As the semester nears final exams, I can already feel my body start to react to the stress. I been a little bit more in edge and stressed out which has affected both my eating habits as well as my sleeping patterns. Recently I started to follow celebrity nutritionist, Kimberly Snyder’s, blog, who has provided me with some tips on how to counteract these stressful times through food! Kimberly believes in healing your body with whole, organic foods to reveal its inner beauty and strength. She strongly does not believe in dieting. She claims that the time management it takes to count calories, plan our meals, and to schedule in strenuous workouts not only discourages us but makes the process of dieting unappealing so that we ultimately give up – I know that we have all experienced this in one way or another. The solution, then, is to simply just change the way we approach food and modify our eating habits to provide us with more natural energy daily.
Now if you think this sounds super hippie and unrealistic for a college student, you are probably right. I mean, who has the time to make themselves balanced meals three times a day when we are all constantly on the go, and to be honest I am also not ready to give up my late night batch of chocolate covered pretzels from mug. But, Kimberly’s blog does offer a lot of great tips on how to regain energy and counteract headaches during stressful times like our upcoming exams. Here are 20 different tips from her blog that I think are the most helpful and useful to us as life becomes a little bit more hectic in the next few weeks.
1. Get plenty of sleep and follow a regular sleep schedule.
2. Stay hydrated. It is recommended that you drink about 8 glass of lukewarm water daily. Lukewarm water is better than hot or cold water because it does not require your body to expend unnecessary energy on cooling or heating up the water.
3. Avoid processed foods. These contain a ton of chemicals that are very hard for the body to digest. In response, the body expends tons of energy on digesting these foods that could be used towards studying an extra hour to two for an exam.
4. Get regular exercise. This means different things for different people. Find any exercise that calms you down and regenerates your energy – walking, running, yoga, etc..
5. Eat more foods with omega-3 fatty acids, and other anti-inflammatory foods. Inflammation in the body can pinch nerve pathways, leading to headaches and pain. Some foods to avoid this include leafy greens, chia seeds, flax seeds, and walnuts.
6. Use a humidifier if you have one. Dry air can irritate the sinuses making it harder for you to sleep and triggering headaches.
7. Listen to calming music. Again, this will differ from person to person but try to figure out what songs calm you down and make them into a study playlist.
8. Take power naps. A power nap is NO MORE than 30 minutes, ladies. By closing your eyes for and resting for at most 30 can reset your body and give you a great boost of energy. If you sleep any longer than 30 minutes your body will actually start to think that you are going to bed for the night, and start to go into a deep slumber that can actually make you more tired. I would try setting an alarm and sleeping in your clothes on top of your covers. This way, it is easier to wake up when that alarm goes off.
9. Take a quick rinse off. Rinsing your body in warm water real quick can rehydrate your body and give you more energy. It is also that productive 15 or so minute break you need away from your work to rejuvenate.
10. Massage your neck. This is a great tip for when you can’t get up from your work but need some immediate relief. Often many of our headaches are associated with sitting up straight for too long in a single place. By massaging your muscles, you relieve your pain and relax.
To read more about Kimberly Snyder, you can read her blog and sign up for her weekly emails at www.kimberlysnyder.net