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As a college student, I cyclically disrupt my sleep schedule on the weekends and ruthlessly murder it during finals. I can admit that I have more consistency and routine in my life than the average adult—I don’t have kids or anything close to a turbulent career, I am presented with a list of all of my and assignments and responsibilities months in advance, and I still can’t get a hold of my circadian rhythm. All that is to say, I know creating a consistent schedule is incredibly difficult, but I guarantee it will make everything else in life exponentially easier and more enjoyable.
Consider my typical week: On Sundays, I sleep at a reasonable hour and wake at another. I aim for eight hours, trying to maximize my weekday mornings. By Thursday, after four decent nights of sleep, I am officially well rested. Thursday is a great day for me, and if you asked every single system in my body, they may say it's the only great day for me. Then the weekend comes. I stay up late and sleep in. I’m usually still getting roughly the same number of hours as I do during the week, but everything is pushed back a few hours. Even though I technically make up for the sleep, my body cannot forgive me. And yours probably won’t either. The thing about sleep that many people don’t realize is that it’s more than simply getting enough hours each night, although that is certainly the first step. Our bodies run on an internal biological clock called the circadian rhythm, a roughly 24-hour cycle that regulates sleep, hormones, body temperature, metabolism, and even mood. This rhythm is largely controlled by light exposure and regular patterns of sleep and wakefulness. When we dramatically shift our schedules, even if we still get the same number of hours, we create something researchers call “social jet lag.” Social jet lag occurs when our sleep schedule on weekends differs from our weekday schedule, essentially forcing our bodies to adjust to a new time zone every Monday morning. In other words, sleeping from 12 a.m. to 8 a.m. during the week and then from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. on the weekend may feel harmless, but biologically it can confuse the body’s internal clock. Studies have found that irregular sleep timing is associated with increased fatigue, poorer mood regulation, and reduced cognitive performance. Consistency is incredibly undervalued, and more than almost any other form of self-care, sleep schedules may be among the most impactful for both mental and physical health. Research from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine shows that adults who maintain consistent sleep and wake times report better mood, improved concentration, and more stable energy levels compared to those with irregular sleep patterns. When we train our bodies to fall asleep and wake up at the same time each day, we provide a form of stability that influences everything from stress hormones to immune function. Sleep regulates cortisol (our primary stress hormone), supports memory consolidation, and plays a major role in emotional processing. One reason sleep deprivation makes us feel irritable or overwhelmed is because the brain’s emotional regulation centers, particularly the amygdala, become more reactive when we are tired. And yet, culturally, we tend to treat sleep as optional. We live in a world of progress and procrastination, practically begging us to stay up late. Notifications glow, deadlines loom, and the quiet hours of the night feel like borrowed, quiet time we can use to catch up on life, time we can finally be alone. But contrary to many of our beliefs, we are not superhuman. We are animals. We are, in many ways, just tall children. If you have ever cared for a toddler, you know exactly what sleep deprivation can do to a person. A tired child becomes a tiny dictator—irrational, volatile, and emotionally explosive. Adults are not so different. We may mask it better, but the biology is the same. As a teenager, I could stay up all night and go to school the next morning with the energy of an athlete who got a solid seven hours of blissful rest. Only four years later, I find myself going partially blind by 5 p.m. if I operate on anything less than five hours of sleep. As we age, sleep tends to become lighter and more fragmented, making consistent habits even more important. Good sleep hygiene, including regular bedtimes, limited late-night screen exposure, and consistent wake times, can make a measurable difference in sleep quality. So while the advice may sound simple, it remains one of the most powerful mental health interventions available: go to sleep at roughly the same time each night, and wake up at roughly the same time each morning. Your Thursday self wants more stagetime. March 30: Bipolar Day Vincent Van Gogh was one of the most influential and incredible artists of all time. As many know, he was also incredibly misunderstood and undervalued in his lifetime. It wasn’t until after his death that his paintings were reexamined, finally understood as the masterpieces they are. Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in the Netherlands. While he may have been robbed of fame, and most importantly, appreciation, his birthday is commemorated with something similarly misunderstood. March 30th marks World Bipolar Day. Yes, there are many similarities between the artist and the disorder that I particularly find beautiful, but the commemoration breaches abstraction. Van Gogh is widely believed by historians and psychiatrists to have experienced bipolar symptoms. During his infamous one-year stay at a French asylum in Saint-Rémy, the artist completed over 150 paintings and 100 drawings. Many of his most celebrated works, including The Starry Night, were created during this period of intense psychological struggle. In the media today, people with bipolar disorder are seldom portrayed with the creativity, intelligence, and productivity that Van Gogh maintained throughout his life. Instead, the condition is often simplified into instability or chaos. Yet many influential figures and artists are believed to have lived with bipolar disorder or similar mood conditions: Jackson Pollock, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allan Poe, Winston Churchill, Isaac Newton, and Carrie Fisher. This is not to suggest that bipolar disorder creates greatness, or that suffering is a prerequisite for brilliance. Romanticizing mental illness can be just as harmful as dismissing it. Bipolar disorder is a serious condition that can affect every aspect of a person’s life, including relationships, work, and physical health. