Grad School Femtoring: Inclusive Grad School Stories, Personal Development, and Productivity Tips for First-Gen BIPOCs · A podcast on thriving in graduate school for first-generation BIPOC students, offering insights on academic success, career development, mental health, and navigating diversity and inclusion in higher education.

348: The Most Overlooked Forms of Rest Among First-Gen Students

·25 min·1 clip

Emotional rest means naming feelings, reassessing draining relationships, and finding trusted people to confide in.

1. Grad School Femtoring: Inclusive Grad School Stories, Personal Development, and Productivity Tips for First-Gen BIPOCs centers this episode on overlooked forms of rest for first-gen students and working professionals. 2. Dr. Yvette Martinez-Boo speaks as host, certified coach, consultant, and author, and she names Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith as the author of Sacred Rest. 3. The episode asks what rest can look like beyond sleep, napping, or doing nothing. 4. Yvette says she used to tell her partner she was not feeling well and hear, 'Just rest,' but she only knew sleep or naps as rest. 5. She says that belief followed her through grad school and a nine-to-five, where she felt rest was a luxury she could not afford. 6. She says rest sits at the intersection of culture, identity, labor, capitalism, and survival. 7. Yvette says many first-gen, BIPOC, immigrant, low-income, disabled, and neurodivergent people were taught to treat rest as something earned after obligations. 8. She says naming different forms of rest helps people move away from all-or-nothing thinking and choose practices that meet current needs. 9. Mental rest is framed as relief from constant planning, decision-making, and holding tasks in the head. 10. Yvette describes a client juggling full-time grad school, work, parenting, and serious health conditions, and says structured planning sessions function as mental rest. 11. She recommends a phone notes brain dump, a parking-lot document, delegating mentally draining commitments, and short pauses between responsibilities. 12. Emotional rest is tied to messages like 'stay strong,' 'don't be a burden,' and 'don't be too dramatic.' 13. She says emotional labor is labor, especially for women, femmes, and non-binary people, and that it often gets hidden or minimized. 14. She suggests a feelings wheel, a sensations wheel, reflection after hard days, reassessing one-sided friendships, and confiding in a therapist, friend, parent, or spouse. 15. Social rest is presented as choosing relationships and environments that do not drain the body and mind. 16. Yvette gives a conference example where a client shifted from nonstop networking to time at the beach with friends. 17. Creative rest is described as reconnecting with joy, awe, childhood, and wonder, rather than producing art for work or profit. 18. Yvette shares her 17-year wedding anniversary trip to see The Lion King on Broadway and her recent Juan Gabriel docuseries viewing as creative-rest examples. 19. The episode sounds like a practical coaching lesson with repeated examples, direct advice, and a calm, reflective delivery. 20. People who want specific rest strategies for grad school or caregiving will get the most from it, while listeners seeking a fast entertainment-focused show may skip it.

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