How to avoid Graduate Spread

How to survive your graduate year……without succumbing to Graduate Spread

Being a law grad is stressful. Every day you deal with tasks you have no idea how to complete. The first three months of my graduate job I felt like I was sitting one long and very difficult exam. After the first three months it didn’t stop being stressful, but I have finally learnt how to cope with the stress. If you do not feel stressed in your grad job - congratulations! You must be one mightily chilled person and probably deserve an award. For everyone else, I have compiled a short guide on how to cope with work related stress without succumbing to Graduate Spread. While I am not a qualified psychologist, I have survived 12 months as a law graduate and want to share what I wish someone had told me when I started.

Wtf is Graduate Spread?

Graduate Spread is a term used to describe the weight that graduates put on in their graduate year at a law firm. If you attended College at University you would be familiar with “fresher spread”. Graduate Spread is a similar phenomenon. You enthusiastically begin your legal career as a graduate, work long hours and are too exhausted to cook for yourself or exercise before/after work. The weight creeps on before you realise what is happening. You may not even notice if you are comparing yourself to your colleagues who are generally older and wider than the average graduate. In my experience, the number one cause of Graduate Spread is stress.

The main causes of Graduate Spread:

1. Stress!!
2. Sitting down for long periods of time and working long hours;
3. Making poor food choices due to stress and time pressure;
4. Stopping all exercise due to time pressure, doing no incidental exercise because you catch taxis everywhere now that your firm pays for it;
5. Eating out more often due to wanting to network with new colleagues and for the first time in your life having enough money to actually eat out all the time.

How am I meant to cope without comfort eating?

Comfort eating may be the number one way you have dealt with stress in the past. However, the impact of comfort eating is escalated as a graduate because you can afford to buy whatever food you feel like, and you are spending much more time sitting at a desk. Unfortunately you cannot comfort eat as a law graduate and expect to emerge from your first year of lawyering unscathed.

Ideas for coping with stress while at the office:

1. Chat to a colleague. If this is not appropriate, email a colleague or use your firm’s IM to chat.
2. Do some desk yoga. Move Nourish Believe has some good ideas for twists and inversions you can do while sitting on your chair and which are appropriate for open-plan environments.
3. Apply some decadent hand cream. I love Maine Beach Ligurian Honey and anything MOR. Men may prefer no-nonsense type hand cream like something earthy from Aesop. For chocoholics I recommend Palmers Intense Cocoa. Why eat chocolate when you can smell like a giant Belgium chocolate bar?
4. Get up and make a tea. I like to keep T2 All Sorts at my desk so I have choices. This momentarily distracts the brain and eases stress.
5. Get up and fill up your drink bottle. Add mint leaves or slices of lemon for added kick. You do not need an energy drink.
6. Get out your iPod and treat yourself to your favourite track.
7. Crunch down on some celery or carrot sticks. It is so therapeutic. Eat your vegetables whole or keep a Swiss Army knife in your top drawer so you can make vegetable sticks on the spot.
8. Have a mini meditation session. Close your eyes and breathe for 1 minute. Make sure no one is walking past your desk before you begin or you may look like you have fallen asleep.
9. Go for a power walk to the bathroom or if you’re feeling daring a walk around the block.

These are just a few ideas I personally use to cope with stress. The key is to pick something that works for you. Maybe then you will comfort eat less and be able to avoid Graduate Spread. Good luck!