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, bipolar disorder affects about 2.8% of adults in the United States each year, and it is characterized by cycles of depressive episodes and manic or hypomanic periods that can dramatically alter mood, energy, and behavior. But what these histories remind us of is something equally important: people living with bipolar disorder are not defined solely by their diagnosis. They are artists, scientists, writers, parents, leaders, and friends. Their experiences can include immense difficulty, but also empathy, creativity, and perspective that shape the world in meaningful ways. World Bipolar Day exists not only to raise awareness of the disorder, but also to challenge the stigma surrounding it. Like Van Gogh’s paintings, mental illness is often misunderstood at first glance. It can take patience, compassion, and a willingness to look more closely before we truly understand what we are seeing. Van Gogh once wrote, “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” His life reminds us that even in moments of deep struggle, human creativity and resilience can endure. Recognizing World Bipolar Day is not about celebrating suffering. It is about recognizing humanity, advocating for understanding, and reminding those who live with bipolar disorder that their lives, like Van Gogh’s art, are invaluable. Even if many haven't fully recognized that yet. -Kate Albert
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When it comes to mental health, there are conversations that feel uncomfortable, even impolite and violating. Eating disorders are one of them. They are pervasive, deeply stigmatized, and often invisible. They have the power to quietly shape the way people move through the world.
This month, I wanted to write about what I see as one of the most pressing and under-discussed struggles of our generation. Most of us, including myself, have either watched someone we love struggle with disordered eating, or have quietly struggled with it ourselves. My first experience with eating disorders came from inside my childhood home. I do not remember the exact moment food shifted from something instinctive and joyful to something calculated, but I know that it did. There was a time when food was simply nourishment. It was something to enjoy, to share, to experiment with, to be grateful for. It was not moral or earned, it was not a reflection of discipline or worth. Many of us, even with the healthiest relationships with food, can trace a similar shift. I grew up in Los Angeles, California, a city with some of the most diverse and extraordinary food in the world. Restaurants in LA are creative, vibrant, and endlessly experimental. But they exist alongside something else: an industry built on optimization, aesthetic perfection, and perpetual self-improvement. There are billboards advertising the newest weight loss injection. Juice cleanses marketed as “resets.” Gyms on every corner. Bodies on display, bodies curated, sculpted, filtered. I never though about myself as someone who really struggled with eating, possibly because of the people who surrounded me. I think this speaks for nothing but its normalcy, which I hope speaks for its urgency. While writing this post with my friends and family in mind, I reflected deeply on my own relationship with food, and found that I too have a long way to go. I began to think about myself as a little girl, embarrassed to eat her school lunch without fully understanding why. I thought about a daughter I could have one day, counting calories before she learns long division. I reminded myself of a photograph my parents took of me at eleven, sitting on the beach during a family vacation, and the shame I felt when I saw how my thighs looked. Shame is a dictator. It teaches you to negotiate with yourself, to act against yourself. Food is nourishment, not a punishment and certainly not a reward. To understand how this happens, how food shifts from nourishment to negotiation, it helps to understand the psychology behind eating disorders. Eating disorders almost always co-occur with anxiety disorders. For many, controlling food intake becomes a way to exert order over an otherwise chaotic world. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) also co-occurs, and may be one in the same with anxiety, often predating the eating disorder itself. At their core, these struggles are often about reclaiming agency, creating rules, and finding certainty in numbers when emotions feel unmanageable. To hyper fixate on food, or to drown out the world with food is the ultimate distraction, the ultimate self-punishment. It is displaced anxiety. When most people think of eating disorders, they think of Anorexia Nervosa, a condition characterized by restrictive eating, intense fear of weight gain, and a distorted relationship between body image and self-worth. Within anorexia, there are two primary subtypes: a restricting subtype and a binge-purge subtype. But it’s important to remember that no two eating disorders are alike. Binge Eating Disorder, for example, often occurs independently of restriction. Individuals may experience a profound sense of loss of control while eating, consuming large quantities of food rapidly and in isolation, often accompanied by intense distress. This can escalate into a painful cycle of cognitive dissonance, where one’s behavior conflicts with one’s beliefs. When that tension becomes unbearable, the mind adapts. It