In a society where the next deadline is always looming and where every notification has us tuned in to our cell phones, it can be difficult to find a way to relax.

We constantly keep ourselves busy with different tasks every day. As college students, our planners are filled with class work or meetings with our professors. We have jobs we have to go to or club meetings we have to attend. In between it all, we try to carve out time to catch dinner with friends or talk on the phone with family. These things are all important to us, but sometimes it can feel overwhelming. When our brains and our bodies are always on, it can be difficult to turn things off and relax.

As a student leader, I am very intentional with my time. I spend a lot of my day being “on” – I go to class, go to work and I serve as a resident assistant. My planner is filled with things to do and people to meet and color-coded in order of importance. I hang out with friends and try to carve out time to talk to my family, both of whom thankfully understand how many hats I wear on campus. So at the end of a busy day when I close the door to my room and take those hats off, I can breathe and start to relax.

I silence my phone and I lay on my bed. I escape into the quiet of my room. I open my laptop and I turn on Netflix. I start watching “Cheers.”

Yes, “Cheers” – the 1980s sitcom starring a young Ted Danson as the owner of the titular bar in Boston.  The characters are silly, the story lines are funny and it feels like an escape away from everything.

Watching Netflix as a way to relax isn’t something revolutionary.  Whether your show of choice is “Friends” or “BoJack Horseman” – the latter of which I also watch in my downtime – TV was made to be an escape. We can look at the characters on our screens and identify with them. They are friends we know intimately but not at all.

I watched “Cheers” with a friend of mine who was writing a paper on the history of TV sitcoms. She stopped after two episodes, but I kept going. I called my mom a day or two later to tell her I started watching it. For Christmas I got a surprising amount of “Cheers” merch considering the show is almost 40 years old – t-shirts, POP figures and even a tote bag. At a men’s basketball game, they played a clip from “Cheers” where everyone in the bar was banging out the beat to Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” I recorded the scene on Snapchat to send to a friend and my boyfriend’s dad – who was sitting in another section of the gym – said he looked over at me as soon as the scene came up on the big screen.

I should probably stop talking about “Cheers” as much as I do. But “Cheers” has come to mean something greater to me, and the theme song says it all perfectly.

Making our way in this world takes a lot of us and taking a break would help a lot. Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name and where they understand your troubles.

I watch “Cheers” to see the laughter and love of the characters on the screen. I go to my friends and I laugh with them, or I call my family to tell them what’s troubling me. They lift me up when I’m down and they make me feel stronger to face the next busy day.

As busy as I am, I’m blessed to have these opportunities. It’s in stepping back and taking time for myself that I realize how important it is to have that moment of self-care. It’s watching “Cheers” that helps me know that sometimes the biggest problems in the world can be forgotten for a little while when you’re with those you love.