Before you can take care of your college education and your career, you need to take care of yourself. It’s important that you stay healthy in order to succeed in school, have more energy, and keep your mind sharp. Otherwise, that college education you’re trying to get could go to waste. No matter where you’re coming to school from, your college education will involve changes in your lifestyle. Your schedule likely won’t be as regular anymore, you take on more responsibilities and workload, and if you’re not careful, you can burn yourself out. Luckily, you’re not alone. At Centennial College, we have plenty of resources to help you out along the way. Here are just a few ways that you keep yourself healthy and happy while you work on developing your career.
Organize your life
A common source of student burnout is simply stressed-out feelings, and one way to counter those feelings is to organize your life and your work. The easiest way to start doing this is to use a planner, like a notebook, agenda or even a calendar on your computer or smartphone. Because you can lay it all out, and plan when and how to tackle it, you won’t feel overwhelmed by the work you have to do.
Sleep isn’t for the weak
Speaking of planning, plan to get enough sleep. All-nighters aren’t something to be proud of, and powering through your days on a couple of hours of rest won’t help you, it’ll just make everything more difficult by making you more prone to sickness and stress, and making it harder to focus or remember things. Try to get seven to nine hours of sleep, even if you need to schedule it out. In the long run, it’ll make everything easier. Another thing that legitimately helps: Don’t use anything with a screen, like your phone or computer, right before bed, since it keeps you awake longer. Instead, showering and cleaning yourself up before going to bed will put you in a restful mood.
Fuel yourself with real food
While it can be tough to fill your stomach with good things when your schedule’s just as full, it’s worth it, because, without the right fuel, you can’t function effectively. The key to eating healthy isn’t to eat less but to get two or three square meals a day, and make sure those meals are made up of the right things, like lots of veggies and fruit, and proteins like nuts, beans, fish or meat to make you feel filled. Fast food, pizza, candy bars and processed snacks will just mean that you have less energy, which will, again, affect your health and stress levels. Speaking of that, remember that energy drinks are bad for you. Aside from being loaded with sugar, they’ll just make you crash in a few hours. Instead, drink a couple of bottles full of water over the course of a day, because staying hydrated will make you feel more energetic and aware.
Make some time to get sweaty
Exercise might feel like a luxury when you have a lot to do, but it’s another thing that’ll always help with your health and wellness. Even if you only fit in about 20 minutes a day of running on a treadmill at our Athletic and Wellness Centre, it’ll enhance your health, and make you less stressed. If you want to go hard, the Athletic and Wellness Centre has personal trainers to help you develop a routine, and if you want to go lighter, you can always take a walk around campus listening to music.
Talk to us, if you need it
Mental health is just as important as physical health, after all. Just venting your issues can be good for stress-busting, and your mental health in general. Centennial College is here to help, and has a Counselling Centre where you can drop in at any time to get assistance with any personal problems you might have. And if your problems are more academic in nature, you can visit our Academic Advising department to figure out a way to resolve your school problems.
There’s plenty more on campus to help you out with your health and wellness, including social, spiritual and medical help, so take some time to have a look at what the college can do for you, to make sure you make the most of your time here.
By Anthony Geremia