is much easier to change the way we think than the way we behave. Someone struggling may convince themselves that nothing is wrong, that they are simply stressed, disciplined, or trying to be healthy. Denial becomes a coping mechanism until it is indistinguishable from genuine belief. Eating quickly, for instance, can become a way to outrun awareness, to silence the internal voice that might otherwise intervene. Bulimia Nervosa follows another pattern. Individuals may cycle between episodes of binge eating and compensatory behaviors such as vomiting, misuse of laxatives, or excessive exercise. Unlike anorexia, bulimia does not always present with visible weight loss, making it even more difficult to detect. I am disheartened to admit that I have failed to notice many people in my life struggling with disordered eating. While some mental illnesses manifest outwardly, eating disorders often hide in plain sight. They are concealed behind jokes about dieting, behind “wellness” trends, behind self-deprecating comments about body image. Many go to great lengths to avoid confrontation, not only with friends and family, but with themselves. There are many other forms of disordered eating that present in vastly different ways, motivated by vastly different struggles, such as trauma, perfectionism, identity, cultural pressure, comparison. Not all disordered eating meets clinical criteria for a formal diagnosis. But all of it deserves compassion. If you feel that you or someone you love is struggling, early intervention significantly increases the likelihood of recovery. I am beyond proud to say that my relationship with food and with my body has never been more stable, more grounded, or more compassionate. Healing did not mean loving every part of myself every day, it meant eating without calculating. It meant going to dinner without strategizing. It meant understanding that my body is not a project to perfect, it is a home to protect, to nourish, to fuel so that I can have the energy to do the things I love, to be present with the people I love. I have surrounded myself with people who see food as nourishment, as connection, and as pleasure. Slowly, I have found my way back to something resembling that child-like relationship with food, intuitive, curious, unburdened. I hope that for anyone else struggling, they may know there is room to speak up and to seek help. And that most importantly, they are far from alone. - Kate Albert The holiday season is coming to an end, and for many, it feels as though life may be returning to some state of normalcy. January, though cold, is a beautiful time to start writing a new chapter, or start finishing up the last one. Many of you may have even participated in the traditions of New Year's Resolutions, Dry January, or burning notes. As beautiful as these traditions may be, it's important to remember these acts are rituals— that is, they are supposed to be celebratory, they are supposed to help facilitate joy, wellness, and ultimately community into the new year, not stress and self-esteem issues. The beginning of the calendar year is a great time to make positive changes, but it’s not inherently a better time than any other ordinary day. Don’t let pressure to grow stop you. Learn how to use it to your advantage!
The bitter truth is that most resolutions fail. The good news is that yours won't. This is because most resolutions fail due to their rigid and out-come focused nature. That is, try to set goals for yourself that prioritize identity-based growth, rather than ones which require external verifications of success. For example, shifting from ‘I would like to lose weight,’ can be shifted to ‘I would like to exercise more often.’ And, ‘I would like to read x amount of books,’ will prove to be more successful when reimagined as ‘I would like to develop the habit of reading before bed.’ ‘I will get a promotion this year,’ for example, is a goal that offers no personal benefits. Look inwards, ‘I would like to find more excitement in my work,’ may be a more fulfilling and successful perspective with the same end goal. The most common resolution is prioritizing health and weight loss, but rather than setting a specific amount of days to hit the gym, try intuitive movement when it comes to you. Intuitive movement can mean dancing, walking in nature or with loved ones, or simply stretching without timers and routines. Rather than starting the newest diet or counting your calories, try choosing foods that leave you feeling strong and energized. Ultimately, focus on small habits. Switch your perspective from ‘what do I want,’ to ‘who do I want to become.’ Don’t set goals for yourself that only require one bad day to destroy your pursuits. Growth is a spiral staircase, not a straight line. And if you break or have already broken your resolution, rethink your intentions and remember that tomorrow is a brand new day that's never been touched. -Kate Albert The holidays are often supposed to be joyful and restorative, right?
Wrong. For most people, this time of year is actually the most stressful of all: financial pressure, uncomfortable family dynamics, travel, social obligations, the weather. The list goes on. Beyond the obvious, the expectation to feel happy can quietly overload your nervous system. But understanding what stress actually is and how to work with your body rather than against it can make the season far more manageable. Stress is not just a feeling; it’s a biological response. When your brain perceives a threat, whether it be emotional, social, or physical, it activates the sympathetic nervous system, releasing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones increase heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar, preparing your body for “fight or flight.” This response is adaptive in short bursts, but during the holidays stress often becomes chronic. Prolonged cortisol elevation can impair sleep, digestion, immune function, and mood regulation. Holiday stress is unique because it combines:
Here’s what you can do to take care of your body.
