Written by Kalayevany Couttigane
How can you manage and implement a healthy lifestyle while in college?
What if we told you that you can boost your energy, fight illnesses, and lose weight in just 10 minutes? The most effective way to meet your goal is through a series of tiny changes. You probably know instinctively, and research shows that the four most important things that you can do to be at your best are:
1. Be hydrated
2. Get enough sleep
3. Exercise regularly
4. Eat well
With the ever-rising risks of chronic diseases and health problems, students must adopt a lifestyle that helps minimize health risks while improving general health. To improve our health and attain a healthy lifestyle, it is important to adjust various aspects of our daily activities.
A good health outcome requires doing things differently even if it is for a short time but regularly.
It is possible to attain better health outcomes by doing simple activities that take 10 minutes or less. Regular activities such as short exercise, engaging in healthy thoughts, and laughing can improve our health.
Try the 10-minutes tricks
Hydration:
– Regularly hydrating is very important for a healthy lifestyle and it takes less than one minute to hydrate. Hydration is very important since the human body needs to be hydrated for proper functioning. For proper blood flow, muscle movement, and digestion among other processes in our bodies water is vital, and therefore regularly hydrating is one way to improve our health.
– Taking water is something that takes less than a minute but is very essential for our body and our health.
Get enough sleep:
Sometimes it’s hard to get enough sleep, especially if you have a job, or are busy with other activities after school. In addition to healthy eating and physical activity, getting enough sleep is crucial to staying healthy. You need enough sleep to do well in university, work and drive safely, and fight off infection and diseases.
– It can be tough to sleep at times, but unless you’re one of those magical individuals who seem to thrive on 4-5 hours of sleep, allowing your body sufficient time to recharge will make it easier to focus in a class by improving your memory and mental function.
Not getting enough sleep may make you moody and irritable.
Don’t underestimate the power of your mind when it comes to giving your well-being a much-needed makeover. Meditate for 10 minutes before bed: Clearing your mind before you sleep can help you asleep faster. Try a meditation app (like Calm or Headspace) to guide your meditations.
Meditation may be effective in insomnia, anxiety, depression, treating high blood pressure, and symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
Exercise regularly:
– Take active breaks – instead of scrolling on social media platforms, try to take a walk around the campus. (Depending on where you are studying) for 10 minutes. The fresh air outside will help you shift your focus, feel more creative, and productive and alleviate any soreness from sitting in the same position for too long. Try climbing up and down the stairs. Also, you can work out without leaving your space; do some stretching and body weight workouts without leaving your desk.
– Riding a bicycle to school would also be a good practice instead of sitting in a car or bus to school and back.
– If you can’t go to the gym, try the 7-Minute Workout App, you can do it anywhere!
Just being able to complete a workout can give you enough motivation to keep working hard and complete your daily tasks. The experience of being active can be more enjoyable with other people, such as friends or family members. Getting active through sports, dancing, or joining a dance club could also help you make friends. Choose a different activity every week to keep things interesting. Try kickball, flashlight tag, indoor or outside games, and other activities that get you moving, like walking around the mall. Involve your friends and challenge them to be healthy with you. Participate in fun runs, charity walks, or scavenger hunts together.
Eat Well
Cooking food and eating healthy is one of those adulting tasks that seem overwhelming at times as a student.
– You will be able to save time, lower your budget and save money! And you will likely make healthy choices. Carry healthy snacks with you or pack snack bags for the week: it enables you to save time because you won’t need to wait for food line-ups or arrive late for class. Also, meal prep or pack your meals the day before.
Try to make easy and delicious receipts for dinner!
A basic lifestyle change and strategy if you have a personal goal of eating better: find all of your junk food at home and someone you are not particularly fond of, give it all to them.
With the tight schedules in our lives, make sure you have room in your schedule for those healthy habits. More so, it’s important to have hobbies outside of school.
It is important to regularly sit back and reflect on ourselves. I’d say a daily dose of laughter is very important for our health. Less than ten minutes of good laughter is therapeutic and very essential. Laughter is proven to reduce stress, lower blood pressure, help with cardiac fitness, and improve immunity. Taking a deep breath and taking like three minutes to reflect on the achievements and positive expectations revitalizes the brain and give us the motivation to push on. Despite the rigid schedules we have daily it is important to find a short break to laugh with friends. Thus, the best way to start is to make healthy choices about your diet and drinking habits, your physical activity, and your sleep.
Changing your habits can be hard and developing new habits takes time. Make changes slowly, don’t expect to change everything overnight, and set a few realistic goals. Try carving out fewer than 10 minutes of your day, every day this week, and notice how you feel by the end of this week! And hey if these tips work for you, you can go from 10 to 15 to 30 minutes.
Self-Care Bingo
(How to practice self-care)
Want to practice self-care but not sure how to do it? Play the self-care bingo below to see how you do. You can win by marking off 5 self-care activities in any row, down any column, or diagonally across the table. You can also win by marking off the 4 self-care activities in the 4 corners of the table below.
If you want a challenge, see if you can complete all of the self-care activities in one week and reward yourself!
| Took a break | Meditate | Challenged my negative thoughts | Meal prep | Limited time on social media |
| Enjoyed a hobby | Ate food | Connected with another human | Treated me | Followed my routine/tasks |
| Danced to music or stretched | Tried something new | Breathed! | Gave myself a compliment | Watched a cute or funny video/memes |
| Used a coping skill* | Study | Talked to another human | Got stuff done! | Went to bed at a good time |
| Exercised | Practiced self-compassion* | Drank water | Got good sleep | Practiced mindfulness* |
Making time for self-care is extremely important for your overall health. That’s why self-care is just as important as eating healthy and exercising regularly. The best things in life are free and at the end of the day, do what makes you relaxed and stress-free.
Stay healthy!
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