Healthy Lifestyle Tips for College Students

Being overloaded with exams, social life, home assignments, and papers, students often cannot find free time to maintain and keep their body in good shape. According to the World Health Organization, more than 39% of young adults worldwide are overweight, and 13% of them are obese.

Globalization and migration waves can make the labor market quite competitive. Thus, students should study and work hard to apply for the position they desire. And one of the consequences of living such a fast-paced life is having health-related problems.

However, many of these issues can be prevented with little to no effort. Read on to learn six useful tips to help students stay healthy in college.

6 Lifestyle Tips for College Students

The college lifestyle can be challenging for both our mind and body. Keeping up on our studies, attending classes, and college social life will require extra time and energy that we’d normally have available to dedicate to other areas in our life, such as our health.

Unfortunately, many students struggle to maintain a healthy lifestyle in school, but don’t feel bad if you too find this to be true for yourself. Thankfully, there are easy ways to keep up on your physical health while living the college life.

Check out these six healthy lifestyle tips to get started…

#1. Stay Hydrated

Drinking enough water will help you improve your concentration. Getting enough fluids will also decrease your daily food intake.

Develop a new habit of taking a bottle of water with you whenever possible. It will help you save some money and stay hydrated for the whole day.

#2. Limit Working Hours

According to Andrew Merle from Medium.com, from a productivity perspective, you should not work for more than 50 hours a week. Moreover, it is strongly recommended to have at least one day off per week to recover both mentally and physically.

Schedule your working hours and prioritize your activities. It will help you organize your daily routine and check if you have enough rest.

However, if you realize that following your schedule is close to impossible, you can try outsourcing some of your tasks.

For example, sometimes you can order in instead of doing shopping and cooking yourself. Or, you can ask specialized agencies to help you write your term or thesis paper (for instance, bestcustomwriting.com/).

#3. Put Your Diet in Order

Usually, student canteens offer meals that cannot be called “a healthy diet.” It usually consists of junk food such as french fries, pizza, pancakes, etc.  According to TheGuardian, an unhealthy diet has already impacted more than 25% of children in developed countries. But the lack of healthy dishes is only part of the problem.

The majority of students prefer fast food restaurants to healthier but more expensive places. Consequently, most of your friends are probably doing the same, which makes it even harder for you to start a healthy diet.

Strengthening your willpower can be quite challenging, but it’s really worth the effort. Make sure you eat enough fruits and vegetables. But, you won’t be able to get by eating one or two types of fruits or vegetables. Your diet should be diverse if you want to get all the nutrients to stay healthy.

#4. Limit Your Beverages

Despite sugar and caffeine-containing drinks being extremely useful when you have to study overnight or complete a bulk home assignment, they are very harmful to your body. A Harvard 22-year long research has shown that people who consume sweet drinks have are 75% more at risk of getting diabetes.

Instead, try to drink more water. It will not only prevent severe diseases but also improve your mental condition. Try to develop a habit to take a bottle of water with you in order to avoid being thirsty and buy soft drinks on the go.

#5. Sleep Enough

With all those classes, a possible part-time job, and home assignments, having enough sleep can be a challenge. It is a fallacy that sleeping less than 7 hours per day does not affect your health. We suggest you stick to the tips below if you want to improve the quality of your sleep without compromising on your daily activities.

Firstly, take naps during work. Sleeping for 20-30 minutes can positively affect your brain activity and improve information retention. Additionally, a short siesta can help you reduce mental workload and clear your head before getting to work again.

Secondly, if you lack sleep, you can try identifying the best time for you to go to bed and to wake up. The best way to do it is to use devices like smartwatches and fitness bracelets. By measuring your pulse and blood pressure and the oxygen level in your blood, they can analyze your current body condition and suggests you when to go to bed. However, if you do not have such gadgets, you can calculate these hours manually. For example, you can use Sleep Calculator online.

#6. Get Regular Checkups

Unfortunately, the majority of people neglect the importance of regular checkups and see a doctor only when they already require treatment. In most countries, it is free to scan your body for any possible deviations and diseases.

Most illnesses are easy to deal with in their early stages. Sometimes, it is enough to drink some vitamins to recover body balance, instead of implementing strict diets later.

Make a habit to see your doctor at roughly the same time each year. Make sure you don’t forget about it by marking the date in your calendar or setting a reminder on your phone. Remember — it is easier to get an annual checkup than try solving your health problems post factum!

The Bottom Line

The college experience is a major part of most of our lives and it often sets us up for societal success in the future.

Unfortunately, many college students neglect their physical health when in school, not realizing that societal success comes much easier when both the mind and body is fit.

Thankfully, though, there are simple tips to help one better maintain a healthy body during the important college years.

These will give you the body and confidence to land the perfect job in your chosen career field after graduation and the health to live a long and fruitful life.

About Shannon Clark

Shannon holds a degree in Exercise Science and is a certified personal trainer and fitness writer with over 10 years of industry experience.