Many people find it difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle while still keeping up with life’s daily challenges as a student here at Colgate. However, there are so many ways that you can motivate and set goals for yourself in order to eat right, exercise, and sleep well, helping yourself be happier!!
Eating Right
Everyone talks about the famous “freshman fifteen” that threatens to plague us all once we get back to school. However, falling into the trap of “dining hall food” is super easy to avoid! Just remember, there are always so many more options than you first anticipate if you are, for example, in Frank dining hall. Instead of going straight for the pasta bar or the tempting pizza station, try filling up on something healthy at first. This will crush your cravings, and make it so that even if you do want that tempting slice of pizza, you may either be already too full to eat it, or still get some but not as much as you originally would have had. Try eating an apple with peanut butter, or a salad before you first reach for the carbs. Also, once you have already eaten something healthy, this may even motivate you to get the grilled chicken instead of that plate of french fries. Today (Tuesday, 9/19), and Monday 10/2, there will be a seminar talk given by Lee Ann Dibiase on “negotiating Frank dining hall and making good choices” which will prove to be extremely worth your while!!
Sleeping
We all know how difficult it can be to get the right amount of sleep in order to get through our classes, do our homework, and manage our social lives. Not to mention, if you are on a sports team, the time commitment can be absolutely exhausting. If you are a nap person, take advantage of this! However, be careful to not oversleep. Aim to tak a 20-30 minute nap to reenergize and refocus yourself! Unfortunately, some of us are not big nappers. If you are paranoid that you are not getting enough sleep in order to perform well, try the app, “Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock.” This app lets you know when you are in the deepest of sleep and monitors how efficient your sleep is. Besides this, it also tells you the best time to wake up so that you won’t be feeling super tired in that early class or practice you have the next morning.
Exercise
If you don’t play a varsity sport at Colgate, it can be tough to motivate yourself to get the time to go to the gym or get a workout in. This is especially true if you do not live that close to the gym. However, there are so many other ways that you can get fit without this time commitment. A great way to do this would be to develop a daily regimen with a quick ab workout that you can do right in your dorm room! You can do it with your roommate, friends, or just by yourself. There are lots of exercise guides online along with free videos simply on YouTube that can help you get fit in a quick amount of time right there in your room. If you have trouble figuring out what to do when you workout at the gym, try going to a student-run class! Colgate offers a range of classes, including yoga, spinning, cross-fit and many others! If sports are more your thing, but you don’t play a varsity sport, try playing a club or intramural sport a couple times a week!!
STAY HEALTHY, STAY HAPPY!!!