-Kate Albert I strongly believe that Thanksgiving, as a tradition and cultural ritual, has gravely mishandled two sacred parts of this world: turkeys and the concept of gratitude.
See Free Birds for more information about turkeys. Gratitude is a deeply misunderstood emotion. It’s inextricably linked to the holiday season, which is linked to family, which is linked to complication. November is the only time we are taught to actively acknowledge our thankfulness and appreciation for the world around us. So as Thanksgiving approaches and the number of people demanding an insightful answer to “What are you grateful for?” rises, consider this blogpost preparation. Preparation and a potential spell book for science-based magic. But what is gratitude? We annually encounter it as light expression that is often demanded of us from people who make it difficult to feel it in any capacity at all. But it is so much more than an expression— it is an emotion, a virtue, a habit, a skill, an attitude, and a complex cognitive phenomenon. It is difficult to define but has been recognized to reflect elements such as grace, presence, love, health, food, nature, beauty, and life in a state of fulfillment. It is to enjoy and value the trajectory of these elements more than the end they may bring. It is the vessel for happiness, a way of life, and for me and (arguably) Aristotle, it is the point of life. Most will say habitually that they are grateful for their friends and family. Many of us will likely say this in front of them very soon. But I encourage you to do more than express your thankfulness for your loved ones. I encourage you to take gratitude as an annual prompted expression of love and turn it into a lifelong skill. Gratitude as a skill can be utilized in many forms, but I personally associate gratitude with a type of meditation. It is the act of simultaneously practicing self-love and love for others, love for all as one. It is rewriting the narrative, a tool to change our perspective, and its practice has been scientifically proven time and time again to be one of the most productive ways to lead happier lives. Cheers, Aristotle! There are hundreds of ways to practice gratitude. While noticing our love and thankfulness for the world around us and all its beautiful particularities, we may find the most rewarding form of gratitude be through vocal expression. An exercise for the outspoken may be to tell a member of your community why you are thankful that they exist. When we start to look around, we might find we have a reason to feel gratitude for everyone’s existence, not just our loved ones. For the introspective ones, I find forms of mindfulness to be great ways to practice gratitude. In our world of constant connectivity, it is so difficult to slow down and so easy to overlook how much we have to be grateful for. I like to slow down while I walk and while I eat, taking time to notice what would otherwise go unnoticed. Gratitude is gratitude whether we are thanking a divine power or Mother Nature. Or even just ourselves. And finally, for the visual learners, keeping a gratitude journal is a tried-and-true method. A 2022 study found that gratitude writing was a better resource for dealing with stress and stressful life events than traditional expressive writing methods. A gratitude journal is also known to aid decision making and memory. If you don’t know where to start, check out these prompts. Now that you know how to practice gratitude, allow me to convince you why you should. Gratitude is directly linked to the health of our brains and bodies (Hazlett et al., 2021). It has a healing effect on us, offering endless health benefits from an increase in gray matter volume in our brains (Zahn et al., 2014) to improvements in our immune system (Zahn et al., 2008). Gray matter is where the brain processes cognitive functioning tasks, perception, speech, and learning. Gratitude also activates the reward center in our brains, possessing the ability alter the way we see ourselves and the way we see the world (Fox et al. 2015). Maybe that’s why we practice it during the holidays. But in all seriousness, gratitude is a magic and a medicine within everyone’s reach. But don’t just practice it in the pursuit of happiness, practice it in the pursuit of a more loving, positive world. Because the happier you are, the happier your loved ones are! And that’s what it’s all about. Cited. Thank you for reading, I appreciate you. Kate Albert |
Hello friends! My name is Kate, and I’m a senior in college studying Psychology and Philosophy, with minors in Art History and Fine Arts. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, but I now call Boston home while I finish my last year of school.
Art and expressing myself creatively have always been central to who I am. I enjoy painting, playing guitar, and above all else, writing. While I've found that these outlets have allowed me to process the world around me on a deeper level, they have also allowed me to form a connection with myself and my ever changing identity. Writing, in particular, has been my way of grounding myself since early highschool. To me, it is a form of introspection, meditation, and healing. This is what first drew me to Burn Away Your Burdens: the shared belief that healthy and personal coping mechanisms are essential to growth and stability. Beyond journaling, I love to write fictional stories, poetry, and songs. I’m so grateful to be part of this inspiring community, and I can’t wait to keep sharing my personal and academic work with all of you. CategoriesJoin our Monthly E-Newsletter |
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