Walk to class. Walking is free, keeps you active and means you won’t get stressed from sitting in that annoying traffic queue.
Walking 30 minutes every day contributes towards controlling your weight, your blood pressure, regulating stress levels and reduces the risk of heart disease by 30-40%.
Walking has been shown to reduce instances of the common cold. Just wrap up warm when you do it!
Get a pedometer and try to register 10.000 steps every day. Do it with a friend for support and motivation.
Walk for charity. Find worthwhile social groups and organizations and arrange a fundraiser for them amongst your colleagues. Great for your résumé also
Get yourself a pair of well-fitting and comfortable shoes. You are going to be doing a lot of walking if you want to keep those pounds off.
Take advantage of the campus fitness facilities. So what if you are not a natural born athlete! Why should the gym be the domain of Adonis and Aphrodite?
Do not be afraid of sports. If you can throw a Frisbee, you can do sports. If you can catch a Frisbee, you can do sports with other people! Easy!
Seek out people who have a Nintendo Wii. The social-physical aspect of game play on these is fantastic.
Go to college football and basketball games. Even if you do not generally like the sports – they are still great fun.
Learn how to take breaks. Your time at college will be more enjoyable if you give yourself time out and a chance to relax.
Make time for yoga. Practicing yoga ensures optimum blood supply to the body, flushing out toxins and leading to benefits such as delayed aging, energy and zest for life.
Get involved in some intramural sports. These require more enthusiasm than ability. Have fun, make new friends and keep fit.
Most colleges have clubs dedicated to dance and movement. All types of dance are catered for, and dancing is great cardio-vascular exercise. Fancy yourself in The Nutcracker? Ouch!
Listen to music. Music is proven to reduce stress factors, and causes your blood vessels to relax and produce chemicals which protect the heart.
Better still – learn to play an instrument. All instruments require various levels of physical activity, and wind instruments are particularly good at help regulate lung and stomach activity. (See Nº 59 re earplugs and Nº 85 re noisy roommates!)
Even a genius needs extracurricular activity. Ever heard about “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”?
Social interaction has numerous mental health benefits. Talk through any problems, and help others get through theirs.
Go Greek! Join a fraternity or sorority house on campus. This is a great way to integrate into a social community if you are a long way from home. Good parties too!
Members of Frats and Sororities are not just party animals. They perform a lot of good work in the local communities, and this will look good on your résumé.50. Know your limits when it comes to drinking alcohol. Twenty per cent of all fatalities amongst college students are alcohol related.
Walk to the bar and leave the car behind. Remember those comfortable shoes in Nº 37? This is when you will find them most handy.
Use earplugs when things get loud. Long term exposure to loud noises can create stress, cause accidents and can cause anti-social behavior if your dorm mate is the persistent offender.
With anti-smoking laws increasing and social acceptance decreasing one might think that kids know that smoking is a pretty dumb thing to start, and a lot do.
But there are still 3000 kids a day under the age of 18 who start smoking, and an estimated four and a half million adolescents in the United States who are smokers
Teen smokers have smaller lungs and weaker hearts than those who don’t smoke they get sick more often than their non-smoking peers.
Smoking related illness’s claim more American lives than car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide and illegal drugs combined.
If you don’t smoke tobacco you are statistically less likely to use alcohol and other drugs.
If you never start smoking you’ll never have to experience the hell of trying to stop once you’re addicted, ask any ex-smoker and you are likely to be told it’s one of the hardest things they have ever done.
General advice for students is if you do not know what you are taking – don’t take it. Some drugs may be given a “pop” name – it does not change the effect they will have on you.
Stay-awake drugs like Modafinil promise fairy tale effects like enhanced brain power. But they are expensive and do long term damage to your brain chemistry. What point is having a perfect brain if you cannot use it to get yourself out of debt?
Beware the Benzo-Blues! Benzodiazepine is often used to relieve anxiety. It is highly addictive and has withdrawal systems such as insomnia, paranoia and depression, which can last for months.
Vicodin and Ibuprofen are pain relievers which, when taken to excess, can cause a high. Taking high doses repeatedly over a short period of time can cause giddiness and disorientation.
Oxycodone (“Oxy”, “O.C.” or “Cotton”) reacts adversely with alcohol and in extreme cases can be lethal.
Even cough and cold remedies containing dextromethorphan can cause a high when abused. Their nickname, “Skittles”, gives an indication of what the side effect is!
Attention deficiency medications such as Ritalin and Adderall are stimulants used to stay awake or as an appetite suppressant. They can also be used to cause hallucinations or heart failure. Which do you want in exam week?
Your parents will have done it – but that’s no excuse. Marijuana is as dangerous as smoking.
Cocaine is popular amongst college students because it makes you alert and suppresses appetites. If you watch cop shows on TV, you know what happens if you take too much of it!
Taking mushrooms is risky because of the individual trip you have – it is not even a social drug. Expect major hallucinations, paranoia and disorientation.
Ecstasy (MDMA) has fallen out of vogue with college students over the past decade, primarily because of the damage that is done to the nerve endings in the brain that affect the memory.
Nervous system problems affect 1 in 6 people who use Viagra. This may only be in the form of a headache, but isn’t that the major reason for abstention (As in “Not tonight dear ….” )
Remember, it is okay to say “No”. There is a lot of peer pressure to go out/stay in/do this/do that. It is your life and you know better than anybody what time you need to yourself.
Few things will undermine your health as much as stress and anxiety. Avoid situations that will lead to these.
Keep your studies up to date. If you find you cannot cope with early class times, change them.
