3 Tips to Help Savor Summer
It’s that time of year, when we’re all trying to cherish the last of summer and our brains start feverishly planning for fall. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do something that helped us feel like we’ve accomplished BOTH? Check out these 3 tips to savor summer and get a jump on the start of school.
Disclosure: This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience*. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Tip #1: Eat & Exercise
Taking care of our bodies is one of the most basic forms of self-care.
Healthy Eating
Feeding our body great tasting, nourishing food is good for our skin, our cells, and our souls. I’ve always been a fan of Michael Pollan, particularly his books, In Defense of Food* & Food Rules*. In fact, it’s from these books (and others) that I’ve pulled my nutrition essentials (the ones I follow and the ones I teach my students). Rather than get bogged down in micros and macros, I focus on eating:
🔴Real (whole) food (the less processed, the better…for me and the environment)
🟠Lots of plants (especially the colorful kinds)
🟡The rainbow (I strive to get all of the colors in each day – naturally)
🟢New foods (I try one new recipe each week, often from cultures different than my own)
🔵Appropriate portion sizes (Graphics like the one below help me to estimate)
Use Your Efforts at Home to Boost Your Lessons at School
I find myself doubling down on my own healthy habits at the end of summer to make sure I’m setting myself up for success in the fall. These efforts make me feel good; physically and mentally. And, I try to use these efforts to help boost my nutrition lessons when school starts by:
✅Compiling all those new recipes in a document that I can share with students and families
✅Photographing healthy choices I make… healthy snacks, healthy meals & healthy finds. I use these photos in classes to make learning authentic (and I encourage students to share their pics with me, too)
✅Collecting packaging. I rinse out berry containers & spinach containers, dump crumbs from bread bags, and stock up on as many food packages as I can. I love making my classroom into a grocery store when I teach nutrition. It’s so fun to give students quick, “Supermarket Sweep” activities when they first come into class.
Physical Activity
Obviously, physical activity has countless benefits for our physical health. As I age, however, I become more aware, and appreciative of all its other benefits.
I exercise in the mornings. It’s time I set aside for myself to do something for me. I have an annoyingly active mind, constantly swirling with thoughts. Sometimes those thoughts are exciting new ideas, nagging reminders of a task left undone, or the worries of a mother of two. But when I exercise, that active mind rests. The thoughts are silenced. My focus is entirely on the movement. It is in exercise, that I’m most capable of being present, or practicing mindfulness. And in that way, it is a moment of self-care that I cherish.
Additionally, exercise is a physical lesson in growth mindset. Something that was impossible, like doing more than a few push-ups on your toes, with practice, becomes possible. Exercise & sport place arbitrary barriers in our way. And, any exercise enthusiast knows that breaking through those barriers is a natural high that can’t be beat. Exercise regularly shows me that I can do hard things. This is a lesson I can carry with me when I’m overwhelmed by work or the day-to-day of managing a household and two children’s busy schedules.
I often use my exercise efforts as an example when teaching planning and goal-setting, because I do better when I have a specific plan to follow. I use Les Mills on Demand. By joining their challenges, I get a calendar of well-rounded workouts that I can do on my own time. They feature motivational instructors and great music, pre and post-tests to measure my progress, access to a free Facebook group and weekly emails to help keep me motivated. I often share my calendar with students so they can see what I’m working on and sometimes even use clips from the workout videos when students enter my classroom to reinforce my lesson on the components of fitness.
Tip #2 Read to Escape & to Educate
Read to Escape
Reading is a great way to escape our own realities and to find empathy for those whose lives are different from our own. “How to tap into the transformative power of reading” (an episode from the How to Be a Better Human podcast) confirms many of my beliefs about the value of reading:
📖that it helps us to connect to something bigger than ourselves,
📖to share an experience with people who we may not normally,
📖to develop empathy, and to escape our own worries (if only for a moment).
I’ve always enjoyed reading young adult fiction. I feel like it helps me connect to the lives of my students. The stories are engaging and they are usually quick reads that don’t overwhelm me. Here’s a list of YA novels I’ve read recently. You’ll find each book is linked to it’s Goodreads review.
Sometimes I post a list of books I’ve read and enjoyed for my students when I talk about stress management and social media. I found that my HS students spend nearly 48 hours each week on their phone, often to the detriment of their own sleep. I encourage them to charge their phones outside of their rooms when they go to bed and finish their day with some reading.
This summer, I’m also hoping to read two of the books my 7th grade students read for their English Language Arts class:
📚Harbor Me* by Jacqueline Woodson, and
📚Hidden Figures* by Margot Lee Shetterly.
I’m hoping to pull some health lessons from these novels to make a connection between what they’re reading and what we’re discussing in class.
Read to Educate
In addition to using books to escape, I also enjoy reading books that help me better understand the content that I teach and books that help refine and shape my teaching practices.
Three books have helped shape my mindset and my teaching as a skills-based health educator. If you’re short on time or want a preview, each of the three featured books has a companion TED Talk.
- Grit* by Angela Duckworth
- The Happiness Advantage* by Shawn Achor.
- Drive* by Daniel H. Pink
My summer reading list also includes:
📕Fish!: A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results* by Stephen C. Lunden, PhD (recommended by my building principal)
📕The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman* (inherited from a previous health teacher in my building)
Tip #3 Practice What You Teach
One way to become an effective skills-based health educator is to practice the skills that you teach. I am much more productive in the summer (and the school year) if I set goals for my week. It helps me manage my time better and prioritize an endless mental to-do list. When I’m cognizant of how my day-to-day decisions impact these goals, I’m better able to make choices that move me towards, rather than away from progress. And when I communicate with others about these goals and seek support, I’m much more likely to accomplish them…which makes me feel better.
In the summer, I have a little more time to actually put these skills into action; and the more I practice them, the better I am at teaching them during the school year. By practicing in the summer, I learn valuable lessons about what helps me be successful … and those are lessons I can share with my students (like how I learned to set screen time limits on my phone so I don’t waste hours on social media; or how writing down my plan for the week in a notebook makes tasks feel more manageable & how I can use that same notebook to record 3 daily gratitudes to train my brain to focus on the good in life).
Perhaps, as we practice the very skills that we teach our students, we create the space necessary to quiet our minds, to be present, and to actually take care of ourselves as we savor what’s left of summer.
