Posts filed under 'health'
Photo by evah
A few months into college, I got sick. All I wanted was to have my mom bring me toast and juice. Instead, I had a roommate annoyed by my coughing, pretty hard classes, approaching midterms, and a teeny tiny college budget. Sound familiar? Here are a few things you can do to help get back on your feet faster:
Listen to your Body. If you feel tired, take a nap (or at least lay down and rest). If you’re hungry, don’t put off eating. Your body knows what it needs—so listen to it!
Get More Sleep. Chances are, if you’re in college, you aren’t getting enough sleep. That seems to be how it works. If you’re sick, you need to sleep more so your body has time to recover.
Drink Lots of Fluids. Fluids hydrate your body, which helps to keep it healthy. Be sure you are drinking nourishing liquids like chicken soup, and 100% fruit juice, and stay away from dehydrating beverages like alcohols and sodas.
Treat Your Symptoms. If you decide to pick up some medicine, make sure you take something that will treat what you have. Read small print on the back of the box to see what symptoms the medicine treats, and be sure it is safe for you to use. Law student and blogger Brett McKay has some great non-medicinal ways to “Kill a Cold Without Killing Your Budget” and WebMD has some more suggestions about treating a cold.
Know When to See a Professional. If resting and taking good care of yourself doesn’t cure you, you might need to go see a doctor. WebMD recommends you seek professional help if you have a persistent fever or coughing, have trouble keeping food down, have chest pain, have headaches or congestion that won’t go away, have painful swallowing, or find it difficult to breathe.
Wondering what to do if your roommate is sick? Check out this post for help: My Roommate is Sick, Now What?
November 1st, 2007
With midterms and final exams rearing their very ugly heads, you’re probably finding that
study time is increasingly important. Too bad you have a job, clubs, a roommate, friends, family, dorm-room sleep hours (read: 3am bedtime), a cafeteria diet, and a bunch of classes wearing you down. Once you start reading that text book, suddenly a nice nap seems like a much better idea.
Read on to find out how to keep yourself awake, even if you’re studying in the wee hours of the morning:
- Drink a Lot of Water
Remember this from my tips on how to stay awake in class? Well, water is even better for staying up when you’re studying. Dehydration can make you sleepy, so keeping your body hydrated will stave off those symptoms. If you are really sleepy, drink a lot of water to make sure you stay up—if you have to get up to go to the bathroom, it will definitely keep you awake! (Weird, but it works!)
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- Take Breaks
Your brain needs to rest if you want to study hard for a long time AND do well on your test. Schedule out your time so you can take a break—I would study for 45 minutes, break for 15, and so forth. Set the alarm on your cell phone so you don’t forget (or if you’re afraid you’ll fall asleep). Watch a TV show, talk to a friend, read a book, or listen to some music—but nothing school related at all!
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- Exercise
Exercise can be a great way to wake yourself up—take a short walk, dance to some music on your iPod, or head over to the gym for a little while. Taking a shower after a workout can wake you up even more.
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- Don’t Study Somewhere Comfortable
Don’t curl up on the common room couch or lean against some pillows in bed and expect to make it through 50 pages of text—getting comfortable is a sure fire way to sleep through your study time. Go somewhere with good, strong lighting, a non-squishy chair, and a table or desk. Sit up while you study, and change positions now and then.
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- Eat a Snack
Get your blood sugar up by eating a healthy snack (junk food will just give you a burst of energy but then you’ll crash). Apples are a good food to help you keep your blood sugar stable so you can stay awake (a lot of people say they will wake you up better than caffeine!)
Remember, I also shared some ideas to help you stay awake in class, so if you’re really sleepy, you might want to try those, too! Good luck!
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How do you stay awake during study time or worse–all-nighters? Any other study tips you couldn’t do without?
October 29th, 2007
My first quarter of college I didn’t know how to stay awake in class. I took an early morning psychology course with three girls I’d met in the dorms. Just before class, we rolled out of bed, stumbled to the lecture hall class with our eyes barely open, and settled into a row of squishy seats in the lecture hall. Then 3 out of 4 of us would fall asleep—whoever stayed awake would take notes.
Obviously, I did not get an A in that class–I was catching Z’s instead. So, how can YOU stay awake in class?
As a college student, I can almost guarantee that you need more sleep, so you should start there. You probably don’t want to go to bed earlier, but you should. Give yourself an extra hour every night, and see if that helps. You might need more. Even a nap can help!
If you live in the dorms, making the above changes still probably won’t get you to sleep enough. So just in case, here are some things that worked well for me when I wanted to stay awake through a lecture:
Take notes by hand
When you take notes on a laptop, you tend to be much less focused, because typing is much more automatic. You also finish faster and sometimes drift off (or start IMing people). Taking notes by hand is slower, so it makes you focus on keeping up with the lecture.
Eat healthy snacks
Eating a snack—especially carbs and proteins—can help energize you. I liked taking a bag of healthy cereal like Cheerios to my very early or very late classes. I would eat the cereal one piece at a time—the carbs plus the act of making myself take one at a time really helped me stay awake. If you need a burst of energy, try eating fruit like sliced apples or grapes instead of a candy bar. Junk food, obviously, is not a good option.
Drink water
Dehydration can really wipe you out, so bring a water bottle to class with you. Neither soda nor alcohol (which is very dehydrating) is a good substitute for water to keep your body hydrated.
Get interested in the lecture
A lot of your interest in a lecture is affected by your attitude. If you go in thinking it’s going to be boring, you’ll probably be bored. Even if you’re taking a required class, try to get interested in the lecture each day; it will help you stay alert. Try to learn at least three things you didn’t know, and tell someone about them after class. It might sound kind of lame, but it will help you stay awake and learn.
Good luck! And also, remember to check out my tips about how to stay awake & alert while studying (without coffee!).
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September 24th, 2007
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