing counters and shelves and sorting through food.

But when we were done, and we sent our form to sell our chametz via email, I felt a lot better. Finally, I could devote my energy to studying for my Biology exam on Friday morning, I thought, and I would be free! But in the excitement of cleaning, I had neglected a nagging headache. It seemed fine until I sat down with my Bio notes. Then, the pain grew, and I thought I could have a migraine. So I rushed to get the aspirin and Pepto-Bismol, and then went to sleep at 10:30 (I had been staying up until about midnight all week). When I got up in the morning, I was fine. I started studying the single-letter abbreviations of the amino acids. I went to classes. Life was back to normal.

As much as I hate getting headaches, especially when they creep up in the middle of lab, I've been trying to use them as a kind of stress barometer. If my head starts to hurt, I need to stop what I'm doing, breathe, and some caffeine and aspirin. Almost all of the time, I can't get rid of the trigger. But I can stop, and try to regain some clarity in order to do what I need to do. Every week, I have a day "off" from work, Shabbos, but sometimes you need those non-Shabbos pauses more than the Shabbos pauses. The middle of the week, that's the hardest time to stop and rest. But even taking the five minutes to brew a cup of tea and concentrate on the tea can be almost as healing as the 25 hours of Shabbos. Hopefully we can all find those five minutes.