[jweston]

One of the things our team has been working on is self-care. That means getting adequate sleep, food, and generally giving yourself a break when your stress starts to get too high. It's a lot harder than it sounds.

I don't think its entirely fair to blame individuals, especially students, when they have trouble with self-care under duress. This isn't something that's widely taught in US culture. If anything, we seem to wear it as a badge of honor of how much we can take. Even something as simple as trying to get a good night's sleep can be difficult on an overnight when your brain is buzzing from the day's excitement. It's even more difficult if you're away at a hotel. It may pay off in the long run to have the team learn and practice some self-calming and self-monitoring techniques.

Self-care is one of those places where it's important for mentors to step in. Sometimes this means keeping an eye on the tension level of an individual or the team. Other times it means having plans, including contingency plans, to ensure that all students eat and drink enough water. It's not easy. A little research and planning plus flexbility is key.

The only thing I can think FIRST could work a bit harder on is ensuring matches stay on schedule with some extra time padding, especially in the earliest event weeks. Maybe that means scheduling the first 2-3 week events with a couple extra hours in them. That will probably result in a decrease of the number of teams that can sign up for an event due to match scheduling. This isn't a bad thing if it means everyone makes it through without losing their minds, although it may pose some difficulties for ensuring teams can sign up for regionals or 2 districts events, depending on where they are.

It would also be a boon if the "no outside food" wasn't so prevelant. I know that some teams quite understandably blow this off. I also realize this rule is often imposed by the venue, not FIRST. But it does make it extremely difficult at times to respect the venue's wishes while trying to feed our team, particularly when the venue's food vendors close long before the end of a late-running day.